Archive for year: 2012

Friends of Stillwater Bluffs hosted a group of 50 people and 10 dogs on a hike around Stillwater Bluffs on Sunday April 15. It was part of an awareness-raising campaign that this area needs to be protected before Island Timberlands follows through on its plans to log it.

District Lot 3040, known locally as the Stillwater Bluffs, was noted as a priority for protection through the Powell River Regional District’s parks and greenspace plan. However, Island Timberlands timber-cruised the area this winter and stated recently that it plans to begin road building in the next month or so.

A Vancouver Island-based environmental organization, the Ancient Forest Alliance, has included the Stillwater Bluffs campaign in its province-wide push to get the provincial government to create a fund for regional districts to access funds for parks creation that would protect old growth forests and other areas of ecological and social value. Student Loan Consolidation

Three staff members of the alliance attended Sunday’s hike and took photographs. Ken Wu, executive director, said, “Wow, I was so impressed with the dramatic beauty of Stillwater Bluffs, with the bluffs themselves and with the forest and its enormous veteran old-growth trees. You could not find a better park candidate in the area. Island Timberlands needs to back off instead of escalating a conflict, while the regional district and province need to step in to help buy this coastal gem for protection.”

Friends of Stillwater Bluffs have collected over a thousand signatures to protect the area and are working hard to raise awareness about its unique value to the community.

“A representative of Island Timberlands told me they want to log it in a way that would keep anyone from logging there again,” said Nola Poirier, a member of the group. “Instead, we are working to protect it, in a way that will keep anyone from logging there again.”

Meanwhile, David Moore, a member of the group’s organizing committee, made a presentation at the April 10 Powell River Regional District committee-of-the-whole. He told directors he and another member of the group were invited to have a walk around the site with Wayne French, an Island Timberland’s forester, in the last week of March. “He made it very clear to us that they had received no indication from the board here of any interest in the property, so they were going full steam ahead in their logging plans,” Moore said.

Moore explained that the company is moving into an active stage of harvesting planning, which involves mapping, staking, flagging and spray-painting of tree trunks. “This set off the alarm bells that something has to happen soon, or we’re going to see a real incursion on the property, let alone a large investment from their company in terms of manpower, hired work and mapping, if in fact we are going to make a proposal to them for park acquisition,” Moore said. “So, we’re back, simply asking for some direct communication between the board and the company to give them an indication that there is something going on here and would they simply put their train into park mode for just another month or two while we do get our parks process in full swing.”

The regional district has appointed a parks and greenspace plan implementation committee, which is meeting for the first time tonight, April 18. After discussing the issue, the committee passed a motion to send a letter to the president of Island Timberlands requesting a delay on logging activities on the Stillwater Bluffs property until such time as the regional district can discuss a possible acquisition.

Read online:  https://www.prpeak.com/articles/2012/04/18/news/doc4f8e05ef3b82f065483061.txt

Four years ago, sitting in the house he built with his own two hands way up the coast in Echo Bay, 73-year-old Billy Proctor listed the ways he could tell salmon stocks had collapsed.

Hungry eagles had taken to hunting seagulls, had even killed a couple of loons before his eyes. Bears had been reduced to clawing through creek beds for salmon eggs. Seals were chasing fish far up the streams.

Proctor even saw a humpback whale scare herring right onto the mudflats in front of his home on Gilford Island, which sits in the heart of the Broughton Archipelago, a float-plane ride east of Port McNeill.

Overfishing was partly to blame for the loss of salmon, Proctor said. So was predation by seals, sea lions and dolphins. But particularly galling was the free for-all in the forest industry: bridges and culverts disrupting streams, mudslides silting up the spawning gravel, the shock of blasting for road building killing roe.

When the shade-giving trees along the banks of a high altitude river were cleared, the rocks heated, the water temperature rose and the salmon eggs died. The rules go out the window when the logging is done away from prying eyes, Proctor said.

Me, I just sat and listened, having been advised that when Proctor opened his mouth, the smartest thing to do was keep yours shut. A commercial fisherman for 60 years, and a logger, too, his knowledge of the natural world is legendary on the coast.

The conversation came to mind Wednesday with two stories out of Ottawa.

The first one dealt with the leak of a proposal to weaken 36-year-old rules protecting fish habitat, the intent being to clear some of the barriers faced by projects such as the proposed Enbridge pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat.

The fisheries minister’s office reacted to the leak with a statement saying “federal fisheries policies designed to protect fish are outdated and unfocused in terms of balancing environmental and economic realities.”

