What we've been up to

 

1. Advocating for Urban Forests

SOFT-CV has concentrated on advocacy / education in schools, street demonstrations, petitions, tabling, and direct engagement with the Comox Council to implement a real tree bylaw and the strength to be firm on Bill 44, which came into effect in 2024. SOFT-CV is also participating in the Comox Urban Forest Management Strategy project and the upcoming Comox Official Community Plan (Fall 2025).

 

2. Outreach / Education

One of SOFT’s strategic focuses has been on outreach / education at community events and through our newsletter. Outreach / Education helps to create public support for the need to change BC forestry management practices and protections of old-growth forests and species at risk. We encourage the public to voice their concerns to the local and BC governments and take their own action through writing, phoning, and petition signing. Encouraging the public to engage with government leaders increases our influence (provincially via petitions, and locally via petitions and presentations to council. This impresses on the government that there is huge public support for changes to be made in the way we practice forestry in this town / province.

 

3. BC Investment Management Corporation (BCI) lobbying - Private Managed Forest Lands

BCI, through the major ownership of TimberWest Forest Corp. and Island Timberlands, owns / controls most of the forest land on the east coast of Vancouver Island from Victoria to Campbell River (lands managed by Mosaic Forest Management (MFM)). BCI manages most of the public pensions (BC and municipal employees, BC Hydro, BC Ferries, teachers, ICBC, etc.). BCI has a well-developed Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) investment strategy which indicates that they will hold companies accountable through proxy votes on climate / environmental goals. Many communities on the east coast of Vancouver Island have significant water shortages and SOFT-CV has been pressuring MFM to manage these lands for improved watershed stability through an end to old-growth logging, decreased harvest rates in second- and third-growth forests and increased recruitment of mature second-growth forests into old growth stands. MFM’s PR staff has shown no interest in changing the way it manages our forests. We have shifted to lobbying BCI on upholding the ESG goals that it claims to positively report on each year. We are looking for ways to reach out to BC pensioners so that we can all challenge BCI to show how it is managing their pensions and supporting the watershed stability and biodiversity on the east coast of Vancouver Island.