Tag Archives: Briony Penn

The Most Exciting Conservation Story on Cortes Island

Transcript of a radio broadcast by Sabina Leader Mense

Just last weekend several of us were at the Cortes Island Museum for the launch of Sheila Harrington’s new book ‘Voices For The Islands: 30 Years Of Nature Conservation In The Salish Sea.’ What Sheila does in this book is she celebrates this amazing community of conservationists that are living and working in the Salish Sea.  

In the foreword, Briony Penn wrote, “If you’ve picked up this book, chances are that you’ve fallen in love with the islands in the Salish Sea. You might have wondered how the heck they’ve retained their natural beauty against the hostile tsunami of contemporary clear-cuts, cookie cutter suburbs, and mindless malls that are encroaching elsewhere.” 

Briony talks about the collective efforts of thousands of people over generations that have actually been working to maintain the beauty of the islands. 

Sheila’s book documents the last 30 years of people (voices in the islands) who have been working at conservation. She includes a chapter on Cortes, so we’re in there with the best of them! I encourage everybody to pick her book up and have a read  to see what the island community of conservationists have been doing. 

The most exciting conservation story on Cortes today is definitely the Children’s Forest! This is the 624 acres of forest lands that stretch all the way from the Carrington Bay Road trailhead, east across Carrington Lagoon to Goat Mountain, just on the northern shore of Blue Jay Lake.  These are lands owned by Island Timberlands. It’s part of their privately managed forest land base on Cortes Island.

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Tales from Land Conservancies on Cortes, Quadra & 15 Other Islands

In 2021 Sheila Harrington embarked upon a three-year journey to explore the creation of local nature conservancies on 17 islands. Cortes and Quadra Islands were among them. She conducted more than 50 interviews, and wove together a chronicle of land conservancies and the people behind them since the 1990s. The resulting book, ‘Voices for the Islands, 30 Years Of Nature Conservation On The Salish Sea’ is just being released by Heritage House.

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Folk U: Briony Penn and Hannah Carpendale talk about Forest Carbon

On September 29, host Manda Aufochs Gillespie was joined by Briony Penn and Hannah Carpendale for a live FolkU Friday discussion about forest carbon. Recorded live off-the-floor and edited for the radio, join us for a conversation on climate change, the ways misinformation shapes our policy and discourse, and carbon sequestration.

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A new semester begins at the Cortes Island Academy

The Cortes Island Academy kicked off its second year with a ‘meet and greet’ barbeque on Tuesday, September 5. Students and homestay parents met with some of the people working behind the scenes. School started the following day.

“Right now, the students are just going back into the classroom after being in Carrington for the last four days on a camping trip that started on the weekend and went into the week.  They are still in the  outdoor education fundamentals getting to know each other part of the semester,” explained Manda Aufochs Gillespie, the Academy’s principal Board member.

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No House Here

By Roy L Hales

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As you can see from the photo above, construction is proceeding on the house on top of Grace Islet on Salt Spring Island. This is a recognized First Nation’s burial site and it is not known how long construction will continue. The 13 municipalities in the Capital Regional District passed a resolution condemning the desecration of a sacred site and requested that BC’s Archaeology Branch rescind the permit allowing construction.  Salt Spring Islanders opposed to the building have started a “No House Here” campaign.  Meanwhile a spokesperson from the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations said the protests are  being directed at the wrong level of government.

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