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Editorial: Right of trees

Did City of Powell River pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to Island Timberlands for trees that its partnership company with Tla’amin Nation already had rights to? That is the question this week as the city prepares the public release of legal adv

Did City of Powell River pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to Island Timberlands for trees that its partnership company with Tla’amin Nation already had rights to?

That is the question this week as the city prepares the public release of legal advice concerning its 2015 purchase of trees in upper Millennium Park.

The larger question, however, is who actually owns the trees on the rest of the PRSC Limited Partnership land adjacent to Brooks Secondary School?

The confusion stems over an acquisition by Island Timberlands of the tree-harvesting rights in that area after American forestry company Weyerhaeuser folded in 2005.

To investigate the situation, local resident Andrew Bryant sought the advice of Vancouver-based West Coast Environment Law. In a letter to PRSC, the environmental law and public-advocacy organization implores the city and Tla’amin to “assert its full legal rights” to find out exactly who owns the trees in the large parcel within Lot 450 that stretches between Townsite and Westview.

Although the letter states that it is unknown whether a harvesting plan was agreed to at the time, aerial satellite photos show patterns of logging that took place between September 1999 and April 2000 after Weyerhaeuser acquired the trees from former owner MacMillan Bloedel.

If Weyerhaeuser did engage in logging activity in the area, taking an estimated 25 per cent of the trees during harvesting, it could be argued that this exercised the one-time timber rights that were later transferred to Island Timberlands.

Also, since the logging activity took place more than 16 years ago, new tree growth can now be found on the parcel. In that case, it could be further argued that the younger trees that have grown since 2000 would not fall under Island Timberland’s current timber-rights license.

Certainly, a number of factors will have to be determined before PRSC could lay claim to the trees. Some of this will be made much clearer when the city releases its own legal advice. What is clear is how much these trees mean to the community.

If the trees do in fact belong to PRSC, will the city pursue getting back some of the taxpayers’ money it paid to Island Timberlands?

More importantly, if PRSC does have rights to other trees in that area outside of Millennium Park, will it explore the option of protecting them?

Jason Schreurs, publisher/editor