Tag Archives: Sonya Friesen

Cortes Community Forest Five-Year Plan Update: Tour of the Green Mountain Cut Block 

On a recent, crisp, spring morning, eleven Cortes Islanders joined Mark Lombard, Operations Manager for the Cortes Forestry General Partnership, for a tour and conversation about the future of the Green Mountain area of the Community Forest. CFGP is an equal partnership between the Klahoose First Nation and the Cortes Community Forest Cooperative (CCFC). This tour was part of community consultation around the development of the CFGP’s new five-year plan. Operations in this area are expected to occur in the later part of the next five-year period.

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Cortes Community Forest Five-Year Plan Update: Tour of the Larsen’s Meadow Cut Block

Public consultation around plans for the next five years of timber harvesting got back underway on Saturday, March 23, with a tour of the Larsen’s Meadow cut block led by Operations Manager Mark Lombard. Two more public tours are currently scheduled: March 30 in the Carrington/Coulter Bay area and April 20 in the Green Mountain area. These outdoor tours are part of the follow-up to an initial public meeting in the Spring of 2023, when maps and preliminary plans were presented.

Lombard works for the Cortes Forestry General Partnership (CFGP), which holds the tenure (right to log) for the Cortes Community Forest, comprising much of the Crown Land on Cortes Island. CFGP is a partnership between Klahoose First Nation (KFN) and Cortes Community Forest Co-operative (CCFC). 

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Confusion around the proposed Anvil Lake logging road

Cortes Currents published a factually incorrect story about the proposed Anvil Lake logging road on Tuesday, August 30, 2022.

Few people knew this, because I pulled the story before it was broadcast on Cortes Radio.

Nick Reed, a local resident, told me, “The concern is mainly the wetlands that this road has to go through, and what effect that will have on Gunflint (and Anvil) Lakes. It is the last wetland on the southern part of Cortes.”

Mark Lombard, general manager of the Cortes Forestry General Partnership (CFGP),  responded, “The CFGP never builds roads through wetlands.”

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Mosaic visits Cortes Island: A community meeting and forest walk

There were two public forestry events, while Mosaic visited Cortes Island this week.  

About 135 people attended the mixed in-person/ZOOM ‘Celebrating our Forests’ meeting at Mansons Hall on the evening of April 20, 2022. 

Around 16 people joined Mosaic on at least one of the two field walks of proposed cutblocks the following day. (Someone* went on both trips.)

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Open letter to Mosaic Forest Management 

” … When asked about volumes, the answer was ‘approximately 6,000 to 8,000 m3 per year.’ That’s a potential of 18,000m3 to 24,000m3 total over the 3 yr plan and that would amount to approx. 500 to 700 logging truck loads. One logging truck at approx 35m3. So one truck load some say is approx 6500bft of milled lumber and approx enough lumber for a 1,000 ft2 home. Not sure ? I would like to hear island miller’s comment on that.”  

Originally published on the Cortes Tideline

By Sonya Friesen

Attention: Colin Koszman, RPF, RBTech

I live within the forest community of Squirrel Cove on the unceded territories of the Klahoose, Tla’amin and Homalco First Nation. I honor their history of 10,000 years of knowledge learnt from time in place, and their respect for all natural systems kept in balance.

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