Logging of pristine BC island forest to begin in January by Brookfield Asset Management
Photographs above of Cortes Island forest, slated to be logged by Brookfield Asset Management's Island Timberlands.
Island Timberlands will start logging on Cortes Island this January, according to Wayne French, Operations Planner for IT. Cortes Islanders are seeking signatories to a petition to prevent the logging.
Cortes Island is known for its balance of remoteness and accessibility. Serviced by ferries, float planes and water taxis, getting there still takes effort. People stay long enough for the island to take hold in their imaginations. Many come for inspiration at the Hollyhock Conference Centre, for practical farming guidance at the Linnaea Farm Ecological Gardening Programme, or to rent beach and lake side vacation houses. The year round community of about 1000 people is known for its warmth, creativity and deep civic engagement.
The island’s extensive trails lead to rich lagoons, hidden lakes, ridgeline vistas and the few stately old growth stands that earlier generations of loggers graciously left to live. Bush walkers quickly find the sense of belonging within nature’s integrity which emanates from undisturbed places. Wolves, red legged frogs and other rare and endangered species rely on these rarely visited places.
The island’s best forests are privately managed by a company called Island Timberlands (IT). IT's parcels encompass swaths of woods that bisect the island from east to west. They hold the healthiest forests, the biggest trees and the island’s central water recharge area.
The eastern IT parcels abut the Klahoose First Nation reserve and contain significant old growth remnants that are slated as the first area of IT's planned operations. The IT parcels at the center of the island hold the Blue Jay Lake watershed, where water flows slowly past ancient trees into a giant swamp at the island’s epicenter.
IT has announced plans to clear a two hectare swathe directly through this area to “build a road.” The western parcel edges Carrington Lagoon, a favorite of hikers and picnickers and the destination of an annual pilgrimage for hundreds of twenty somethings. Local organizers call this parcel the Children’s Forest and are fundraising to add it to the Carrington Lagoon Park. IT also owns Whaletown Commons, another beloved parcel for which the community and Regional District have raised enough funds to purchase at an independently appraised fair market value. IT has refused to sell for less than twice the appraised value.
Cortes Island in the witness box
“It’s Cortes Island’s turn in the witness box,” biologist and resident Sabina Leader Mense told the Vancouver Observer during a recent interview. “Industrial logging of private managed forest lands in the face of community opposition has occurred all over Vancouver Island and neighbouring Islands. Now it’s our turn to provide testimony to the true corporate ownership of these lands and the inadequate forest practices for environmental protection."
The privately managed forest lands on Cortes Island have been considered “socially inoperable” for decades, due to staunch local opposition in the form of blockades and the community’s hard work on solutions that would protect ecosystems and provide much needed forest-based employment for the long term. For example, the Cortes Initiative of 2001 was a joint proposal by the Klahoose First Nation, Weyerhaeuser and the Cortes Ecoforestry Society for joint sustainable management of the Island’s private and Crown forest lands. The new yet long sought Cortes Community Forest Co-Operative could offer a solution along similar lines.
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(37) Comments
Great article Carrie!
Very informative article , I hope the logging can be prevented, I get depressed by the whole industry especially since i know the lumber from the trees will be used to make what they would call temporary houses in the uk. Cortes is a beautiful place and should be carefully logged .
I completely disagree with this plan and I am disgusted by it. Let's leave the trees alone! Thanks.
It would be really unfortunate for the logging company if those trees all had chain link fence wrapped around them 10 years ago and have now grown over it ... embedded silently in the wood .. waiting for a chainsaw to snag on it.
I don't think they're planning on leaving the trees alone. I used to think Cortes was one big park. Then I realized it was product. This is a tragedy, really.
STOP MESSING UP ARE EARTH!!! PLANT & LOG HEMP AND SAVE ARE PLANET ...
save our forrests
Robert, I wonder sitting here if your some little oblivious Kid sitting there learning to play with your Moms computer. Everything is connected in many direct and indirect ways. In alot of ways this is one cog in the wheel of our lives that is wrong and is maybe not easily matched up in your murky near sighted mind right straight off . This is killing people right now. Comments like yours are truly great in building good just steam in the hearts and minds of us who have our fingers on the pulse. I wish it were as easy as trees just growing back Robert , I really do. Your learn more about this when you grow up into a big boy pants.
Brookfield Asset Management is destroying long term employment in BC. When BAM bought Weyerhaeuser, it divided the assets into two companies: Island Timberlands to manage private managed forest land and Cascadia Forest Products to manage Crown land tenures and mills. The trees from Island Timberlands privately managed forest are exported to Asia and the US. Western Forest Products (in which Brookfield Asset Management is “a major player”) bought Cascadia Forest Products and closed Vancouver Island mills because, without the private managed forest lands, there weren’t enough logs to sustain it.
Long term employment comes from value-added processing of wood in BC, not in forest liquidation at the rate performed by Island Timberlands and not in “log and flog” schemes that turn forests into residential developments.
Man this are crazy !!!! Leave the trees alone !!!
keep this up and soon we wont have any left !!!
