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No sale for Dakota Bowl cutblocks

Dec 5 2013/in News Coverage

BC Timber Sales (BCTS) removed more than 50 hectares of old-growth forest from its harvesting plans for Mount Elphinstone last week after failing to receive any bids from logging contractors.

Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) announced the removal of the four Dakota Bowl cutblocks from the BCTS notice list after BCTS forest manager Don Hudson contacted the group on Nov. 21, the closing date for bids.

“We did not receive any bids today. We will likely retender next spring,” Hudson wrote ELF in an email.

Ross Muirhead of ELF said the group was not surprised that logging companies took a pass on the four cutblocks.

“We always thought the road-building in there was pretty extreme, and since the contractor would have to pay for it, it could be very expensive,” Muirhead said. “I think the contractors looked at the road-building plan and just gave up on it because of a lot of the unknown factors related to building on such steep slopes.”

Muirhead said ELF would continue to lobby to have the cutblocks permanently removed from BCTS’s harvesting plans and was awaiting a report on bear dens in Dakota Bowl after a Ministry of Environment biologist surveyed the area last month.

The group said it has also discovered culturally modified trees and record-sized mountain hemlocks in Dakota Bowl, with ELF member Hans Penner calling it “the largest remaining old-growth forest of its type, at this elevation, on the Sunshine Coast.”

Among the area’s natural treasures, Muirhead said the group discovered the widest known mountain hemlock in the province, at 6.63 metres in circumference. The Ministry of Forests’ big tree registry lists the next widest mountain hemlock, found on Hollyburn Mountain, at 5.99 metres.

In late October, after heavy lobbying by ELF and other groups, BCTS announced it was dropping the 15-hectare cutblock known as the Roberts Creek headwaters ancient forest from its future harvesting plans due to its “unique ecological/cultural attributes.”

At the time, BCTS planning forester Norm Kempe said logging plans for the remaining four cutblocks addressed concerns about slope stability and impacts on the Dakota Creek watershed.

Link to online article.

EVENT: Battle for the Trees – Monday, Dec. 2 in Victoria!

Dec 2 2013/in Announcements

Battle for the Trees:
Major forest campaigns underway and around the corner for 2014

DATE: Monday, December 2, 2013
LOCATION: Ambrosia Event Center, 638 Fisgard St.,Victoria
TIME: 7:00-9:00 pm
Facebook Event page: www.facebook.com/events/1396785523893680 Invite friends!!

By Donation

Drinks! Snacks! Silent Auction of Goodies! New Ancient Forest Alliance calendars and shirts!

Speakers will include:

Ken Wu and TJ Watt – Campaigners, Ancient Forest Alliance
Jane Morden- Coordinator, Port Alberni Watershed-Forest Alliance
Arnold Bercov – President, Pulp, Paper, and Woodworkers of Canada (PPWC) union
Vicky Husband – Victoria conservationist, Order of Canada recipient

and more…

Join the Ancient Forest Alliance and guests for presentations on some of the key forest controversies underway for 2014, including:

• The battle with Island Timberlands over their logging near Cathedral Grove, McLaughlin Ridge and other ancient forests on Vancouver Island, and the need for a combined regulatory solution and a park acquisition fund to purchase and protect endangered ecosystems on private lands.

• The BC Liberal government’s resurrection of the unpopular “Forest Give-away Scheme” to allow the largest logging companies in BC’s interior to have exclusive logging rights over vast areas of public forest lands, at the expense of forest protection initiatives, First Nations land rights, recreation, scenery, and tourism, and other interests.

• The BC government’s plans to open up Forest Reserves in BC’s Cariboo-Chilcotin region for logging to make up for a history of overcutting and the pine beetle outbreak.

• The Ancient Forest Alliance’s escalating campaign in 2014 to ensure provincial legislation to protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests.

For more info contact the Ancient Forest Alliance at info@ancientforestalliance.org

VIDEO: Cathedral Grove under threat?

Nov 20 2013/in News Coverage

Here’s Global TV on the Cathedral Grove controversy. Take note that only 1% of old-growth Coastal Douglas-fir trees remain in all ecosystem types across the coast (ie. they are not only scarce in the “Coastal Douglas Fir” biogeoclimatic zone which Island Timberlands seems to imply, but in the Dry Maritime subzone of the Coastal Western Hemlock zone where Cathedral Grove lies and other forest types…) and that the planned designation as Ungulate Winter Range for black-tailed deer in the areas now being logged or roaded by Island Timberlands was supposed to be followed up by legislation but the lands were removed from the TFL – and the company and BC government failed to follow through on an agreement to ensure these areas’ protection.

Direct link to video: https://globalnews.ca/news/7667531/fairy-creek-blockade-old-growth/