Two men standing in front of a row of logs, one man holds a measuring stick
Forests

Mark Lombard looks back over this past year in the Cortes community forest

(The first in a series of articles coming out of the Cortes Forestry General Partnership’s 2022 AGM)

This has been the Cortes Community Forest’s most profitable year, but that is not the Cortes Forestry General Partnership’s only objective. 

“I always start with what areas do we want to keep,” explained General Manager Mark Lombard. 

He used a recent conversation to illustrate how Cortes is taking a different approach than the industry at large. 

Volunteer tree tending in Larsons Meadow – taken from slideshow at the May 15, 2022 AGM

A well respected logger from Quadra Island asked why the General Partnership was leaving two healthy stands of cedar untouched.  

“Why aren’t you going to harvest the cedars? Cedar prices are really good,” the fellow said.

“How much of that is there on Quadra Island?” responded Lombard. 

 “There’s none. There’s not even one stand like that.” 

“And I said, “That’s why we’re not going into that area.’”  

The General Partnership set a goal of cutting only 15-20% of the forest’s mean annual incremental growth (MAI) in their harvest area. If allowed to continue, the part of Cortes Island under their control will eventually be populated by an old growth forest.  

The Ministry of Forest allocates the cut on a five-year basis and the  community forests first five year control period ended on March 31 of this year. At that point, the partnership harvested 15.8% of the forests mean annual increment of 68,000 m3. 

Lombard emailed the breakdown for individual years after the interview. 

  • 2017 – 429 m3, 
  • 2018 – 1,783 m3, 
  • 2019 – 650 m3, 
  • 2020 – 1,012 m3
  • 2021 – 2,500 m3
  • 2022 – 4,400 m3
  • Total cut: 10,774 m3 out of an estimated mean annual increment (MAI) of 68,000 m3 – or 15.8%

The cut was larger than initially planned for 2022 for a number of reasons, but primarily root rot. 

Mark Lombard – submitted photo

“The thing that caught my attention when the first time I went through the forest was, ‘why are so many fir trees down?’  Everywhere you walk there were a lot of 100 -120 year old trees down on the ground,” he explained. “It turns out that there was a really high concentration of Armillaria ostoyae and Phellinus weirii , the root rots that are most prevalent on Cortes.”

“We have a chance to reforest it, and leave a healthy forest for the next generation,” said Lombard.

Log markets are strong right now. The General Partnership received about $900,000 in revenues for the 6,900 cubic metres of timber harvested in 2021 and 2022. This will replenish the partnership’s bank account.

“Even though the projects that we’ve done over the last three years have netted some profit to the partnership, there hasn’t been enough to sustain the organization on a year in/ year out basis for all the operating costs,” explained Lombard. 

“This project was successful in that the community forest is going to get back on its feet. We really needed to get another couple of hundred thousand dollars in the bank. We have some arrears with staff just because we haven’t had a good cashflow for the last couple of years and the expectation is that we’ll be able to pay out profit to both partners” said Lombard.

The Klahoose First Nation and Cortes Community Forest Cooperative will each receive 50% of the profit disbursement.

“One of the highlights of the project was that we ran a new faller training program this year for four Cortes Islanders. Three of them completed the training. They did their first five days of level two, and then their first 25 days  of cutting to be able to get their tickets. That doesn’t mean they’re full production fallers, but they received their falling ticket,” added Lombard. 

The fourth Cortesian is only 12 days away from completing the course

Nick Gagnon and his processor – courtesy Cortes Forestry General Partnership

The community forest produced a lot of firewood last year. Six logging truck loads were sold at pulp prices: two went to the Klahoose and four to Nick Gagnon, who is selling firewood to island residents.

“Nick and his partner actually just had a baby on April 29th. So he’s taken a little bit of time off, but I think he’s just getting back into it. So if you’re looking for firewood, you can contact Nick Gagnon.”

Top photo credit: scaling logs – courtesy Cortes Forestry General Partnership

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