A commentary by a Saturna Island resident who was an Islands Trust trustee from 2011 to 2022
I read the commentary “Gulf Islands lose their protection” (June 5) regarding the impact of affordable housing initiatives on the Gulf Islands, and how this was undermining the preserve-and-protect mandate of the Islands Trust.
The writer’s position is that balancing the needs of communities and the natural environment cancel each other out, and that the mandate (object) of the Trust is solely to preserve and protect the natural environment.
Well, if that were the case, the object would have been written that way.
Instead the object (contained in the Islands Trust Act) says: “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 generally.”
If “unique amenities” were meant to mean the “environment,” then why would it be repeated?
One of the first policies of the Islands Trust, in 1975, reads:
“Recognition that the islands are first of all an existing community of people, and the welfare of those people, and those who join them and come after them, must always be a primary concern of the Trust.”
Balancing the natural environment with the needs of communities is not easy but it is a goal all communities worldwide need to strive to achieve, and it is the recognition of that balance that is most critical.
The people of the Trust area are passionate about their natural environment and care deeply for their communities.
Hundreds of acres of land have been preserved in the past couple of years, mainly by non-profit local conservation groups or broader non-governmental conservancies. The level of volunteer effort to support both the environment and the people in these communities is simply unbelievable.
What most now realize on these islands is the Trust’s lack of direction and focus on single-family homes has led to a crisis in affordable-housing availability. This has the very real possibility of hollowing out our communities, by denying those in the lowest economic quartile (mainly younger people) the ability to live on these islands.
That is the true failure of the Trust, but one that can be recovered from. But it needs to be acted on, as we are at a tipping point in most Gulf Island communities.
So let us stop the polarization narrative and work together to balance the collective needs of our islands’ natural environment and the people who live on and visit them.
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