Update: On March 9, 2023, Trust Council voted with Jamie Harris. We disagree with that decision.
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In 2020, Trust Council asked the Province for the power to pass Tree Cutting bylaws and has yet to receive a response. Salt Spring Trustee, Jamie Harris wants Trust Council to withdraw the request because he says the Trust Area is already adequately protected. We disagree.
The purpose of the original request to the Province was to extend current municipal authority over tree bylaws to the Islands Trust, surely not unreasonable given the Islands Trust legislated purpose to preserve and protect the islands. Transferring the management of the islands’ forests from the Province to the Trust would considerably strengthen the Trust’s ability to meet its mandate, and would facilitate the remapping of development permit areas where logging needs to be regulated in the interest of fire mitigation, water conservation, soil erosion and climate change impacts.
Local management of our declining forest cover is a simple, effective and necessary response to our climate emergency. We checked with the Islands Trust Conservancy and just slightly over 23% (not 30% as has been claimed) of land in the Salt Spring Local Trust area is protected in some fashion, and not all of that land is forested. Many of the protected areas that are forested are not contiguous, some are small back-yard covenants.
Trust Council will vote on Thursday, March 9 on Trustee Harris’ motion. Please attend the Trust Council virtual Town Hall session on March 7 at 8:15 PM — details on how to log on here — and voice your concerns about this proposal that promotes the continued logging of Salt Spring and the entire Trust Area.
Positively Forward opposes Trustee Harris’s recommendation to rescind the Council’s 2020 request to the Province for jurisdiction over tree-cutting.