On December 11th 2011, SIFCo achieved a milestone is its evolution as a company by being awarded a 25-year license. This allows us to finally be able to plan long term as a company. Come celebrate with us on Sunday February 12th we are hosting a free family-oriented Winter Celebration day at Valley View Golf Club, in Appledale in the Slocan Valley. We would like to invite you to this event to celebrate the 25-year tenure SIFCo has just been granted, to manage over 35,000 acres of land here in the Slocan Valley.

In partnership with the Slocan Valley Recreation Commission and Rails to Trails, we will have a cross-country ski track set as well as snowshoes available for your use. Between 1-2pm test your speed and grace on your skies or snowshoes compared with your neighbours in a short timed-start competition. The rest of the afternoon the track will be open for everyone’s use. A silent auction will be held indoors with a chance to win a custom concrete bench generously donated by Molded Stone of Winlaw.

For kids we will have a shorter timed-race on skies starting at 12:30, a small scavenger hunt on the property starting at 2pm, and tobogganing. Inside the club house there will be several interactive stations set up for children of different ages where everyone can learn about the forest we live in.

We will also have free hot chocolate and a bonfire all afternoon. At 3pm inside the clubhouse, there will be short welcome speech and free cake to celebrate our tenure! The Valley View clubhouse kitchen will be open all day until 6:30pm.

Come celebrate with us! After 8 years of work, we have reached a major milestone towards community control of our watersheds and sustainable logging practices. Something certainly worth celebrating!

SIFCo is currently hosting a Master’s student as an intern at our office. Elissa Berrill grew up in the Slocan Valley and is currently studying Environmental Planning at Stockholm University in Sweden. She is helping us to reach out to the community through contacting value-added wood producers in our area and updating our featured businesses page at www.sifco.ca. Her work also includes visiting grades 3 and 4 classes at 5 different elementary schools in the Slocan Valley and introducing students to the species that live in our forests as well as some basic survival skills. She hopes to gain some insights into the realities of community forest management to take back to Sweden with her. Elissa is also helping to plan our community Winter Activity Day, set to happen on February 12, 12-5pm at the Valley View Golf course. We are happy to welcome her to the SIFCo team for 10 weeks!

After completing four community meetings to present the findings of our Timber Supply Review (TSR) to members and residents, and incorporating feedback from these meetings, our TSR is now completed. Findings from this review will guide SIFCo’s operations for the coming years.

This is a call for Expressions of Interest by qualified contractors who wish to be informed of contract work opportunities within the Slocan Integral Forestry Cooperative (SIFCo) community forest. SIFCo harvesting operations are generally dispersed retention or group selection, with block volumes from 3000 to 6000 m3. To download expression of interest click here»

The following types of contract opportunities are expected over the next several years:

o Road Construction
o Road Maintenance
o Conventional logging
o Cable logging (tower)
o Log hauling (Self Loader)

To be considered qualified in any category, contractors should possess the following minimum requirements:

o An active WCB number and appropriate classification
o Good company standing
o Liability Insurance
o Experience, with references

Interested parties can complete an Expression of Interest form available from the SIFCo website here>> or by mail from the address below. Completed forms should be returned to SIFCo by May 13, 2011

SIFCo
Box 189
Winlaw B.C. V0G 2J0.

The Interface work is now almost complete in the village of New Denver. Six workers worked for five months and made the Village a much safer place. SIFCo will return for one last week of work to do a final clean-up in one of the areas in early April. If anyone has comments or would like to ask us any questions about our work, please do not hesitate to contact us. It was a pleasure to work with the village of New Denver, and a big “thank you” to all the neighbors for their support during those months!

Today SIFCo received $247,000 to carry out Wildland Urban Interface work in the village of New Denver. The project will treat 30 hectares of land in and around the municipality’s boundaries. Three of the blocks are located right in the village on the east side of the highway, while the fourth one is located on the slope above the hospital, also on the east side of the highway. SIFCo’s commitment to making the Slocan Valley a safer place in regards to Wildfire and providing local employment continues with current grant investments in excess of $550,000 over the past two years.

Today SIFCo has cut its first tree! We are currently beginning our first harvest in the Red Mountain area. The block will consist of around seven hectares of land estimated to produce 3500 cubic meters of wood. For more information on our activities, please see the News and Events section.

SIFCo just obtained another $75 000 to carry on their Wildland Urban Interface Management Program begun in the Spring of 2009. This investment will go towards 10 hectares of Land in the Trozzo Watershed. An area outlined in our mapping process that has very high fire risk and consequence if a fire was to occur. Four jobs will be created for at least three months with these Forest Investment Account Funds.

As a very popular remote local destination, the spectacular Bannock Point gets a lot of yearly traffic & use. In 2009, SIFCo invested $27,500 in improvements to the site. From building new outhouses, to creating designated campsites, and developing safe and low impact parking areas, a total of 7 people worked to make Bannock a safer and more attractive destination.

Following our 2008 Invasive Plant Inventory and our small Pilot Project of the summer 2008, SIFCo just received $135,620 from the Jobs Opportunities Program and the Canadian Action Plan of both the provincial and federal government to do a first of its kind tenure wide Invasive Plants control project. This work will employ seven displaced workers for the next three months.

Today SIFCo received $221,675 from the Jobs Opportunities Program and $25,000 from the Columbia Basin Trust to begin phase #1 of their Wildland-Urban Interface Wildfire Protection Program.

Today the last draft of our Forest Stewardship Plan (FSP) was approved by the Ministry of Forest. The FSP is a planning requirement of forest tenure holders in British Columbia. It is a requirement of the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA) and is intended to replace some of the planning requirements of the Forest Practices Code of BC Act.

As part of SIFCo’s Landscape Level Plan a new set of maps was released today. This set of maps titled: “Wildfire-Human Interface using a Permaculture Perspective” intends to highlight the priority for treatment of areas within the Interface areas of SIFCo’s landbase.

Watch a video of a Google Earth ‘virtual fly-over’ of our landbase and see the land that we are managing (high-speed Internet connection may be needed).

After 6 months of work SIFCo completed our Landscape Level Plans (LLP). The LLP is a birds-eye perspective of our landbase. The aim of the LLP is to guide our operations with regards to the overall health of the forest and the communities that surround them.

Today we became tenure holders. After 4 years of work we signed our Probationnary Community Forest Agreement.

Today our updated Management Plan was accepted by the Ministry of Forest… the last step before our application is finally accepted.

In August of 2007, we heard from MOF that our application was accepted in principle…we are now fine tuning our Management Plan and are expecting to sign a PCFA by early October 2007.

On the 12th of January 2007 our final application was mailed to the Ministry of Forest in Kamploops. Thus after three years of work, phase 1 is completed and if all goes according to plan we should be tenure holders by early October of this year.

Today we finalized our negotiations with Springer Creek Forest Products marking the last step before our final application can be submitted.