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Squamish company will meet Sunshine Coast protestors in court

Black Mount Logging seeks injunction against activists blocking its timber operations
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Members of Elphinstone Logging Focus blocked a logging crew’s access to the area known as the Clack Creek Forest in Roberts Creek on Jan. 13.

Before heading to court against a local logging company, an organizer with a Sunshine Coast protest is calling Squamish’s Black Mount Logging “opportunistic.”

“It would be like a logging company from the Sunshine Coast going over to Squamish and logging a forest that’s right in your community that your own community and regional district have clearly stated that they want to see protected,” said Ross Muirhead of the environmentalist group Elphinstone Logging Focus.

The activists have been urging Black Mount Logging Inc. to stop trying to log in the Clack Creek Forest, which is located by Roberts Creek, between Gibsons and Sechelt. Elphinstone has set up a blockade and stopped the loggers from doing their jobs.

Black Mount Logging Inc. did not respond to The Chief’s requests for comment before press deadline.

However, court documents show the company is responding by asking for an injunction against the Elphinstone protesters. This would allow the company to get back to work. The two parties will meet in court on Jan. 28.

Black Mount said in a court application filed on Jan. 20 that the company has the right to harvest timber from the land.

“The [protesters] have, without any right or justification, obstructed and interfered with [Black Mount’s] existing timber harvesting rights,” reads the application, filed on Jan. 20.

“The [protesters] have no legal right to prevent [Black Mount’s] lawful access to the cutting authority area and to carry out activities on the cutting authority area it is lawfully entitled to carry out.”

However, Muirhead said that activists’ actions are in line with the Official Community Plan of the Sunshine Coast Regional District, or SCRD. It has dictated the area should be parkland. The OCP, he says, aims to extend the nearby Elphinstone Park to incorporate that forest.

“The OCP supports the expansion of Mount Elphinstone Park to the full 1,500 hectares originally requested for the lower elevations of the mountain to protect its many diverse habitats,” reads the SCRD OCP for the area.

Regional district planner Ian Hall told The Chief that judging from a map of the proposed expansion area, the Clack Creek Forest appears to fall within that zone. He did not say, however, that protester’s actions were consistent with the SCRD’s mandate.

Regional districts have no control over what becomes provincial park. Nevertheless, the SCRD’s chair maintains it should’ve been left untouched.

In an interview for Coast Reporter Radio last week, SCRD chair Lori Pratt said the board had asked the province not to sell cutting rights to Clack Creek and an area known as DL1313 in Elphinstone, which community members have argued should become a park.

“We’ve been told by our sources that Clack Creek is a done deal – it doesn’t matter what we say. Our official position was that it should be left [unlogged]. I don’t know if we have any more recourse on that,” Pratt said.

“No Sunshine Coast contractors bid on this [cut] block,” Muirhead told The Chief. “And there’s numerous ones around here that could’ve. We read that as: the local contractors were sensitive to the fact that our local level of government, the regional district, thinks that the highest and best use of this forest is to conserve it.”

Black Mount was the sole company that bid on cutblock A93884. It was awarded the right to harvest roughly 29,500 cubic metres of timber.

In the meantime, protesters continue the blockade, which started last week, keeping the company from harvesting trees in the area.

Muirhead said that both sides have been respectful in the standoff and no violence has occurred.

Black Mount says that the protesters have obstructed the company’s operations.

“The defendants, Hans Penner and Ross Muirhead attended at the site of TSL A93844 during active operations,” Black Mount’s court filing says. “Black Mount eventually ceased harvesting operations later that day out of safety concerns due to Ross Muirhead’s continued presence near the falling operations and his refusal to allow Black Mount personnel to continue harvesting unimpeded.”

The court filing goes on to claim that on Jan. 13, Muirhead and Penner and others “illegally blocked, obstructed and prevented the access of Black Mount and its fallers to the site … [and] the blockaders, and in particular defendant Muirhead, stated they would be there ‘for the duration.’”

The company claims it continues to suffer financial losses as a result of the ELF actions and is asking the court for an immediate injunction.

 

– With files from Sophie Woodrooffe

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