BC Timber Sales (BCTS) has awarded logging rights on a contentious cutblock on the slopes of Mt. Elphinstone, but the group Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) is calling on the winning bidder to ask for rights to log somewhere else and leave A87125 alone.

Sunshine Coast-based Peninsula Logging Ltd. outbid two other firms in an auction that closed June 3. According to BCTS, the successful bidder has 11 months from the time a cutblock is awarded to go in and harvest the timber before their licence expires.

In a release circulated to local media, ELF’s Ross Muirhead said, “ELF was alarmed to find out that the contentious Block A87125 was bid on by logging contractors residing in Gibsons and Roberts Creek. Perhaps these local contractors are not aware that an expanded Mt. Elphinstone Provincial Park is an actual bylaw under the SCRD Official Community Plan. We request that Mr. [George] Fallis and Mr. [Aaron] Service step away from A87125, and request that BCTS allocate them an area outside this high biodiversity zone.”

When BCTS first put A87125, near the Twist and Shout mountain biking trail, up for auction, the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) board came out opposed to the plan for logging in the area.

The board reaffirmed that position at a June 23 meeting, where it adopted a motion that also spells out that the SCRD “does not support logging in the community watersheds or watershed reserves for the purpose of protecting water used for drinking, and does not support logging licence A91376 located on District Lot (DL) 1313, which should be reserved for environmental protection as per ongoing discussions with the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.”

The Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club of BC have also spoken out against cutting in that block.

ELF has now had demonstrators at a “Mt. Elphinstone Protection Camp” blocking access to A87125 for just over six weeks.

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