PRINCE ALBERT, Saskatchewan — One of the biggest benefits of OSB mills is their ability to take remnant wood from other operations and make a building product out of it. That is certainly one of the attractions for the Meadow Lake Tribal Council’s investment division, which is part of One Sky Forest Products, and recently announced plans for construction of a new mill outside of Prince Albert in 2025. …The plan for an OSB mill near Prince Albert was first floated publicly in 2021 as the province of Saskatchewan promised 845,000 cubic meters of supply for an OSB mill. Originally, the OSB plant was supposed to share resources with the long-closed pulp mill site, which was also supposed to open. The pulp mill is not feasible, Paper Excellence confirmed last week, but that might have actually helped improve the odds of success for the OSB plant.
Delegates to the Global Wood Summit conference from Oct 29-30, 2024 in Vancouver BC will be able to obtain a number of current and timely views on developments in the wood products trade! Nine sessions with over 30 speakers from around the world will discuss what is going on in the world of forest products and what the outlooks will be for 2025. …With lots of market uncertainty currently, the speakers will allow for many excellent insights and outlooks into what lies ahead in North American and global markets and products. Our objective is to feature a wide range of industry experts, producers, exporters, importers and selected specialists focused on what is next for national and global trade. We look forward to welcoming you to this unique event focused on global trade developments in pulp, paper, logs, lumber and panels, with a focus on the global trade of logs and lumber. It is going to be really timely and interesting!
VANCOUVER, BC – British Columbia’s forestry workers will take part in the Union of B.C. Municipalities conference as part of a campaign to strengthen and secure good paying jobs in the industry. …Unifor Western Regional Director Gavin McGarrigle said, “We invite municipal leadership to be a part of the solution.” Since 2001, the industry has seen a staggering 45% drop in employment, translating to lost livelihoods for nearly 35,000 workers. Last year alone, the forestry sector saw the loss of 3,750 jobs. Earlier this year, three unions representing the majority of forestry workers (Unifor, United Steelworkers, and the Public and Private Workers of Canada)… co-published a research paper that reviewed the history of the sector, the real human cost of policy failures, and outlines comprehensive fixes for B.C. forestry. …The City of Kamloops submitted a motion for debate greater support for the forestry industry.
Northern B.C. underscored its importance to the rest of the province during a provincial study session exploring challenges in the resource sector [at] the Union of British Columbia Municipalities conference. It comes on the heels of the two latest mill closures in B.C. including one in Vanderhoof. Councillor Brian Frenkel underscored what those closures mean to northern B.C. Given northern B.C.’s susceptibility to economic swings, Frenkel called on government to do more than consult and finally fulfill promises to improve regional infrastructure. …Another point of discussion has been the role of community forests representing about four per cent of the annual harvest. Garry Jackman, Director for the Central Kootenay Regional District, said he would like to see more community forests pointing to regional initiatives. But he also questioned their economic return. Jennifer Gunter, executive director of the B.C. Community Forest Association, acknowledged that community forests fetch lower stumpage fees.
VANCOUVER, BC – A new economic study by COFI highlights the vital role of British Columbia’s forestry industry, as it touches so many communities across the province. In 2022, the forestry industry engaged over 9,970 suppliers and vendors across BC, resulting in $6.6 billion in expenditures on goods and services. …“This study demonstrates that when BC’s forest industry is performing well, it benefits communities throughout the province. Without a healthy forest economy, thousands of businesses are impacted,” said Kurt Niquidet at COFI. …“However, the industry faces significant challenges that threaten its stability and growth. These include greater regulatory complexity, higher costs, and uncertainty over access to the land base.” In 2022, BC’s forest industry: spent $326 million on supply chain expenditures with Indigenous-affiliated vendors; has an average spend of $662,000 per vendor, had $1.2 billion of expenditures on logistics and transportation, and had $23.2 million of total community investments (from 2020 to 2022). [The 
B.C. is negotiating earlier pensions for wildland firefighters helping align their benefits with those of other public-safety occupations while they protect communities from increasingly challenging wildfire activity. “We owe a deep debt of gratitude to the selfless firefighters whose brave and heroic efforts have got us through some of the most devastating wildfire seasons on record,” said Premier David Eby. “More than that, firefighters deserve fair pay and security in retirement, so they are treated with dignity – whether it’s at the end of a response call or the end of their careers.” The Province and the BC General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) have reached an agreement-in-principle to enhance the pensions for wildland firefighting personnel employed directly by the BC Wildfire Service (BCWS).
