David Broadland

March 16

Here's the first 10 minutes or so of the video Taryn linked to. Morris is always interesting to listen to.

March 16

Being Forest Minister is one of BC’s most difficult jobs. How is the current minister doing?

March 5

8 hours ago, Deane Rimerman said:

Hello from south of the border... How are forest defenders doing up there? I've always wanted to participate / interact with everyone up there and for past 25 years was on BC forestwatch, Landwatch and other listserves. Also participated in several Facebook groups.

Welcome Deane.

March 4

We will use this forum for comments about anything forest-related. If a topic resonates with the community, we will move it to a separate thread. The newest entries are at the bottom of the thread. Guests may comment but such comments need to be approved by a moderator. Comments by registered users will appear quickly, without moderation.

December 8, 2023

Thanks for your comments June and Legibou!

April 14, 2023

Bill 23, passed by the BC Legislative Assembly on November 23, 2021, introduced Forest Landscape Planning to various forest-related legislation.

It is still unclear what this new process entails or what it means for the interested public. Yves Mayrand has written a critical overview of what the new legislation contains. But how "forest landscape plans" and "forest operations plans" will be created and how the public will be able to interact with the process is still vague, if not confusing.

The BC Ministry of Forests held an online seminar about the process in June 2022 called "Transitioning to Forest Landscape Planning and Alignment with DRIPA". The seminar was aimed at forest professionals, but for anyone wondering what this new direction means for public interaction with forest planning in BC, the video below contains some hints. For one thing, the new planning process will require licensees to post their plans on a government website, and the public will have access to the information as soon as it is posted.

Please let us know what you think of this new direction by the ministry.

February 17, 2023

Thanks for your comment Anthony and your detailed examination of point [2] of Eby's announcement. I recently wrote about the "unduly clauses" in the Forest and Range Practices Act and the hidden administrative cap on how much conservation measures are allowed to impact timber supply. Those clauses are just part of a complex set of legislative and administrative conditions that have led to the current state of what Eby himself has called BC's "exhausted" forests.

Your analysis suggests that just changing the legislation "changes nothing" and I agree with you. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that the timber supply impact constraint is applied during the timber supply review process. And, until that process changes, removing the "unduly clauses" won't have any affect.

But there seems to be something else going on with the AAC that no one is talking about, and the impact of this is so great that it completely negates the 6 percent constraint.

The current provincial AAC is, officially, 60,371,608 cubic metres per year. This is the volume that, officially, can be cut on Crown land over a period of a year.

For this past year, which included a significant period of record high market prices for forest products (the second big hump in the price record below), the actual volume cut on Crown land—according to the Forests Ministry's Harvest Billing System— was about 44 million cubic metres.

The difference between the official AAC and the actual cut—in a relatively good market year—was more than 16 million cubic metres below the official AAC.

The 6 percent limit on the impact of conservation measures on timber supply would only amount to 3.6 million cubic metres.

To me this demonstrates that the official AAC—and the timber supply reviews that determine the AAC—have become so outdated and irrelevant that they can't be relied on—for anything. BC's forests are, as Eby has acknowledged, exhausted.

That acknowledgement alone gives me some hope that David Eby is no John Horgan, and that if big change can happen Eby might very well be the politician that can pull it off.

I think we need to help him build on the new foundation he is starting to put together, beginning with how to grow protected areas in BC to 30 percent by 2030. That doesn't mean, though, that we should stop describing the almost endless number of instances in which the industry continues to degrade our life support systems.

February 17, 2023

On February 15, 2023, BC Premier David Eby announced a number of new measures on old growth, innovation and forest stewardship. Those initiatives are captured in the press release below. How do you interpret these initiatives? Will this launch the paradigm shift needed to end the 22-year long reign of industrial terror in BC's forests? Or is it just more thinly disguised talk-and-log?

Office of the Premier
Ministry of Forests

NEWS RELEASE
B.C. introduces new measures on old growth, innovation, forest stewardship

VICTORIA - The B.C. government is launching new measures to protect more old growth by fast-tracking innovation and co-developing new local plans with First Nations to better care for B.C.'s forests.

"Our forests are foundational to B.C. In collaboration with First Nations and industry, we are accelerating our actions to protect our oldest and rarest forests," said Premier David Eby. "At the same time, we will support innovation in the forestry sector so our forests can deliver good, family-supporting jobs for generations to come."

