...continued

We’ve talked about the systemic changes that are necessary, and many of which the BC NDP themselves have already acknowledged need to be done, to protect old-growth forests so they can continue to protect and support us. Throughout all that, we’ve called for a moratorium on old-growth logging.

End of part 1 of the presentation: below is a follow up letter:

The SOFT-CV team had the honour of presenting to you last night, in Parksville. We used the time slot that had been designated for Monica Hofer.

Mr. Gorley, you raised the question of Community Service Boards after Dave Weaver had talked about that in his systemic change section. Your question was how we saw those boards working. Some of us talked about it on the way home after our presentation and we had some further thoughts.

If the Community Service Boards worked like School Boards, people could run to be elected trustees. The bonds that Dave was talking about could fund that Community Service Board, and so it wouldn't be a drain on municipal resources. Dave talked about appurtenance and I think it fits with this perfectly. If appurtenant means a right or restriction which goes with ownership of private property, then attaching paying into a community bond as an appurtenance attached to private ownership of forest lands, or even Crown land which BCTS is taking wealth off of makes perfect sense. No one should be able to derive wealth from a community without some of that wealth going back into that community. That bond could pay for something like the Community Service Board. And those Community Service Boards could also have a mandate that First Nations be equally represented. Dave gave a great example of Haida Gwaii and, despite the billions of dollars in wealth that area has created, virtually NONE of it has accrued back to those communities.

The other thing that came to mind was Mr. Merkel's comment about integrated land management. Well, the US has the Bureau of Land Management. "The mission of the BLM is "to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations." Now, this is restricted to public lands, but as long as we're talking about transformational change, why couldn't it include private lands as well? It might be a model for BC to look at in terms of examining all possible uses of the land (whether logging, mining, dams, fracking, pipelines) within the lens of what is best for "present and future generations," rather than what is best for the corporate interests wanting to take wealth from that land.

Just some further thoughts to our conversation with you last night.