2008 KNPS AGM
Report from the Executive
A
year ago, at the end of 2007, the Nature Park Society made a commitment to
itself to focus a little more on some of the positive aspects of the Park.
We had spent the previous few years wrestling with the issues of
interface fire, pine beetle and logging and had been reluctant to move forward
with other projects because of the uncertainty around those issues. By the end
of 2007 it was apparent that the Tembec logging plan was off the table and that
we had reached some level of consensus with other stakeholders about a ecosystem
restoration-based model for future work in the Park. It was also becoming
apparent that changes to the forest and the fuels in the Park were likely to
happen in small steps rather than one large logging operation.
In
the early months of this year the Ministry of Forests offered the City of
In
the meantime things move forward. This
spring volunteers from the KNPS were once again on the slopes of Sunflower Hill,
pulling debris away from the trees and preparing the site for a prescribed burn.
In April, personnel from the Ministry of Forests and the Kimberley
fire department lit up about 50 hectares.
The burn was very successful, finer fuels were reduced and the shrubs
that provide forage for wildlife came bursting back from the roots, invigorated
once more.
Fuel
reduction also proceeded in the north end of the Park. Ministry
of Forest Initial Attack crews spent part of the spring and much of the fall
working in a 15 hectare area above lower Blarchmont to slash and pile ladder
fuels and remove smaller diameter trees. The work is probably between one third
and one half completed and it has been a learning experience for both the KNPS
and the Kimberley Fire department. We hope to do a full review of the work and
its prescription in the spring before the project continues.
The
Fire Department also got involved in another project in the park with a couple
of their members slashing and chipping shrubs and debris along the
This
week, four members of the KNPS met with representatives of the Ministry of
Environment, the Ktunaxa logging company and Bob Gray the City's fire
consultant, to discuss possible treatments in the Williamson's Sapsucker
Wildlife Habitat Area. This 72
hectare area inside the Park has been designated by the Province as an important
nesting and feeding site for this endangered woodpecker.
It now appears that the logging that has been proposed to restore this
site to a more open forest will not occur this winter as a result of the
economic difficulties in the forest industry.
At some future time KNPS members will be working with the MOE to ensure
that the prescription respects not only the ecological values in the area but
the recreational and aesthetic ones as well.
This
year we sold 288 Trail Guides at various outlets around town.
That number is down slightly from the year before and well below our
historic highs which occurred before the City created its free community trail
guide. It is time to say
goodbye to this edition of our map as work is well underway on a new and
improved version that we hope to have published by spring of 2009.
For several months, members of our trail guide committee have been
sorting through photos, revising text, agonizing over colour schemes and
collecting
Another
major effort underway this year is the review and revision of the Nature Park
Management Plan. This plan was
put together by the Nature Park Society in 2003 as a requirement of the City's
License with the Province to use the area as a Park.
This spring we formed a Management Plan review committee that went
through every section of the plan and updated the various action items.
The draft revised plan is currently posted on our website with an
invitation to the public to send us their comments and suggestions.
As
much fun as management planning is, there are some activities that we carry out
that are even more fun.
This
year we continued to host monthly events in the Park in both winter and summer.
In addition we held a couple of special events, Chris Ferguson's slide
show in April and a talk by Trans
Canada Trail regional Coordinator Al Skukas in June.
We also decided this year to make our September member's picnic an annual
event and we had a good turnout and wonderful weather at the Riverside
Campground.
Studying
and understanding the flora and fauna of the Park is also a lot of fun.
This year we once again carried out our inventory of the calypso orchids
and although numbers of blossoms were significantly down from the previous year
we still had a good time doing it. Other
projects and activities carried out by our Natural History Committee included a
number of field trips into the Park, the completion of the 2008 breeding bird
survey and the ongoing creation of a series of natural history posters for our
kiosks. And of course, since the informal name for Natural History Committee is
the Potluck Committee, there were a number of filling business meetings.
We
have continued to publish the newsletter three times a year and Chris Ferguson
has successfully developed an electronic version for members with email that
saves us a bunch of money on printing and postage. We
also continue to keep our 400 plus members informed with monthly updates to our
webpage.
The
Nature Park Society is actively involved in the stewardship of the
This
year our Trails Committee once again did a great job of removing deadfall and
keeping the trails open all year long for hiking, biking and skiing.
We did some additional work in 2008 with the construction of foot bridges
at the Bench Trail and
Our
largest trails project this year was building two new sections of trail, one to
the South West Passage Lookout (a.k.a Turkey Hill) and one around the north side
of Eimer's
Another
significant project this summer was the construction of a new bench at Myrtle
Junction. Using stones from the remains of the old Myrtle Mountain Ski Lodge
fireplace and a salvaged tree trunk, volunteers created a masterpiece at this
important trail junction.
It
seems that every year is busy year in the Nature
Kent Goodwin
For the KNPS Executive
November 20, 2008