September 2024 Update from the Community Forest

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - The Cortes Community Forest Co-operative’s 2024 AGM will be from 7:30 to 9 PM on Mansons Hall on Wednesday October 9th. 

Together with Klahoose Forestry, they make up the Cortes Forestry General Partnership. Mark Lombard, General Manager for the Partnership gave Cortes Currents an overview of their operations this year and plans for the future:

Mark Lombard: “We’ve really  got pretty good support from the community. Our emphasis is barely logging, our emphasis is building value for the community, training and firewood for seniors and  logs, local mills. We're the lightest touch logging operation in the province by a mile and a half.”

“Log prices are really low right now. There's potential concerns about a recession in the U S or globally or whatever reasons and because prices are low, we're not planning to do any logging right now.”  

Cortes Currents: So where were you working this year?

Mark Lombard: “This spring we built 480 metres of road in the Gorge Harbour operating area and the log sales went all to local mills on the island. Seven loads went to the Klahoose Sawmill, Blue Jay Lake Farm sawmill,  Ellingson Woods  and Ron Wolda. They got the logs that they needed and the log sales paid for the road. We didn't have to buy capping for the road because we recycled the capping off of the spur road for the firebreak block.  We basically paid for the road, which is a long term investment access into the land base. We did a new faller training. Two Cortes Islanders did the falling and got their training to become fallers.  Then the logs went to the mills and all the firewood went out as a community firewood day for mostly seniors and people in need.”

“So there was a lot of benefit, even though there wasn't a big so-called profit. There wasn't any financial profit from building the road, but  it paid for itself. So that is pretty good value creation.” 

Cortes Currents: Do you find that the community forest has kept the local mills busy? 

Mark Lombard: “I think all of the mills  have gotten the majority of their logs from the community forest  since about 2015/2016.   We haven't always been able to quite supply them with everything that they need because it takes a lot of community consultation,  planning and  announcements.  All the T's have to be crossed and I's dotted to be able to cut one tree.  It's the same amount of work if you want to go cut a whole bunch of trees. So it's tricky to just cut one logging truck load or two logging truck loads.”  

Cortes Currents: Tell us about the community forest’s role in the development of a superior tanker shuttle service.

Mark Lombard: “Sure, the community forest  moved two tanks from the Whaletown Fire Department to the Gorge Harbour area, to the new logging road, and the two tanks from the Manson's Fire Department were moved to the Coulter Bay Logging Road, and those were areas that were considered gaps on the island.”

“The nearest tanks to Coulter Bay previously were at the Whaletown Fire Hall and the nearest filling station for the Thunder Road neighborhood was Anvil Lake. So by getting those tanks in, we improve our performance for the Superior Tanker Shuttle Service, which if we can get  a certain amount of water shuttled to a fire, we can actually qualify to get our insurance lowered on the island.”

“The two fire halls got  big new tanks, and then two additional tanks went to the south end of Cortes. So now we've got a lot better coverage of the island with having moved these tanks into the community forest,  which I was really happy to be able to work on with Fire Chief Eli McKenty and Shaun Koopman, Protective Services Coordinator for the Strathcona Regional District (SRD).” 

“We have a few announcements, mostly around wildfire risk reduction work in the community forest this fall.”