Gambier Island Local Trust Committee regular meeting, September 21, 2021

[0:00:00] Voice 3: Excellent. All right. So the first question for discussion today, what are the activities that are causing concern with regard to habitat and biodiversity loss in your local trust area?

[0:00:13] Voice 3: And if you want to raise your participant hand, I can call on speakers that way, or we can just, everyone can dive in.

[0:00:22] Voice 3: Trustee Wolverton, I think your hand is up.

[0:00:34] Voice 3: Nope.

[0:00:36] Voice 3: Trustee Wright, I see your hand.

[0:00:38] Voice 3: uh

[0:00:40] Voice 10: the most common complaint we receive is uh from uh property owners beginning their

[0:00:46] Voice 10: development and the first step they do is they clear the property lot line to lot line without

[0:00:53] Voice 10: even having plans for uh the building or development of the property um so they go

[0:00:59] Voice 10: in put in an access road clear the entire lot and then they start from there and so we'd like to

[0:01:04] Voice 10: to see some protection or some hindrance to them

[0:01:09] Voice 10: being allowed to do that until such times

[0:01:11] Voice 10: they at least get some idea of what they're going to do

[0:01:14] Voice 10: with the property because they're taking out

[0:01:17] Voice 10: a lot of trees, if it's waterfront,

[0:01:19] Voice 10: they're taking out a lot of trees close to the banks,

[0:01:22] Voice 10: which only encourages erosion.

[0:01:24] Voice 10: And some of those trees are endangered species

[0:01:26] Voice 10: and primarily it loses our hope of any contiguous CDF.

[0:01:34] Voice 10: so that's primarily trustee

[0:01:40] Voice 3: stanford um

[0:01:43] Trustee Stamford: yeah we um there's been a lot of development

[0:01:48] Trustee Stamford: so clearing is part of it um i i mean to be honest the biggest issue is is forestry so it's it

[0:02:00] Trustee Stamford: doesn't necessarily apply here but that is what our island is looking at is it's the amount of

[0:02:06] Trustee Stamford: of deforestation in our crown land.

[0:02:09] Trustee Stamford: And so, you know, that is the honest answer.

[0:02:15] Trustee Stamford: And then next is a recognition

[0:02:17] Trustee Stamford: of how development is impacting contiguous forest.

[0:02:24] Trustee Stamford: It's not seen as such an issue

[0:02:27] Trustee Stamford: because of our isolated communities.

[0:02:29] Trustee Stamford: It's hard to see the island as a whole,

[0:02:32] Trustee Stamford: but it's certainly, if you look at satellite,

[0:02:35] Trustee Stamford: like you can see that private clearing for development is is actually in the end a bigger

[0:02:44] Trustee Stamford: issue than the crown line clearing at this time so that could be part of it but i also see um

[0:02:52] Trustee Stamford: how there's just a no um no real way to um even things that are illegal like cutting a heron tree

[0:03:03] Trustee Stamford: tree there's just no way to enforce it it happens it's done and nobody knows about it until long

[0:03:10] Trustee Stamford: after so there's just no enforcement um which is another issue so that that's sort of how i'd look

[0:03:19] Trustee Stamford: at it

[0:03:21] Voice 8: let's see wolverton um

[0:03:26] Voice 4: okay and so some of you may know that uh galliano until the late 80s

[0:03:34] Voice 4: early 90s was 56 percent was a tree farm so it did get logged quite extensively and over periods

[0:03:43] Voice 4: of time so from the beginning of the 20th century on up until the 80s one parcel for example which

[0:03:52] Voice 4: is now the community forest was clear-cut and then donated to the community as part of a development

[0:04:00] Voice 4: development uh rezoning so like there are our forests are in in different stages of health

[0:04:09] Voice 4: we have uh quite a lot of land in the private managed forest uh land covered by the the pmfl

[0:04:17] Voice 4: and it's not necessarily being managed all that well um for some of them it's a it's sort of a

[0:04:27] Voice 4: attacks situation and people are not actively uh for you know practicing forestry some are

[0:04:36] Voice 4: and um but most i would say are not and we we uh we have some people who are doing very responsible

[0:04:44] Voice 4: sustainable logging and then we have still some people who have been clear cutting uh properties

[0:04:50] Voice 4: but i would agree that probably most of the cutting that's concerning is on on private land

[0:04:59] Voice 4: and as it is as part of development without a sense of how how that property fits in with the

[0:05:11] Voice 4: properties beside you know so if people are clearing at the lot line and then they're leaving

[0:05:15] Voice 4: the trees on the other lots and then then we have wind you know wind storms and it just weakens

[0:05:23] Voice 4: you know weakens the uh the forest um but i think there's also the issue of enforcement

[0:05:30] Voice 4: um you know we just dealt with a situation where someone a combination of windfall and clear

[0:05:39] Voice 4: cutting took down like 150 trees and they're replacing those trees but that's going to take

