A cutting permit to allow First Nation harvest of 15,000 cubic metres of timber from an endangered Nanoose Bay ecosystem had not yet been issued as of yesterday.Snaw Naw As band manager, Brent Edwards, confirmed the detail in a phone interview but said work on formalizing roads and cut blocks is complete, adding, “we have every confidence that the document will be signed off ... we’ve negotiated with the province in good faith. To us it’s a logging operation.”

A logging operation, yes, but one that has raised considerable controversy given that much of the 150 hectare site off of Morello Road has basic attributes of the coastal Douglas fir moist maritime biogeoclimatic subzone (CDFmm). That confirmation comes from a Madrone Environmental Services report done for the Ministry of Forests in 2006, marking DL 33 as part of an ecosystem occurring only in B.C.’s Georgia Basin and Washington State’s San Juan Islands. It’s estimated only 0.3 per cent of B.C.’s total land base is comprised of CDFmm, one of the four most endangered ecosystems in Canada.

The Town of Qualicum Beach, the Regional District of Nanaimo and the Association of Vancouver Island Coastal Communities have all endorsed motions against allowing logging to proceed.

Edwards makes no apologies for the planned harvest that could begin any day now.

“People ask me if I feel guilty but I will not feel guilty when that guilt can be laid elsewhere; at the feet of all those who’ve logged before,” said Edwards. “Where is that CFDmm [designation] scientifically documented? Look around, everything is degrading ... For B.C. and Vancouver Island, the whole reason there is an economy has been based on resource extraction. We’ve never had any access to that.

“What I say to the neighbours and the RDN that are against this logging is why don’t they look at their statements and the companies they’ve invested in? It came off the backs of the First Nations that exist before and have not seen any benefit at all from resource extraction.”

Calls made over a two-day period to the Ministry of Forest and Range seeking an interview with Minister Pat Bell were not successful.

Edwards said Snaw Naw As First Nation has applied due diligence and followed the letter of the law in all its proceedings since negotiations began with the province about two years ago.

“The amount of provincial Crown land is very small,” he said. “The province gave us a couple of choices of where to log. After evaluating our opportunities we chose DL 33, a second growth forest that’s already been logged, based on the value of the timber.”

Edwards went on to say current plans by the Integrated Land Management Bureau to protect several coastal parcels of Douglas fir forest in a bid to prevent the ecosystem’s extinction does little to address First Nation’s treaty rights.

“We were not consulted fully on the Douglas coastal fir initiative as it covers our rights and title. These rights over time have been diminished because off all the fee simple properties out there.”

Critics of the proposed logging point to statements made in 2007 by the province’s chief forester indicating a provincial moratorium on CDFmm logging would be followed until legally-binding provisions for management of the endangered forests are in place.