With contracts in place to log HM50 near Trout Lake in Halfmoon Bay, Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) is filing a complaint with B.C.’s Forest Practices Board regarding how the cutblock’s permit was issued. The board investigates issues related to government and industry practices which affect forest health in the province.
In an Oct. 18 letter to the board, ELF asserts a claim that the province’s manager of the Sunshine Coast Natural Resource District “did not exercise professional discretion by not deferring a Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF) Block HM50 when presented with enough new and overlapping information… By not doing so, he has undermined public trust in how public lands are being managed in this forest district.”
The board acknowledged receipt of the letter and directed ELF to its complaint process. No timeline for a board decision regarding the complaint has been provided.
SCCF operations manager Warren Hansen told Coast Reporter that although there may be some delays related to the recent heavy rains in the area, work on HM50 has started and is slated to continue.
In emails shared with Coast Reporter, ELF spokesperson Ross Muirhead said the group’s actions follow repeated requests to district manager Derek Lefler to delay the HM50 permit, pending further review of the ecosystem block assessment report completed for SCCF to support its permit application.
ELF engaged retired professional forester Allen Banner to look at that report. According to Muirhead, Banner’s comments echoed concerns identified earlier by ELF. Those were that the report does not consider “the extreme low levels of Old Growth left” in the coastal western hemlock habitat within the Sechelt forest district landscape unit.
Given those levels, ELF called for HM50 to be left intact to become a future old growth area. In ELF’s view, logging that area would be “out of context with recommendations flowing from the province’s Old Growth Review Panel.” Lefler responded to those submissions, explaining that those recommendations had not yet been endorsed by cabinet.
In its filing to the board, ELF wrote: “We asked the District Manager to consider a deferral until the various professionals could meet to discuss Banner’s review, however he stated that he would not intervene and issue a deferral because the licensee was meeting all of the regulatory regulations… We countered that he could exercise his ‘discretion’ as the government decision-maker and that under the province’s document, ‘Modernizing Forest Policy in B.C.,’ this is a direction that is encouraged when important forest values are at stake.”
ELF also raised concerns related to Roosevelt elk habitat in the area and the cutblock’s location within the Milne Creek community watershed in its complaint.
In an email, Doug Wahl, a manager with the board, noted the concerns raised by ELF were addressed in a 2015 board report that has not yet been acted on by the province. That report recommended giving district managers the authority to refuse a cutting permit if there is “clearly significant risk to forest resources or values.”
Wahl wrote, “it is public knowledge that government will introduce a number of changes to Forest and Range Practices Act this fall and the Board is hopeful that the recommendations made in our 2015 report will be part of these changes.”
SCCF confirmed via email that in-field pre-work review on HM50 has been completed and harvesting of the 7,500 cubic metres of timber under the permit could start at any time. Hansen said that during community review of SCCF’s operating plan, adjustments were made within the cutblock boundaries in response to concerns expressed about protection of mushroom foraging habitat and the “Locomotive Trail” hiking and recreation area.
