Late Item - Trustee Johnston Email re First Nations Woodland License

Extracted text (beginning)

From: Peter Johnston <pjohnston@islandstrust.bc.ca>  
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2021 7:33 PM 
To: Clare Frater <cfrater@islandstrust.bc.ca>; Dan Rogers <drogers@islandstrust.bc.ca>; David Marlor 
<dmarlor@islandstrust.bc.ca>; Julia Mobbs <jmobbs@islandstrust.bc.ca>; Laura Patrick 
<lpatrick@islandstrust.bc.ca>; Lori Foster <lfoster@islandstrust.bc.ca>; Peter Luckham 
<pluckham@islandstrust.bc.ca>; Russ Hotsenpiller <rhotsenpiller@islandstrust.bc.ca>; Sue Ellen Fast 
<sfast@islandstrust.bc.ca> 
Subject: FNWL on Lasqueti 
 
I mistakenly sent this email to you this morning from my personal email address. I am sending it again 
now from my Trust address.   
Hello Executive Committee members,  
 
In mid February the Lasqueti Trust Committee was informed that a First Nations Woodland License was 
in process of being granted to Snaw-naw-as First Nation, including two parcels of land on Lasqueti.  The 
letter is posted at https://lasqueti.ca/node/6759  
 
On February 17 I spoke with District Manager Rhonda Morris, who told me that she thought the process 
might be complete within about three months, which would make it something like the middle of May.  
 
I spoke at the time with SIPA Lisa Wilcox, who along with  DTAS Clare Frater, to some extent took up the 
issue with their contacts in the ministries.  
 
I asked that the Lasqueti Trust Committee call a special meeting to discuss ways it might be possible to 
achieve Reconciliation and also preserve and protect the forests on those two parcels.  
 
I know that the Islands Trust is required to honour our mandate to preserve and protect the unique 
amenities of the islands and their surroundings, and this certainly includes the forests, and especially the 
remaining forests of the Coastal Douglas-fir Zone, of which Lasqueti has the largest amount, still largely 
intact, though mostly quite heavily modified by logging more than 50 years ago.  
 
As far as I am aware, despite our mandate, nothing has been done or is being done by or within the 
Islands Trust to preserve the forests on the two parcels scheduled for inclusion in the Snaw-naw-as 
FNWL. If I am not correct, please let me know what is being done and what can be done to preserve as 
much CDF forest as possible.  
 
When a FNWL is granted, it will mandate industrial logging of the entire area of the license. If Snaw-naw-
as decide not to log parts of their license area, they will be required to over-cut on other areas, to reach 
the harvest targets that are set and agreed to by them and FLNRORD.  If there are ways to reduce the 
Annual Allowable Cut on the Lasqueti parcels to zero, Snaw-naw-as would al least not be required by 
FRNRORD to log it industrially.  
 
Thank you for doing whatever you can on this matter, to help make sure that the forests on Lasqueti 
remain as intact as possible.  
 
Peter Johnston   Lasqueti Island Local Trustee

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