Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Dylana Milobar

B.C FORESTRY

Simpcw First Nation’s opposition to Canfor asset transfer backed by District of Clearwater

Jun 19, 2019 | 5:10 PM

CLEARWATER, B.C. — Following the closure of its Vavenby Mill, Canfor plans to sell its forest rights to Interfor. However, that plan has been met with some opposition from the Clearwater community.

Standing by the Simpcw First Nation’s push for a larger forest management role, Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell says he’d like to see the tenure stay within the area.

“And our goal would be to either double or more expand our community forest, which has been incredibly beneficial to Clearwater,” he explained. “Pretty much any good news story in Clearwater has community forests behind it as a major grant funder.”

Blackwell says the District would like to see smaller scale wood operations start up in Clearwater.

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“We used to have those mills all over the place here. We need them again. We need the post and beam manufacturing, the fence stack manufacturing, things like that to happen here again on a smaller scale in Clearwater.” he stresses. “Put our eggs in many baskets instead of one big Canfor basket, because right now, that hasn’t worked out so well.”

Canfor plans to sell the cutting rights to Interfor for $60 million, however the area they work in is within the Simpcw territory.

In a release last week, Simpcw Resources said it had been trying to grow forestry and logging operations and were hoping to work with Canfor to acquire more licenses within the area.

Blackwell says the legal matters within the dispute could mean a significant delay in transferring the tenure over.

“That said, Canfor still holds the tenure. They can still log, they can still cut that wood, and they can still sell it essentially by the truckload to whomever they want to at this point, until the dispute is resolved.”

The District and Simpcw plan to meet with Forests Minister Doug Donaldson about the transfer, as the Minister must approve the change before it’s made official.