Our organization exists to monitor and preserve the health of local ecosystems, and to provide educational programs that foster a greater understanding of the natural environment.
Our organization exists to monitor and preserve the health of local ecosystems, and to provide educational programs that foster a greater understanding of the natural environment.
Our organization exists to monitor and preserve the health of local ecosystems, and to provide educational programs that foster a greater understanding of the natural environment.
Friends of Cortes Island Society
Friends of Cortes Island Society (FOCI) is a charitable organization that has been active for over 25 years.
Our organization exists to monitor and preserve the health of local ecosystems, and to provide educational programs that foster a greater understanding of the natural environment. Through all of our projects, we work to promote environmental integrity through community responsibility. As a charitable society, our purposes are:
• To identify environmentally sensitive areas, particularly on Cortes and neighbouring islands.
• To monitor and protect wildlife and the safeguarding of its natural habitat.
• To promote the protection of the forests, lakes, streams and critical watersheds and the enhancement of fish stocks where appropriate.
• To promote the study and preservation of the cultural heritage and historical landmarks of the area.
• To provide educational programs that relate to ecological understanding and appreciation of the environment.
Charity information
Charity #: 13338 2889 RR0001 – Society #S-002 6477 reg. July 27, 1990
Meet our Executive Director, Program Coordinators and Board of Directors
Helen Hall
Executive Director
Helen Hall is a conservation professional with over 30 years’ experience working at the intersection of nature, people, and place. She has been Executive Director since 2015, providing organizational leadership and overseeing a wide range of conservation, education, and community engagement programs.
Before moving to Cortes Island, Helen held senior roles in urban ecology in Bristol, UK. She led nationally recognized biodiversity, species recovery, habitat restoration, and community engagement projects, and helped set new approaches to protecting urban wildlife sites by recognizing the importance of community values. She also led high-profile campaigns to protect sites threatened by development.
Helen strongly believes in the value of nature to people and in celebrating both the common and the rare. Inspired by the wild beauty of Cortes Island, she feels honoured to help steward this place with respect for its First Nations history and the deep connections between people and the natural world.
Sam Gibb
Park Ranger
Sam grew up exploring the hills of Scotland by mountain bike, gaining a love for the outdoors, a respect for the work that keeps trails alive, and an appreciation for waterproof clothing. Since 2014, he has been helping keep Cortes Island trails clear.
He’s happiest in the woods, and joined the Friend of Cortes Island team in 2023 to help keep the islands regional parks and trails safe and accessible.
Alex Bernier
Park Ranger
Alex works enjoys working in the parks and trails, keeping everything in good shape by raking and cutting back vegetation, and building and repairing board walks, ladders and bridges, as well as creating new trails.
He loves working in the forest; it keeps him connected to nature, as well as fit and healthy. He also helps keeping Cortes wild and natural by protecting our forest and wilderness, and promotes a healthy lifestyle for locals and others too!
Christine & Cec Robinson
Stream Stewardship Coordinators
Christine has been a long-time teacher & naturalist on Cortes, and oversees salmon enhancement programmes with students, raising coho eggs and releasing them into Cortes creeks. She has a love of wild things and wild places, and sees the critical importance of healthy forests supporting healthy streams supporting healthy fish.
Cec’s favourite place in the world is the cool, green, overgrown edge of a healthy stream. When four years old, he fell in love with the first little trout that he saw living there, and the fish have been teaching him about themselves ever since.
Gina Trzesicka
Lake Volunteer Coordinator
Gina came to Cortes in 2010 and loves the island. She hopes the wonderful nature and quiet life on our island never change.
Gina wears two hats for FOCI! She coordinates the lake monitoring volunteers and updates the FOCI website content.
Beatrix Baxter
Graphic Designer/Video Producer
Beatrix (they/she) has been working on the FOCI team since 2015 as a graphic designer and video producer, which includes making signs, posters, newsletters, brochures, and the occasional documentary. When not clacking around on the computer, they like to be hanging out on hot rocks like a lizard or growing/finding food in the wilds of Whaletown.
Beatrix comes from Land Back, disability justice, emergent strategy praxis, and tries to bring this into the work she creates with FOCI.
Molly Howson
FOCI Office Assistant
Molly moved to Cortes in May 2024 from living in the UK. She has often visited Cortes over the last eight years to visit her mum and has finally made the move to join her. Molly enjoys the laid-back, peaceful nature of Cortes and the great community life that comes with it. She is a huge animal lover and looks forward to learn more about the wildlife and nature of B.C. and Cortes Island!
Mike Moore
President
For much of the last 30 years most of Mike’s time has been spent out on the water around Cortes Island, or under it. In his role as a naturalist, he has introduced many hundreds of visitors to the Cortes community and the island’s ecosystems. In his work as a diver, he gets to witness firsthand the increased boat traffic and underwater sound levels, pollution, the good and bad impacts of aquaculture, and he just gets time to spend with the animals out on the water. This gives Mike a three-dimensional perspective of Cortes that few others get to see.
