Monthly Archives: June 2019

The Wildwood Ecoforest is one of the hidden gems of the Ladysmith and Yellow Point area. In 1938 Merv Wilkinson bought the Wildwood Property in Yellow Point… After some study he was persuaded to manage the existing forest using a Scandinavian model of ecoforestry. Nearing the end of his life in the early 2000s he chose to put his land in the public domain to keep it from being developed. It was acquired by the Land Conservancy for the price of 1.1 million and The Ecoforestry Institute Society (EIS) was appointed to be the official forest manager in 2001. …To ensure the sustainability of the ecoforest the Institute is fundraising to buy back 6 acres of adjacent old growth that were sold years ago. This land borders the main property and is part of the watershed that feeds the protected forest and the lake. A fundraising drive is on now and can be accessed on the Wildwood website.

The Regional District of Central Kootenay (RDCK) wants the province to give regional districts the power to make land use bylaws that would regulate private land logging. And it wants the province to require large private forest landholders to register their properties in the province’s Private Managed Forest Program. This would require of owners a degree of land use planning and stream protection that does not otherwise exist for private land logging. These two requests have been combined in a resolution to the annual conference of the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) in September. UBCM delegates will vote on the resolution, and if it passes, the UBCM will lobby the provincial government for the changes. …The resolution… asks for legislation that would give regional governments new powers to regulate some aspects of private land logging.

Peter Arcese

…North Cowichan council has been swamped with public input about the management of the municipal forests. How fitting then that on April 17 council received a letter from Dr. Peter Arcese, UBC’s professor of forest renewal, regarding a proposed collaboration on “Developing Forest Management Plans to Achieve Shared Goals.” …They also invited the UBC Conservation Group to address the Forest Advisory Committee. On June 17, a delegation of three UBC professors presented “Forests to Sustain Economies & People” to the committee. …I am honored that our community and its forests have been recognized and offered support by the UBC Faculty of Forestry. We have no say over logging on private land which is occurring on Vancouver Island at the alarming rate of three sq. meters per second or 34 soccer fields a day. However, our local government is considering a new Forestry Management Plan.

SYILX UNCEDED TERRITORIES and KELOWNA, BC – The BC First Nations Forestry Council (FNFC) held the first annual BC First Nations Forestry Council Forestry Conference this week at the Delta Grand Okanagan Resort in Kelowna within the unceded territory of the Syilx Peoples. 103 First Nations participants attended the three-day event from June 19-21, 2019. Joining the First Nations participants were 25 industry participants, and several government of BC representatives. Over the three days, presenters representing individual First Nations communities, First Nations businesses, government, industry, and academic institutions all addressed the audience and engaged in discussions. …Charlene Higgins, CEO of the BC First Nations Forestry Council stated, “Time for talk is over. It’s time for change. The Strategy has been advanced over many years through direct feedback and support from First Nations. The Strategy is about raising the bar for all First Nations. To implement the Strategy the province must change the revenue sharing model with First Nations.

The 150-year legacy of the E&N Railway Land Grant still echoes across southeastern Vancouver Island. This transfer of over 2 million acres of unceded Indigenous land to coal baron Robert Dunsmuir is the origin of many land use conflicts on Vancouver Island. But it is also the back story for one community’s journey to restore the commons. The Cumberland Community Forest Society (CCFS) has been purchasing and protecting privately owned forests scheduled for logging near the Village of Cumberland since 2000. Guided by the belief that this forest is now worth more to the community as an intact forested watershed than as timber, the CCFS is supported by individuals, families, and businesses from across the Comox Valley and beyond. Purchased lands are protected in perpetuity for the conservation of biological diversity and watershed protection by a Section 219 conservation covenant (Land Act).

Staff members at the Marmot Recovery Foundation were surprised by the recent birth of two marmot babies at their Mount Washington facility. …Fifteen more marmots will be released during the summer in Strathcona Provincial Park and Nanaimo Lakes. …Taylor said Mount Washington offers unique surroundings for marmots, since the ski hills there function much like marmot meadows. …“The big difference to Mount Washington is all of these people that come year-round tend to scare away the animals that actually eat marmots, like cougars and wolves,” he said. “The result is that [marmots] have really, really high survival here. …Funding for the recovery of the Vancouver Island marmot comes from the provincial government, TimberWest, Island Timberlands, the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation, the Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program and individual donors.

Dorothy Teichroeb is a Professional Log Truck Driver based in Vanderhoof and has been hauling logs for three years. “What inspired me to go into this industry is my dream to fly. I received all of my training with E and R Professional Driving Center, a local driving school (which I highly recommend!). Acquiring my class one was the easier part. Thankfully I was fortunate enough to have great bosses and an extremely patient brother to give me hands-on training. The first three to four months I had my hands full and sometimes felt slightly overwhelmed. For trucking industry safety I feel that there should be a training period after you have passed your test. That is the most important thing I would stress! Just to have “professional” written on my driver’s license did not give me the training I needed for driving off-highway, or extreme road conditions.

Bob Zimmer

…These issues have now only been exacerbated by the province, along with their federal Liberal counterparts, imposing a two-year moratorium on new natural resource development in our region as part of their caribou recovery plans. I am deeply concerned that this interim moratorium will lead to permanent restrictions and I fail to see how pushing pause on natural resource development will “limit economic impacts” as Minister Donaldson would have us believe. There’s no denying that all of us care about the caribou and bringing the herd back, however, we have heard from local experts that a moratorium would not necessarily be effective in seeing caribou numbers increase. Instead, this decision will surely have a greater negative impact on our local mill operations, with more closures likely to come.

…Earlier this week, the House of Commons declared a climate emergency in Canada. In B.C., which has been hammered in recent years by record-breaking wildfires, droughts, flooding and a forest-destroying plague of pests, the provincial government isn’t ready to make that declaration. …Jonathan Boyd, a hydrologist with the B.C. River Forecast Centre, says the drought concerns across the province are due to a confluence of events: Since mid-January, B.C. has experienced a lower-than normal snowpack, unusually warm spring temperatures, precious little rain and record-breaking heat. “It’s been one of the fastest melts of the snowpack we have seen, so it puts us in a vulnerable situation for drought,” he says. …The Sierra Club BC is calling on the B.C. government to declare a forest and climate emergency – the group points to the logging practices in the Cowichan Valley as an example of how human disturbances are increasing the risk of unmanageable climate impact.

On Friday June 21, the Whiskey Jack Nordic Ski Club collaborated with Canfor to plant some 800 spruce seedlings in Beatton Provincial Park.  With the creation of a stadium area, for staging cross country ski race events, the WJNSC sought to mitigate the loss of trees by planting spruce seedlings around the stadium area where the aspen are more open or less mature. Fourteen volunteers participated, over half from Canfor, as well as Whiskey Jack and a BC Parks volunteer. The seedlings were provided by Canfor. Fortunately, the bugs kept away and the heat of the day was avoided by starting early in the morning.