On Sat. Jan. 28, Cortes Community Forest Cooperative (CCFC) public meeting succeeded in providing a “local knowledge download” for the external consulting team, who are now working on a plan for CCFC to keep more of its cut wood on island, simultaneously creating jobs through tapping the value-added wood products sector.

The meeting was held at the Klahoose First Nation’s Multi-Purpose Building. The Nation is a strategic partner with the non-indigenous side of the island in holding and guiding development on approximately 3,869 hectares of Crown land that makes up the Forest’s tenure.

Related: Cortes value-added wood products: A workshop for Champions

The event began with a presentation by consultant Rami Rothkop, a co-founder of Harrop-Procter Forest Products (HPFP) in the Kootenays region, which has over a decade of experience creating the thriving model of local economy that CCFC is pursuing. Unique in today’s logging industry in British Columbia, HPFP prioritizes creation of local jobs and selling its products as locally as possible, as well as emphasizing value-added wood products—which is defined as anything produced from a cut tree beyond its raw log state, from milled lumber to highly intensive labour products like furniture. Typically, the more labour is involved in the end-product’s creation, the higher its value, which is heralded by eco-minded perspectives as the best way to honour the precious commodity of BC’s forests. “In BC’s industrial forest operations, there’s very few jobs for volume of wood cut. So if initiatives can be created that focus much more on value-added, creating more jobs with less wood and the goal is to have employment, you need less wood to create more jobs for people,” said Rothkop.

His business partner Oliver Scholfield then led the approximately 50 people in attendance through small-group discussions of various questions that asked to identify the opportunities and barriers for expanding Cortes Island’s economy with CCFC’s timber. Themes that emerged included:

• a central facility that could house large-scale equipment and/or wood storage—this would likely require a re-zoning application
• a shared makers’ space that could also function as a woodworking school
• a generational transfer of skills from existing on-island professionals
• an ongoing question as to whether CCFC would be an umbrella organization leading the initiatives, or whether it would be best for individual or collective entrepreneurs to do so
• the need to build up and market CCFC’s brand of high-quality lumber—and eventually, Cortes-made value-added wood products
• opportunities for stacking functions and solutions—as mentioned above, as well as specific venture concepts such as Cortes-built tiny homes

Local woodworker Phil Hey put the last idea forward, explaining that a product such as a small building would use a high volume of wood locally, could be assembled from many smaller components created by various individuals thus providing a multitude of employment avenues, and help solve the mounting housing crisis.

Rothkop and Scholfield plan to present CCFC with a draft road map by end of February, review the final roadmap by end of March and provide a business plan by end of April.

This post was an overview, the details are in the podcast.

Top image credit: Rami Rothkop and Oliver Schofield discuss the opportunities and challenges of developing value added products – Photo by Anastasia Avvakumova

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