Bruce Ellingsen is one of the founders of the Cortes Community Forestry Co-operative and is one of the six members of the Cortes Fortestry General Partnership. Prior to that he was president of the Cortes Ecoforestry Society. A logger turned oyster and organic fruit farmer, Ellingsen is a fourth generation descendant of the first European family on Cortes Island and grew up in coastal logging camps. He graduated in commerce and business administration from UBC and has been involved in Island politics since the 1970s.
There is a natural range of opinion among the members of our society which should be recognized and accepted. That is reality.
Prime Minister Trudeau squandered the opportunity to address the range of concerns within the Truckers Convoy by choosing to not meet with a small, representative group early during the demonstration. He could have calmly explained the need for the restraints in order to avoid overwhelming our nationwide Health Care system and said that as soon as the indicators of admissions to emergency services and ICU’s diminished to a certain point that satisfied the provincial health care advisors, the restraints would be lifted in line with their advice.
The complexities inherent in a healthy forest ecosystem and the variety of approaches that can be used to manage forests make it appear very challenging to choose a management approach that might achieve health and long term sustainability in our forests.
However, the fundamental requirement for any ecosystem, large or small, complex or simple, to restore functioning and remain healthy over time comes down to nutrients.
Obtaining a Community Forest (CF) tenure on the Crown Forest lands and managing it sustainably, while allowing for a modest harvest to occur for the development of a local forest products related economic sector, has consistently, since the 1990’s, been a top priority for the great majority within the Cortes community.
I believe that most of us now realize that a mature forest ecosystem is a complex community of interconnected, interdependent organisms demonstrably capable of developing, expanding and sustaining itself. To appreciate this, we only have to consider the forests that existed in much of North America and, more specifically, on our Pacific Coast, when we Europeans arrived.