At the centre of the eight-point plan is $25 million for new Forest Landscape Planning (FLP) tables that will drive improved old-growth management while incorporating local knowledge and community priorities. Enabled by 2021 amendments to the Forest and Range Practices Act, forest landscape plans are a more comprehensive and inclusive approach to forest stewardship that will replace existing, industry-developed plans.

In response to requests from First Nations for more in-depth discussions about old growth, this funding will support eight new regional FLP tables with the participation of approximately 50 First Nations. These tables will prevent harvesting in old-growth forests important for ecosystem health, biodiversity, clean water, carbon storage and Indigenous values. They will also provide greater certainty about the areas where sustainable harvesting can occur to support jobs and investment.

The announcement also includes ramping up government investments to support innovation in the forestry industry. The Province is doubling the new BC Manufacturing Jobs Fund to $180 million and expanding eligibility province wide. The BC Manufacturing Jobs Fund will, for example, support mills to process smaller-diameter trees and manufacture higher-value wood products, such as mass timber. It will accelerate shovel-ready projects across the manufacturing ecosystem that will bring direct benefits and stable, family-supporting jobs to communities throughout the province. Previously, the fund was restricted to projects outside of the Metro Vancouver and the Capital regional districts.

"As we work to protect more old growth, we know we need to accelerate our efforts to build a stronger, more innovative forestry industry that better shares the benefits with workers and communities. Forestry is a foundation of B.C.'s economy," said Bruce Ralston, Minister of Forests. "That's why we are doubling provincial investments to help mills retrofit to get off old-growth logs and manufacture more high-value wood products right here in B.C., so we create more jobs from every tree."

Additional actions to accelerate implementation of the Old Growth Strategic Review during the next year include:

[1] developing and implementing alternatives to clear-cutting practices, such as selective harvesting techniques, that better support forest resiliency, ecosystem health and climate adaptation, through a new $10-million silviculture innovation program;

[2] repealing outdated wording in the Forest and Range Practices Act regulations that prioritizes timber supply over all other forest objectives, like water quality, wildlife habitat and biodiversity;

[3] increasing Indigenous participation in co-developing changes to forest policy through $2.4 million provided to the First Nations Forestry Council;

[4] protecting more old-growth forests and biodiverse areas by leveraging hundreds of millions of dollars of philanthropic donations to fund conservation measures supported by the Province and First Nations, through a new conservation financing mechanism to be set up within six months;

[5] enabling local communities and First Nations to finance old-growth protection by selling verified carbon offsets that represent long-term emission reductions through the new Forest Carbon Offset Protocol 2.0, which will be finalized this year; and

[6] completing the Old Growth Strategic Action Plan by the end of 2023, to be developed in collaboration with First Nations and in consultation with stakeholders.

Since November 2021, the Province has been engaging with First Nations about deferring harvest within old-growth forests. Deferrals have now been implemented on approximately 2.1 million hectares of old growth. As recommended by the Old Growth Strategic Review, deferrals are intended to prevent biodiversity loss while the Province, First Nations and other partners develop a new, long-term approach to forest management that prioritizes ecosystem health and community resiliency.

The Technical Advisory Panel recommended that the Province implement deferrals within 2.6 million hectares of forests identified as most at risk of biodiversity loss. An additional 1.4 million hectares was already permanently protected.

Since November 2021, 11,600 hectares have been harvested while engagements with First Nations were underway. This is equal to less than 0.5% of the area recommended for deferral.

February 15, 2023

If you are wondering whether priority deferral areas overlap with cutting permits in your area of interest, this map will show you overlaps across the province.

February 15, 2023

Yes, you are right Len. That map is from the Ministry of Forests own database. So CP 714 was approved by the ministry a full year after TAP released its mapping of deferral areas. I found a satellite image of the area taken on January 30, 2023 and the logging company, NorthPac, wasted no time after the cutting permit approval to begin building roads and logging forest (green arrow):

February 14, 2023

Thanks for your example Len. I did a bit of mapping and overlayed Cutting Permit 714 on TAP's the Priority Deferral Areas map.

Here's what the area looked like around 2017:

Here's what TAP's 2021 Priority Deferral Map showed. The solid green polygons are the priority deferral areas:

And here's what Cutting Permit 714 (tan areas outlined in red) looks like overlayed on top of the Priority Deferral Areas map. Use the lake as a reference.

There's obviously a lot of overlap between the deferral areas and the cutting permit. But does this mean that the logging company is targeting the deferral areas? It might be that the planning for CP 714 began well before the deferral areas had been announced. The logging company's map of CP 714 shows it was from August 2021, well before the deferral areas were announced in November 2021.

