Community Futures general manager Art Lew says the Ministry of Forests has backed down from a threat to withdraw its offer of a community forest pilot project to the islands.
Last month Ken Collingwood, the regional manager for the coast forest district, wrote to Mr. Lew, saying that he was concerned that so little progress had been made towards negotiating a CFPA, or community forest pilot agreement.
"Due to this lack of progress, I am quite concerned about the ability of ICSI's CFPA proposal to move forward," Mr. Collingwood's letter reads. "For this reason it is my intent to recommend the minister withdraw the offer of a CFPA. However, I will wait until April 30, 2003, in the event there is compelling information you wish to bring forward that suggests this is not appropriate."
Mr. Lew said he spoke to Mr. Collingwood after receiving the letter.
"We've talked to him and he is not going to act that quickly," Mr. Lew said. "There is no deadline... As long as we're making some little bit of progress, they're happy to work with us."
The half-Haida, half-non-Haida board which has been overseeing the community forest project has not met since last year.