Dr. Ann Dale, Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Community Development, Royal Roads University

Case Summary

This case study describes the creation and the first project of the Trust for Sustainable Forestry, a small not for profit trust created to develop small ecologically sensitive small communities in protected, but working forest environments.

The case identifies a number of key lessons, including the importance of partnerships, a potential drawback of community consultation and the possibility of creating planning zones that support a creative and multifunctional land use model that integrates ecological, social and economic imperatives.

View from the Ecovillage development site

Sustainable Development Characteristics

For any project to be considered sustainable, it must integrate decision-making for all three imperatives of sustainable development – ecological, social and economic (Dale 2001, Robinson and Tinker 1997). It perhaps must also be measured against likely alternatives and what would have been the result of business as usual. 

Financially, the project is founded on the return on investment obtained by the sale of the eco-village plots – thereby enabling further investment in other sustainable development initiatives elsewhere and the preservation of the remainder of the forest for sustainable forestry. Its contribution to the economic imperative is the development of opportunities for local employment, manufacturing products from locally sourced materials. The ecological imperative is integrated by the principles of eco-forestry based on a systems approach to the identification of timber resource that can be taken from the forest without reducing the ecological integrity of the forest ecosystem. The creation of live-work opportunities and the retention of resources and employment opportunities locally within the community meet social imperatives of community development.

It is certainly more sustainable than the two likely alternative scenarios – the clear cutting and loss of the ecological and economic forest resources all together, or a low density rural development which while possibly retaining some limited ecological functionality would have removed the possibility of the development of sustainable economic activity.

Critical Success Factors

The two crucial elements that ensured the success of this project were: 

1.      the presence of a small number of key individuals with the vision and the ability to invest in the idea;

2.      the creation of a new Community Land Stewardship zone in partnership with the local municipality that ensured the novel approach to development could be legally adopted, and

3.      novel multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary partnership with public-private-not for profit on one hand and developer-business-activist-forestry partnerships on the other

Community Contact Information

• Initial attempts at community partnership and consultation were unsuccessful due to an understandable scepticism and distrust of ‘developers’, a justified concern over dense development and what that meant for the sustainable management of water on the island and an innate preservationist tendency in the community.
• Despite project ideas and consultation with other municipalities the model has yet to be tested in another locality
• In general there are not sufficient resources currently to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the current sell off of forestry lands owned by large timber companies on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands where private ownership of forestry land is much greater than elsewhere in Canada.

Financial Costs and Funding Sources

The initial investment to purchase the Everwoods site came from small number of wealthy individuals led by Ann Mortifee, a well-known singer and musician. It is anticipated that the return on the investment from the first project and the activities of the Living Forest Community Company will enable the Trust to be self sustaining in the long term.

Research Analysis

The two strands of this case study that have important lessons for the adoption of sustainable community development solutions are the importance of key people (nodes and leaders) and partnerships on one hand, and the recognition of the potential for multifunctional use of the forest resource on the other hand – sustainable and securing the future of the environment for all of those uses. Also interesting, is the reaction of the community to the prospect of development, even a development that seems to present only benefits for the island community, perhaps unique to island and/or smaller communities rather than large urban centres, who may suffer from an over-acceptance of development. The question of scale and limits of development, as well as questions of under, over and uneven development remain to be seriously addresses by Canadian communities (Newman and Dale, forthcoming).

The project wouldn’t have started without the leadership of a small group of community leaders with the skills, financial resources and vision to make the project happen, and access to resources outside the community. The community as a whole were not interested, at the time, in a development led solution to the threat to the forested lands on Cortes Island, and as a result were stuck largely waiting on trusts and charities to take responsibility and ownership of the land – but support from such trusts proved not to be forthcoming, resulting in the sell off of forest land to holding companies largely interested in liquidating the assets of a forestry lot and then selling the land for development. 

The intervention of the future membership of the Trust for Sustainable Forestry to purchase the land ensured that it was, at least temporarily taken out of the hands of the asset liquidators. The Trust, however, had to be sure of making a return on their investment as they were made up of a small number of individuals rather than a large Land Trust that could raise the money from charitable donations. Therefore, the Trust had to explore a method by which a return could be made on their initial investment. Realistically this meant liquidating the natural capital on the site – a solution that contradicted the reason for buying the land in the first place.

Key people with business acumen, knowledge of real estate development, environmental expertise and sustainable forestry expertise were on-board with the project, and it was these skill sets that enabled the Living Forest Community concept to be developed which allowed for a multiple use forest to be preserved.

