The Cortes Community Forest Co-operative’s 2024 AGM will be from 7:30 to 9 PM on Mansons Hall on Wednesday October 9th. 

Together with Klahoose Forestry, they make up the Cortes Forestry General Partnership. Mark Lombard, General Manager for the Partnership gave Cortes Currents an overview of their operations this year and plans for the future:

Mark Lombard: “We have pretty good support from the community. Our emphasis is building value for the community, training workers and providing firewood for seniors and  logs for local mills. We’re the lightest touch logging operation in the province by a mile and a half.”

“Log prices are really low right now. There’s potential concerns about a recession in the US, or globally, for whatever reasons and because prices are low, we’re not planning to do any logging right now.”  

Cortes Currents: So where were you working this year?

Mark Lombard: “This spring we built 480 metres of road in the Gorge Harbour operating area and the log sales all went to local mills on the island. Seven loads went to the Klahoose Sawmill, Blue Jay Farm Sawmill,  Ellingson Woods  and Ron Wolda. They got the logs that they needed and the log sales paid for the road. We didn’t have to buy capping for the road because we recycled the capping off of the spur road for the firebreak block.  We basically paid for the road, which is a long term investment access into the land base. We did a new faller training. Two Cortes Islanders did the falling and got their training to become fallers.  Then the logs went to the mills and all the firewood went out as a community firewood day for mostly seniors and people in need.”

“So there was a lot of benefit, even though there wasn’t a big so-called profit. There wasn’t any financial profit from building the road, but  it paid for itself. So that is pretty good value creation.” 

Cortes Currents: Do you find that the community forest has kept the local mills busy? 

Mark Lombard: “I think all of the mills  have gotten the majority of their logs from the community forest  since about 2015/2016.   We haven’t always been able to quite supply them with everything that they need because it takes a lot of community consultation,  planning and  announcements.  All the T’s have to be crossed and I’s dotted to be able to cut one tree.  It’s the same amount of work if you want to go cut a whole bunch of trees. So it’s tricky to just cut one logging truck load or two logging truck loads.”  

Cortes Currents: Tell us about the community forest’s role in the development of a superior tanker shuttle service.

Mark Lombard: “Sure, the community forest  moved two tanks from the Whaletown Fire Department to the Gorge Harbour area, to the new logging road, and the two tanks from the Manson’s Fire Department were moved to the Coulter Bay logging road, and those were areas that were considered gaps on the island.”

“The nearest tanks to Coulter Bay previously were at the Whaletown Fire Hall and the nearest filling station for the Thunder Road neighbourhood was Anvil Lake. So by getting those tanks in, we improve our performance for the Superior Tanker Shuttle Service, which if we can get  a certain amount of water shuttled to a fire, we can actually qualify to get our insurance lowered on the island.”

“The two fire halls received  big new tanks, and then two additional tanks went to the south end of Cortes. So now we have a lot better coverage of the island with having moved these tanks into the community forest,  which I was really happy to be able to work on with Fire Chief Eli McKenty and Shaun Koopman, Protective Services Coordinator for the Strathcona Regional District (SRD).” 

“We have a few announcements, mostly around wildfire risk reduction work in the community forest this fall.”  

“Starting out in 2011, the SRD did the first community wildfire protection plan for Cortes, and it wasn’t very specific. We worked with them in 2020 to have an updated Community Wildfire Protection Plan done for the island. There were four specific recommendations for the community forest areas to do some treatments, with also  some recommendations for building access to be able to get in and fight a fire if there is ever a fire.”

“This fall, I’m excited to announce that we’ve received funding from Forest Enhancement Society of BC to complete  two outstanding projects  in the Squirrel Cove and Coulter Bay areas of the community forests.”  

“We’re looking at a map right now. This 150 meter wide buffer on the west side of the community forest in Coulter Bay, directly adjacent to the residential neighbourhood along Talbot Way, is going to have a risk reduction treatment starting this fall. All the smaller dead trees will be removed and either chipped if they’re close to the road, or burnt if they’re a bit further from the road where it’s not accessible.  All the remaining trees will be pruned up to three meters high to reduce the ladder fuel, so getting rid of the fuels.”

“The second project is in Squirrel Cove. If you go down the logging road  directly adjacent to the road, there’s a plantation that’s been fairly well maintained.  It’s been pruned and spaced a little bit, but then if you go down the longer road a little ways it’s really overgrown. We’ve got some funding this fall to do some spacing and pruning there.”

“We’ll leave the best trees standing from the plantation that was planted about 35 years ago. Then the trees that are close to the road that are big enough , we’ll throw  to the road to make firewood for the neighbourhood. We’ll chip up the finer fuels and the branches that are close enough  to get to the chipper. We’ll be giving those chips away to people on the island. Whatever is not close enough to the road to be either firewood or chipped will have to burn. The coarser pieces will be chopped and dropped to the forest floor to  hold moisture and eventually grow mycelium. To reduce the initial  fuel loading, the finer fuels will be burnt.”

“The treatments in Coulter Bay and Squirrel Cove won’t stop a catastrophic crown fire, like a major rank four or five fire, but if you have a lower intensity fire, you have a chance of slowing it down or stopping it. Also if you have a larger crown fire and you get rid of the fuel on the floor and you thin out the canopy and you reduce the ladder fuels, they can be knocked down a little bit or reduced  in intensity, which is also a benefit.”

