Meeting with Island Timberlands – Feb 22
A second meeting with IT has been scheduled to follow up the January meetings attended by Noba Anderson (Cortes Regional Director) and concerned community members, including those representing the Cortes Forest petition. The outcome of the upcoming meeting is uncertain, but there is hope to problem solve regarding IT’s plans for industrial forestry on Cortes. Here is Noba’s Feb 20 update to the community. For those on the island, Noba’s report back to the community will be *Thursday Feb 23 at 7pm at the Gorge Hall*. For those off-island, stay tuned for updates!
Local Government Meeting with Island Timberlands
Regional Director Noba Anderson met with Darshan Sihota, CEO of Island Timberlands on January 23rd, here is her report re-printed from cortesisland.com.
Island Timberlands
In anticipation of my meeting with Darshan Sihota and Bill Waugh of Island Timberlands, I hosted a Cortes public meeting on January 17th to gather your messages and requests. As suggested by those present, Andy Ellingsen, David Shipway and Bill Turner, ED of The Land Conservancy, joined me in presenting them with a fat binder of information including your letters, articles, information about the Whaletown Commons, Children’s Forest Trust, Cortes Community Forest, IT logging plan critiques, etc., preceded by a summary of the input gathered on the 17th. (That summary is attached to this article.) [HERE]
Island Timberlands (IT) said they would be willing to consider further proposals for the Whaletown Commons and would entertain a purchase proposal for the Children’s Forest Trust land around Carrington with a requirement for a confidentiality agreement prior to any negotiations. They do value both land and timber at a higher price than many others and are not in any rush to sell land if it is not in their shareholders economic best interest.
We remain optimistic that their communications may improve with the community, and will work with them to that end. Wayne French has recently walked the Basil Creek area with Klahoose representatives and met with water license holders on the creek. Bill Waugh confirmed that their logging plans have changed since IT’s December open house at the Whaletown fire hall, but did not provide any details.
IT agreed to a follow-up meeting to discuss operational level issues. They don’t believe, however, that it is possible to negotiate operational details with the entire community, and therefore have requested a community-backed small committee to work with them on these issues. The next Cortes step as I see it, is to decide in a community meeting if we want to participate in this way, and if so how and who.
I will provide more information as it is available and schedule a community meeting before too long.
In gratitude, Noba Anderson
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Petition Delivered
Dear fellow Cortesians,
As many of you know, last month Island Timberlands came on island (December 2011) and told the community that they were planning on logging in January. While not opposed to all logging, many of us are very concerned about the scale of their logging operations and specifically about their logging of the scarce remaining old growth on the island, sensitive ecosystems and the impacts on water systems.
We created a petition which was signed by over 6000 people in less than three weeks (you can see it or sign here)
On January 12 our petition was delivered to Island Timberlands and Brookfield Asset Management around the world in Nanaimo, Toronto, New York, London, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney and Hong Kong.
In Nanaimo at the I.T. head office, we had considerable media interest – TV, radio and print (see below for some links to media). We met with IT President Darshan Sihota and Bill Waugh, Director of Planning and Forestry.
The company spent a considerable amount of time defending their current logging practices. They argued that their plans are ecologically responsible but when we asked to have a copy of their plans to review, they refused to give them to us. However, after much discussion they agreed to a further meeting to review their plans in detail and work towards solutions. They seemed honestly open to creating alternatives if they were able to address the needs of their company.
Our understanding after the meeting is that IT will not log before we have had a chance to review their plans with them in detail. This will likely occur in February.
You can reach us at protectcortesforest@gmail.com if you would like to discuss.
Best,
Tzeporah Berman and Carrie Saxifrage
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Cortes Island: Call to Action and Fact Sheet
An industrial logging machine is mowing down Vancouver Island forests at an accelerating rate for the purpose of raw log export. Corporate owners with close yet complex relationships and recurring faces view these forests as distressed assets in need of liquidation. The government of BC, hungry for short term cash, clears the way for them.
It’s the same kind of machine that operates the world over for the profit of the global asset shareholder, and it’s about to reach Cortes Island. There, it will face a community deeply rooted in the ecological integrity of island forests, a community that has fought industrial scale logging for the last twenty years with a high level of success.
A petition signed by over 5,900 people reflects that community. The petition was emailed, facebooked and tweeted from one alarmed lover of Cortes Island to another reaching deep through island residents, across Canada and beyond. Petitioners include old time island families, well-connected citizens of the continent’s biggest cities, authors, influential environmentalists, seasoned forest campaigners and local schoolchildren worried about the future of their home. Most of all, petitioners include people who care deeply about the legacy they will leave.
Cortes Island touches thousands because it is one of the world’s unbroken places, both accessible and wild, a place of experiences that inspire wonder and restore a sense of belonging in natural world. Cortes Island is precious in itself and it’s a microcosm of how the short term goals of a very few people are destroying the ability of the biological world to renew itself, something that none of us can honourably claim to own. We must preserve the rightful legacy of those who will live with our consequences when we are gone.
About Cortes Island
- Cortes Island lies between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It has a year round population of 1000 hardy souls and a summer population of 3 to 4 thousand. Hollyhock Conference Centre and Linnaea Farm contribute to Cortes Island’s reputation as an educational center for nature-based practices and values.
- IT’s parcels consist of 2700 acres that bisect the island from east to west. These lands hold the deepest soils, the biggest trees and the island’s central water recharge area.
- Pockets of old growth are part of the 1% of old growth that remains in BC.
- These old growth, mature second growth forests and extensive seasonal wetlands are home to 10 species and 10 ecological communities that by provincial legislation are threatened, endangered or of special concern. Species include the: common nighthawk; barn swallow; olive sided fly catcher; sooty (blue) grouse; northern goshawk; band tailed pigeon; red legged frog; pacific sideband snail, great blue heron and northern pygmy owl.
- The Cortes Island community has worked for over two decades to oppose industrial scale logging and bring ecosystem based forestry to these lands.
- According to Wayne French, Operations Manager for IT, industrial scale logging operations will begin in January and will include key areas in need of protection, including old growth stands and delicate wetland areas.
About Island Timberlands and Brookfield Asset Management
- BAM has $110 billion in assets under management and delivered an annual return of 23% from 2000 to 2010.[i]
- Brascan, now BAM, purchased Cortes Island land as part of a purchase of 635,000 acres of BC forest lands from Weyerhaeuser. BAM divided the private and public forest land assets, closed the mills, and restructured the management of private forest lands for faster harvest and more export of raw logs.
- BAM created Brookfield Infrastructure Partners to hold IT and other global assets. BIP is headquartered in the Bahamas where it avoids certain Canadian taxes and civil liabilities.
- Under BAM/IT management, BC raw log exports have skyrocketed. More than 62% of raw logs exports come from privately managed forest lands. Raw log exports increased by more than 50% in 2010, with more logs shipped to China than during the previous 20 years combined. In the first three months of 2011 alone, BC’s coast exported 40% or 1.3 million cubic metres of logs, a 300% from the same period in 2009.[ii]
About the Province of BC
- IT and other huge timber companies are major contributors to the Liberal Party of BC which, under Gordon Campbell, removed protection from privately managed forest lands and replaced it with a highly flexible, industry friendly Act which does not prohibit activity on forest land but provides voluntary guidelines with oversight by a council that is closely connected with logging industry owners.[iii]
- According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, forest liquidation rates have resulted in: Logging at double the sustainable rate with one company’s stock of Douglas fir slated for depletion within 25 years; waste of usable wood; and job loss because trees are no longer delivered to coastal mills.[iv]
