The Blog

Stoppress

The Government has offered the Creston Valley Forestry Corporation a Probationary Community Forest Agreement with an annual allowable cut of up to 15,000 cubic metres. It could be much less.

However, an area based tenure gives us much more elbow-room and flexibility to husband our timber resources. It also gives us a future -- the license is renewable every five years on approval of our forestry plan for the following five years.

Contrary to some people's opinion we were not founded simply to log the watershed safely, though this is one of our goals. We have a variety of objectives of which, important though it is, protecting water quality is only part.

Although we hope to make money, any profit does not accrue to the Corporation, but must be returned in some form to the community. In a sense, therefore we are a not for profit organization. Nor, if we have assets at the time of dissolution, should that occur, can any of these assets be distributed to the shareholders.

Note, too, that one of the shareholders (Wildsight, Creston Branch) has no financial interest in the Corporation making a profit other than environmental protection and improvment.

The Lower Kootenay Band has now elected not to be part of the enterprise.

After much discussion, we have been offered an area designated as defining us. This will be an important change in our status -- provided it goes through. So far (January 2008) there has been a small reconfiguration as you can see from the map. The main feature is the restoration of our area on Goat Mountain in exchange for the plan at Birch Creek and the securing of Russel Creek as part of our area. So far the progress of our negotiations has been slowed down by bureaucracy on the Kootenay Kinbasket side as well as on the Government, but we hope that we have now come to an area accepted by all.

Stop-Stoppress

Probationary Community Forest Agreement Application Update - Jim Smith reported that the final application for the PCFA has been approved by Minister Rich Coleman.

Response of our acceptance has been extended to May 30, 2008 since we are still negotiating with the MoF and Tembec for an agreement on how to amortize the road cost of the existing roads and a suitable harvest arrangement of the Russell Creek Area.

On April 23, 2008 Jim Smith, Daniel Gratton and Joe Snopek meet with Garry Beaudry of the Ministry of Forest and Tembec representatives to work on the agreement for phasing Tembec out of Russell Creek. An Option was outlined for the phase out (spreadsheet attached). The Forest Service has proposed that Tembec receive compensation through Bill 28 of the Forest Revitalization Act. Tembec would be compensated for hard assets to pay for their road and bridge costs.

See Option 1D

Summary of the CVFC Forest Stewardship Plan sent to the CVFC Board

The Creston Valley Forestry Corporation

Our Mission and Vision

The Creston Valley Forestry Corporation is dedicated to harvesting allocated volumes while protecting the integrity of other resources and enhancing the social, and economic benefits to the community.

It is our intention to encourage local value-added enterprise, to be self-sustaining without grants, and to leave the forest better than when we found it.

We are sensitive to non-timber resources such as flowers, medicinal herbs, and mushrooms, and we listen carefully to the advice of First Nations elders.

The ladyslipper orchid is found in our area -- but we won't tell you on the web where! However, it is a symbol of how careful logging can allow such flowers to flourish in the cutblocks.

Note that we are going to be a work safe business, and have applied to Forest Safe BC to guide us through the process

How we are governed

We have five stakeholders and five Directors at Large as follows:

• The Town of Creston
• The Regional District of Creston-Kootenay
• The Lower Kootenay Band
• The East Kootenay Environmental Society
• Creston Area Economic Development Council
• The stakeholders choose five people from amongst those people in the area who put their names forward.
    The Directors at Large hold term for a year at a time.

Our License terms

We are at present defined by volume, not area. We have been allocated cutblocks mainly on Goat Mountain and in Arrow Creek, and must cut 15,000m³ annually. Our term is for 15 years and is non-renewable.

It is our hope that we will eventually achieve and area-based tenure, which will give us more freedom and opportunity to improve overall advantage to the community in which we live.

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