Hi everyone.
I’ve had lots of discussions lately on www.alberni.ca about TFL44 and all the terrible forest practices going on on lands that have been deleted from the TFL. This is what I’ve found.
What I’m trying to find out is… are the lands granted to Robert Dunsmuir for the E&N the “private” lands and were those incorporated into TFL44?
The answer is yes. And as they were under TFL44… they were then under the management guidelines of all TFLs, which is the crux of the Hupacasath argument on consultation with stakeholders. Whether they were originally public or private lands is irrevelant at that point as all lands under TFLs were treated the same… the lawsuit now brought forward deals with a possible Conflict of Interest when the BC Government deleted the lands from the TFL and they were taken by companies part owned by BC Pension Plan investments.
Here is a current map of the South Island Forest District (PDF, 4MB, locallink, original)
This is a big link/PDF… so I have taken a screenshot of the relevant part, Port Alberni is roughly in the Center, you can see Sproat and Great Central to the East of it, and Cowichan Lake down at bottom.
You can clearly see the white/brown demarcation… that’s where Dunsmuir/Crown lands start and end… what appears to have happened is that all of the private, Dunsmuir land once under TFL44, has now been returned to private control.
For confirmation… this online book, “The Great Land Grab” (PDF, 1MB, locallink, original) has a map of the Dunsmuir lands as of 1884.
Here is a screenshot of the relevant map.
And finally… you can find a map on page 1 of TFL44 as it was in 2001 in this filing by M&B. (PDF, 600K, locallink, original)
If you compare the current and M&B maps, you can clearly see that all of the North and Eastern sectors of both Sproat and Franklin Divisions were on Dunsmuir land… which are precisely the lands in question by Judith Sayers and the Hupacasath FN.