Tag Archives: Mark Lombard

Behind the Scenes: The 60 heroes of Lovefest

Behind Lovefest’s ongoing success, and the success of so many festivals and community events around the province, is a dedicated corps of volunteers. 

According to Amy Robertson, who oversaw this part of the festival, “We had about 60 volunteers this year. They were doing everything from making sure that  parking is safe out on the road and that the blue bus has a good place to park. Volunteers sell tickets, help the vendors and they’re setting up. They do a lot of decoration for this event, help promote it, sell T- shirts, and just ensure that everybody has a good, safe time.” 

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Mark Lombard: Community Forest 5-Year Plan

The Cortes Community Forestry Co-operative held its annual AGM on May 7th at Mansons Hall. The Co-operative is an equal partner with Klahoose First Nation in the Cortes Forestry General Partnership, locally known as the “Community Forest.” Mark Lombard is the General Manager for the Partnership.

At the Forestry Co-op AGM, Mark reminded attendees that a public meeting would be held soon (May 11 at the Klahoose Multipurpose Hall). At this meeting he would present a review of the Partnership’s activities to date, and their plans for the next few years. This event would mark the launch of a public input period for the “Five Year Plan” for the Community Forest project.

At this point in the planning process, the five year plan is wide open for comment and feedback. And if there’s an area that someone thinks would be a sensible area to operate in — in the next five years — that hasn’t been considered, please bring that forward.

If there are any other features or concerns or ideas… basically what I’m trying to say is, it’s wide open to public feedback, so we’d like to hear from people, and everything’s on the table at this point.

— Mark Lombard

Currents interviewed Mark on May 19th, to offer our readers/listeners an overview of the material he covered in his May 11 presentation. [The audio version of this interview is quite different from the image-heavy text version, so we recommend that interested readers check out both media.]

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Suzanne Simard speaks at the 2023 Cortes Community Forest AGM

The Mother Tree Project began in one Lower Mainland and nine Interior forests. They recently expanded their research on the coast, where Dr Suzanne Simard says the forests are richest in terms of biodiversity. A team came to Cortes Island at the invitation of the Cortes Community Forest Cooperative, and students from the Cortes Island Academy will be taking part in a research propject later this year. Dr Simard described the Mother Tree Project’s work on Cortes, and responded to questions, at the Community Forest’s 2023 AGM.

This is an abridged transcript taken from the ZOOM audio. 

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Dr Suzanne Simard: The Mother Tree Network & Cortes Island

Dr Suzanne Simard was the feature speaker at the Forest Trust for the Children of Cortes Island Society AGM on Saturday. During the course of her brief talk, Dr Simard discussed some of the innovations she values on Cortes Island and also the Mother Tree Network’s plans here. This is an abridged transcript of her talk, starting with the introduction by Forrest Berman Hatch 

Forrest Berman-Hatch: It’s my honor to introduce Dr. Suzanne Simard, who I’m sure many of you are familiar with.  Simard has been courageous in her outspoken, defence of old growth forests. She was on the front lines at Fairy Creek and she’s inspired many in our generation. For generations, environmentalists have been trying to speak on behalf of the wild places, and now Dr. Simard is showing the world that these places  speak for themselves and perhaps quite literally.

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Focusing on wildfire fuel mitigation

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

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

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

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