There were both successful and unsuccessful partnership attempts made in the initial start-up of this project. The key unsuccessful partnership was between the Trust and the community living on Cortes. The goals of the Trust and the community were ultimately the same: a desire to preserve the forest and ensure the resources of the island are protected. However, the way in which the Trust aimed to achieve this goal was greeted with suspicion by the community, in a province known for unsustainable forestry practises throughout the 70s and 80s.

This is perhaps understandable. There is a natural resistance to ‘development’ as the resources of the island are limited, and there was no a priori experience or knowledge of the type of residential development proposed by the Trust. In addition, there was an expectation that forestry meant natural clear cut (as evidenced by previous forestry practices) and therefore the project raised suspicions on two fronts. This meant that paradoxically the community partnership was in deadlock. The threat to the land was considered by the Trust to be so imminent that they were prepared to bypass the partnership in order to achieve results.

When a community partnership is created when is it necessary to break it, and what precedent does this set? Ultimately this is a question of priorities; do we believe that democratic decision making and community cohesion is more or less important than taking a swift action in the face of pressing threats. Of course this ultimately depends on the validity of the concern and the degree to which the project is, in reality, in keeping with the vision and concerns of the community. It is also a question perhaps of vision being ahead of the majority, as sometimes happens with visionaries and new models of governance that are at the edge, there is therefore a need for leadership that can demonstrate to the community the compatibility of their vision with the planned development It could be said that the failure of this partnership is a failure of imagination of the part of the community, and/or a failure of communication on the part of the Trust?

The fortunate success of the partnership with the Municipality compensated for the failure of the partnership with the wider community. The success is probably down to the more measured and considered approach to decision making that is possible away from the confrontational atmosphere of community meetings. This partnership was vital in the success of the project as it enabled the creation of the new form of zoning. Zoning restrictions have oft been blamed for hindering sustainable land use planning and sustainable urban growth (Dale and Hamilton 2007), and would have done the same here if the Trust had not worked in partnership with the Municipality to create a suitable form of zoning, the nature and development of this partnership will be explored in the next edition of this case.

What makes this project sustainable is the marriage of economic development, community development and the sustainable use of natural resource, in essence, sustainable development. All this kept in check by a process of local governance and oversight that will inhibit inappropriate moves away from this model.

At the root of this is the belief that economic activity, ecological functionality and the development of society can co-exist in the same area of land without detriment to ecological integrity of a particular ecosystem. Multifunctional land use is one of the suggested solutions to sustainable planning (Selman 2002, Ling et al 2007) and this type of development is an example of it. The creation of a novel governance structure, the local Trust, and the CLS zoning was vital in allowing it to occur. The alternative mono-functional land uses of clear-cutting, low density residential development or preservation of the forest do not offer as many opportunities or as stable a future as this multifunctional approach.

Detailed Background Case Description

The level of private, as opposed to crown, ownership of forestry land on the east coast of Vancouver Island, and the Gulf Islands is unusually high as shown in this BC Government map. This sell-off therefore affects land around many communities, and is often at such a scale that it arouses intense local community opposition, such as seen in another case study examining the community response to logging on Salt Spring Island.

In recent years a substantial amount of land has been sold by major forestry companies, often to small logging companies or developers, depending on the location and development potential. In a number of cases this has lead to brutal clear cuts, serious ecological damage and unpopular developments.

In order to prevent this, communities and individuals have come up with a number of strategies to oppose such land management changes – some have been covered in another case [link to Salt Spring case] – this case introduces another, initially more personal, example of local people influencing and even controlling land management in the Gulf Islands of BC.

The Trust for Sustainable Forestry, based on Cortes Island, BC identified a threat to an 153 acre lot of forestry land that was for sale by a major logging company. Previous experience from the islands suggested that this land would be purchased by a private logging company which would then clear cut the site, likely using non-local labour as no local loggers had the necessary industrial logging equipment to carry out such clear cuts. So not only was there significant damage to the ecology of the island there were no local economic or social benefits to be derived from the enterprise either.

A few individuals raised the money to buy the land in order to develop a sustainable forestry project based on two small, pre-existing but disused mills found on the site. The aim was to renovate these and then use the lot for sustainable forestry to preserve both of the social and economic heritage of the site, as well as maintain its natural capital. To pay for this, and to make the project financially sustainable as well as create opportunity to purchase more land elsewhere, part of the lot was earmarked for development as an eco-village which would then be sold on the open real estate market as the ‘Everwoods’.