[0:05:47] Voice 4: a long time for that that part of that land to recover um so that's those are my comments for

[0:05:55] Voice 4: right now uh

[0:05:59] Voice 3: trustee scott and then trustee rogers yeah

[0:06:03] Voice 9: thank you i think the main thing

[0:06:04] Voice 9: on wormby is i think what steve said it's uh it's people but well on wormby there's a couple

[0:06:11] Voice 9: of examples of like large five acre lots and they're cleared from wall to wall right up to

[0:06:16] Voice 9: the road and it creates a wind issue a lot you know along the sides so you get a lot of blow

[0:06:22] Voice 9: down and it takes it doesn't take into account any kind of you know the little micro ecosystems

[0:06:27] Voice 9: that are around there where there might have there might be a place where cedars might have

[0:06:31] Voice 9: been able to grow because it was wet enough so it's all that kind of it's definitely the clear

[0:06:37] Voice 9: cutting cutting issue on uh not necessarily well smaller lots for sure i mean you see them all over

[0:06:45] Voice 9: where somebody buys a lot clears that wall to wall and then that builds a house in the middle

[0:06:50] Voice 9: and then it doesn't take into account erosion along banks and where the stream courses are

[0:06:54] Voice 9: or anything so it's it's kind of all of that um and there's you know i because of my background

[0:07:00] Voice 9: i drive around see this stuff all over the place and of course there's nothing we can do about it

[0:07:03] Voice 9: right so yeah and

[0:07:11] Trustee Rogers: um i'll be brief exactly what trustee wright and trustee scott both said um

[0:07:16] Trustee Rogers: it's exactly what's happening on keats plus i'll add in a sort of indiscriminate cutting of trees

[0:07:23] Trustee Rogers: to improve a view um that uh with no regard to um you know what kind of tree they're getting rid of

[0:07:31] Trustee Rogers: of, et cetera, and that happens with some regularity.

[0:07:35] Trustee Rogers: But I'd definitely say the bigger problem

[0:07:37] Trustee Rogers: is the one that Steve and Grant talked,

[0:07:42] Trustee Rogers: and all of you talked about,

[0:07:44] Trustee Rogers: which is the development issue of cut them all down,

[0:07:47] Trustee Rogers: don't worry about it later,

[0:07:49] Trustee Rogers: and without any regard to the ecosystem.

[0:07:55] Voice 3: Okay, so we're just a little bit over time.

[0:07:57] Voice 3: Not too bad so far.

[0:07:59] Voice 3: Question B asks specifically,

[0:08:02] Voice 3: would you envision an authority

[0:08:03] Voice 3: that focuses upon protected species of trees,

[0:08:06] Voice 3: big trees, area-based contiguous areas protection,

[0:08:10] Voice 3: large lots or small lots.

[0:08:13] Voice 3: Trustee Wright.

[0:08:17] Voice 7: Let me just add the, all of the above.

[0:08:23] Voice 3: Okay, Trustee Wolverton.

[0:08:32] Voice 8: You're muted Trustee Wolverton.

[0:08:36] Voice 4: I think one of the things that we're really missing

[0:08:40] Voice 4: in the whole area and in the province

[0:08:42] Voice 4: is really good education about the role of trees the role of forests how what happens when you take

[0:08:51] Voice 4: one tree down or 10 trees down and and i i think we need to get a lot more of that out

[0:08:58] Voice 4: into the community trustee

[0:09:04] Voice 3: stanford yeah

[0:09:06] Trustee Stamford: i think great to pull any one of these out would be a

[0:09:11] Trustee Stamford: So all of the above. I just want to add that Gambier recently passed with their RAR work is we expanded it to all wetland ecosystems, any water course, not just riparian area.

[0:09:30] Trustee Stamford: and the idea was to try and protect those those areas that have special trees around our water

[0:09:39] Trustee Stamford: courses we do have a lot of water courses so it the essential um rationales that would it would

[0:09:46] Trustee Stamford: help support the bigger trees the cedars the trees that are in around the creeks um i can't say that

[0:09:55] Trustee Stamford: it's working yet and again it's a question of enforcement um that we know that people

[0:10:00] Trustee Stamford: are going into those areas and cutting but there's no way to know nobody's around to

[0:10:06] Trustee Stamford: to see them taking it down so um all of the above but there are you know we have a development

[0:10:12] Trustee Stamford: permit area that is helping to some extent at least that was the intent of how we worded it

[0:10:19] Trustee Stamford: was to to provide contiguous forest uh cover around the wetland areas and trustee scott

[0:10:31] Voice 9: i i agree that it's all of the above but i think that you know the ones that i see are most

[0:10:38] Voice 9: important aren't on here i mean small lots large lots that's kind of a but really it's that whole

[0:10:42] Voice 9: ecosystem-based management thing it's it's looking at the water courses erosion banks where the water

[0:10:49] Voice 9: is where you know the different species of trees that should be in different places

[0:10:54] Voice 9: and on our property here one thing i always do is leave all the dead trees because that's where

[0:10:59] Voice 9: the woodpecker you know you go around you hear the woodpeckers in there you hear all this kind

[0:11:03] Voice 9: of stuff we got a an eagle nest um on a big old that's a second world fur actually so we got all

[0:11:09] Voice 9: these things going on and i make sure that we just don't do anything where i mean if there's

[0:11:14] Voice 9: There's owls nests out there.

