Ben Barclay

Thanks David...

Thanks David...

Hi Dave - most of the Old Growth was running 1500 - 1800 Cu M/ha, or more, in the early days. (The minimum legal density for cutting second growth is now 400 Cu M/ha, I believe, by the way). If they cut 10,000 cubic metres in 1932, say, would that not be reasonable to assume it came from between 5556 and 6667 hectares of land? I think the assumptions that they were mostly cutting primary forest, and that they were clearcutting, are reasonable. The number would of course be ballpark, but surely that is better than absolute nothing. In fact, a ballpark number would be a challenge for them to do the math, which I believe they should. Is there some middle ground between "meaningless" and "not super accurate"? +- 20% accuracy? Surveys are often accompanied by disclaimers to accuracy. Perhaps it could be stated as "somewhere between..." I'm concerned that we let them get away with not counting the number of hectares degraded from 1900-1970. The public interest is not served by us not having even a ballpark number for hectares impacted. Have you any better ideas for getting this number? I guess another question is where did Michelle get her figures for disturbed land in the chart she made (attached). Maybe the data is in there. Thanks..

Hi Dave - most of the Old Growth was running 1500 - 1800 Cu M/ha, or more, in the early days. (The minimum legal density for cutting second growth is now 400 Cu M/ha, I believe, by the way). If they cut 10,000 cubic metres in 1932, say, would that not be reasonable to assume it came from between 5556 and 6667 hectares of land? I think the assumptions that they were mostly cutting primary forest, and that they were clearcutting, are reasonable. The number would of course be ballpark, but surely that is better than absolute nothing. In fact, a ballpark number would be a challenge for them to do the math, which I believe they should. Is there some middle ground between "meaningless" and "not super accurate"? +- 20% accuracy? Surveys are often accompanied by disclaimers to accuracy. Perhaps it could be stated as "somewhere between..." I'm concerned that we let them get away with not counting the number of hectares degraded from 1900-1970. The public interest is not served by us not having even a ballpark number for hectares impacted. Have you any better ideas for getting this number? I guess another question is where did Michelle get her figures for disturbed land in the chart she made (attached). Maybe the data is in there. Thanks..

When the Ministry says "dead pine", what does this mean? Are 100% of the trees dead on a hectare before they salvage log, or is there a threshold, where say, if 50% of the trees are dead, they "salvage log" the hectare? It appears that the salvage logging is over and above the regular approved AAC. Is that so? Citizens might prefer that they postpone regular cutting in lieu of salvage logging, so the overall cut is the same, whether it is due to beetles, or logging. Thanks.

Another fabulous, foundational chart, David. I particularly like the private land number, which has previously been pretty hidden from the public. I'm assuming most of the private cut is the E&N Railway lands? Taking the numbers back to 1900 helps us avoid "baseline creep" or sliding baselines. Do you have data for hectares cut? If not, is there a factor for converting this to hectares, so we can track land degradation? Old growth might have yielded 1500-1800 CuM/ha, whereas 2nd growth is currently logged at minimum 400 CuM/ha. Say 400-600. Unfortunately, to do a calculation, one would need to know the Primary/Secondary split for each decade. I can do a rough calculation, but did anyone track hectares cut back to 1900? I would love to have a source for that data I could publish in a peer reviewed paper. Thanks again.

Another fabulous, foundational chart, David. I particularly like the private land number, which has previously been pretty hidden from the public. I'm assuming most of the private cut is the E&N Railway lands? Taking the numbers back to 1900 helps us avoid "baseline creep" or sliding baselines. Do you have data for hectares cut? If not, is there a factor for converting this to hectares, so we can track land degradation? Old growth might have yielded 1500-1800 CuM/ha, whereas 2nd growth is currently logged at minimum 400 CuM/ha. Say 400-600. Unfortunately, to do a calculation, one would need to know the Primary/Secondary split for each decade. I can do a rough calculation, but did anyone track hectares cut back to 1900? I would love to have a source for that data I could publish in a peer reviewed paper. Thanks again.

Perfect Anthony. Thank you. Clearcutting has reduced our net total provincial biomass by 5-20 billion tonnes, on the order of 70% of biomass per hectare degraded. It didn't "grow back" after all. We've degraded 25 million hectares at least, almost the entire available forestry base, through clearcutting. Our goal, as you say, needs to be healing our forests back to mature stands that approach pre-contact levels of economic value and provision of ecosystem services. My shopping list for how to get our 70% of biomass back: Re-start the Forest Service under the Environment Ministry. Rescind the Tenure/Tree Farm Licence legislation, sign no new deals, let all current deals run down. (Tenure does not conform to DRIPA). Ban clearcutting, under the criminal code, citing irreparable harm to the economy, biodiversity and climate change, specifically jobs, floods and fires. Mandate Net Zero Forestry, where zero net biomass is lost in watersheds measured annually. Pass a specific law under DRIPA that First Nations must be signatories to any agreement authorising any resource extraction on their territory, with VETO power. Ban off-shore log sales. Ban exporting industrial pellets. Make Woodland Mountain Caribou protected as the provincial animal! Great minds think alike. Are any politicians ready to go down in history as visionaries who would dare save us from societal collapse due to corporate greed?

