McCune Optimistic on Community Forest Program

Enderby Mayor Greg McCune is hopeful a Community Forest Program his city, Sicamous and the Splatsin First Nation are working together on will come to fruition by next summer.

Representatives of the three met with Forests Minister Doug Donaldson last week to fill him in on the plan they’ve been working on for a couple of years.” Well a community forest would obviously be a forest that’s operated by the community in our region. So, the three of us would go together. The province hopefully at some point will give us the opportunity to have some tenure, to have some fibre that we can operate as a community.”

The idea would be to take advantage of a Forestry Fundamentals Program to work with forest companies in training students for a future in forestry.

“It relies on competencies as opposed to here’s the certificate – if you get seven out ten things right you get the certificate – this actually requires the people to have the ability to do what’s necessary  move up through the industries.”

McCune says a program like that in a Community Forest is considered an economic generator.