[0:11:16] Voice 9: There's all these things going on.

[0:11:18] Voice 9: There's a big old maple tree with a dead top on it.

[0:11:20] Voice 9: I think the owls are nesting up there.

[0:11:23] Voice 9: So we just delicately go around all this stuff.

[0:11:25] Voice 9: Now, sort of, I think it gets down to this whole idea of forest management.

[0:11:31] Voice 9: You haven't heard the word here, reforestation yet.

[0:11:33] Voice 9: And planting trees and how you can regenerate stuff

[0:11:36] Voice 9: should be just about as important as where you cut it.

[0:11:39] Voice 9: And that's not a focus here so far.

[0:11:41] Voice 9: And I didn't see it as a focus in that other bylaw.

[0:11:43] Voice 9: So I think ecosystem management, reforestation, and whoever mentioned the education thing, that's absolutely critical because people just shouldn't generalize, but people come from the city and they don't think about trees and where they are and how they're part of where you live and all the rest of the stuff I just mentioned.

[0:12:01] Voice 9: So I think that's really important.

[0:12:03] Voice 9: So those are certainly issues that I hope any local bylaw we do will take those into account.

[0:12:11] Trustee Stamford: Can I just jump in?

[0:12:12] Trustee Stamford: And I think it's interesting you said that about the city people as anecdotally, we have people coming to our island that are far more invested in keeping their trees.

[0:12:26] Trustee Stamford: And that it's the longtime owners that see the trees more as a threat and have been through the winters, been through the fire seasons and see them more as a resource.

[0:12:38] Trustee Stamford: So that's a generalization, but I have to say that the new groups of people coming in,

[0:12:44] Trustee Stamford: especially in my area which has a tight little new development going on,

[0:12:51] Trustee Stamford: they are asking to keep their trees. So you know that is actually a bit of good news.

[0:13:00] Voice 3: Any last thoughts before we move on?

[0:13:04] Trustee Rogers: I'll just say I don't know enough to talk about what species should be protected,

[0:13:09] Trustee Rogers: Other than what I know from CDF, I'd be, I sort of am attracted to III, although I agree that all four of them are important.

[0:13:20] Trustee Rogers: So all of the above, but it seems to me that if we're talking about ecosystems, et cetera, that we talk about non-fragmentation would be one way we could do that.

[0:13:33] Trustee Rogers: Interestingly, obviously different people are moving to Gambier than Keats, because that's not my experience, although it's a mixed bag, I'd say.

[0:13:43] Voice 9: I shouldn't have generalized about city folks. I'm sorry, I'll take that one back.

[0:13:50] Voice 10: We always assume they're either in the Navy or from Saskatchewan.

[0:13:53] Voice 10: one

[0:13:53] Voice 8: all right

[0:13:59] Voice 3: we'll move on to question c which is looking at scope would you envision a bylaw

[0:14:04] Voice 3: that applies to your entire local trust area or to select areas only trustee right

[0:14:13] Voice 6: entire

[0:14:14] Voice 6: pure and simple

[0:14:18] Voice 4: trustee wolverton uh yes i mean we have a dpa a tree cutting dpa and

[0:14:25] Voice 4: that covers all of galliano um but the the enforcement of it the understanding of it is

[0:14:34] Voice 4: is not uh as good as i would like i

[0:14:45] Trustee Stamford: i think it really depends on how it's how it's worded um

[0:14:50] Trustee Stamford: and again most of our islands like anvil and gambier are crownland so it doesn't affect those

[0:14:57] Trustee Stamford: those areas even if we covered it but if it was like for specific trees or for big trees I think

[0:15:05] Trustee Stamford: that that would be realistic for the whole island uh for contiguous areas I'm just not sure how we

[0:15:12] Trustee Stamford: would monitor that

[0:15:15] Voice 3: trustee Scott yeah

[0:15:19] Voice 9: we we have two very large subdivisions where they're they're

[0:15:23] Voice 9: all half acre lots and uh so I I can see that there'd be a separate set of bylaws for the small

[0:15:30] Voice 9: lots and then the larger ones that are zoned but i think definitely that the entire area should be

[0:15:38] Voice 9: covered by something we got a lot of alr land we got a lot of probably through the island's crown

[0:15:44] Voice 9: land so that's gone elr's land is gone so i think there's two or three and wherever there's riparian

[0:15:50] Voice 9: that should be covered by rar anyway so there's i think there's probably three or four different

[0:15:55] Voice 9: forest designations we could develop on the island that would have different

