Editor:
I’m following up on last week’s letter from Robert O’Neill, “Stand up for our forests,” where he outlines the huge role they play in carbon sequestering, helping to mitigate climate change. In sharp contrast was an ad on page 19 from the Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SSCF), a logging company owned by the District of Sechelt, announcing its five-year logging plans.
Readers can note that none of SCCF’s logging actually takes place squarely within the District of Sechelt itself, but impacts the backyard forests of Roberts Creek, Halfmoon Bay, Wilson Creek and Tuwanek, each with their own planning objectives. Their clearcut logging occurs in the inter-urban zone adjacent to where residents use these areas for various forms of recreation. SCCF is proposing to log 17 cutblocks over five years. The plan includes logging two beautiful, mature forests bordering the Mount Elphinstone Park #3, wiping out two areas the community has been fighting for decades to add to an expanded park – an initiative fully supported by our regional district and part of the Roberts Creek Official Community Plan. What kind of a “Community Forest” ignores the wishes of the regional government and local residents? Obviously a disconnected one that needs to listen better and be more respectful.
For years, ELF has been asking SCCF to stop logging out the last mature forests in the devastated Wilson Creek Watershed (such as Block EW16), but they refuse to listen. It’s time that the District of Sechelt weaned themselves off logging revenues coming from contentious forests in other people’s communities resulting in the destruction of mature forests that need to be recruited as tomorrow’s old growth. A viable option could be asking the province, along with First Nations, for a tenure area restricted to second-growth tree farms, and doesn’t include logging in the Mount Elphinstone Park expansion area, the heavily impacted Wilson Creek watershed and future logging in our Chapman drinking watershed.
Ross Muirhead, Elphinstone
Logging Focus