Mike is interested in working towards maintaining a healthy environment for all of the beings that make Cortes and the surrounding waters their home.
Tecuana Cliffton-Wooldridge
Vice President
Tecuana is a passionate outdoors person who was born and raised on Cortes Island. Currently serving as the interim Campus Director at Hollyhock, Tecuana is deeply connected to the natural world and is particularly interested in the intersection between climate conservation and economic viability. She is also dedicated to building mutually beneficial relationships and operating respectfully in traditional ancestral First Nation territories.
With lived experience in the field, Tecuana is a growing voice in the conversation around sustainability and environmental stewardship.
Maya Buckner
Secretary
Maya has called Cortes Island home for much of her life. She was raised on Linnaea Farm, and this early life experience embedded a deep sense of place and connection to the natural world in her, which she has carried forward throughout her life.
Maya left Cortes to attend the University of Victoria, graduating in 2017 with a degree in Geography and Environmental Studies. This education gave her the lens of science to deepen her passion for learning about, and from, ecological systems.
Returning home to Cortes after the completion of her degree, Maya spent several years working on the ocean which cultivated a fascination with marine and intertidal environments. Currently, Maya’s professional life has given her the opportunity to develop skills in Planning and gain experience working with Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
At home, Maya is an avid gardener, birder, and hiker, taking any opportunity she has to get out into the forest, or onto the water on and around Cortes. Maya looks forward to putting her diverse experience and love of Cortes Island to work as a new member of the FOCI board.
Jodi Peters
Treasurer
Since moving with her family to Cortes Island in 2014, Jodi has fallen in love with the island’s incredible ecological diversity. With decades of experience in environmental education – ranging from Vancouver’s Environmental Youth Alliance to managing local youth programs – she is passionate about supporting youth in developing a deep love of and familiarity with natural ecosystems.
Jodi deeply believes in the rights of all creatures to thrive in their natural habitats and in the human responsibility to support diversity and habitat conservation in these challenging times. A Linnaea Farm alumna (2009) with a Permaculture Design certificate, she loves applying permaculture principles to everything she does! She is honoured to join the FOCI board and support its excellent work on Cortes.
When not at work, she enjoys gardening, singing, hiking, cycling, and jumping in the ocean year-round!
Jodi lives near Smelt Bay with her partner and two daughters.
Michael Dé Danann Datura
Director
Michael is the principal of Cortes Island School and a teacher in the Cortes Island Academy, situated on the ancestral territories of the toq qaymɩxʷ (Klahoose), ɬəʔamɛn qaymɩxʷ (Tla’amin), and ʔop qaymɩxʷ (Homalco) Nations. He also moonlights as an independent scholar, a hip-hop artist with kraKIN, and occasionally a poet.
He is a member of the academic council for The Centre for Imagination in Research, Culture and Education at Simon Fraser University; he published his first book, Place, Being, Resonance, in 2015; and co-edited a collaborative project called Wild Pedagogies in 2018. He is a board member of Reel Youth, The Cortes Island Academy, The Linnaea Farming Society, Friends of Cortes Island, and The Kamala Foundation. He also likes long walks in the forest.
Ralph Garrison
Director
I grew up on Vashon Island, in Washington state. As a child, my family enjoyed outdoor activities, from playing on the beach to hiking, climbing and skiing in the mountains. A regular summer trip was to the San Juan Islands. There, I developed a love of the wild west coast. I became a boat builder, a carpenter, and a salmon fisher in Alaska.
Fast forward a couple of decades to 1990, when, on a kayaking trip, I stumbled into Tiber Bay. I built a cabin. Cut firewood. Grew a garden. Wrote lists of birds. Swam naked in the warm sea! Joined the FOCI board.
Now, years later, as a semi-retired person, my love of and fear for the natural world have led me to serve on the FOCI board again! Climate issues are paramount! I hope to help with projects that preserve and restore natural areas on Cortes, making our ecosystems more resilient as we face a changing climate.
Elizabeth Burr
Director
Elizabeth has lived on and off Cortes Island for over 22 years and is deeply passionate about the beauty, wisdom, and healing power of the natural world. She believes that nature – through its flora and fauna, oceans, forests, and waterways – is our greatest teacher and healer, offering guidance, resilience, and connection when we learn to listen.
Elizabeth strongly believes that these living systems deserve not only our appreciation but also our protection, stewardship, and reverence. Her relationship with Cortes has shaped her commitment to community, land-based learning, and thoughtful care for the ecosystems that sustain us.
She is excited to join the FOCI board, where she hopes to help support and initiate projects that protect the island’s natural heritage, foster environmental education, and strengthen community engagement in conservation efforts for generations to come.
