News
Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) has called for a moratorium of all nine (9) cutblocks planned on the Mount Elphinstone slopes. According to ELF, Three logging operators: BC Timber Sales, Sunshine Coast Community Forests (SCCF) and Island Timberlands are cutting the forest cover with no provincial coordination resulting in highly fragmented landscape. The area is under review for a new 1,500Ha Mount Elphinstone Provincial Park Expansion.
The group is in talks with the assistant deputy Minister of Forests regarding the park expansion and local MLA Nicholas Simons to help move the proposal through government. "BC Parks isn't interested in having a park in the proposed area - they have their hands tied. So it has to be a political decision," said Ross Muirhead of ELF. ELF has printed 3,000 Elphinstone Park expansion post cards addressed to the Premier. They are sending these to residents from Gibsons to Sechelt to mail to the Premier.
“The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations seem to have no coordinated plan for the Mount Elphinstone slopes”, said Muirhead. “This has resulted in each operator being surprised by the actions of the other. There have been instances this past year where 2 logging operators had no idea that cutting had occurred right next to their surveyed falling boundaries. We’re forced to conclude that government and logging interests have little concern for the integrity of the Mt Elphinstone slopes and are out to plunder it as fast as they can.”
Hans Penner of ELF states “Until we’ve heard back from the Premier, all logging should be stopped. BCTS has 4 proposed cutblocks (A87124, 87126, 87125, G042C16Y (deferred), SCCF has 4 (EW002B, EW012, EW014, EW013) and Island Timberlands has one (Day Rd. Forest) in the expanded park boundaries. If the 3-5 year plan of these forest companies is allowed to proceed the lower slopes will become a bio-diversity waste land.”
The 1,500Ha Mt. Elphinstone Provincial Park expansion represents the last opportunity to protect the lower Elphinstone slopes and will provide a key continuous, interurban greenbelt for habitat and recreation for present and future generations on the Sunshine Coast. The expanded park system links up the 3 existing ‘island’ (139Ha) parcels and spans an area from Wilson Creek on the west, to Clough Creek on the eastern boundary of Roberts Creek, BC.
Residents asked for the entire 1500ha in the 1990's, but only 139ha were allocated for a park. The park addition is included in the Roberts Creek Official Community Plan (2011).
ELF’s goal is to protect the Sunshine Coast’s bio-diversity by expansion of the Elphinstone Provincial Park and by protecting all remaining intact, old-growth forests in the surrounding landscape units.