General News · 17th March 2024
sonya Friesen
It is concerning that the posting of an article asking people to comment on the upcoming rd. building into anvil watershed has led to some feeling a need to discredit those who have concerns. The post was just simply encouraging community input and included some of the reasons why we are concerned. Friends of Anvil lake post contained no misinformation and no disrespect was directed to either CFGP partners. We did think the Anvil rd. would be part of the next 5yr plan public meeting input process. The watershed boundary line was not drawn on the map. The watershed lines are from the BC gov. Fresh Water Atlas.
Above is a map showing bc gov data watersheds purple, bc gov data creeks thin blue, citizen GPS tracking of creeks thick blue, orange rd. For sure we all agree BC government data has many errors and missing data. But after walking the area many times the Anvil watershed data seems pretty accurate. Lidar mapping will help one day but for detail ground truthing will likely still be needed.
As to acknowledging that the CFGP only takes a small amount of the designated AAC, yes we are fully aware of this astounding achievement by the partnership. But do not forget it comes as a result of not only those who volunteer endless hours on the boards today but it also is a result of those who have stood up in the forests in the past from both from the Klahoose First Nation and the non indigenous communities. Some of us have done both, been on boards in the past and at other times stood up.
Over the past years of CFGP, planning has been influenced from community members continuing to voice input and this reflects in their success. Again we are only encouraging community to share thoughtful comments. CFGP for sure are not logging like big industry but when the Cortes Community Forest co-op CCFC side of the partnership feels the need to discredit voices of concern as misinformation it resembles big industrial logging big time.
I agree with Jeramie Ellingson take it easy everyone