The mayor of Clearwater says a meeting last night between residents and two forestry companies went about as expected.
Merlin Blackwell says things got a little heated at times, and he was not surprised to see some hostility towards staff from both Canfor and Interfor who were present.
“But there was also a lot of sort of rational thought and ideas brought forward at the meeting, including supporting community forests here in Clearwater which is quite a power house as far as the local economy and the local community is concerned, throwing about $6 million over the last three years into those local enterprises here and local charities,” he said.
Another meeting likely in early August will discuss what the future of forestry will look like in the North Thompson valley.
“The opportunity to vent happened last night, this is the opportunity to bring forward good ideas as far as added value products, secondary or extra use forests products that are out there like cedar oil or firewood or hemlock products that aren’t really being used right now,” added Blackwell.
He’s hoping to see people step up with their various ideas that can then be pitched to higher levels of government.
“And then that will also feed into the Forestry Expo that we are going to do here on September 21st so that we can basically form the agenda for a very detailed meeting on forestry future ideas here in Clearwater,” added Blackwell.
Also discussed at the meeting was how Interfor plans to lead the consultations around their $60 million acquisition of Canfor’s timber cutting rights in the Adams Lake area.
An invitation was extended for Forest Minister Doug Donaldson, who did not attend the meeting, but had ministry staff present.
Donaldson says the more legwork done by the Interfor, the better, as it plans to buy Canfor’s forest tenure.
“That’s the kind of meeting we want to see the proponents undertake with communities as part of our public interest consideration, so that’s good that that’s happening… I have been in contact with the mayor (Merlin Blackwell), I’ve talked with the mayor on several occasions around some of the mitigation efforts he’s suggesting.”
The province will decide whether to approve the sale of Canfor’s forest tenure, and Donaldson says the Ministry could ask Interfor to go back and do more consulting if needed under the newly-enacted Bill 22.
– with files from Colton Davies
