Community forest agreement approved

 

Whistler – Whistler Council voted thisweek to sign a partnership with the Lil’wat and Squamish nations tocreate an arms-length corporation that will jointly run thelong-anticipated Cheakamus Community Forest.

Though returning Councillors Eckhard Zeidler and Ralph Forsyth repeated prior concerns about the feasibility of reaching the annual allowable cut of 20,000 cubic meters of wood from the community forest area, the vote at Monday’s (Dec. 15) first regular meeting of the new Council was unanimous to sign the partnership agreement.

Heather Beresford, the municipality’s manager of environmental stewardship, explained that Council’s resolution in August that Whistler be exempt from the allowable-cut requirements imposed by the Ministry of Forests and Range would be a “show stopper” for the community forest. Provincial legislation requires an annual allowable cut of wood to be assigned to every forest tenure awarded, she said.

This week’s vote included a withdrawal of Council’s August resolution.

While Zeidler acknowledged the annual-cut exemption “isn’t going to fly,” he pointed out that since the community forest tenure area was initially developed, “tremendous changes” have taken place in the amount of land available for logging. New conservancies and other exclusions have reduced available land by about 30 per cent, but the proposed annual cut amount has remained the same, he said.

Zeidler and Forsyth both questioned whether parcels visible from Highway 99 or elsewhere in the valley would have to be logged to achieve the annual cut.

 

Though she admitted it’s “challenging” to find places to harvest,Beresford said the harvesting plan will be based on small parcels andwon’t include “large clear cuts.” Local forester Peter Ackhurst, whowill be one of Whistler’s directors on the community forest board, saidthe areas with the least visual impact will be chosen.

http://www.whistlerquestion.com/article/20081218/WHISTLER01/312189976/1030/whistler