[0:16:01] Voice 9: rules under each one of them for application so i i could certainly see it developing that way

[0:16:06] Voice 9: because that's the way kind of ecosystem based and that's the way you get the

[0:16:12] Voice 9: contiguous type of protection when you go from one size of a lot to another

[0:16:17] Voice 9: just the way i would see it it

[0:16:22] Voice 10: would have to be uh specific to each island i think because

[0:16:25] Voice 10: on our island if you take out the national parks and take out the pmfls take out the alr lands

[0:16:30] Voice 10: which are with the majority of our large properties the only areas that are left are

[0:16:34] Voice 10: rural residential and those are the ones that concern most of the people but that's south

[0:16:39] Voice 10: bender and it's certainly not the same as on north bender and it wouldn't be the same as on

[0:16:43] Voice 10: any other island so it'd have to be i'd let when i say entire i would say the entire area that's

[0:16:48] Voice 10: not affected or not able to be controlled by

[0:16:50] Voice 10: by law but that's i assume

[0:16:54] Voice 9: i was only talking about

[0:16:57] Voice 8: i'm just

[0:16:58] Trustee Stamford: thinking is there a way like one of the things that i've noticed is as the big

[0:17:06] Trustee Stamford: subdivisions come in and and we have real residential so we've got large lots the way

[0:17:13] Trustee Stamford: those subdivisions have been created is clean everything off um and that particular developer

[0:17:20] Trustee Stamford: is renowned for it it's got the most beautiful roads and the most beautiful views but literally

[0:17:26] Trustee Stamford: every blade of grass is taken off is there a way of then looking at future developments for again

[0:17:33] Trustee Stamford: for our island where subdivision big subdivisions are still possible that at that point

[0:17:42] Trustee Stamford: those restrictions are put in that you cannot clean off those areas in preparation for

[0:17:49] Trustee Stamford: subdivision so i'm wondering if those the regulations could be focused in that way at

[0:17:53] Trustee Stamford: the subdivision level um and again for our island it's that's where further issues could be so we

[0:18:01] Trustee Stamford: we've got a three million dollar 80 acre piece coming up now um which could you know depending

[0:18:09] Trustee Stamford: depending on who buys it, could be just completely cleaned off.

[0:18:16] Trustee Rogers: The answer to your question is yes, of course.

[0:18:18] Trustee Rogers: You can either downzone or you can put in particular zoning,

[0:18:21] Trustee Rogers: or if you get a tree cutting bylaw that you had to do with it,

[0:18:25] Trustee Rogers: or if they need to rezone,

[0:18:29] Trustee Rogers: then you can demand a section 219 or some sort of a covenant to deal with it.

[0:18:34] Trustee Rogers: So there are ways to do it,

[0:18:35] Trustee Rogers: but the problem is if the zoning is already in place,

[0:18:38] Trustee Rogers: unless you change the zoning, then you've got a problem,

[0:18:41] Trustee Rogers: because then they're entitled to their subdivision and and that becomes the difficulty

[0:18:46] Voice 8: yeah so yeah

[0:18:49] Trustee Rogers: so um and so just i i don't have anything new to add about about this is i agree with what uh

[0:18:56] Trustee Rogers: trustee scott said we made my islands entirely different from christie stamford and so are all

[0:19:02] Trustee Rogers: the other islands in our area because there's no crown land on most of them and except for south

[0:19:07] Trustee Rogers: Thornby, I guess. And so it's all private land, but different sizes and different considerations

[0:19:15] Trustee Rogers: would come into play. So yes, I would think the entire island, but trying to tailor it to

[0:19:23] Trustee Rogers: the many small locks versus the big locks.

[0:19:30] Voice 3: Trustee Scott, your hand is still up. I think

[0:19:32] Voice 3: it was from uh when you spoke previously yeah yeah

[0:19:38] Voice 3: thank you okay so question d uh says if

[0:19:43] Voice 3: your local trust area and the region implemented a regulatory authority for trees how would you

[0:19:48] Voice 3: measure success that's a big question trustee right visually

[0:19:59] Voice 7: if it stops it worked i guess

[0:20:05] Voice 4: you could also you know look at some of the um the google mapping you know like you could you could

[0:20:12] Voice 4: register a percentage of of tree cover and over time you know see whether that decreased or

[0:20:20] Voice 4: increased i'll

[0:20:26] Trustee Rogers: just say that another way is if um is sort of species monitoring and if species that

[0:20:32] Trustee Rogers: are endangered start to recover uh you're starting to see more marbled mural it's like the one that's

[0:20:39] Trustee Rogers: in our area or whatever the whatever the species is if they're starting to recover

[0:20:43] Trustee Rogers: and you're starting then that's another sort of indication that it's that it's

[0:20:48] Trustee Rogers: been a bit of a success yeah

[0:20:50] Voice 10: for sure i

[0:20:52] Voice 4: also think if if um there's a it becomes the norm

[0:20:58] Voice 4: in the community that people understand how important it is to to protect the trees and