“I think we’ll start October 15th in Squirrel Cove and then probably within a few weeks be starting in Coulter Bay.” 

“The risk reduction plan for the island recommended constructing a fuel break in the Anvil Lake-Gorge Harbour area of the community for us. We  built the first leg of road in the fall of 2022, and then in the spring of 2023, we ran a new faller training program for two Cortes Islanders, and they fell a 1.3 hectare fire break block, which you can see from the road just past the highway shed. This spring, we built a second leg of road.” 

“Eventually the idea is to cut a small block at the end of the wetland and plant alder there. It’s quite mistletoe hemlock and really thick, not a super productive area for us, about one hectare, maybe one and a quarter hectare. It’s the only area in this whole part of the community for us that would be suitable to plant alder because it’s wet enough.  There’s a little seasonal creek that flows out of the wetland. It’s dry in the summertime, but the whole area has a little bit better soil conditions and alder makes a natural fire break. What we’d like to do in some places in the community forests is plant alder because that sort of deciduous canopy acts as a natural fire break compared to conifers.”

“The idea is that if there’s a fire that starts in the Gorge Harbour neighbourhood,  which is very possible in a summer northwesterly, it’s going to push it through this corridor into the more south end of the island.   Obviously  a fire break access isn’t going to be able to stop a huge catastrophic fire, but if there’s a smaller low intensity fire, then we have a better chance of slowing it down or even stopping it.”

“We’re just finishing up the community wildfire protection plan recommendations for the community forest. In 2020, we did the treatment around the Cortes Recycling Centre. Over the last two and a half years, we’ve built some access and built a small fire break in the Gorge Harbour area. We’ve got the funding this fall to do the Coulter Bay and Squirrel Cove projects. In the future, we would like to extend the wetland that runs east west and plant a small deciduous canopy forest there to replace the mistletoe hemlock that’s dying out in that area.”

Cortes Currents: You mentioned log prices being really low right now.  Does the community forest have plans for when the prices go up again?

Mark Lombard: “All of the logging that we’ve got planned is commercial thinning where there would not be openings that needed to be replanted.” 

“This map shows our 5 year plan where we’re planning on operating, now that we’ve announced that we’ll be doing a bit of logging in Coulter Bay and in the Larson’s Meadow area. Hopefully we can do the same thing this fall,  cut a little bit of wood down for the right of way for the road to be extended, and supply the local mills.” 

“We haven’t always been able to supply everything that they need when they need it. 

“If we can do the primary breakdown of our logs on Cortes, it triples the value to the island and the revenue from the logs. Then if we can do secondary and tertiary breakdown, where we do some planing and kiln drying and potentially build things, then you’re well into quadrupling the value from the log.”

“It’s definitely our core priority to sell logs to the local mills and support that local value added sector on the island.” 

“When prices bounce back a little bit, we do anticipate doing some more shelter wood logging in the Coulter Bay residential boundary area, in conjunction with our wildfire risk reduction work.  It’s still really close to the residential neighbourhood and really overgrown. It’s only a 150 meter wide boundary, so we’re planning to do a little bit more commercial thinning adjacent to it, to expand and  multiply the benefit of the risk reduction work and also supply logs to our local mills.”

“We also have this issue in Larson’s Meadow where our planted seedlings are not growing fast enough. All the competing vegetation around them is growing up just as fast, the hemlocks out completing our fir and cedar. So we’re planning on doing a little bit of logging in these purple areas to the south of those blocks.   We have to log somewhere each year and we’re planning to come back to each area every 10 years. We logged Larson’s Meadow in 2015, so it stands to reason that in  2025, we would come back. 

(He’s talking about logging in the same general area, not specific cutblocks. One of the Community Forest’s thought leaders, Bruce Ellingsen, wrote, “The forests will age relatively quickly as the ‘rotation age’ for the timber harvested (ie the cutblocks) will be in the 250 – 300 year range.”)

Mark Lombard: “Those two projects could get underway as soon as next spring, if log prices are reasonable.  We do need to build a little bit of road right at the end of Larsons, potentially even later this fall, before it gets too wet,  but no decisions have been made about that yet.” 

“There is an additional spot here on the south side of the Klahoose Reserve, but it goes onto the Klahoose Reserve and into the community forest. We  want to leave that to be  led by the Klahoose. It’s right in their  core area.” 

“Hopefully this year and next year we’re going to be able to revise the community wildfire protection plan to identify the next tier of priorities.” 

Cortes Currents: I understand there are tours of work areas coming up.  

Mark Lombard: “We have public tours in these areas in Coulter Bay on the 6th of October at 9:30 AM . There is a tour of Squirrel Cove on Saturday the 12th,  at 9:30 AM. Then we’ll meet at Larson’s Meadow Road on the 19th for public tours of the areas.”

Links of Interest:

• Cortes Community Forest Cooperative
• Cortes Forestry General Partnership
• Clarifying The Meaning Of “Sustainability”In The Management Of The Cortes Community Forest – Bruce Ellingsen
• Electoral Area B: Cortes Island Community Wildfire Protection Plan 2020 Update – B A Blackwell & Associates
• Articles about, or mentioning, the Cortes Community Forest on Cortes Currents.

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