Archive for month: November, 2013

The company that holds the forest license that would allow logging to two stands of thousand-year-old cedar deep in the Duncan River valley says that the trees will stay standing – for now.

In September, a group calling themselves the ‘Duncan Defenders’ launched an offensive against potential logging of the two remaining old-growth stands totaling about 1,000 trees at 58 and 59 kilometre marks to the Duncan Lake Road north of Kaslo – after they spotted flagging tape on the trees earlier this year.

Initially Kaslo-based Blue Ridge Timber, the company that is managing the forest license of the now-defunct Meadow Creek Cedar, told the Defenders that there were indeed plans to log the trees.

But recently Dak Giles, forestry operations manager for Blue Ridge, told The Nelson Daily that they are no longer planning to log the trees – at least anytime soon.

“We were looking at it earlier this year,” Giles said. “But based on quite a few factors I don’t think it would be wise of us to put in cutting permits for those blocks for quite a while.”

Giles said the reaction of the Defenders, who launched an international petition on Change.org that currently has 436 signatures, has ultimately changed their mind on the logging plans.

“We considered what they said they might do if we try to initiate (cutting permits),” Giles noted. “We thought about the economic consequences of their actions and what it would cost us if we had to go the route of an injunction. It’s not really worth it.

“We want to maintain as good a relationship as we can with everyone. And for that bit of cedar, I can appreciate their concern with the old growth stands up there. there’s not a lot of them left.”

When asked if there is potential for the trees to be logged eventually, Giles said it’s hard to say.

“Definitely not in the next few years,” he said. “It all depends on how everything goes. I think as long as we have suitable stands elsewhere it’s not worth it.”

Cedars that are thousands of years old like the ones in question are mostly dead and relatively hollow on the inside, but it there is at least six inches of good wood along the outside they can be turned into high-value clear cedar lumber that’s sought after because it’s free of knots, Giles explained.

‘Business as usual’, say the Defenders

Gabriela Grabowsky, spokesperson for the Duncan Defenders, says Giles’ response rings hollow for her.

“ His response is just business as usual,” Grabowsky said. “This response is not good enough.”

She adds that only an old grown management plan put in place by the province that protects the old growth cedar will be enough to convince her these trees will never be logged.

“Our generation has no moral right to destroy these (trees),” she notes. “Future generations will love and need them just like we and the animals do . . . Somehow we need to get the population’s voices to the politicians to change laws to include protecting old growth,” Grabowsky explains.

“The laws always go in favour of the corporations bent on resource extraction. This has happened enough in our neck of the wood. The Duncan Reservoir destroyed many of the ancient trees; logging did the rest.

“There seems to be no official old growth management plan for this area and that means what’s left can be on a hit list whenever. That needs to change.”

[Original Boundary Sentinel article no longer available]

 

BC Timber Sales (BCTS) has decided to drop the cutblock known as the Roberts Creek headwaters ancient forest from its future harvesting plans, BCTS planning forester Norm Kempe has confirmed.

The 15-hectare cutblock, designated as DK045, had been removed from the current timber sale for Mount Elphinstone after a team of scientists identified “unique ecological/cultural attributes.”

“We did that in late August, and as a result of that and concerns we heard from the public, we decided to let this one go,” Kempe said Wednesday in an interview.

After Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) “managed to elevate the issue in the public’s eye,” Kempe said his office was contacted by “a number of individuals” requesting the cutblock be permanently set aside.

“And we said OK. It’s part of the consultation process,” he said, noting the status of the cutblock had been “a running issue” for more than two years.

ELF hailed the decision in an Oct. 30 press release.

“For three years we held back logging plans, and so it’s very rewarding now to know that this magnificent stand will remain for its own sake and for future generations to appreciate,” Ross Muirhead said.

Containing culturally modified trees, more than 340 rare Pacific yews, and yellow cedar and hemlock that are up to 1,800 years old, DK045 is “a very special forest,” Muirhead added.

“We’d like to thank all those who supported the campaign, including BCTS staff who considered new information we brought forward about this block,” he said.

While DK045 was removed from the current sale, about 53 hectares of old growth forest in Dakota Bowl is still included in the BCTS harvesting plan for Mount Elphinstone.

This Monday, Nov. 4, Kempe said he would be accompanying a carnivore specialist from the Ministry of Environment into Dakota Bowl to evaluate the area for bear dens. ELF has called for BCTS to designate two of the remaining four cutblocks as a wildlife habitat area, due to the high number of black bear dens.

“That’s something we manage anyway,” Kempe said. “If we encounter a den that’s active, then we’re stopping. We’re not cutting right through.”

Kempe said BCTS’s logging plans for Dakota Bowl address concerns about slope stability and impacts on the Dakota Creek community watershed.

“We think at this stage we have a pretty good plan,” he said.

He also noted that BCTS, in its 10 years of existence, has not logged any old growth on Mount Elphinstone, although about 150 hectares had been identified for logging.

Of the 150 hectares, he said, about half has been dropped from future harvesting plans, largely due to concerns from the public and the Sunshine Coast Regional District.

“We are not just managing for timber values on Mount Elphinstone. We get it, that there are other issues,” he said.

Read more:  https://www.coastreporter.net/article/20131102/SECHELT0101/311029999/-1/sechelt/bcts-drops-headwaters-block-from-future-plans