In 1994, the Ministry of Forests Small Business Forest Enterprise Program (SBFEP) in the Sunshine Coast Forest District started planning to sell the right to harvest timber in a 26.8 hectare cutblock in a rural residential area near Homesite Creek on a peninsula between the communities of Secret Cove and Halfmoon Bay, approximately 20 kilometres from Sechelt.

Timber Sale A48267 was first described in the SBFEP’s 1994‐1998 forest development plan, and was shown in increasing detail on subsequent forest development plans for 1995‐1999, 1996‐2000 and 1997‐2001. The timber was originally scheduled to be logged in 1996.

On November 28, 1995, the Board received a complaint from a member of the public asserting that “logging has been approved within the habitat of an extremely rare, probably endangered, species of mushroom in the genus Tricholoma”. The blocks where logging had been approved are within the Small Business Forest Enterprise Program administered by the Ministry of Forests in the Sunshine Coast Forest District.

The Board decided the complaint was about preparation and approval of silviculture prescriptions for these blocks by the Ministry of Forests. The Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks has the opportunity to participate in the preparation of silviculture prescriptions, making it necessary for the Board to examine their role in this complaint.