TimberWest has invited public comment on two planning documents that will establish foundational parameters for what happens in all of Tree Farm Licence 47 over the next 10-15 years. Over 11,000 hectares of Quadra Island is in TFL 47.
Part of the TFL lies within the area of BC now regulated by the Great Bear Rainforest Order and that portion of the TFL is getting a brand new forest stewardship plan (FSP). That includes all of TFL 47 except Quadra Island and the Bonanza Lake block. The deadline for public comment on the FSP for the Great Bear Rainforest Order area is March 18.
The Quadra and Bonanza blocks are getting an updated management plan, which will set an allowable annual cut for those two blocks. The document, made available for comment until March 23, is an “information package”, not the final draft management plan. The draft management plan will be presented for public comment at a later, as yet undetermined date.
Both documents are attached at the bottom of this page.
The Discovery Islands Forest Conservation Project will comment on both documents. Since the “information package” for the draft management plan for Quadra Island and Bonanza Lake is just a preliminary step towards providing the public with the full draft management plan for comment, Discovery Islanders may want to focus their attention on the draft forest stewardship plan for that part of the TFL that includes Sonora Island, East and West Thurlow Island and Hardwicke Island.
Our project’s comment on the FSP will include information about the high rate of logging that has occurred on those islands, especially since 1997 . The short 40-second video below shows time-lapse satellite imagery of the islands between 1984 and 2020. Watch carefully what happened to West Thurlow Island, which is the island near the centre of the screen. Between 1984 and 2020, almost the entire timber harvesting land base of the island was clearcut, the vast majority of it by TimberWest. The island was hit by two waves of logging by TimberWest, the first starting in 1997 and the second wave striking in 2012.
The company’s claim that its logging is “sustainable” obviously does not apply to small, ecologically sensitive islands. The proposed FSP provides no indication that the AAC for this portion of the TFL would be reduced. We must assume that—under the proposed FSP—it would stay the same (388,500 cubic meteres per year). This is far too high and will only result in other islands getting the same treatment as West Thurlow Island.
If you comment on the Forest Stewardship Plan, send your comment to: Jennifer Peschke, jennifer.peschke@mosaicforests.com. Please send a copy to the Campbell River District Manager, Lesley Fettes RPF, Lesley.Fettes@gov.bc.ca.
If you want to comment on the management plan information package, send it to: communications@mosaicforests.com.
If you have any questions about either initiative, contact us.
TFL 47 Johnstone Strait Forest Stewardship Plan (proposed).pdf
TFL47 information package for Management Plan 5 (proposed).pdf
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