On BC Timber Sales’ five year plan for the Mt. Elphinstone area, a string of cutblocks appear above the residential areas from Roberts Creek to Gibsons. The four planned cutblocks that make up Blk TA052, are a large area of mature native forest in the depleted Coastal Western Hemlock dry maritime zone where only 2.3% of the older forest remains in the area (Chapman Landscape Unit). This logging operation threatens local water security, infrastructure such as culverts and roads, and undermines the resilience and livability of our communities. It should be canceled before it’s too late.
ELF has completed several site visits to TA0521 and produced a detailed map and summary report. The map identifies the creeks in the affected area, plus shows the majority of the area where the blocks are found is captured by the provincial Old Growth Technical Panel’s mapping, as high quality Recruitment Forest to be protected as tomorrow’s old growth.
Blk TA0521 is scheduled to be sold to a logging contractor July 1 – Sept. 30, 2023. There’s been little to no public outreach by BCTS with property owners who are dependent on secure groundwater and surface water flows from the above slope for their domestic water supply. All homeowners above Hwy 101 in this region must secure potable water from wells or streams. There are 35 water use permits on creeks originating below TA0521, while all other properties are on wells coming from groundwater flows.
“These forests should be thought of as community infrastructure as they perform several critical functions, such as maintaining secure water flows above and below ground, slope stability and keeping large mammals such as black bears in the forest,” Ross Muirhead of ELF explains. “BCTS is ignoring the negative consequences of removing forest cover as their only objective is timber extraction, opening them up to charges of liability and willful blindness to other critical values.”
“On a site visit to TA0521 we could sense the importance of this forest to water conservation directly and indirectly. Trees are vital in providing warmer thermal conditions which slowly melts incoming snow allowing the water to percolate down into the soil subsurface, as opposed to sitting as snowpack in a clearcut where it melts all at once with rain or direct sun and pours off the hillside,” states ELF’s Hans Penner. “This is literally our ‘Elphinstone Water Protection Forest.’ This proposed logging cannot be allowed to take place if we want to prevent further road washouts, landslides and severe impacts on our water sources.” The forest and streams are natural assets which must be protected.”