[0:21:03] Voice 4: to protect the forest i mean i don't know how you would measure that exactly but if that becomes

[0:21:08] Voice 4: more of the the the discussion or the narrative in

[0:21:14] Voice 7: the body that

[0:21:15] Voice 9: awareness thing is really

[0:21:18] Voice 9: interesting and i think it's sort of subliminal to all of this stuff but i remember a couple of times

[0:21:23] Voice 9: uh there's a uh it's an old commune actually there's 80 80 uh hate loss not even good grief

[0:21:30] Voice 9: hate lots and the people were really split as to whether anybody should be taking firewood

[0:21:34] Voice 9: off or not about half the community didn't want to take firewood the other half did the ones who

[0:21:38] Voice 9: were living here did no one's i'm not going to use my generality again because somebody's going

[0:21:43] Voice 9: to say it doesn't that generality doesn't work so i won't use it but so anyway i went over there

[0:21:48] Voice 9: forester and um i went out with the people that were there and we did about a page and a half

[0:21:53] Voice 9: little forest management plan that said you know this is the forested area you've got which is

[0:21:58] Voice 9: about so many hectares and that amount of area in this if you plant trees and replace the trees

[0:22:05] Voice 9: will grow about this much per year so if you cut this much firewood and you take out the diseased

[0:22:10] Voice 9: trees and they're dying blah blah blah first you will have a sustainable forest and you know they

[0:22:15] Voice 9: adopted that the whole community did and it was very very simple and it was i was amazed at how

[0:22:22] Voice 9: people and we i did it again for another group of people so that kind of awareness and education

[0:22:27] Voice 9: and just going out walking around people in the bush and saying you know you can take this one

[0:22:31] Voice 9: but don't take that one it's really uh not that complicated but that whole awareness thing you

[0:22:37] Voice 9: know the others just without belaboring visually obviously what you see and how you feel about it

[0:22:42] Voice 9: but water i mean if if if we get the sense that the forests are we're leaving them in a state

[0:22:48] Voice 9: that's going to protect the water because that's a monstrous issue on harm you know all the people

[0:22:52] Voice 9: that came in the summer i've never heard so many people say their wells went dry in july and august

[0:22:57] Voice 9: And I think another measurable objective is the number of trees that are planted.

[0:23:02] Voice 9: You know, if you have a program where people are out there doing this and actively planting trees, and we've got this little Trees for Tomorrow project, and people really feel good about that and getting some trees.

[0:23:13] Voice 9: And it's amazing that in itself is a little awareness program.

[0:23:16] Voice 9: It's really worked quite well at Burnby.

[0:23:18] Voice 9: And Jane, I don't know how well it's worked on your island, but it's not complicated.

[0:23:24] Voice 9: It's actually quite simple.

[0:23:26] Voice 9: so i'll just leave it at that the species issue is huge because of global warming and everything

[0:23:31] Voice 9: in fact on this basically it's cedar and balsam you see they're dying off so yeah and arbutus

[0:23:42] Voice 9: arbutus as well yeah it's funny i haven't seen that here so much

[0:23:49] Voice 3: i'll just acknowledge trustee thorn has joined us so we now have a complete group welcome trustee

[0:23:54] Voice 3: thorn uh if there's no other comments on question d i'll move us on to question e

[0:24:02] Voice 3: okay question e is asking what would be acceptable exemptions to a tree cutting bylaw

[0:24:12] Voice 4: well i think danger trees trees that are affecting that that are could fall on a person's home

[0:24:22] Voice 4: um and what else did i have um there's we've been doing quite a lot of fire smart um

[0:24:30] Voice 4: assessments on Galliano and luckily we're doing them with someone who's also a QEP so that we're

[0:24:43] Voice 4: we're looking at not just sort of clear-cutting 10 meters around the house but actually looking at

[0:24:49] Voice 4: what should come out what can stay and so there is the the issue of fire smart for sure but doing it

[0:24:56] Voice 4: in in this in this coastal context and with um with with the ground cover that we have

[0:25:05] Voice 4: and and trying to make sure that we protect them well

[0:25:10] Voice 10: the tip a tip to the hat to uh galliano

[0:25:12] Voice 10: because um i just went through the shoreline dpa and the exclusions that they had for tree

[0:25:17] Voice 10: cutting there i thought was very reasonable and complete i also thought that what russ mentioned

[0:25:22] Voice 10: through the chosen list seemed very reasonable

[0:25:26] Voice 10: and complete as well.

[0:25:27] Voice 10: So I'd be prepared to follow that advice.

[0:25:31] Voice 10: I thought that was pretty good.

