Anastasia Avvakumova/ Cortes Currents - On Sat. Jan. 28, Cortes Community Forest Cooperative (CCFC) public meeting succeeded in providing a "local knowledge download" for the external consulting team, who are now working on a plan for CCFC to keep more of its cut wood on island, simultaneously creating jobs through tapping the value-added wood products sector.

The meeting was held at the Klahoose First Nation's Multi-Purpose Building. The Nation is a strategic partner with the non-indigenous side of the island in holding and guiding development on approximately 3,869 hectares of Crown land that makes up the Forest's tenure.

The event began with a presentation by consultant Rami Rothkop, a co-founder of Herrop-Procter Forest Products (HPFP) in the Kootenays region, which has over a decade of experience creating the thriving model of local economy that CCFC is pursuing. Unique in today's logging industry in British Columbia, HPFP prioritizes creation of local jobs and selling its products as locally as possible, as well as emphasizing value-added wood products—which is defined as anything produced from a cut tree beyond its raw log state, from milled lumber to highly intensive labour products like furniture. Typically, the more labour is involved in the end-product's creation, the higher its value, which is heralded by eco-minded perspectives as the best way to honour the precious commodity of BC's forests. "In BC's industrial forest operations, there's very few jobs for volume of wood cut. So if initiatives can be created that focus much more on value-added, creating more jobs with less wood and the goal is to have employment, you need less wood to create more jobs for people," said Rothkop.

His business partner Oliver Scholfield then led the approximately 50 people in attendance through small-group discussions of various questions that asked to identify the opportunities and barriers for expanding Cortes Island's economy with CCFC's timber.