North Cowichan is conducting a consultation to determine the fate of our community forests — to log or protect our Six Mountains. No matter who you are, or where you live, near or far, our Council invites you to participate, to give perspective, to fill out our survey. (Residents will be given precedence.)

In the tradition of the Quw’utsun, (and of all ancestors, back to the beginnings of tribes and nations) we don’t own the forests. Inherently, we know this, and that like the forests, we are connected, interdependent— including our community, North Cowichan, grateful for the thousands of people who visit our forests to hike, bike, and then stay on to visit and support our Valley’s many businesses.

The Six Mountains are the sheltering embrace of a valley paradise, including diverse people for whom these forest are home; from the Quw’utsun, who go back millennia; to people from around the world whose roots go back generations here; to many recently arrived; and thousands of people traveling from afar to explore and experience a vastness of mature, next generation old-growth forests — rapidly disappearing everywhere.

The future of these rare, critically imperilled Coastal Douglas-fir forests (153 species at risk) is about to be decided by our Council. North Cowichan is conducting an online survey that you, we, all of us, may fill out to inform Council why these ecosystems matter.

Please spread the word. Our story is not in isolation. Though no other government or corporation has the power to dictate the management of our community-owned forests — what does it mean for other communities trying to protect their surrounding mature forest ecosystems, homes, watersheds, fire blocks —protection from erosion/flooding, water shortage…?

Our community forest stories are connected. We all have the moral right to defend the forests upon which we are dependent, including forest workers.

It’s time we wake up to the realization — we are in this together.

From mill workers, to loggers, to conservationists, to the multitude of citizens in the province who may live at a distance from the forests but who care about our ecosystems, workers, all children and future generations who will inherit the consequences of our actions and inactions.

The awakening is happening now, across the province. If you don’t know about it yet, you soon will, through communities reaching out to one another — as has been happening for 4 years, during the Six Mountain Forest Consultation.

Across the waters from North Cowichan, is Saltspring Island — the real and mythic land of fabled, flesh and blood forest warriors going back to the eighties.

In 2018, at our Secrets of the Six Mountains Community Forest Meeting, 700 residents gathered to learn from an assembly of the still-active, peaceful, persistent warriors, including Briony Penn of Saltspring.

Author, advocate, academic, artist, and Artemis of legend and lore — in 2001, Briony inspired many people in the province with her determination, dedication, and humour — leading, on horseback, a procession of the gentle forest-loving folk of Saltspring, through downtown Vancouver, arriving at the offices of a corporation logging their sacred island.

For decades, Briony has been visiting, educating, and bolstering communities such as ours.

Recently, we reached across the waters, and Briony reached back, to inspire and remind what is possible when communities come together.

Welcome to Briony Penn, with an extraordinary story for North Cowichan — a universal message we hope you will share with everyone you can possibly reach out to across the islands, the Salish Sea, the mainland, and beyond.