BC Timber Sales (BCTS) has confirmed Joe Smith Creek cutblock (TA0521) is to go to auction by April. That decision was reaffirmed to the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) in a Feb. 22 letter from BCTS’s Pierre Aubin, a practices forester for the Chinook region, which encompasses the Coast. “TA0521 will be harvested using a partial cut harvest method. The harvest openings will have an average of 40 trees left standing in each hectare in addition to significant retention patches. Due to the unique partial cut harvest system, TA0521 will be added to the Roberts Creek High Retention Research Project led by Ministry of Forests Research Branch and supported by BCTS,” Aubin wrote. That correspondence, along with a letter from the Ministry of Forests’ Sunshine Coast Natural Resource Region district manager, delivered responses to a call by the SCRD directors for  TA0521 to be protected as an old-growth recruitment area.