VANCOUVER, BC — A new 
.jpg)
Market conditions, a lack of fibre and US tariffs are forcing the two-week closure the Tolko lumber plant in Armstrong. Tolko spokesperson Chris Downey said employees were notified the mill will be taking two weeks of downtime beginning Sept. 16 and ending Oct. 1. “Unfortunately, the availability of economic fibre in BC, combined with weak market conditions and increased US tariffs continue to have an impact on our operations,” Downey said in an email. “As we’ve seen recently, the entire industry is feeling this pressure and while we prefer to be fully operational, difficult decisions are needed to ensure we are sustainable for the future.” Scales in the region will remain open.
The Centre for Advanced Wood Processing (CAWP) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in collaboration with the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) School of Construction and Environment is pleased to announce that registration is now open for our 
VICTORIA, BC — Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, with Bruce Ralston, BC’s Minister of Forests, announced a joint investment of $950,122 through the Government of Canada’s Resilient Communities through FireSmart (RCF) Program. …This joint investment through the RCF Program will further support B.C.’s efforts to prepare its residents and communities for wildfires and reduce risks before they occur through the continued adoption and implementation of FireSmart initiatives in B.C. The funding will support FireSmart BC in increasing the province’s resource capacity to manage wildfire risks and provide training to wildfire practitioners. The funding will also support the development and implementation of educational programs in schools that teach students how to make homes and communities more resilient to wildfires and increase province-wide FireSmart awareness through media campaigns, encouraging British Columbians to take proactive action to reduce the negative impacts of wildfires.
Stanley Park is an urban forest abutting downtown Vancouver… But parts of the park are being logged because of an outbreak of the hemlock looper moth. A report delivered to the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation in January by B.A. Blackwell and Associates, a forestry consulting firm, found that about 30 per cent of the trees in the park that are more than 20 centimetres in diameter had been killed by the endemic insect – approximately 20,410 trees. Another 36 per cent have experienced moderate defoliation and need to be monitored. …Two months earlier, the Park Board had announced the “urgent removal” of approximately 160,000 trees from Stanley Park as a result of the outbreak. …Not everyone is convinced. Vancouver resident Michael Caditz went to court this week to try to get an interlocutory injunction to prevent further tree removals. …
September 16-20 is National Postdoc Appreciation Week. To celebrate, we are profiling several UBC Forestry postdoctoral researchers. Read about them below!
Guardians of ancient Canadian cedars are divided over the future of logging on their windswept island outpost. On a string of wild and rocky islands off northwestern Canada, the Haida people revere the cedars that tower overhead as a nurturing older sister. For millennia, the trees have given the Indigenous Haida timber to build beamed longhouses, blankets to weather winter, canoes to wend the waterways and shoes to shod their feet. In the archipelago’s rare, temperate rainforests – some of which are thought to pre-date the last ice age – mammoth red cedars dapple the damp undergrowth far below, land that is rich with huckleberry and ferns and carpeted in luminous moss. But since the logging industry took hold a century ago, little of this pristine landscape is left. …Armed with new powers over the forests, the Haida Nation has a dilemma of its own: to log or not to log.
VICTORIA – The Forest Practices Board will audit forestry activities on forest licence (FL) A19040, held by Canadian Forest Products Ltd. (Canfor) near Cranbrook during the week of Sept. 23, 2024. FL A19040 is in the Cranbrook Timber Supply Area (TSA) and spans approximately 1.24 million hectares in the Rocky Mountain Natural Resource District. The TSA is located near Cranbrook, Kimberley, Fernie and Elkford. Canfor manages FL A19040 from its office in Cranbrook. The TSA boasts a diverse array of landscapes that support a wide range of wildlife species… The Kootenay-Boundary Higher Level Plan Order has established objectives that forest licensees must adhere to in their operational plans to ensure the conservation and sustainable management of these important resource values are maintained. Auditors will examine whether timber harvesting, roads, bridges, silviculture, wildfire protection and associated planning carried out between Sept. 1, 2023, and Sept. 27, 2024, met the requirements of the Forest and Range Practices Act and the Wildfire Act.
The September Newsletter has these headlines and more:
