The long-awaited Rainbow Ridge housing development has passed a milestone. The foundations of the first two homes are in place. Sadhu Johnston, Executive Director of the Cortes Housing Society, gave Cortes Currents a tour of the site and spoke about the vision, challenges, and progress to date.
Rainbow Ridge is rising in Mansons Landing, the most settled community on Cortes Island.
Continue reading First Home Foundations Poured: Rainbow Ridge Housing Project Takes Shape on Cortes IslandThe Cortes Forestry General Partnership held its public meeting on October 9th, 2025. In today’s interview, Operations Manager Mark Lombard talks about leadership transitions, plans for selective logging, the Forest Stewardship Plan review, and other topics from the meeting. He also shares his personal opinion about how climate change is affecting our forest.
“We try to have a public meeting every year and we cover whatever topics are relevant at that point. There’s always the year in review, so what have we done in the last year since the last public meeting and what are we planning in the coming year,” explained Lombard.
Continue reading Cortes Island’s Community Forest Operations in 2025/26
Tune in on October 10th for a special episode of FolkU radio, where we listen to an episode of another talk show, Chatter That Matters, by Tony Chapman. This episode features a conversation with Zita Cobb about the story arch of her home in Newfoundland, Fogo Island. This is a discussion about tourism, circular economies, community, and rurality. Introduction by Manda Aufochs-Gillespie.
Continue reading Folk U: Chatter the mattersShane Berg, BC’s Chief Forester, has a message he is taking to trading partners around the world. On Thursday, October 2, 2025, he made a presentation to the Strathcona Regional District’s Natural Resources Committee.
In today’s broadcast there are select clips from that presentation, including reactions from the committee. Also Bruce Ellingsen, one of the founding directors of the Cortes Community Forest Cooperative and a local thought leader on forestry matters, gave his opinion about the presentation and what he believes it lacks.
Berg claims that the amount of old growth forests is increasing. According to Ellingsen what is not clear is that he is talking about the 80% of relatively small old growth trees growing in less productive areas, not the ‘big tree old growth’ that the environmental community is concerned about.
Continue reading BC’s Chief Forester Tells the SRD the State of BC’s Forests, or notOn October 3 2025, host Manda Aufochs-Gillespie was joined by Kate Maddigan, Bruen Black, Amy Robertson, and Genevieve Cruz, for a special group discussion on revenue diversification for rural non-profits. Tune in for talk of circular economies, transportation, a brainstorm on creative revenue solutions, and updates from the Cortes Natural Food Co-op, CCEDA, and the Cortes Housing Society.
Continue reading Folk U: Revenue Diversification for Social Profits
