Elkington Forest Blog

On Monday, Dec 14th, I went to the wonderful Fernwood Inn for the annual Christmas Dinner for the BC Sustainable Energy Association. After dinner, and some singing led by BCSEA President, Guy Dauncey, they asked for a quick 5 - 10 minute update from three different projects. Living Forest Communities was the third to present and all of the BCSEA members seemed pleased to hear that we were making progress, and getting closer to an actual ground breaking ceremony. Most of the executive had been up to the property in August as part of the annual summer field trip.

After I spoke, Michael Nation, the Chair of the Victoria association, said something very interesting. He said that he had always felt like he knew what a sustainable community looked like. It was something like Dockside Green or one of the other laudable platinum LEED projects. But he said, more than 66% of BC is covered with forests and Vancouver Island has a similar percentage of coverage. He asked,

“What does a sustainable community look like in a forested rural region? Do we really know how to do rural sustainability?”

Because if we don’t have a well thought-out model for a sustainable community in a forested rural setting, then we are not applying sustainable principles to the majority of our region. Even though we live in this forested region, we are not applying what we know as sustainability professionals in BC, to one of our most severe problems - deforestation. He concluded by saying that we need to support the concept of conservation communities, and support the Living Forest Communities model.

It struck me that the LFC business model started as a means to finance a replacement to industrial clear-cutting, but it has become much more. With the new emphasis on food security, fire prevention, alternative energy, clustered hamlets, localized economic development, eco-tourism and minimizing single occupancy vehicle trips, we are now creating a climate change demonstration model community. Elkington Forest is a community planning for a transition to a low carbon future.

Thanks Michael, for a simple Christmas gift.

And to all of you, who read these blogs, some of you quite regularly, I want to wish you all a peace-filled Season of reflection and warmth, kindness and joy. Thanks for the support and encouragement.

Doug

Filed under: Doug Makaroff on December 21st, 2009