David Broadland
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Lies, guitars and a few facts about the Fairy Creek Rainforest blockades
David Broadland posted a gallery image in Spotlight on new stories
Image: Blockade at the Fairy Creek Rainforest As arrests at Fairy Creek Rainforest begin, arm yourself with some truth about what's actually happening. The injunction was obtained by inaccurate, self-serving descriptions of the impact of the blockades by Teal Cedar. Go to story© Dawna Mueller
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BC Premier John Horgan has an inflated view of what his government has done to save old-growth forests. IN AN APRIL 7 INTERVIEW with CBC Victoria’s Gregor Craigie, Premier John Horgan claimed his government has already responded to the Gorley-Merkel report on old-growth forests in BC. Horgan claimed that logging has been deferred on “hundreds of thousand of hectares” of old growth. Forest scientist Karen Price, one of the co-authors of BC’s Old Growth Forest: A Last Stand for Biodiversity, has pointed out on this website that Horgan’s deferrals apply to only 3800 hectares of high p -
As arrests at Fairy Creek Rainforest begin, arm yourself with some truth about what's actually happening. The injunction was obtained by inaccurate, self-serving descriptions of the impact of the blockades by the company. IF THERE’S ONE SITUATION in which you would expect a company’s accountant to be accurate about the numbers, it would be in a sworn affidavit in which the company is seeking a high-profile injunction from the BC Supreme Court. Right? Not these days. Teal Cedar Products Ltd filed such an application in mid-February, asking for injunctive relief, enforceabl -
Justice Verhoeven's flawed decision on Fairy Creek blockades
David Broadland commented on David Broadland's story in Forests
Hmmm. You are probably referring to the "$20 million" mentioned by Verhoeven in his judgement. He said, "Teal estimates that the end product value of the products that it will produce from the timber sourced from TFL 46 is approximately $20 million." Presumably he meant to add "in a year," or some other measure of time. On this count, too, Verhoeven made a serious error in accepting Teal's information. I have asked Teal questions about the information they provided in their injunction application. Once I have those answers I will provide a second story addressing those numbers. It should -
Justice Verhoeven's flawed decision on Fairy Creek blockades
David Broadland commented on David Broadland's story in Forests
Thanks for your comment Anthony. At least one lawyer has come forward offering his services pro bono to do an appeal of Justice Verhoeven's judgment. It took Teal eight months to seek the injunction. I can't see Teal doing this at all unless the company had some assurance from Premier Horgan that he would support it. Without such assurance there would be little to stop Horgan and his cabinet from deciding to avoid the spectacle of mass arrests by withdrawing permission for Teal to log in the general area of Fairy Creek. Given the findings of the Gorley-Merkel review of old-growth, which -
The BC Supreme Court Justice who decided that irreparable harm was done to a private forestry company by citizens blocking logging roads didn't know that the company's harvest had actually increased. BC SUPREME COURT JUSTICE Frits E Verhoeven delivered reasons on April 1 for allowing an injunction against BC citizens blocking a forestry company from logging old-growth near Port Renfrew. Comparing the information Verhoeven used to make his decision with BC government information about the extent to which the logging company has been affected by the blockade, it’s difficult to under -
First, your facts 1-2 are true, but nothing in the story is contradicted by these two facts. Second, regarding your fact 3, Jadresko made repeated public statements that her "goal" was "full pack removal" of the wolf pack. Those statements were made concurrently with photographs showing two dead wolves. Your recounting of the "facts" of the story overlooks this fact. You would have us ignore this fact, I take it. But we took Ms Jadresko at her word, and we have seen no evidence yet that she did not follow through with what she said she was going to do. After publication of the story she r
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Hi Steve. It's from the ministry of forests 2018 Major Mill Survey. That is the latest year for which the ministry has provided data. Mind you, the document doesn't come out and say "Over 50 percent of trees cut in 2018 were turned into sawdust or woodchips." You need to sift their data. In 2018, the ministry noted that 64.3 million cubic metres of logs passed through processing facilities, from log sorts to lumber and other wood product mills, including raw log export facilities. The numbers below are the volume that was used at a given type of facility. For example, sawmills took i
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Good questions William. I was a house builder in BC in the days when we didn't think about where the wood we used was coming from because there seemed to be an endless supply of it. In those day, the lumber that was being exported went mainly to the USA. Things have changed. Now 80 to 85 percent of what is cut in BC goes to the USA, China and Japan. All three of those countries have higher environmental standards than BC does regarding primary forest on publicly-owned land. China banned logging of primary forests in 2000, first to protect soil from erosion, and then later added climate go
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Thanks for your comment. The ministry of forests has not been forthcoming with the public about the extent to which logging over the past 50 years has degraded and fragmented natural forests. Conservation North's map is a valuable addition to public knowledge of the extent to which BC has been transformed into a giant plantation, and the serious implications that has for climate stability and biodiversity. There's lots of good information out there to help people understand the critical differences between plantations and primary forest. Inform yourself before accusing folks of creating p
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Teal-Jones wins court ban on Fairy Creek old-growth blockades
David Broadland commented on Rochelle Baker's report in Reporting
Thanks for your comment. Asking "our NOD government" (do you mean NDP?) who the deceivers were is an exercise in futility that I'm a little too experienced to undertake. A FLNRORD media spokesperson is not hired to provide answers to the questions like those posed by Anthony Britneff. They are hired to shield the ministry executive (and government) from damage. I have filed FOIs seeking records. Unfortunately, my experience with FOIs that attempt to find who committed some transgression against the public interest is that the process always finds that nobody did anything. Somehow, the bad -
