At April 8 – BCTS’ TA0521 planning is full of holes
Within this context of one provincial agency urging all regional agencies to prepare for another drought cycle and the best mitigation measure is to “protect watersheds,” while another arm of the government, BC Timber Sales, is proposing to log Blk TA0521 affecting 4 small watersheds (Molyneaux, Slater, Leek and Whitaker) that supply groundwater recharge to wells for Sunshine Coast residents living above Highway 101 within these catchments – indicates something is out of sync. read more
At March 28 – The Elphinstone Water Protection Forest: the beauty and power of the forest
This document reviews forest conservation issues with the proposed BC Timber Sales (BCTS) Block TA0521 and provides a link to a YouTube video that takes the viewer inside the forest in question. BCTS would like to put the block up for auction April 1st, however many unanswered questions persist, including why they’re not following the mapping provided by the provincial government’s Old Growth Technical Advisory Panel – TAP (Daust, Holt, Price) that through their Map 7 Recruitment Forest, identifies much of TA0521 and surrounding similar forests as “recruitment forest” meant to become “tomorrow’s old-growth.” Conservation of recruitment forest is critical in the Chapman Landscape Unit (LU) as it’s well below the TAP’s 10% old- growth threshold. LU’s are management areas where baseline data is recorded by provincial ministries. An LU that has less than 10% old-growth remaining is threatened with irreversible biodiversity loss. read more
At March 4 – xwesam (Roberts) Creek Forest Property Opportunity (DL 1505 & DL 2674)
Dear Mr. Paradine,
This report is a follow-up to our telephone conversation from earlier today regarding two District Lots (DL) now owned by Island Timberlands (IT) – a division of Mosaic that our organization is putting forward as candidate area for one of the several different initiatives that the government has for the protection of significant forest lands that meet the following criteria:
- ICH, CDF or CWH BEC Zone
- Old growth forest or old forest with old growth characteristics
- # of veteran trees combined with DBH and age of stands is generally used to determine old growth characteristics
- Connectivity to protected old growth a positive
- Protection must be permanent, or on the pathway to permanence
- Site index 20 or greater
- Species at risk protection and adjacency to other protected lands a positive
This brief report provides maps of the area followed by images taken in both DLs. The pictures will address the above criteria to show what we sense is an important forest area to be placed into long-term conservation status. How we reach that end goal will take assistance by your office, so we thank you in advance for your time on this file.
read more
At March 1 – Site Visit to SCCF’s Blk AN3A
ELF conducted a site visit (Jan. 10, ’24) to a Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF) Blk AN3A to document the impacts of logging and roadbuilding on the landscape.
This report and series of images provides a look into how clearcutting at AN3A has dramatically altered the landscape and presents conclusions for going forward. This block has been subject to numerious ELF reports with this being the first follow-up showing post-logging impacts. read more
At February 26 – SCCF Plans Clearcutting in the Wakefield Creek Watershed
The Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF) – a logging company owned by The District of Sechelt, appears to be poised to begin logging in the Wakefield Creek Watershed sometime in 2024. The block is ‘engineered’ with Falling Boundary, Road Centre Line tape and Falling Corners in place. Block HM64 location is within the drainage area of Wakefield Creek, which means all surface runoff from within the block reaches this creek.
A watershed is defined by the height of land on both sides of a river or creek. Wakefield Creek has a source and is fed by ground water recharge. The source for Wakefield Creek is Crowston Lake and the surrounding intact forest in this watershed provides stable ground water recharge. read more
At February 26 – Poor Planning at SCCF’s Blk AN12A – Burnett Creek Watershed
ELF conducted a field visit to this forest and conclude that the 3 blocks that make up AN12A should be removed from Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF) log plan and immediately become ‘Reserves’ for several key reasons, including: numerous ‘old forest’ conditions, habitat for blue-listed elk, high recreational values, connectivity to the Burnett Creek corridor, contribution to watershed processes, a wet zone providing flow to nearby Burnett Creek, old- growth recruitment opportunities in a depleted CWHdm in both the Chapman Landscape Unit and SCCF tenure. The block could be logged in 2026. read more
At January 18 – Protect our Infrastructure – No Logging in the Headwaters
The S. Elphinstone Watershed Assessment delivered to BC Timber Sales by the consulting firm, Polar GeoScience, identifies downstream infrastructure (points of interest), including culverts, roads, electrical & gas lines, wells, and water diversion, and provides levels of risk to each based on changes to the forest cover by BC Timber Sales logging at Blk TA0521 on the S. Elphinstone Slopes, Sunshine Coast, B.C.
A major concern is that residents above Highway 101 are not connected to the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) water supply system, instead rely on their own resources in having functional wells in place, or water diversion systems which are dependent on consistent ground water flows. There are 94 registered wells in the study area. Its common knowledge that logging & roadbuilding impacts water absorption and water delivery timing to the ground. To what degree is not completely understood, therefore since human health is a higher value than timber extraction, the pre-cautionary principle says do not change conditions that can have a negative effect and influence groundwater flows. read more
At January 15 – Unbridled logging plans in the lower Fraser, Chilliwack and Nicolum Watersheds increase climate risks
This review highlights plans by BC Timber Sales’ (BCTS), a government agency of the Ministry of Forests, to sell off an alarming number of timber across 81 cutblocks of Crown and First Nations lands to private contractors with no public engagement planned. The BCTS-Chinook Division (head office Chilliwack) has these 81 cutblocks planned or active beginning 2023 extending out to 2026.
These combined blocks represent a staggering amount of forest cover loss at 1,568 ha resulting in untold post-logging effects, including terrain stability issues, peak flows to nearby water channels, erosion of channels, rain-on-snow events, sediment transport affecting salmon habitat, risks to downstream public and private infrastructure, plus habitat loss and impacts on mature forest recruitment. read more
Media Release
At January 4 – Riparian Issue at SCCF’s AN03
ELF conducted a site visit to the above Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF) block on Jan. 3rd and documented a pending problem where logging is planned to the top edge of a gully. The stream uses the gully as its channel and the current riparian set-up is questioned. read more