Powell River residents continue their protest against Island Timberlands logging in their town.
Here's a new video and blog about the ongoing battle with Island Timberlands over logging in the town of Powell River, by Vancouver filmmaker Daniel Pierce - take a look!
A war in the woods has erupted in Powell River, B.C., where a group of residents is fighting a plan to start logging Lot 450 — an urban forest within the city limits.
Over 100 people converged on Base Camp Monday, April 27, for a quickly organized meeting to discuss logging plans within the City of Powell River. With interest generated through Facebook and other social media outlets following a press release by Island Timberlands that was uploaded to the Peak’s website, elected officials, environmentalists and community residents gathered to hear clarification about imminent road-building and harvesting involving Lot 450.
An environmental group based in Powell River intends to halt logging after releasing its bird nest assessment on Lot 450.... “What it proves conclusively is that there are very high wildlife values there that are threatened by this logging activity and more caution is needed,” said Judy Tyabji Wilson, Pebble in the Pond president. Tyabji Wilson added that on the basis of the report Pebble in the Pond’s board of directors has decided to file an injunction against Island Timberlands. “We will be taking court action against them so that we can at least stop the logging until proper studies are done,” she said. “Time is of the essence.” Island Timberlands began harvesting trees on the company’s private managed forest land in Lot 450 on April 22.
Powell River was founded by the timber industry, but the small Sunshine Coast community about 145 kilometres northwest of Vancouver is in an uproar now that loggers are cutting trees right in the heart of the city. Since loggers started clearing roads through the urban forest a few weeks ago, there have been packed public meetings and threats of an injunction by an environmental group. More than 1,000 people have signed an online petition calling for an end to the logging of what is known as Lot 450. Island Timberlands, which holds timber rights to several hundred hectares of forest land owned by the community, has announced plans to cut the area over the next several months.
Protesters took to the streets of Powell River upset by plans by a Nanaimo based logging company to cut trees in the city.
Here’s an article in the Powell River Peak about Island Timberlands’ plans to log in the City of Powell River (including a map of the planned cut area).
Back in 2013, a group of 23 organizations, foresters, scientists and local MLA Scott Fraser signed a letter expressing concern that 60 per cent of old growth – some designated by provincial scientists as critical winter range for deer and elk under the tree farm licence from which they were removed in 2004 — had been logged in the upper watershed. Old growth there also serves as a filtration system for the town’s high quality water. “Logging on these steep old-growth slopes has a high potential to alter the quality and rate of water flow and the streams’ courses,” Fraser warned in a letter last October to the Managed Forest Council which oversees logging practice on private lands. Watershed cutblocks above China Creek “should never have been logged,” he said.
Every fall, hundreds of eagles descend upon the Fraser Valley to roost in the treetops surrounding Echo Lake. Experts say there is no other place like it in the world. “This is eagle central. It’s the place that if you want to protect the largest concentration of raptors on earth, this is just about it here,” says Ken Wu of Ancient Forest Alliance.... The fight continues to protect old-growth forest from logging. While the B.C. Government announcing 55 hectares were protected as old growth management areas, there are still 40 hectares that fall under a woodlot license.
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