WATERSHED UPDATE – February 19th, 2008
It has been a couple of weeks since I last sent out an e-mail re: watershed related information, etc.
A few weeks back I went on a tour of several proposed cut blocks with both members of the Community Forest Advisory Committee and the Board of Directors of Sechelt Projects Inc. The group inspected several cut block for potential harvesting in spring, 2008.
Concerns still exist regarding the possibility that the Community Forest will be obliged to harvest in our drinking watersheds if they are to remain financially viable and also meet their annual cut of 20,000m3 per year.
Recently the Community Forest distributed a pamphlet to each household on the Sunshine Coast requesting your input on “how to improve the use of our public forests” and seeking new members to join the advisory committee.
Just a reminder, perhaps you can put this date and time in your calendar, the Community Forest will be having a Public meeting on February 28th, 2008 starting at 7:00pm at the Seaside Center in Sechelt.
At this meeting for the first time, Sechelt Projects Inc has stated that a “financial report” will be presented at the meeting. Since something like 60% of the harvestable area available under the tenure licence is in our community drinking watersheds (Grey, Chapman and Wilson Creek watersheds) there remains a possibility that the Community Forest may be obliged to log simply for financial reasons only. Any timber that is not logged under the licence is still subject to stumpage fees collected by the Province.
So if you can attend this meeting on the 28th this would show that our Community cares about its supply of drinking water and wants to know the long term plans that the Community Forest proposes for our drinking watersheds.
On another note, I realize that this is very short notice, but the initial meeting of the newly formed watershed committee of the Regional District (SCRD) will be held on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 starting at 10:30am in the morning at the SCRD offices (board room) located at the top of Field Road, Wilson Creek.
The SCRD has spent quite a bit of time developing the “terms of reference” for this watershed committee and it would be good if as many residents as possible (on such short notice) could attend this meeting.
Several of the Concerned Citizens held a meeting this evening to discuss the significance of this new committee and plan to attend the meeting on Thursday to listen to the proceedings and obtain a copy of the terms of reference.
A strong turnout by the residents of the Coast will send the SCRD the message that we still care deeply about our drinking water supply from the Chapman Creek watershed and also that we appreciate the SCRD forming this watershed committee and that we, the residents want to be actively involved with the committee’s work.
So please try to attend this meeting even on such short notice. Thanks.
I received this e-mail below from a resident of the Coast who presently is down south and I just thought it might be of interest since the Minister of Forests seems to think that Vancouver Island has 4 million hectares of old growth forest available for harvesting when the entire Island is only some 3 million hectares in size? How does this compute?
February
18, 2008
Old Mindsets Destroy Old Forests
By Ken Wu
BC's ancient, old-growth forests are under attack from the ancient, old
mindset of Rich Coleman, BC's Minister of Forests and Range. A few weeks
ago Coleman told a convention of the BC Truck Loggers Association,"We
have enough protected areas and parks" and that he was "frustrated
with
the people on the coast of British Columbia who keep saying 'quit
cutting all the old-growth forest.'"(Vancouver Sun, Jan.17, 2008).
One gets the impression that Coleman, a former police officer with no
background in forestry, cares little about his position in charge of
forestry in BC. He even said it: "I wonder some days just what I did to
the premier to have been made the forests minister", he told the
convention.
As an example of how much Coleman pays attention to his forestry file,
he told the A-Channel News that there are "4 million hectares of
old-growth forests on Vancouver Island, but only 700,000 are available
for logging". That's odd, considering that Vancouver Island is only 3
million hectares in size.
To read the rest of the article, visit our website at:
Regards,
John Bebbington