Editor:
Under the former District of Sechelt council, a public review process on how the Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF) engages with the surrounding community was undertaken between July and September 2018. This was triggered in part by ELF’s legal challenge of how the Chanterelle Forest (Wilson Creek area) was approved for logging with little to no public participation, including no advertisement in the local paper of this plan, no walk-in-the woods so the SCCF operations manager could explain to those who used the forest prior to the SCCF plan on how logging might respect existing values, and no vetting through a public advisory committee.
The 2018 public review process appeared to be a positive step forward, allowing creative ideas to be heard that could lead to a more accountable operation. However, to date, nothing seems to have changed. There still remains no community advisory committee, still no walk-in-the-woods program, etc. When will this new Sechelt council implement at least some of the recommendations that residents took the time to offer up? Or, are we looking at more business-as-usual, whereby SCCF goes ahead and selects areas they want to clearcut log and the public is left out of any meaningful process?
Ross Muirhead, Forest Protection Campaigner, Elphinstone Logging Focus
