One of the founding directors of the Cortes Community Forest Co-operative says Mosaic Forest Management is proposing to harvest its lands on Cortes at a rate that is roughly six times greater than what the island residents are accustomed to.
Continue reading Mosaic wants to harvest 6 times more per hectare than the Cortes Community Forest rate, Ellingsen saysIn the second of two broadcasts about more sustainable forestry practices, one of the founders of the Cortes Community Fortes Co-operative talks about the industry’s diminishing harvests in terms that every gardener understands. (Click here to access part 1)
“Back in the 1970s the justification for logging all the old growth was that the Province was going to be tree farming, to give the public the idea that you’re actually going to be sustainably growing crops off of that landscape each year,” said Ellingsen.
Every farmer knows that they need to replace the nutrients that they are taking out of the soil, or “pretty soon it will not grow a crop successfully any longer.”
Continue reading Conclusion of interview with Bruce Ellingsen: Vancouver Island’s diminishing Tree HarvestsOriginally published on the Cortes Tideline (2014)
I believe that most of us now realize that a mature forest ecosystem is a complex community of interconnected, interdependent organisms demonstrably capable of developing, expanding and sustaining itself. To appreciate this, we only have to consider the forests that existed in much of North America and, more specifically, on our Pacific Coast, when we Europeans arrived.
Continue reading A Mature Forest Ecosystem
