Mosaic Forest Management provided a Cortes Island Activity Update Zoom meeting on January 27, 2022 about their proposed forestry activities in the next 3 years, starting this fall. Over forty participants relayed questions to the six Mosaic presenters, via the "chat" function of the online meeting platform. The entire presentation and question period lasted one hour and forty-five minutes.

Noba Anderson, Regional Director for Cortes Island, reflected on how Mosaic's online zoom approach to community consultation, while in keeping with current COVID precautions, contrasted sharply with efforts of 15 years ago by Mosaic's predecessors where in-person community meetings took place with forestry companies.

Anderson would have prefered the company to engage in community meetings where participants can see and hear eachother and have a "sense of coherence." She also pointed to the wealth of community knowledge about the landbase that Mosaic did not acknowledge or take advantage of in this online meeting.

In a summary of the meeting later sent out to participants of the presentation, Mosaic indicated they "are exploring opportunities over the coming month to determine a COVID-friendly way to continue further engagement with the Cortes community."

Local naturalist and commercial diver Mike Moore, who has witnessed forestry and forest activism during his 30 years on the island and as a tour guide operator, gave his impressions on the presentation. He observed that the long period between this public announcement and harvesting this fall does allow residents some time to respond to Mosaic's plans. And the plans they presented, if followed, could result in improved forestry practices over their predecessor's operations in the past.

Listen to the CKTZ News story below: