KNPS
AGM 2005
Report
from the Executive
A
year ago this week we met in this room for our 2004 Annual General meeting and
the major issues on our minds were pine beetle and interface fire risk.
Welcome
back everybody.
The
last twelve months have been a different kind of a year for the Nature Park
Society. The need to plan for and
deal with the impending logging in the Park has absorbed a great deal of our
time and energy while the uncertainty about the impacts of the logging on the
trails and landscapes of the Park have made some of our other activities more
tentative.
We
left last year’s AGM with a commitment to make a map of all the special areas
in the Park in the hopes that we could protect some important values. That map
was made and numerous meetings, field trips and email discussions followed as we
helped Russ Hawkins and Tembec shape a plan.
While
the consultation for the Park thinning went on all year long we did not neglect
our other activities.
Our
Events Committee did a great job of putting together a series of monthly walks
and we had another successful (if at times a bit soggy) Nature Park Week.
We
attacked the knapweed on Sunflower Hill with a vengeance this spring and summer
with two weed pulling work parties and one session of herbicide spraying. Many
thanks to the Regional District and its Weed Warrior program for their support
in this effort and we look forward to doing it again next year.
Our
Trails Committee kept up with the blow down in the Park and ensured the trail
network was safe and open throughout the year but we decided not to invest time
and effort into major trail improvements until the logging is done.
We did replace the bridge at the Flume/Creek Trail intersection which we
expect will not be affected by the logging.
We
continued to work closely with the City of
With
the support of numerous local merchants and organizations, we continue to
distribute our $3 Trail Guide around town, however, as expected, our sales have
fallen dramatically this year with the City’s publication of a free trail
brochure. We have had discussions in
the last month with the City planner about this decline in sales and are
expecting to receive some financial compensation from the City.
Our
Natural History Committee was active again this year and numerous excursions
were held on a designated loop in the south end of the Park.
This year saw the addition of several new species to our plants lists, a
great rubber boa sighting on Sunflower Hill and the discovery of two Williamson
Sapsucker nesting trees.
With
everything else going on, we have not invested much time in the
We
continue to stay in touch with our members and the public through our website
and publication of our newsletter. This year we sent out one additional special
edition of the newsletter with information about the logging plan and, with a
grant from the Kimberley & District Community Foundation, were able to mail
our spring events calendar to every house in
Over
the course of the year our volunteers led a tour by
Last
week we co-hosted a meeting at Centennial Hall to present Fire Ecologist Bob
Gray’s assessment of the fire potential in the Park and Nordic Trails and to
hear his recommendations for risk reduction.
I think it is clear to everyone who attended that meeting, or who has
been following our updates in our newsletter, website and Daily Bulletin, that
significant changes are about to occur in the Nature Park. For many of us, who
have come to love the Park just as it is, the next year is going to be quite
difficult. As things now stand, logging should begin after Christmas.
We have recently learned that Tembec is in discussion with the Province
regarding the extra costs of logging in the Park and is attempting to secure
some reductions in stumpage. We
expect the Sunflower Hill logging will happen this winter regardless of the
outcome of those discussions, but
there is a chance that work in the rest of the Park may be postponed till next
winter.
While
I don’t know anyone in the Nature Park Society that is happy about the
thinning of the Park, many of us have come to believe it is necessary.
Humans have been putting out naturally occurring forest fires in the Park
for almost a century and the forest is getting thicker and denser.
There are several thousand trees in the Park in which pine beetle have
made their winter homes this year and the rate of increase in their numbers each
season has been significant. The
Park is nestled up against
At
a recent monthly meeting of the Nature Park Society we raised the question of
whether it was worth hosting Nature Park Week next year, in light of the
disruption that would be occurring in the Park over the winter.
The response of the people at the meeting surprised me a little. There
was no major difference of opinion. Everyone felt that the logging made it even
more important to keep promoting and working for the Park.
We
are now looking for opportunities in the impending changes.
The need to revise our trail guide to reflect the realignment of some
logging roads gives us a chance to review our whole trail network and consider
the improvements we might want to make. Our
Trails Committee will be meeting this winter to begin that review and we will
spend a few minutes later in this meeting discussing that.
Our
decision to have Tembec haul most of the trees out of the Park toward
It
would seem that we never have an uneventful year in the
Thank
you very much.
Kent
Goodwin
President
For the KNPS Executive