Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - There are 62 community forests in British Columbia, but only one of them is a general partnership. This can be traced back 23 years, to a MOU in which the Klahoose First Nation and the Cortes Ecoforestry Society agreed to work towards a community forest. Then, in September 2013 the Ministry of Forests issued a Community Forest Agreement to the Cortes Forestry General Partnership. In the third of a series of articles coming out of their 2022 AGM, Mark Lombard talks about the General Partnership. He was a member of the Co-op Board, and one of the three appointed representatives to the partnership, from late 2011/early 2012 until Christmas 2017. Since then, Lombard has been the partnership’s general manager. “The community forest on Cortes is a general partnership, 50/50 between the Klahoose First Nation and the Community Forest Cooperative, which was formed to be a partner in the partnership,” he explained.“Now I know the co-op doesn't represent every individual on Cortes Island, but about a quarter of the full-time population are members of the organization, which is fairly representative, almost enough to get first past the post election Canada.”There are 6 directors on the partnership’s board: 3 from the Klahoose and 3 the Community Forest Co-op. They are the policy and governance setting body and decide big picture items like: profit disbursement, policies for staff interactions with government. Harvest levels, harvest intensity “Operational decisions are made by the staff on a day-to-day basis. The big picture operations and financial analysis and information are compiled by the staff presented to the board. Once the board approves or modifies operations, then the staff carry out the operation,” said Lombard.“The board is pretty hands off on a day-to-day basis, but they take care of the big picture.”He added that decisions are made by a consensus.“My hats off to the board of directors at how constructive, focused and positive that everybody has been over the years. We've had directors come and go but everyone who's been a member of that board has really maintained a high level of professionalism and constructive decision-making.” The current chair is Aaron Ellingson, who was co-chair with Chief Kevin Peacey, who recently retired as chief and from his forestry duties.“It was a real pleasure working with Kevin and the Klahoose as we were working adjacent to the Klahoose First Nation, and we use the road through their reserve to get to the community forest,” . “It's a great team, the community forest board and it's not easy. A lot of people on Cortes would like us to log more or less, or differently or something, definitely something. The board manages to keep a level keel throughout all of the challenges of the industry that we're in. So it's a good board. I'm very grateful to the board and in particular to the Klahoose First Nation who's made this possible in to do this as a partnership.” For further information go to: - the Cortes Forestry General Partnership website- the Cortes Community Forest Cooperative website - articles about, or mentioning, the Cortes Community forest on Cortes Currents