[0:25:36] Voice 3: If I

[0:25:38] Trustee Rogers: get to say something,

[0:25:38] Trustee Rogers: put a little bit of this in context,

[0:25:40] Trustee Rogers: I took the opportunity to go read section eight

[0:25:42] Trustee Rogers: of the community charter

[0:25:43] Trustee Rogers: and then section 50 of the community charter,

[0:25:45] Trustee Rogers: which is kind of eye-opening.

[0:25:49] Trustee Rogers: And so what it provides is that the basic standard

[0:25:53] Trustee Rogers: is if you put a tree cutting bylaw in

[0:25:55] Trustee Rogers: or a bylaw that deals with trees or forests,

[0:25:59] Trustee Rogers: however you want to define it,

[0:26:01] Trustee Rogers: the presumption is that you will continue to allow

[0:26:06] Trustee Rogers: whatever use of the land and density

[0:26:08] Trustee Rogers: is prescribed in your other bylaws.

[0:26:12] Trustee Rogers: However, you can go on and say,

[0:26:15] Trustee Rogers: no, you can't because of this bylaw.

[0:26:18] Trustee Rogers: However, then you're into the issues of

[0:26:20] Trustee Rogers: you've got to provide variances or VPs

[0:26:23] Trustee Rogers: or compensation for the loss of value of the land.

[0:26:26] Trustee Rogers: But the basic presumption is you're going to continue to allow the density

[0:26:31] Trustee Rogers: or the use that was prescribed in your bylaws.

[0:26:34] Trustee Rogers: So it's sort of a bit of a mixed bag.

[0:26:37] Trustee Rogers: I generally sort of think that my sense is that a bylaw would be considerably reasonable.

[0:26:47] Trustee Rogers: I'm sort of trying to think of pragmatics that it does allow to continue to use the densities,

[0:26:52] Trustee Rogers: but you do the opposite.

[0:26:54] Trustee Rogers: You sort of don't do the cut everything down

[0:26:56] Trustee Rogers: and then we'll put our density on.

[0:26:58] Trustee Rogers: You figure out what your density

[0:26:59] Trustee Rogers: in your house is going to be

[0:27:00] Trustee Rogers: and then you apply for your permit to cut the trees down

[0:27:03] Trustee Rogers: and the exemptions would be to allow you to do

[0:27:06] Trustee Rogers: what is otherwise allowed under the legislation.

[0:27:09] Trustee Rogers: So that's sort of to my way of thinking where I'm headed,

[0:27:13] Trustee Rogers: although I could see even a more restrictive thing

[0:27:16] Trustee Rogers: in certain cases.

[0:27:18] Trustee Rogers: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[0:27:21] Voice 3: Trustee Scott.

[0:27:23] Voice 9: I think that certainly danger trees uh identifying exactly what that means

[0:27:30] Voice 9: throwing up over a hydro line or I mean one thing I've done around here is I

[0:27:36] Voice 9: basically any tree that can fall on the house is gone I mean it's just the way the winds we get

[0:27:43] Voice 9: here you know in the middle of the gulf we had a we had it blew 51 knots here the other night

[0:27:47] Voice 9: you know i didn't anyway they're they're gone and uh i think it's good doing that right when

[0:27:54] Voice 9: you build a house but anyway um i mean people people do get firewood right and and uh do we

[0:28:00] Voice 9: want to stop people from going out and getting uh two or three quarters of firewood for the winter

[0:28:06] Voice 9: probably not how we define how you get it where you get it's the issue of course

[0:28:10] Voice 9: and and somebody who's willing to put together um a little management plan that says this is

[0:28:15] Voice 9: what i want to do over time and here's what i'm going to do to where i want to go and and what

[0:28:20] Voice 9: about someone who wants to run a small sawmill you know i mean those things can be very productive

[0:28:25] Voice 9: on an island if you're if it's all used for local there's a couple of sawmills on hermitage what

[0:28:31] Voice 9: people do right they they go and get logs off the beach they wherever they can get it from and it's

[0:28:37] Voice 9: really a good little venture and they generally don't sell them with this you know it goes into

[0:28:43] Voice 9: to that island bartering system so that's kind of a nice way of forest management so i don't know

[0:28:47] Voice 9: those are the kind of things that we'd want to look at that we'd want to say um if you do that

[0:28:53] Voice 9: those things then um you know we'll it'll be very minimal or the restrictions will i think it's all

[0:28:59] Voice 9: it boils down to some kind of a writing something up that's an agreement about what you want to do

[0:29:04] Voice 9: and having to get signed up by somebody that yeah i'll just leave it at that yeah

[0:29:11] Trustee Stamford: that i mean you

[0:29:12] Trustee Stamford: you brought up a good point about those sawmills because we also have the

[0:29:17] Trustee Stamford: little mills,

[0:29:18] Trustee Stamford: none of which are legally placed because we don't have industrial zones.

[0:29:23] Trustee Stamford: But what they're doing is the side effect of those little mills is yes,

[0:29:28] Trustee Stamford: they create a certain level of economy or bartering system,

[0:29:32] Trustee Stamford: but people then target their Douglas fir and they target their big healthy

[0:29:38] Trustee Stamford: trees because that's where the money is.

