Cutting down trees doesn’t save a forest

GIA begs Premier Clark, Islands Trust to save 3,000 acres of Gambier Island from loggers’ saws

In a letter to Premier Christy Clark and Islands Trust trustees, GIA said plans to log 20 percent of Gambier Island are contrary to the preserve and protect intent of the Islands Trust Act.

GIA appealed to Trustees and others who support the Trust mandate to plead with the BC Government not to approve the proposed logging of 3,000 acres on Gambier.

In late spring of 2014, Islands Trust Fund issued a press release detailing UBC research on the critical importance of the Islands Trust Area in the Coastal Douglas-fir zone. It said in part:

The study analyzed maps of forest biodiversity and carbon storage and concluded that protecting forests in the Islands Trust area is integral to preserving the Coastal Douglas-fir (CDF) zone….Due to its small range, the CDF zone contains some of the most rare and endangered ecosystems in B.C. The Islands Trust area makes up 25% of the CDF zone.

Previously, as part of its ongoing struggle with forestry issues on Galiano Island, GIA wrote and met with BC’s Ministry of Forests Ministry requesting a Cabinet exemption for the entire Coastal Douglas-fir zone from section 21 of the PMFL Act.   Such actions would be an appropriate response to protect and steward the remaining stands of Coastal Douglas Fir forests.

Following the March, 2011 Coastal Douglas-fir (CDF) Stewardship workshops, the Ministry has requested that local governments seek ways to regulate land use for the protection of ecological values within the CDF zone.

It is ironic that the Ministry makes this request while simultaneously preventing such action on lands regulated by Section 21 of the Private Managed Forest Land (PMFL) Act. We suggest that the Ministry has created the legitimate expectation that local land use authorities within the CDF can act to protect environmental values on PMFL parcels.

Letter sent to Ministry of Forests Letter and backgrounder Feb 2012

Read the reply to GIA: CDF Letter from Province 2012