Controversial plan moves ahead to log popular North Okanagan recreation area

The province is moving forward with its plan to log Mount Rose Swanson after it put the program on pause last year following a public outcry.

B.C. Ministry of Forests confirmed its proposed plan to log roughly 28 hectares (70 acres) on the much-loved recreation site.

However, Township of Spallumcheen Mayor Christine Fraser says the municipality will do everything in its power to safeguard the site.

"We know the importance to our community and we're going to make sure we protect that," Mayor Fraser told iNFOnews.ca.

The issue came about in early 2021 when provincial government agency B.C. Timber Sales announced its plan to log the popular recreational area.

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An online petition against the proposed logging quickly garnered 24,000 signatures as the community pushed back against the logging.

At the time, the township was highly critical of the lack of public consultation from the province when it announced its plan.

Following the uproar, in February 2021 the province announced it had put a pause on the logging while it refined its forest stewardship plan.

A year later the province's plan is much the same.

In an email to iNFOnews.ca the Ministry of Forests said the 28 hectares proposed was slightly under four per cent of the 712 hectares that had been identified as a sensitive area.

"The Sensitive Area Order for Rose Swanson ensures that this area would be managed with a recreation priority, while still allowing for timber harvesting. B.C. Timber Sales is following the multiple-use objectives in the sensitive area order in all of its planning," the ministry said.

Spallumcheen had requested a moratorium on logging the area.

However, Fraser said a historic recreation reserve agreement should, in theory, prevent the province from logging the site.

The Use, Recreation and Enjoyment of the Public Reserve known as a UREP agreement was put in place sometime in the 1980s.

"The gist of the agreement is that all of the recreational uses whether its horseback riding or snowmobiling or hiking, all of that will be taken into account first and especially in the sensitive areas," Fraser said.

"We were told (by the province) that the historic UREP agreement was no longer in force and that's actually not accurate," Fraser said. "If they do attempt to move forward... the Township will take whatever steps we need to to make sure that the historic uses are protected."

Andrea Gunner is the chair of Friends of Rose Swanson Ecosystem Society and is adamant the area should be protected.

"It is the only easy access to Crown forest that residents of Armstrong and Spallumcheen have," Gunner said.

Trail counters were placed at Mount Rose Swanson over the winter and showed that between 3,000 and 5,000 people were using the trails each month. Numbers for the summer are expected to be much higher.

Gunner said the newly revised plans are very similar to the previous plan and points out that it's not just the land that is logged that is affected, but also the many roads and spaces created for the logging equipment needed.

There are also concerns about flooding in the Armstrong valley if Rose Swanson is logged.

"There doesn't seem to be a hydraulic use study and we know that Armstrong... (has) been built on a wetland and that mountain holds a lot of water and slows it down in the spring run-off season," Gunner said.

While Gunner said she is not a hydrologist she does understand that "water runs downhill."

The mayor stresses she understands the importance of logging for the province and the community – there's a Tolko mill in the area – but questions why this very popular recreation area has to be logged?

The ministry didn't answer the question when asked why it was choosing to log Mount Rose Swanson instead of any of the other thousands of hectares of forest elsewhere in the province.

"Balancing harvest over the landscape ensures that values are managed and protected throughout the province’s forests," the ministry said.

"It is an extremely important... it has the potential to affect farmland down below, it needs to be managed in a way that is not just looked at from a forestry perspective but the whole health of the mountain perspective and the health of the community that's below it," the mayor said.

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