[0:29:40] Trustee Stamford: and that's what the tree the houses are being built on they're not being built of

[0:29:44] Trustee Stamford: crappy old arbutus um so it there's that end of it as well and we are losing our douglas our big

[0:29:53] Trustee Stamford: trees because of that um i don't know what a tree goes for i mean some people are

[0:30:00] Trustee Stamford: talking tens of thousands of dollars for one Douglas fir.

[0:30:05] Trustee Stamford: So it really is an economic driver to take these big trees out.

[0:30:12] Voice 9: I guess on Hornby it's different because the larger trees,

[0:30:16] Voice 9: people don't really want them.

[0:30:18] Voice 9: The big old growths that are left are there for a reason.

[0:30:21] Voice 9: Most of them are diseased or they've got something wrong.

[0:30:24] Voice 8: Yeah.

[0:30:25] Voice 8: They've got

[0:30:25] Voice 8: missiles

[0:30:27] Voice 9: going on them or something.

[0:30:28] Voice 9: but it targets that it's sort of that but mostly all the wood on herby really goes it's from

[0:30:35] Voice 9: land clearing and nobody goes out logging to get a tree to put in their sawmill there's so much

[0:30:41] Voice 9: development going on that i just don't it's just not what it's coming from but that may be different

[0:30:46] Voice 9: on other islands i'm not sure i'll

[0:30:50] Voice 3: just jump in let everyone know we've got uh seven minutes left

[0:30:53] Voice 3: for three questions uh trustee thorn does have his hand raised i'll let him speak as he was late

[0:30:57] Voice 3: joining sorry

[0:30:58] Voice 1: about that um yeah just i mean kind of back to what dan was saying about what's in the

[0:31:02] Voice 1: community charter um i'm sorry i was late to join this thing but i the other thing is sort of

[0:31:08] Voice 1: compensation trees i i know um maybe it's a bit more of an urban example sometimes when you when

[0:31:14] Voice 1: you try and plan where your house is going to be and some of the other buildings you might find

[0:31:18] Voice 1: that there's there's trees that uh and you know you've got this topography to work with and all

[0:31:23] Voice 1: places where you can deal with septic systems where you can so you might find that there are

[0:31:27] Voice 1: trees that have to be removed i i wonder about uh about whether there would be some kind of

[0:31:34] Voice 1: offsetting thing so if you removed a certain number of trees there would be a requirement

[0:31:37] Voice 1: to replant a certain number of trees and again that's more of an urban thing but we do that in

[0:31:42] Voice 1: the city all the time when we're doing real estate developments um oftentimes there's a two-to-one

[0:31:48] Voice 1: replacement that we do i'm not saying that that's what should be here but it's something that

[0:31:52] Voice 1: something to think about and and i know and again sorry for missing the first part of this but in

[0:31:56] Voice 1: terms of um um you know big to me the big trees are the ones you do want to protect i don't know

[0:32:01] Voice 1: whether i mean i don't know i'm not an arborist but certainly the big trees on my property look

[0:32:05] Voice 1: pretty darn healthy the problem that i found is at least on south pender um back in could have been

[0:32:11] Voice 1: the 40s or the 50s a lot of trees were you know the trees were fairly extensive the land was was

[0:32:16] Voice 1: logged and then there was never really any forest management done so you've got a a lot of trees

[0:32:22] Voice 1: that have grown up over time and they are uh not necessarily well placed and so they're crowding

[0:32:28] Voice 1: each other out so i you know you have to look at it in a on a case-by-case by case basis but you

[0:32:34] Voice 1: think that if you could have somebody in there to give some guidance as to sort of how to thin

[0:32:38] Voice 1: trees out would be a good idea too okay

[0:32:44] Voice 3: i'm going to move us along to question f uh given that a new

[0:32:49] Voice 3: regulatory process would need to be implemented are you in favor of additional resources including

[0:32:54] Voice 3: forestry expertise be added to the island's trust i suspect the response might be it depends how

[0:33:00] Voice 3: much but we'll see what you all have to say trustee wolverton i'm in favor

[0:33:15] Voice 3: and trustee rogers uh

[0:33:18] Trustee Rogers: i don't know how you do it without it so i mean we just just heard uh

[0:33:23] Trustee Rogers: trustee thorn talk about you know giving advice and saying yes you can i know you can't or this

[0:33:28] Trustee Rogers: is what you should do well how do we do without some expertise that's that's part ours either

[0:33:33] Trustee Rogers: that or you're back completely to a professional reliance model and making the landowner pay for

[0:33:38] Trustee Rogers: that so um which may not be the may have to happen anyway but uh i think we need some got

[0:33:45] Trustee Rogers: some professional guidance like we're getting with water

[0:33:47] Voice 3: you're right i

[0:33:50] Voice 10: think grant is filling

[0:33:51] Voice 10: out a job application as we speak so i'd have to support it

[0:33:55] Voice 9: i don't want to do that

[0:33:58] Voice 9: okay i'll

[0:34:03] Voice 3: keep that one short so we can make up some time we'll move on to question g

[0:34:06] Voice 3: we

[0:34:07] Voice 9: just got a yes on that i mean

[0:34:10] Voice 3: that's what i heard how

[0:34:12] Voice 9: it's done and who and all that stuff at

[0:34:13] Voice 9: all yeah so

[0:34:16] Voice 3: question g what would be some benefits of such a regulatory power in connection with

[0:34:20] Voice 3: wildfire risk resiliency and healthy forests?

