"a visual is worth=>1000 words" KBF '23
Landscape Aesthetics & Visual Impact Assessment Forest and Land Planning
RDI is located within the shared, unceded, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ Nations.
K.B. (Ken) Fairhurst, PhD, RPF Founder and Owner
K.B. Fairhurst is a Visual Resource Management and Landscape Visual Impact Assessment Specialist continuously involved since 1980: as one of the original Landscape Foresters in British Columbia's Ministry of Forests until 1996 and running RDI Resource Design Inc ever since. RDI is celebrating our 28th year in 2024!
Stanley Park Hemlock Looper Logging Update
A shocking 160,000 tree salvage operation is underway, cutting down 25% of the Stanley Park forest killed or damaged by the looper moth. See Stanley Park tab.
KBF from the Wayback Machine
About Us
Forest Landscape Aesthetics Planning and Visual Impact Assessments are our Specialty
Visual Resource Management and Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment have always been key components Forest Landscape Planning, Analysis and Design in BC, USA, UK and further afield. The concept of forest aesthetics was defined by Heinrich von Salisch, a forester who lived in Postel, a hamlet north of Breslau, Silesia, in what was then Germany, in his book Forestasthetik first published in 1885, with revisions in 1902 and 1911 and translated into English by Walter I. Cook and Doris Wehlau (Forest History Society, 2008) and is available at https://foresthistory.org/other-books/forest-aesthetics/. Von Salisch stressed an integrated resource management approach merging the aesthetic with the ecologic when managing the multiple demands on forest and open space resources. The same approach is required when managing urban forest resources.
Now that BC now has a "new" resource management initiative in British Columbia called Forest Landscape Planning, I look forward to continued and increased integration of visual / ecological / First Nations values in the landscape. Though not directly addressed by the panel on Forest Landscape Planning at the 2020 ABCFP AGM, Visual Quality is one of the 11 FRPA values being maintained and likely expanded upon in Forest Landscape Planning.
A new "Visual Impact Assessment Handbook", released in May of this year is available for downloading at: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/farming-natural-resources-and-industry/forestry/visual-resource-mgmt/visual_impact_assessment_handbook.pdf
A broader consideration - Proforestation - keeping intact forests to ecological potential to maximize nature-based biological carbon sequestration, biodiversity, water quality, air quality, flood and erosion control, public health, low-impact recreation, and scenic beauty - Frontiers in Forests and Climate Change: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2019.00027/full
RDI provides practical solutions for meeting Visual Quality Objectives (now VQ Requirements) which are strongly centered in ecological objectives at the forest landscape level.
The Forest Professionals British Columbia (FPBC), back-linked on our Connections page, offers four excellent Visual Resource Management training modules on their website for members. See our VRM Publications page for the link. Included in Module 4 - "Assessing the Design" is a link to the 2018 draft "Guidance for Forest Professionals Practicing in Visual Resource Management". RDI has provided a link to this important document as well as links to ABCFP Ethical and Professional Conduct Standards to which RDI adheres when conducting Visual Resource Management assessments and reviews (see yellow highlighted links below). KB Fairhurst, RPF, has been a Registrant of the FPBC since 1981.
With old-growth forests very much a topic of discussion in BC today, the Wilderness Committee has published a sophisticated interactive map of old-growth deferrals, other old-growth, and related development plans covering the entire province which should help inform these discussions.
You are viewing rdi3d.ca which is our primary website. You can still view our original website at rdi3d.com where you will find more links and great pictures.
We provide expert-level professional guidance for mitigating or avoiding visual impacts
RDI has the in-depth knowledge and expertise to derive practical solutions to meet Visual Quality Objectives in landscape & visual impact assessment.
RDI's VRM Contracts with the BCTS have concluded at 14 continuous great years
As of March, 2024, RDI has proudly and successfully concluded 14 years of continuous Visual Resource Management contracts with BC Timber Sales, Kamloops Business Area.
As it has since its inception, RDI provides VIAs, in part or whole, or peer reviews for VQO achievement assurance to all our colleagues at our going professional services rates.
RDI's work on IVDPs commenced way back in 1998. Many of our IVDPs can be found under the "Consulting Services" tab. The FIA Standards are also linked there.
See our many VIAs under the VIA tab.
Park Board Approval of Stanley Park Logging Questioned
During the October 8, 2024, Vancouver Park Board committee meeting considering approval of continued logging in Stanley Park, Associate Director of Urban Forestry/Specialty Parks Joe McLeod and Director of Parks Amit Gandha misled the commissioners by asserting that City of Vancouver staff had been in compliance with the applicable procurement policy when entering into a large scale tree removal contract with B.A. Blackwell & Associates on June 21, 2024, without Park Board authorization.
McLeod and Gandha claim that in an emergency, the normal requirement for a competitive bidding process can be legally bypassed, and a sole source contract may be awarded without Board approval. Indeed, this was invoked on September 11, 2023, when City staff declared an emergency based in part upon information provided by Blackwell. Blackwell was awarded a sole source contract without Park Board approval and logged the park from fall of 2023 through spring of 2024, when the contract was completed, and logging was halted for the summer.
But no such emergency was asserted in mid 2024 when a new competitive RFP was issued, and Blackwell was again selected. Because this new procurement was competitive and no emergency existed, commitment from the elected commissioners was required, but not obtained, before staff would have been authorized to sign the June 2024 supply agreement with Blackwell.
The Board approved the motion on October 8, 2024, more than three months after City staff signed the contract without authorization, and Blackwell has now resumed logging.