by Cindy Gauthier As a part-time resident of Okeover Inlet, I am fortunate to be surrounded by good neighbours. Here, as is often found on the Sunshine Coast, people look out for each other and look out for the beautiful land we all share.
In my community on the west side of Okeover, we lost a neighbour in 2007 to the devastating illness of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). In his memory, his wife and friends began an annual ALS walk, to raise money for charity. Each year in April, over 100 people gather to walk Crowther Road, an eight-kilometre loop that goes from the Okeover Provincial Park to the end of Mariners Way and back. Crowther Road is now the subject of considerable worry in our community.
In 2011, Island Timberlands, the private corporation that owns the land west of Crowther Road, logged 60 hectares above the west bluff of Crowther Road. It agreed it would not log the steep slope immediately adjacent to the road. But times have changed. Now the company wishes to log the remaining band of forest that follows the road. It is a small strip of land, approximately two kilometres long, but most of the trees are on very steep terrain that cascades down to Crowther Road, and slopes further down to the inlet on the other side of the road where several members of our community live. We are worried for our residents’ safety as well as local damage to the environment.
A representative from Island Timberlands recently cited the corporation’s support of the ALS walk as an example of being a good neighbour in the community. It has allowed waste wood to be taken from its logged section and sold throughout the year for the ALS charity. But what the Island Timberlands’ representative did not say is it made this deal with the ALS group as long as 50 per cent of the profits were returned to the company.
It would be a stretch to consider this a fair cut even if the company had to handle all the work involved with allowing access to its land. But it is the ALS volunteers who provide access to the site, fill out the necessary paperwork and check to make sure firewood people comply with safety measures. To date, approximately $1,400 has been returned to Island Timberlands representatives, in cash, from the ALS charity. It is hard to imagine these dollars making a substantial difference to the company’s fiscal bottom line. When asked if it might consider donating its share of the money, or if it might be willing to make a separate donation to the ALS charity, Island Timberlands’ representative said “no.”
It is time for somebody in this company to pay attention to what its good neighbours are saying. Will the residents of our community be safe living below the steep slope of Crowther Road? Will Crowther Road be safe to walk for ALS in 2014, or to travel at all if logging on our road goes ahead as proposed?
Cindy Gauthier is a writer and an e-learning consultant. She lives in Vancouver and at Okeover Inlet.