When we clearcut a primary forest, it loses 70% of its biomass, 80% of its biodiversity, and 90% of its economic value, forever. It never "grows back". The loss of 70% of the biomass, averaged over time, results in a drastic loss of ecosystem services– especially moisture retention and carbon capture. The cumulative effect of degrading so much land for the last 100 years is extreme fires and floods, and global warming. United Nations scientists have stated that these things will cause societal collapse within the next 100 years. These outcomes are all simple science an 8 year old child can observe, and that every forester should be trained to avoid. Below is a map of Merritt BC, showing how little of the landscape is protected, (neon green), and how much has been clearcut so recently that it hasn't even greened up yet (tan colour in forested area). BC Government policy caused the Merritt flood, and BC Professional Foresters advised on those policies and enforced them. If the foresters who have been advising our government on what policies to set to avoid societal collapse don't follow the science, then how can they be said to be competent? Why are they not disbarred from the profession, as would a physician be for malpractice? If professional foresters aren't the people entrusted with advising our politicians and administrators on how to protect our future through science based legislation and diligent practice, who is?

David Broadland just keeps getting better with each article. This is investigative journalism, the likes of which we haven't seen since billionaires consolidated media 30 years ago, destroyed all the small local papers, and fired most of the staff of the big media outlets, while the Conservatives gutted the CBC with a fish knife. Nowadays almost everything we read in mainstream media is just a government press release copied out by a junior intern. How can we get this kind of investigative journalism out into the world, and support EA to keep producing it? Me, I think we should sue our governments for damages, and us these articles as evidence.

Good stuff. BBC and CBC are missing some key points. I would like to illuminate how the practice of clearcutting muddies the waters, without being recognised. Because we do not practice proper forestry, which retains the canopy, and only removes single selected trees, we cut everything to the ground. This produces slash piles, and kills every single tree, including ones "too small", or of a species that the province is too lazy to market. Then Drax can turn around and say: "We did chip a few whole trees that were "unwanted" or "a fire hazard". Those trees were wanted. We wanted them to live and provide ecosystem services like: Water retention Topsoil creation Carbon capture Biodiversity preservation Those lost ecosystem services from 200,000 hectares a year of clearcutting no longer protect us from extreme fires and floods. Also, burning any fuel for electricity is species suicide. Lots of false narrative to challenge. This is what good forestry looks like. This Menominee forest has yielded billions of board feet of timber since 1890. Still providing all the original ecosystem services:

Very nice summary of the problems arising from corporate resource extractors controlling and driving legislation. I don't believe it would cost any money to protect the forest ecosystems that shelter murrelets, and eventually, humans. All we need to do is switch from clearcutting, to 100% biomass retention forestry, as measured in watersheds. More jobs. No forests destroyed. Wildwood was managed this way for 70 years. 1,000,000 board feet removed from 138 acres, and yet, there is as much lumber there as when they started. And carbon. And biodiversity.

Very nice summary of the problems arising from corporate resource extractors controlling and driving legislation. I don't believe it would cost any money to protect the forest ecosystems that shelter murrelets, and eventually, humans. All we need to do is switch from clearcutting, to 100% biomass retention forestry, as measured in watersheds. More jobs. No forests destroyed. Wildwood was managed this way for 70 years. 1,000,000 board feet removed from 138 acres, and yet, there is as much lumber there as when they started. And carbon. And biodiversity.

Very nice summary of the problems arising from corporate resource extractors controlling and driving legislation. I don't believe it would cost any money to protect the forest ecosystems that shelter murrelets, and eventually, humans. All we need to do is switch from clearcutting, to 100% biomass retention forestry, as measured in watersheds. More jobs. No forests destroyed. Wildwood was managed this way for 70 years. 1,000,000 board feet removed from 138 acres, and yet, there is as much lumber there as when they started. And carbon. And biodiversity.

Very nice summary of the problems arising from corporate resource extractors controlling and driving legislation. I don't believe it would cost any money to protect the forest ecosystems that shelter murrelets, and eventually, humans. All we need to do is switch from clearcutting, to 100% biomass retention forestry, as measured in watersheds. More jobs. No forests destroyed. Wildwood was managed this way for 70 years. 1,000,000 board feet removed from 138 acres, and yet, there is as much lumber there as when they started. And carbon. And biodiversity.