February 14, 2023

In November 2021, then forests minister Katrine Conroy announced that, in response to the 2020 report of the Old Growth Strategic Review Panel, the ministry would begin consulting with First Nations on whether they would agree with old-growth deferral areas mapped in their traditional territories.

At the same time, mapping of proposed deferral areas was released. The mapping was conducted by the Old Growth Strategic Review's Technical Advisory Panel.

Since that time, various cases of logging in deferral areas has been reported.

In this forum we will attempt to track what's happening in different parts of the province. If you know of logging that has occurred in a deferral area, please let us know and we will track down the particulars.

February 6, 2023

I agree with you Salmon in the Sky, that clearcut logging ought to be seen as an “immoral practice”.

But who gets to judge whether it is immoral or not? This question naturally leads to a consideration of what it means for a practice to be considered “moral.”

One definition of “moral” is “a person’s standards of behaviour or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.”

Morality, then, is a personal standard. By extension, consideration of what is an “immoral” practice is also based on a personal standard.

In BC, if we look around carefully enough, we see large numbers of clearcuts. In most parts of the province there are far more clearcuts that there is mature or old forest.

It seems evident, then, that most people aren’t offended by clearcuts, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many of them. So, for most people, clearcutting is not an “immoral practice”.

That’s partly because they are told, relentlessly, by government and industry, that the benefits of clearcutting far outweigh the costs.

How can more people—including our political leaders—be made conscious of why you and I, and many others (but somewhat short of a majority) consider clearcutting to be immoral?

I think you hit the nail on the head when you describe the impacts of clearcutting: loss of the ability to create oxygen, depletion of soil, polluting water and creating landslides. There are several other negative impacts, including loss of biodiversity and wildlife habitat, increasing the risk of forest fire, loss of carbon sequestration capacity, and increasing climate instability by the destruction of forest carbon sinks.

Most people, I think, would understand that any person involved in creating these effects is damaging our common life support system and is, therefore, behaving immorally. But most people aren’t aware of these impacts. All they hear, from government, industry and through mainstream media, is that logging provides jobs, building materials and adds to our trade surplus. Mass timber!

So how do we persuade more people to be conscious of the overall impacts of logging and the need to limit it?

If we can do that, whatever it is, then clearcutting will eventually be widely considered an immoral practice and we will stop doing it.

We need to act, urgently, but the only thing that will move the needle is to share what we know about the damage being done by logging in BC. Thanks for sharing your point of view.

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Journalism: The over-exploitation of BC forests

Library: Destruction of wildlife habitat and loss of biodiversity

Journalism: Loss of forest-related employment

Journalism: The need to expedite final treaties with First Nations

Journalism: Loss of primary forest

Journalism: Loss of carbon sequestration capacity

Other notable forest-related writing and reports

Noteworthy writing and reports from the forest-industrial complex

Forest News

Library: The over-exploitation of BC forests

Library: Loss of primary forest

Library: Loss of the hydrological functions of forests

Make conservation of the hydrological function of forests a higher priority than timber extraction

Library: Loss of forest-related employment

Library: The need to expedite final treaties with First Nations

Transition from clearcut logging to selection logging

Library: Increase in forest fire hazard

Journalism: End public subsidization of BC's forest industry

Library: End public subsidization of BC's forest industry

Library: The need to reform BC forest legislation

Journalism: The need to reform BC forest legislation

Library: Creating a new vision for BC forests

Forest industry public subsidy calculator

Manufacturing and processing facilities

Forest Trends

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Community Forest Mapping Projects

Area-based calculations of carbon released from clearcut logging

Journalism: The increase in forest carbon emissions

Library: Increase in forest carbon emissions

To protect biodiversity, transition away from clearcut logging

Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance

Library: Loss of future employment resulting from exporting raw logs

Mapping old forest on Vancouver Island

Mapping old forest in Omineca Natural Resource Region

Mapping old forest in Skeena Natural Resource Region

Mapping old forest in Northeastern Natural Resource Region

Mapping old forest in Cariboo Natural Resource Region

Mapping old forest in South Coast Natural Resource Region

Mapping old forest in Thompson-Okanagan Natural Resource Region

Mapping old forest in Kootenay-Boundary Natural Resource Region

Forest Conservation Organizations

Mapping old forest on Haida Gwaii

Mapping old forest on the central coast

Library: Ecologically damaging practices

Journalism: Ecologically damaging practices

Critical Issues

Analysis

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Action Group: Divestment from forest-removal companies

Fact-checking mindustry myths

First Nations Agreements