The idea was to develop a closed system with people living on the land, using the forest resources and manufacturing goods from those resources. The development philosophy was to be ‘light-on-the land’ with a dense eco-village development on the property, with a covenant placed on the rest of the property to ensure it is managed for eco-forestry in perpetuity. This model of dense development meant that the overall density of the development was no more than the allowed maximum when the lot is taken in the whole, but the clustering of buildings reduces the footprint of the development compared with typical lot based development. The primary focus was to use the residential development to fund the preservation and sustainable use of the forest.

This process met initial and vocal resistance from the island community as there was a strong preservationist focus. In many cases, communities are locked in a cycle of pro versus no development, with the result that in other larger areas, development occurs piece-meal and on an ad hoc basis. The hope in the community was that these lots would be purchased by land trusts and conservation organisations to protect the forest with no development whatsoever. There was also a fear that the island did not have the water resources and services to adequately support more development.

However, in areas where action hasn’t been taken much more significant ecological damage has occurred through clear cutting processes. The money is not present to buy up the lots for sale for preservation of the forest ecosystem, and so this form of sustainable development maybe the best way of preserving forest systems on a large scale – as the business principle behind the process allows for continued investment in other locations based on the success of the first project. There are in addition economic and social benefits to the model.

The lot was split into two zones; one where 80 to 90% of the land was placed under a restrictive covenant in partnership with the Land Conservancy of British Columbia. This covenant restricts use of the land for sustainable forestry in perpetuity, with allowable cut limits and management practice limitations; this covenanted land also includes the mill, and its operation. The remaining 10 to 20% has been developed for residential uses.

A number of development choices were made in both areas of the lot to reduce the impacts, and enhance the benefits of the development. This meant that a different type of zoning was created to allow for the style of development to occur that was substantially different from the typical low density development found on the island. The typical zoning requirements for low density single family homes designed to reduce development to a ‘sustainable’ maximum aimed at reducing the load on, specifically, water resources – but this results in a net development footprint that is much greater than the net development footprint of the ‘hamlet’ model developed for the project. This model is for a cluster (in this case 15) of homes with common infrastructure and a communal strata constitution that create cooperative living within the forest, minimising the development footprint of infrastructure and services whilst optimizing the development potential of the 150 acre lot as a whole.

The process of raising money for the project, and ensuring responsible management, resulted in the creation of two entities, one a public-private partnership and the other a public one. The for-profit Living Forest Communities Company that handled the real estate selling and marketing etc. and non-profit The Trust for Sustainable Forestry that co-holds the forestry covenant (with TLC) and also acts as the focus for the locating and purchasing of land for future projects. The profits from the former serve to repay the investments made to buy properties and to build up the Trust. To date the return on investment on Cortes has led to the consideration of a new project opportunity at Shawinigan Lake in BC. Lessons learned from the Cortes project mean that the initial steps of this project are to encourage the municipality to create an appropriate new zoning type based on the Community Land Stewardship Zone adopted on Cortes for the Everwoods project.

The current position of the community on Cortes will be examined in a future edition of this case study.

Strategic Questions

1. This project involved multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary partnerships and instigated a multi use/function landscape development. Is this complexity an inevitable result of an attempt for sustainably developed land us, and an essential component of sustainable development?

2. Are there tools and techniques that can be used to communicate more effectively to communities the benefits of sustainable development versus traditional development in situations of highly polarized views about development in general? 

3. Would this trust model be effective in other landscapes, such as grassland/prairie ecosystems?

4. Would this model be replicable in other communities and is it scalable?

Resources and References

Dale, A, 2001, At the edge: sustainable development in the 21st Century, Vancouver: UBC Press

Dale, A. and J. Hamilton. 2007. Sustainable Infrastructure: Implications for Canada’s Future. Final report prepared for SSHRC/Infrastructure research grant, www.sustainableinfrastructure.org 

Ling, C, J.F. Handley and J. Rodwell, 2007. Restructuring the post-industrial landscape: A multifunctional approach, Landscape Research, 32(3): 285-309

Robinson, J and Tinker J, 1997, 'Reconciling Ecological, Economic, and Social Imperatives: a New Conceptual Framework' in T. Schrecker (ed.) Surviving Globalism: Social and Environmental Dimensions, London: Macmillan p 71-94 

Selman, P. 2002. Multi-function landscape plans: a missing link in sustainability planning. Local Environment. 7: 283-294.