Please email or send a letter of objection to Sechelt’s Mayor and Council on their own logging company’s intentions to log the proposed Mt Elphinstone Park expansion area. Copy the Sunshine Coast Community Forest operations manager too.
Email: council@sechelt.ca and cc warren@sccf.ca
Mailing addresses: Mayor and Council, PO Box 129, Sechelt BC, V0N 3A0
Sunshine Coast Community Forest, PO Box 215, Unit C-5588 Inlet Ave., Sechelt BC, V0N3A0
Use our sample letter below, personalize it, or write your own.
To Mayor Siegers and Council,
I’m writing to state my opposition to your logging company’s (SCCF) 5 year plan which has 3 intended cutblocks in the proposed Mt. Elphinstone Park expansion area. This 20 year long park initiative is backed by our Regional District as expressed in the Roberts Creek Official Community Plan. The Ministry of Forests has promised not to plan any cutblocks in the park proposal area while the shíshálh Nation and Provincial governments land use planning is underway that will decide its fate. So, it’s shocking that you would allow SCCF to plan logging for the area regardless.
Since SCCF is asking for feedback on their 5 year plan, I trust they will include mine – which is to remove cutblocks EW 19, 18 and 18A from future logging plans. We have enough ugly, barren tree farms and clearcuts on the Sunshine Coast but no sizeable parks at lower elevations, they are all on mountaintops. With ⅔ of the park proposal area still native forest, it is our last, best, and only chance to change that. Don’t destroy more of it.
The community has nicknamed the area The Birdsong Forest to reflect its amazing diversity of birds who make their home there. We can’t afford any further biodiversity loss on the lower Coast. SCCF should only be logging previously planted tree farms, not mature native forests, the old growth of our future. BC Parks clearly states that because the park parcels are small, adjacent logging could impact them. Your cutblocks sandwich Park #3. Biologist McCrory, who has studied the area, predicts that if the native forest surrounding the small Mt Elphinstone Prov. Park parcels is not conserved and connectivity retained, they will become “islands of extinction.”
Native forests make our community more resilient as the climate and biodiversity crises advance, and they improve our overall quality of life in ways tree farms can’t. Consider the many long-term benefits they provide that outweigh short-term profits, such as: water security, repositories for pollinators and other wildlife, superior flood and fire protection, recreational opportunities, eco-tourism, wild harvesting, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and a connection to nature for us, our children and future generations. Please don’t take that away.
I look forward to seeing how Sechelt Council addresses these issues. Thank you for taking my concerns under consideration.