IN HIS 2011 WOODLOT PLAN, the licensee stated that wildlife trees could be removed from wildlife tree retention areas to provide “access to adjacent stands.”
But provincial government mapping of existing logging roads shows that there were existing alternative routes (orange dashed lines in image below) that would have avoided the two wildlife tree reserves. These roads were built circa 1983.
The licensee has stated that “adverse grades” on these routes made it necessary to build new roads through the two wildlife tree retention areas at issue.
The route indicated by yellow dots has been added by the Discovery Islands Forest Conservation Project and that route does not involve “adverse grades”. In fact, a nearby route had been used for logging in 1983. This small amount of additional road building should have sufficed to meet the licensee’s need for access to forest for logging.
