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Sea to Sky communities invited to apply for community forests

Whistler, Pemberton, Squamish eager to start on next round of process

For the Resort Municipality of Whistler, the goal of achieving more control over the area surrounding the municipality through the creation of a community forest has been on the books for seven years.

In fact, Whistler was the first town in all of B.C. to come up with the concept of a community forest in order to balance competing values of recreation, tourism, and resource extraction.

The province has since adopted the idea, clawing back forestry tenures surrounding communities from logging companies and giving those areas to municipalities, with the condition that annual allowable cuts be observed.

As of March 15, 11 Community Forest agreements have been finalized, three have been offered by the government, and 17 other communities have been invited to apply.

Whistler, Pemberton and Squamish were added to the invite list on Monday, with agreements worth up to 10,000 cubic metres of timber extraction per year.

"This is a part of our province that will be the focus of the world’s attention in just a few short years, and when the world looks, they’ll see three communities demonstrating how British Columbia’s forest practices lead the world," said West Vancouver-Garibaldi MLA Ted Nebbeling, who stood in for Forests Minister Michael de Jong in making the announcement.

Whistler Mayor Hugh O’Reilly, who originally pushed for the concept of a community forest for Whistler at the Union of B.C. Municipalities, greeted the invitation enthusiastically.

"Our community forest is an opportunity for us to show how forestry and tourism can co-exist," he said. "We depend on our forests not only for their spectacular impact on our world visitors, but also to help us achieve the vision for our resort community."

According to Heather Beresford, the RMOW’s stewardship supervisor, the invitation arrived in response to an expression of interest that was sent to the province last year. The details of what an agreement with the Ministry of Forests might look like are still up in the air.

"We’ve done a lot of research on this already, we’re well along the road, but we still have to put in a full package for the Minister," she said. "We haven’t actually received the paperwork yet, but we’re hearing there’s a 60-day turnaround time for getting the proposal in. We’re well on the way and we’ll be able to get a package together fairly quickly."

The RMOW still has to work out deals with B.C. Timber Sales and an agreements with the Mount Currie Band. "They’ve expressed an interest in talking with us further (about) a partnership," said Beresford.

Whistler originally hoped to partner with Squamish and Pemberton, but both communities had their own plans for community forests. A preliminary look at the finances suggests that 10,000 cubic metres of timber will require operating costs of $880,000 a year with an estimated profit of just $20,000 due to economies of scale.

If Whistler was allowed to harvest the total annual allowable cut for the surrounding area, the costs would triple but the profits would be more than $100,000.

The timber harvesting land base would fall within the Local Resource Use Plan (LRUP), an area that encompasses Wedge Mountain to the north, and the Callaghan and Brandywine valleys to the south.

The goal is not to profit, but to manage forestry operations to complement tourism, recreation and aesthetic values, while protecting local watersheds.

Bill Barratt, the RMOW deputy administrator, welcomed the invitation.

"One thing we’ve always been doing is working with the (existing) tenure holders, and we’ve looked at their plans with respect to viewscapes, if there are opportunities to create buffers, if new logging roads could open recreational opportunities, and we’ve had a lot of success in our relationship with Western Forest Products," he said. "The community forest offers different opportunities, opens up different goals, but at the end of the day we still have to allow the same extraction of timber – while at the same time taking care of things that are really important to Whistler as a tourism destination.

"We’re kind of excited about it."

For the Village of Pemberton, the announcement was positive.

"We’re very pleased, we’ve talked about a community forest for quite some time, and we were happy to be among the communities chosen to apply," said Mayor Elinor Warner. "We’re not sure what that means yet – we’ve already applied, which is how we got to this stage, and now we’re waiting to see what further process we have to go through."

Pemberton applied in partnership with Mount Currie, and would also form a partnership with a logging company. There’s no word on what land would be considered for a community forest agreement, but Warner said the cut would be managed to complement other interests in the valley, including the local timber harvesting industry. Recreation would also benefit.

"Any money we take out of the community forest would go directly into recreation… is the agreement we have, but first we have to be successful.

"We’ve gone over one hurdle, we’ve done a lot of background work on our first application… now we need to know what to add to it."

Squamish Mayor Ian Sutherland said the announcement would bolster the local logging industry.

"It’s very good news for the community, it’s good news for the corridor,, and we’re excited about the opportunities this opens up," he said. "The next step will be to sit down with the First Nations, and with Whistler and Pemberton and talk about next steps. I hope we can explore this opportunity to work together to benefit the corridor."

The annual allowable cut for the entire Soo Timber Supply Area, which runs from Lions Bay to north of Pemberton, is 503,000 cubic metres. Whistler, Pemberton and Squamish tenures, with a combined 30,000 cubic metres, would represent less than one-sixteenth of the total allowable cut.