An open letter from PenderPOD
regarding the Island 2050, the new Trust Policy Statement
April 12th, 2022.
The Pender Ocean Defenders
wish to submit the following comments regarding Islands 2050, the new Trust Policy Statement.
PenderPOD is a non-government organization established in 2014 with
the vision of honoring, protecting and defending the Natural
Environment of the Salish Sea from actions that could harm it. We are
focused on the health of the marine ecosystems of the Salish Sea and
specifically the Southern Resident Killer Whales (Orca), Chinook salmon,
and the herring, which make up the marine food web.
We pursue our aims by a variety of peaceful actions including citizen
science, advocacy, education, art, public discussion and letter writing
campaigns.
As a general statement PenderPOD is very supportive of all the
proposed changes in the Policy Statement that lead to protecting the
long-term health of the Trust area and its stressed and threatened land
and marine ecosystems.
We recognize that we are in the midst of a catastrophe: a triple threat
involving massive loss of biodiversity, widespread pollution of the
natural systems on which all life depends and run away climate change
with all its negative impacts. All based on excessive consumption of the
earth’s resources.
In recognition of these events the revision of the Trust Council Policy is
timely and critical. We cannot maintain business as usual with respect
to land use practices on our fragile Islands. What happens on the
Islands’ land, including private land, and in the sea around us affects all
of us. The services provided by trees, eelgrass meadows, wetlands, and
the Islands’ aquifers affects us all, and only by having the power to
safeguard those systems can the Trust be effective.
It is necessary that the Island Trust has greater jurisdictional powers to
fulfill its preserve and protect mandate.
We applaud the Trust Council for taking on the difficult and
controversial task of revising the Trust Council Policy Statement and
believe this revision represents a unique opportunity for the Islands.
That the Trust already has the expressed mandate to “preserve and
protect the Trust Area and its unique amenities and environment for
the benefit of the residents of the Trust Area and of British Columbia”
this provides the rare opportunity to transform that manated
foundation into a structure that upholds ecological integrity and safe
environments for the people and wildlife that call the Salish Sea home.