{"id":588416,"date":"2026-04-07T17:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/588416\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T17:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:06:09","slug":"port-blandford-residents-vow-to-keep-up-the-fight-against-clearcutting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/588416\/","title":{"rendered":"Port Blandford Residents Vow to Keep up the Fight Against Clearcutting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t&#13;<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/port-blandford-vocm-news.jpg\" class=\"header-image\" alt=\"Port Blandford Residents Vow to Keep up the Fight Against Clearcutting\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Port Blandford (VOCM News)<\/p>\n<p>A group formed against allowing clearcutting in the Port Blandford area calls a <a href=\"https:\/\/vocm.com\/2026\/03\/30\/environmental-group-clearcutting-government\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recent appeal court ruling against them<\/a> \u201cupsetting\u201d but say they won\u2019t give up the fight.<\/p>\n<p>The Citizens Against Clearcutting challenged the provincial government\u2019s 2022-2026 harvesting plan, not once, but twice.<\/p>\n<p>The group argued before the Court of Appeal of Newfoundland and Labrador that the minister\u2019s approval of clearcutting in Port Blandford and nearby Southwest River Valley was unreasonable because he failed to consider evidence of \u201csignificant public concern\u201d that would have required an environmental assessment before the release of a five-year plan in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The minister disagreed that there was \u201csignificant public concern\u201d and the panel of judges agreed that that decision was his to make.<\/p>\n<p>The court ruled against the coalition and in favour of government.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/port-blandford-clearcutting-protest-2008.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-296063\" class=\"size-full wp-image-296063\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/port-blandford-clearcutting-protest-2008.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"400\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-296063\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A protest by residents of Port Blandford in 2018<\/p>\n<p>Area residents <a href=\"https:\/\/vocm.com\/2019\/09\/19\/alleged-threats-against-timber-harvesters-near-port-blandford-prompts-warning\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">vowed as far back as 2018<\/a> not to give up their fight to save the Southwest River Valley area from clearcutting.<\/p>\n<p>Allan Hann of Citizens Against Clearcutting told VOCM Open Line that to suggest that there\u2019s no \u201csignificant public concern\u201d is absurd.<\/p>\n<p>He says they\u2019ve had standing-room only public meetings, petitions, media releases, a community boil-up and protests, but still the judge assessed the public concern \u201canemic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He says the initial court ruling gauged the level of public concern on an online public engagement session, something they appealed, but lost.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey were looking at the 35-day window from EngageNL\u201d a process that resulted in few, if any, responses.<\/p>\n<p>Hann says he\u2019s meeting with Ecojustice this Wednesday to discuss possible next steps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; Port Blandford (VOCM News) A group formed against allowing clearcutting in the Port Blandford area calls a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-588416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}