Group wins push to keep loggers off the trails in Joe Rich area
A group of residents in the rural Joe Rich area, east of Kelowna, are celebrating a win in their effort to establish a new conservation area in the Mission Creek watershed.
In a media release, the Joe Rich Forests, Trails, and Watershed Sustainability Committee says it recently received confirmation from the Okanagan Shuswap Natural Resource District, that a 31-hectare section of forest located at the junction of Highway 33 and Pilpott Road in Joe Rich “will no longer be accessible to commercial logging interests.”
The forested area borders the north shore of Mission Creek and also serves as the trailhead of the High Rim Trail, a high-mountain recreational hiking trail that runs from Joe Rich to Vernon.
The decision comes a year after the committee persuaded Gorman Bros. Lumber Ltd to suspend logging operations in the area for two years.
Last year, committee member John Van Dyk, described the area as a “wellkept secret” teeming with wildlife and hundred-year-old overgrown logging roads that are perfect for exploration.
“It’s a beautiful, calm, mature stand of forest,” he told The Daily Courier in an interview. “It’s very peaceful. It doesn’t take long and you feel like you’re in the middle of the forest, far away from Kelowna.”
While significant, the agreement isn’t the end of the committee’s mandate.
“The [committee] considers this confirmation from the Ministry of Forests to be a significant step toward its ultimate goal of creating a conservation area within the community of Joe Rich,” the release said.
“The committee’s intention is to preserve the land’s natural beauty, while providing the public with walking trails along Mission Creek and through its mature stands of mature, mixed coniferous forest,” the release continued.
“It believes quite strongly that in light of its central proximity to the community, the Mission Creek and the Okanagan High Rim Trail, the people of the Central Okanagan will be better served now that this parcel has been permanently taken out of the working forest.”
In the meantime, the Joe Rich Forests, Trails and Watershed Sustainability Committee is still looking for people interested in their cause, who can email them at jrforestryandtrails@gmail.com