But temporarily, is the key word. It's a one week reprieve and the lawyers are meeting, who knows what will happen next. Brookfield Asset Management, owner of Island Timberlands, has $150 BILLION in global assets. The residents don’t. Yikes!
Up until now the protests and blockade have been 100% volunteer but now...The residents are asking the rest of us, we're all stakeholders, please consider supporting their movement towards a sustainable forest economy with dollars by buying a copy of and telling your friends about the 'Wild We Stand' digital album available from their website in every imaginable format.
The people of Cortes Island, like all those of BC's coastal forest communities, know the cost to the local and provincial economy in long-term forestry jobs lost that exporting raw logs creates, especially now that logging rights are no longer linked to mandatory job creation as they were for decades. Cortes residents rightly believe Island Timberland's industrial forestry model employs few locals, and only for the short term, while shipping most of their logs raw to Asian markets.
