Illegal firewood cutting, especially when done without any regard to safety, has been a long-standing concern for the Sunshine Coast Community Forest – and there hasn’t been any let up.
As part of his update for the Community Forest’s annual report, presented at the May 11 AGM, operations manager Dave Lasser said, “Poaching of standing green trees by illegal firewood cutters has reached the epidemic level.”
He estimated more than 1,000 trees have been taken.
“It’s hard to drive down a spur road in any section of the Community Forest and not see trees that have been poached, let alone all the ones in other tenure areas and places people shouldn’t be cutting trees for any reason,” Lasser told Coast Reporter.
Catching those responsible is a challenge, but Lasser said in a recent case he has compelling evidence – pictures from trail cameras.
The incident has all the typical hallmarks of recent tree poaching activity.
The poachers targeted a large standing tree and, in an attempt to bring it down across a road where it could be quickly bucked up and loaded into a truck, resorted to dangerous falling methods. When the tree didn’t come down fast enough, they left.
When the half-cut tree was brought to Lasser’s attention on May 7, he went out to inspect the scene and found a tree with a large notch removed and a car jack that had been used to try to force the tree to fall still wedged in the trunk.
Lasser said it looked like the poachers had been using a chainsaw that was far too small for the job. “It was a real mess – very, very unsafe the way they did it.”
Trail cameras were placed in the area that successfully captured images of the suspected tree poachers coming back for another try.
Lasser said he’s turned the trail camera pictures of the second attempt to fall the tree over to the RCMP, the Conservation Officer Service and the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development (FLNRORD), which all have a role in enforcement of illegal harvesting.
