Tag Archives: Cortes Community Forest

Politics

Mark Vonesch 5: Issues that divide us

Mark Vonesch hopes to bring a new kind of politics to Cortes Island if he is elected Regional Director on October 15, 2022. 

“One of the biggest things I want to do with this campaign is bring people together who think differently than each other,” he explained. “What I can do is initiate conversations and get people talking about them.”

He then went on to outline the same issues that our current Director has been wrestling with: housing, climate change, ecosystem protection, economic development, land use planning, parks and recreation, and truth and reconciliation.

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Fire, Forests

Focusing on wildfire fuel mitigation

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The Cortes Forestry General Partnership is currently focusing on wildfire fuel mitigation strategies. 

While none have been large, there were recent fires on West Redonda, Read, Quadra and Sonora Islands.

“It’s highly possible that we can have a fire here,” said General Manager Mark Lombard.  

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Forests

On Cortes Island, it’s all songs and warm vibes until the logging begins

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Cortes Islanders smiling, singing, and snacking outside the Gorge Harbour clapboard community hall might have been gathered for a spring picnic — if it weren’t for the sizable collection of anti-logging protest signs pitched across the lawn. 

Any collective cheer quickly dissipated and anger bubbled up in the crowd on Tuesday afternoon when Mosaic Forest Management representatives began to outline draft plans for logging operations on the small B.C. island over the next three years

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Forests, Indigenous Nations

The Cortes Forestry General Partnership

There are 60 community forests in British Columbia, but only one of them is a general partnership. This can be traced back 23 years, to a MOU in which the Klahoose First Nation and the Cortes Ecoforestry Society agreed to work towards a community forest. Then, in September 2013 the Ministry of Forests issued a Community Forest Agreement to the Cortes Forestry General Partnership (CFGP). 

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Forests

Mosaic/IT Open House at Gorge Hall

On Tuesday May 17th, a group of Mosaic (Island Timberlands / TimberWest) employees travelled to Cortes Island to host an “open house” at the Gorge Hall. They set up displays indoors and offered a casual one-on-one discussion period from 10AM to noon; at noon, they made a formal presentation which — thanks to improving weather — was held outdoors for better Covid safety.

Mosaic’s displays inside Gorge Hall

Mosaic’s plans to resume industrial logging on Cortes Island are controversial and have already inspired a petition-style letter and a series of community meetings. Mosaic has received significant feedback from the community challenging their cut plan on various grounds, including location (cutting within the boundaries of sensitive ecosystems) and extraction rate (several times the rate recommended and practised by the Cortes Community Forest).

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