Protesters gear up as first trees fall

Gulf Islands Driftwood
Friday, November 12, 1999

By Mike Levin

Texada Land Corporation began logging a slope beside Mount Tuam Monday morning to start generating revenue from its purchase last week of 4,500 acres in Salt Spring’s south end.

In a telephone interview with the Driftwood Tuesday morning, operations manager Brent Kapler said he could not reveal the extent of the cutting.

“We plan to log on a selective harvest, just like the previous owners. And we will match or do better than the regulations for managed forest lands,” he said.

Those regulations dictate replanting within five years.

The company originally planned to start its operations here with a 27-acre cut to the east of Lees Hill, in the 2100 block of Fulford-Ganges Road. Company director Derek Trethewey said November 1 that the land would be used for a vineyard.

Kapler said the decision to switch venues was made Sunday after consulting with local neighbourhood groups, such as the South and West Conservation Partnership.

“We listened to their concerns and decided it was best to defer the logging on that site,” he said, but would not indicate when that project might go ahead.

The sale was completed November 1 when Trethewey and Rob McDonald purchased the company and all its land holdings for between $20 and $30 million, according to Kapler. He added that the pair is not funded by other corporate entities.

The speed at which the deal was concluded and logging started continues to rattle residents concerned about clear-cutting and other environmental degradation.

Close to 80 locals met Sunday night and Monday morning to create a committee to deal with what one member called “a subtle, veiled and extremely dangerous attack” on local environmental sensibilities.

“No one has given us any real idea of what is going on, except that they plan to start cutting. I think we are all afraid where this might lead,” said one woman, requesting anonymity because she is a tenant on Texada land and is worried about retributive action by the company.

Kapler moved quickly to soothe shattered nerves.

“We are also trying to catch up with this as quickly as possible. It is not our intent at all to introduce any feelings of fear in the community and we are doing ongoing groundwork (with engineers and forestry consultant Julian Dunster) to determine the ecologically and environmentally sensitive areas,” Kapler said. “The people we’ve talked to aren’t opposed to logging, they’re just concerned that it is done right.”

Kapler said Texada has already begun clean-up work in Texada’s new and old cuts and some erosion problems have also been fixed.

Yet local residents have spent the past week unsure of where the company was heading.

The weekend meetings focussed on creating action committees to deal with the perceived environmental threat.

It showed just how organized islanders can be when, within 14 hours, legal and alternative actions, government and native liaisons and other tools such as possible land purchases were laid out in a cohesive strategy.

And it also revealed what many consider to be a critical gap in the island’s official community plan, which has no provisions for bylaws about sustainable forestry practices.

No one expects Texada to hold off on plans to make a return on its massive investment.

“All we can say is slow down, talk to us and listen to the community, and to some extent they are,” said Gary Holman, chairman of the South and West Conservation Partnership, who met with Kapler Friday. “While I think it is important to give them the benefit of the doubt (concerning public input) it is also up to the community to be clear on what (Salt Spring) wants (from the company).”

For now local groups are left to negotiate with a company well-known for its developments, including the Stump Lake Ranch in the Interior’s Nicola Valley.

“It is too early to tell whether their expressed concerns about ecological sensitivity is just window dressing. But we do have for the first time a tool that allows us to trade (residential) densities for a green agenda,” said trustee David Borrowman at Monday’s all-candidates meeting.

Borrowman was referring to the obvious end point of the entire Texada plan — a residential development in the Burgoyne Valley.

“We are in the process of developing a preliminary concept (for development) which we will present within the next couple of weeks,” Kapler said.

He also noted that Texada is trying to create some employment on Salt Spring.

E-mail the writer: Mike Levin