Tag Archives: Cortes logging blockade 2012

Cost of Climate Change

Turning Down the Heat Part 3: It’s Time to Kick Some Ass  (ie – Mobilize People Power)


By Max Thaysen and the Cortes Island Climate Action Network

“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal… To hope is to give yourself to the future – and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” ― Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark: The Untold History of People Power

We’ve got the receipts, we just need to break the door down (aka build and wield power). 

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Forests

Bruce Ellingsen: 2022 recipient of the Jo Ann Green Award

Every year, the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) give the Jo Ann Green Award to a Cortes Islander who has made a significant contribution to the environmental wellbeing of the community. Bruce Ellingsen is this year’s recipient.

“Jo Ann Green was an exemplary environmentalist who came to Cortes in 1969, and she immediately became involved in social environmental activities on the island,” explained Helen Hall, Executive Director of FOCI. 

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Forests, History

A brief history of Cortes, Forestry and Mosaic

(De Clarke produced the audio version of this story, which is part of the March 15th Cortes Currents broadcast.)

The people living on this island have had a long and deep history with its forests. First Nation people lived here at least 4,000 years ago with new research pushing that date back to 10,000 years and perhaps even more.

In 1896 the first European settlers arrived and began clearing the forest for their homesteads. By the 1920’s, there were 120 families on this island making a living from logging so that by the 40’s and 50’s, much of the easily accessible old growth forests were already fallen. Today on any walk in the woods, you can still see those massive, ancient stumps.

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Forests

Forest Fest 2012 on Cortes Island

Forest Fest was a music festival and activist convergence that took place over the weekend of August 25 on Cortes Island, BC in response to Island Timberlands’ impending plans to industrially log on Cortes. The festival brought internationally renowned speakers and activists, many of whom live on Cortes, such as Tzeporah Berman, Zoe Blunt, and Rex Weyler. The intention was to spark a conversation about peaceful direct action in the face of huge corporate interests, and to send a message to Island Timberlands that Cortes is and always will be “socially inoperable”.

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