Teal-Jones wins court ban on Fairy Creek old-growth blockades
David Broadland commented on David Broadland's story in Forests
Thanks for your comment. Asking "our NOD government" (do you mean NDP?) who the deceivers were is an exercise in futility that I'm a little too experienced to undertake. A FLNRORD media spokesperson is not hired to provide answers to the questions like those posed by Anthony Britneff. They are hired to shield the ministry executive (and government) from damage. I have filed FOIs seeking records. Unfortunately, my experience with FOIs that attempt to find who committed some transgression against the public interest is that the process always finds that nobody did anything. Somehow, the bad -
Teal-Jones wins court ban on Fairy Creek old-growth blockades
David Broadland commented on David Broadland's story in Forests
Karen, thank you for summing up the reality of the deferrals so succinctly. -
Teal-Jones wins court ban on Fairy Creek old-growth blockades
David Broadland commented on Rochelle Baker's report in Reporting
Karen, thank you for summing up the reality of the deferrals so succinctly. -
Posted December 8, 2020 Photo of the Castle Giant in Walbran Valley by TJ Watt FOCUS has obtained mapping that confirms the forests ministry vastly overstated the area of old-growth on which it was deferring logging. Go to story -
The ministry of forests provided few details about the areas of old-growth forest on which it claimed it was deferring logging just before the provincial election. FOCUS has obtained mapping that confirms the ministry greatly overstated its claim of "352,739 hectares." A load of old-growth forest heads northward on the Trans Canada near Nanaimo in December 2020 (Photo by Gordon Fuller) FOCUS has obtained mapping of the “Old Growth Deferral Areas” that were given names—but not much else—by then forests minister Doug Donaldson just before the provincial election. Th -
Thanks for the details, Kevin. Unless those of us who are critical of the ministries practices are willing to understand the complexities of forest management, we aren't likely to be useful critics. So I appreciate your willingness to provide some of those details. Yes, let's talk more offline.
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Thanks for the details, Kevin. Unless those of us who are critical of the ministries practices are willing to understand the complexities of forest management, we aren't likely to be useful critics. So I appreciate your willingness to provide some of those details. Yes, let's talk more offline.
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Wow. There's so much here, Kevin. Thank you for your years of public service and for coming forward with your concerns. I will contact you off line, but I wonder if you could tell us a little more about the 5000 permanent sample plots. Are they all plantations, or do they include primary forest? You say that there was pressure to log the PSPs. Was that because there was a shortage of trees to cut? Or was the intention to get rid of the sample plots so they couldn't be used to check the growth and yield modelling? Or? Thanks again for giving us the benefit of your years of servic
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Wow. There's so much here, Kevin. Thank you for your years of public service and for coming forward with your concerns. I will contact you off line, but I wonder if you could tell us a little more about the 5000 permanent sample plots. Are they all plantations, or do they include primary forest? You say that there was pressure to log the PSPs. Was that because there was a shortage of trees to cut? Or was the intention to get rid of the sample plots so they couldn't be used to check the growth and yield modelling? Or? Thanks again for giving us the benefit of your years of servic
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Thanks for your comments, TalkingTrees. I think many people agree with you on this. I do. But the devil would be in the details. How much less of a cut? I understand that the growth and yield models may be overestimating what can be cut by 20 percent. If that's the case, addressing that inaccuracy would require lowering the cut by 20 percent or more. The current (2018) carbon sequestration capacity of BC forests is 7.0 megatonnes per year, whereas it was 87 megatonnes back in 2000. But isn't the current 7.0 megatonnes also overestimated if growth and yield modelling is off? In any case, w
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Thanks for your comments, TalkingTrees. I think many people agree with you on this. I do. But the devil would be in the details. How much less of a cut? I understand that the growth and yield models may be overestimating what can be cut by 20 percent. If that's the case, addressing that inaccuracy would require lowering the cut by 20 percent or more. The current (2018) carbon sequestration capacity of BC forests is 7.0 megatonnes per year, whereas it was 87 megatonnes back in 2000. But isn't the current 7.0 megatonnes also overestimated if growth and yield modelling is off? In any case, w
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Your words "doing what you are currently doing" need further explanation. If what you are "currently doing" has external costs—loss of biodiversity, loss of BC forests' ability to moderate climate, loss of hydrological function, for example—that aren't included in your definition of sustainability, then this definition of "sustainability" is deeply flawed. If all you really care about is the flow of "fibre" to mills and log export facilities, then I suppose it's fine. One common element to timber supply reviews is that they always, directly or indirectly, consider the socioec
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Your words "doing what you are currently doing" need further explanation. If what you are "currently doing" has external costs—loss of biodiversity, loss of BC forests' ability to moderate climate, loss of hydrological function, for example—that aren't included in your definition of sustainability, then this definition of "sustainability" is deeply flawed. If all you really care about is the flow of "fibre" to mills and log export facilities, then I suppose it's fine. One common element to timber supply reviews is that they always, directly or indirectly, consider the socioec
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Hi Guest, thanks for this information. I take it you have worked for MoF. Are the results of the Workplace Environment Survey shared with all employees in that ministry? The information I have is that this survey is conducted every two years. Has the 2020 survey results been released to ministry employees?