Havent you ever see Dr. Suess "The Lorax" ???
I mean really people ...
keep the trees alive!!!!
Many people will not agree with me but we all need the forestlands of BC as an economic base. I hope we have learned from the past what not to do in the future.
As logging will continue we need to move forward logging with care and sustainability of the forests in the forefront of our minds. We have the technology.
Leave what little old growth is left alone, be caring of eco systems and DO NOT send raw logs off shore.
If we are going to cut down trees, figure out a way to keep secondary manufacturing jobs in BC.
Could we not end up with the same economic dollar at the end of the day by cutting down fewer trees, process the logs here and send the manufactured products over seas?
It’s a big province, a big industry and a big problem when logging in this era comes to a small island like Cortez.
IT is not in the job making business - it is in the money making business - when will people get that! It is not jobs vs the environment. The planet is not a set of resources for humans to use up. It is an ecosystem that humans are destroying.
Short sighted logging projects like this are a devastating tragedy we naturalists, forest lovers, and realists are being faced with more and more every day. Canada has had over 150 years of sloppy, short sighted logging. Maybe its time to consider alternate, 'sustainable' methods of obtaining wood, that to not destroy our limited forests natural states.
As a local mycophile, botanist, husband and father, hearing tales of forests being killed and stolen hurts me like the loss of a loved one. If only I could project my pain onto those logging companies and loggers...
Where will I (we) teach my (our) children about the forest, if the forest is all destroyed?
It would be really unfortunate for the logging company if those trees all had chain link fence wrapped around them 10 years ago and have now grown over it ... embedded silently in the wood .. waiting for a chainsaw to snag on it.
The logging company probably could not care less, but the unfortunate worker who would either lose his arm and be unable to support his family or get killed would probably call it "unforturnate" indeed. It is this kind of thinking that takes the debate nowhere because you are happy to maim or kill someone. It does nothing for your credibility or for your side of the issue.
Ironically, it is Brookfield Asset Management that owns the private park where Occupy Wall Street was given the boot from. Please correct me if I am wrong.... It seems like this might just be a form of retaliation on their part. Maybe it's time to occupy Cortes Island.
i'm devastated!
Stewart, this is a genius find. This is a very useful info that could help us bring this to the forefront.
Ironically, it is Brookfield Asset Management that owns the private park where Occupy Wall Street was given the boot from. Please correct me if I am wrong.... It seems like this might just be a form of retaliation on their part. Maybe it's time to occupy Cortes Island.
They've been planning to log Cortes for more than two years now. Zoe Miles waged a brilliant campaign against them. MTV's The Buried Life did a great piece on her and the forest and Brookfield Asset Management's CEO Bruce Flatt. The segement ran. 35 million people watched it. And still they didn't change their plans.
This all pre-dates Occupy Wall Street. It was interesting when Brookfield Asset Management's name emerged as the owners of Zucotti Park, where #OWS began.
I've been spending time on Cortes for thirty years and I used to naiively think the island was one big, magnificent park. After moving there, I quickly understood that the trees were viewed by the corporations that owned them as product and units.
not neccesary
Dear fellow humans,
For the short term benefit of chopping down these trees, there is a very long term cost. our humanity, clean air, wilderness habitat and dignity as evolving humans depends on saving places like this. We can do without the fuel, wood or whatever else you are going to make from these beautiful trees.
Please, save them and find a way to benefit our planet by thinking of a bigger vision.
Sincerely,
Tova Ramer
There can be no benefit from cutting down these trees that could surpass the dignity and beauty they provide us as human beings.
Do not succumb to your short term monetary thirst... instead, walk in these woods and listen to them. There is much there to learn.
In Harmony,
Tova Ramer
Brookfield Asset Management is destroying long term employment in BC. When BAM bought Weyerhaeuser, it divided the assets into two companies: Island Timberlands to manage private managed forest land and Cascadia Forest Products to manage Crown land tenures and mills. The trees from Island Timberlands privately managed forest are exported to Asia and the US. Western Forest Products (in which Brookfield Asset Management is “a major player”) bought Cascadia Forest Products and closed Vancouver Island mills because, without the private managed forest lands, there weren’t enough logs to sustain it.
Long term employment comes from value-added processing of wood in BC, not in forest liquidation at the rate performed by Island Timberlands and not in “log and flog” schemes that turn forests into residential developments.
[/quote]Blessings to our alive Forest beings and animal kingdom, we love you so very much, you are our family and we WILL protect you!
Get the job done, log the wood and build the roads quick and efficiently to deal woth as least civil disobiedience as possible. Good wood in that bit of land and the area has been logged for 100 years. The quicker the job is done the better, it's a contentious subject, Island Timberlands knows this and they will deal with it accordingly. Keep it safe and use feller-bunchers and processors wherever possible to prevent any human lost-time accidents. Theres good cubic metre rate on fir/hemlock/cedar right now, even Alder is getting good rate. Logging was happening in the Discovery Islands long before these chai-tea sipping hempgranola beatniks came to Cortes. Incidentally search Youtube for Quadra Island Logging, theres a great video showing local logging at work.