[0:34:30] Voice 10: Well I mean I

[0:34:31] Voice 10: think what Cameron just spoke about is the thinning out of some of the

[0:34:37] Voice 10: what is commonly inappropriately perhaps termed as pecker trees is to get rid of some of the

[0:34:44] Voice 10: tall thin ones that all they do is bunch up the understory and create nothing but fuel because

[0:34:51] Voice 10: because eventually they don't get enough light and die off and fall apart.

[0:34:56] Voice 10: And so I think that's one of the biggest benefits to the risk of wildfire, for sure.

[0:35:05] Voice 8: Interesting.

[0:35:05] Voice 8: Well,

[0:35:07] Voice 9: I think the whole issue around protection of hydro lines and road right-of-ways,

[0:35:14] Voice 9: I mean, our power is already going out once this year, and it's going to go up six or eight.

[0:35:19] Voice 9: It's just going to get more and more global warming.

[0:35:21] Voice 9: the winds get stronger the temperatures you know everything's and the whole thing about water

[0:35:26] Voice 9: there's nothing protects the forest when i walk up starting and here and i just walk up the back

[0:35:31] Voice 9: of our place through the forest there's some paths back there the temperature drops and you can feel

[0:35:36] Voice 9: the moisture you know even going up when it's when it's warm when it's hot so that effect on

[0:35:43] Voice 9: on climate change and temperatures of a forest forest cover and shade and all the rest of it

[0:35:50] Voice 9: it's huge so i think on the wildfire issues there certainly on water protection trees are very

[0:35:56] Voice 9: valuable protecting hydro lines and roads and all the rest of it so i think the um the benefits are

[0:36:03] Voice 9: i mean that's why we're talking about it right now really so and just the visual pleasure of it

[0:36:11] Voice 9: right i mean let's not forget the aesthetics i

[0:36:16] Trustee Stamford: i'm thinking that anything that we do i mean

[0:36:19] Trustee Stamford: it is a benefit but it's got to come in context of a really robust uh education communication

[0:36:26] Trustee Stamford: program uh i almost want to put more money into that than um regulatory um because they fit

[0:36:35] Trustee Stamford: together so well when we're talking about it's starting to make sense to people climate change

[0:36:41] Trustee Stamford: water forest they all connect up and and we have this opportunity to to really drive those points

[0:36:48] Trustee Stamford: it's home now um to make that difference so that people are taking this into their own hands more

[0:36:56] Trustee Stamford: and more as they recognize what the connections are yeah

[0:37:01] Voice 9: i think that's a really valuable point

[0:37:03] Voice 9: because that's a you've heard me mention it before with this little trees for tomorrow project

[0:37:07] Voice 9: and you have an army of people love it they just plant a half a dozen trees and you know and you

[0:37:12] Voice 9: plant some dairy oaks and you plant here what people they know that these are really valuable

[0:37:18] Voice 9: able species and they and they see what's going on the more you talk about it and people are always

[0:37:22] Voice 9: asking people why are the trees dying off you know and you and uh we've got we've got um trees in the

[0:37:30] Voice 9: nursery down the corner by the co-op and people are going in there and buying the trees they're

[0:37:34] Voice 9: buying then they're going by mason bee houses and then they're going by woodpecker houses and all

[0:37:40] Voice 9: this other stuff so it's all part of that educational thing and people really respond

[0:37:43] Voice 9: respond well to that kind of stuff and the Conservancy picks up on it pushes it so you know

[0:37:49] Voice 9: it takes on a thing of its own yeah it's quite quite encouraging.

[0:37:55] Voice 3: So I think the request was

[0:37:57] Voice 3: that we return to the main session at 10 to 5 I think I heard that correctly that means that we're

[0:38:02] Voice 3: out of time for our last question so I'll just read it out for the benefit of the public the

[0:38:08] Voice 3: question was how could this authority assist with culturally modified tree protection in your local

[0:38:13] Voice 3: trust area so there's a question to think about and you can certainly

[0:38:17] Voice 3: trustees here members of public submit your thoughts for the notes that will be

[0:38:21] Voice 3: reviewed by executive committee otherwise we should return to the main

[0:38:25] Voice 3: session thanks

[0:38:26] Voice 7: Julia thanks good

[0:38:28] Voice 3: job thank you