The second story dealt with a government plan to “modernize” environmental assessment legislation for the same purpose. The Conservatives talk about being “efficient” and “effective,” about needing to save industrial development from getting bogged down by time consuming environmental reviews. They paint a picture of economic opportunities being lost to the woolly headed, woolly hatted ecoshrubs who say “no” to every job-creation idea that involves shifting a rock or chopping down a tree.

Hold on, replies Green Party leader Elizabeth May. That’s a nicely spun narrative, but not one rooted in fact.

In the entire history of the environmental review process, only three projects have been flat-out rejected, says the Saanich-Gulf Islands MP.

That includes the most commonly cited example, Ottawa’s thumbs-down to a proposed mine near Williams Lake in 2010. The rest of the time, the review process is merely used to tweak proposals to mitigate their environmental damage, not stop them altogether.

“This isn’t a system that’s set up to operate with a red light and a green light,” May said Wednesday from Ottawa.
She maintains there is really only one reason the Conservatives are intent on “gutting” the Fisheries and Canadian Environmental Assessment acts: “It’s all about fast-tracking oilsands projects that link to supertankers.”

The broader consequences will be disastrous and should alarm any Canadian, regardless of political persuasion, who cherishes the great outdoors, she says. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is intent on stripping Canada of environmental safeguards that have been around for generations.

We can assume the prime minister has a different take. And maybe he’s right. It’s a matter of perspective and priority.

But the thing is, the farther you get from Ottawa (or Victoria, for that matter), with the sound of ideological warfare fading with every step, it’s hard to think of the Canadian wilderness as being over-regulated.

Mismanaged, perhaps, and more troubled than a Hollywood marriage – but even when rules exist, they’re enforced so sporadically that sometimes they might as well not exist at all. No wonder David Suzuki is always scowling.

When the Conservatives talk of “balancing environmental and economic realities,” it’s easy to imagine a voice bouncing back from Echo Bay saying, “That would be a good idea.”

Read more: https://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Harper+changes+rules+environment/6305828/story.html

A campaign to protect Stillwater Bluffs south of Powell River received high-profile help from a provincial organization recently.

Jason Addy, of the Friends of Stillwater Bluffs, joined Ken Wu, co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, at a press conference at the Sooke Potholes. The groups were calling on the BC government to form a land acquisition fund dedicated to protecting parkland.

Powell River Regional District’s Parks and Greenspace Plan identifies Stillwater Bluffs as one of the top five sites earmarked as priorities for parks acquisition. The regional district discussed the issue at its Thursday, March 8 committee-of-the-whole meeting, during which Laura Roddan, regional district planner, reported on a meeting with Island Timberlands on March 8.

Stillwater Bluffs is part of the 48-hectare District Lot 3040, owned by Island Timberlands. The company has completed a timber cruise to identify high value timber and logging may start next year or the year after.

Planning work has started and will continue over the coming months. It includes confirming road access, ground-truthing sensitive ecosystems, setting visual management objectives and considering recreational uses and community interests.

Planning work to date has confirmed that mosses and lichens, classified as herbaceous sensitive ecosystems, are on the rocky bluffs, which don’t have a high timber value.

The company’s real estate group handles all negotiations for land acquisitions. Park acquisitions are considered more valid if requested by local governments and there have been no park acquisitions negotiated with community groups.

If negotiations begin with the regional district, a confidentiality agreement would be signed and all planning activities would be suspended. Market value of the land would be determined through a property assessment based on residential use plus timber valuation.

Island Timberlands will not approve a moratorium on logging unless the regional district is in negotiations with the real estate group.

The Friends of Stillwater Bluffs has offered to pay Island Timberlands’ property taxes on the property while negotiations take place.

The committee agreed to refer the issue to the parks and greenspace plan implementation advisory committee.

Colin Palmer, board chair and Electoral Area C director, said there is no money in the system to purchase any land. However, he said the regional district should have some way of raising money for regional parks and suggested a parcel tax across the region, including in the city, should be explored. He also said the board would want to know from the parks and greenspace plan committee what other organizations or groups would be interested in raising money for Stillwater Bluffs.

The regional district has close to $300,000 in a community parks reserve. When asked about the funds, Palmer said it is not money for regional parks, because it came from subdivisions within the rural areas. “You can’t move money from an electoral function, which is where the money is, and put it into regional parks, which is a totally separate service,” he said.

When asked if the money in the community parks reserve could be used as an electoral area contribution toward a regional park, Mac Fraser, regional district chief administrative officer, said not without reviewing the terms in which it was accepted. “I believe we lack specific policy about how to use it,” he said. “In that situation, it would default to what was the statutory intention.”

Fraser said he would research the issue and bring the answer back to the committee.

Read more at: https://www.prpeak.com/articles/2012/03/14/news/doc4f5fe07ade3a4762868102.txt