Blockade at Kokanee Creek
I live in one of the areas where the Ministry of Forests and Slocan Forest Products intend to log for doug fir beetle. The area is adjacent to the Kokanee Provincial park 10 miles north of Nelson.
I very much resent CBC's portrayal of a natural cycle. Words like attack and war on beetles imply that there is something sinister going on, when in fact, it is the beetles' job to break down dying wood.
What has not been said is that by and large, root rot is killing the trees and the beetles are doing their job of thinning the forest. It just so happens that the Doug Fir command a good price in the markets and the beetle does not destroy the timber value since it burrows into the bark.
The beetle issue is by no means a new one. Six years ago the ministry of forests went ballistic over a few red trees and began to counter the natural cycle occurring by trying to trap these beetles. An argument can be made that they actually created the problem by opening holes on the mountainside increasing blow down and stumps for more beetles.
But at any rate, they cut down healthy doug fir hoping to lure beetles to the bark and haul them out of the forest. The move was akin to hanging fly paper on your deck and when sticky paper is full of flies, you remove it, thinking you've got all the flies.
Of course, you never knew how many flies there were in the first place, so the exercise is rather meaningless.
Several times we have brought in Dr. Art Partridge, a well respected forest pathologist who has studied beetles for decades.
His field work indicates there is certainly no epidemic. As a matter of fact, there are no thresholds under so-called Forest Health to determine what IS an epidemic. I challenge the forest service to support their numbers. I challenge them to provide us with a mortality rate of trees per thousand that are dead as a result of the doug fir beetle.
Three new roads are going to be built over domestic water sources to accommodate this beetle bs. What is really going on is road building and logging in very sensitive high risk areas under the name of an emergency, which means the district can do just about what it wants without proper scrutiny. It also means that Slocan will pay the government a mere $7.50 a truck load of beautiful doug fir because stumpage rates are 25 cents a cubic metre for salvage wood. This is disgraceful.
I would appreciate it in the future if CBC could take a more neutral, investigative approach when covering forestry issues and not tout the ministry's public relations as though it were fact.
The ministry can remove the red trees by chopper as they have in the past. If the media asked some obvious questions, we might have some accountability, although, in reality, it likely won't change a thing because government and industry hold all the cards.
Nelson- North Shore residents blocked road building in the Demonstration Forest for the fifth day Sunday, hoping to get written agreements from the government and industry over how their watershed will be cut and who will pay for any damages. Several members of the group belong to the Sitkum watershed group that has been meeting with Slocan Forest Products and the Ministry of Forests for 10 years over the proposed logging in Sitkum/Crescent Bay watersheds.
They say that consensual agreements are not being honored and repeated attempts to get agreements in writing have failed.
"This is really our only leverage, to stop the road building into the watershed," says resident Suzy Hamilton.
A 4.3 km road and bridge is being built down the west side of Kokanee Creek which will open up the Crescent Bay watershed.
"As far as the road goes, it appears to be well constructed and the bridge installation caused little impact. It is about 1/3 done. Our issue is that the road leads into the Crescent Bay watershed and we have not agreed yet upon the road or the kind of logging."
Ministry representative Ken Gorsline has been to the site ---about 7 km up the Gibson Lake road, 20 km from Nelson--- as well as Slocan Forest Products manager Alex Ferguson. Both have said they will not negotiate while the road is blocked. "We have five major concerns," says Hamilton.
They are:"We’d like to drop that blockade mentality," says Hamilton. "We are neighbors and members of a long standing watershed committee. For the most part, these are items we have been unable to resolve at the table. After the road is in it is too late."
Hamilton says she has also filed a complaint with the Forest Practices Board because the government did not notify Kokanee Creek water licensees that development would be happening above them until after the bridge and one third of the road have been built.
"These licensees were not notified personally about the development in enough time that they could give input before roadbuilding began," she says. Hamilton says the group is anxious to resolve the issues. "We have jobs to get to and this is causing us hardship to have to be here, but we feel we must do it."
She pointed out that a recent research revealed that residents in the North Shore area scheduled to be logged by Slocan pay about $500,000 a year in taxes. Property values total $60 million. Slocan, on the other hand, paid $5,000 in stumpage (logging taxes) for the last three years' wood taken out of the area.
They will continue to pay $7.50 taxes for a logging truckload of wood where they plan to log. "Why are we taking all the risk and they're making all the money?" asks Hamilton. "This is a good opportunity to bring us to the table on a more equal footing. Asking for a liability agreement and written reserves around domestic water is only reasonable. Logging increases fire hazard and disease potential from human access."