The Columbia Valley Recreation Advisory Council took another incremental step towards a cohesive plan for backcountry use on November 5, despite a continued lack of representation from a number of groups in the motorized sector.
However, with funding from the Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) reaching its end, the future of the committee is uncertain unless another group steps up with additional funds.
At the last meeting, CBT Public Liason Katherine Hamilton said that the CBT had already exhausted $25,000 over the 13-month proceedings, and while moderator David Savage has offered to continue his work on a voluntary unpaid basis, Hamilton said that in order for CBT to continue supporting the process, a number of requirements must be met, most notably that the committee shows solid signs of progress towards its final goal.
“This is your group, I have my own ideas, but they’re worthless in this room,” Savage told the roughly 25 assembled committee members.
While the committee had agreed to look at both finalizing the sectors and working on a landscape unit as a case study at the previous meeting, the issue of sector representation was once again shelved in favour of putting pen to paper and working on the case study — the Luxor landscape unit.
After the exercise, the committee determined a number of questions to ask when considering landscape units in the future, including what the values and features of each parcel are, who the stakeholders are, and what potential conflicts there might be.
