John Gould had been snapping pictures of mosquitoes on frogs for years before he noticed a trend — the bloodsuckers always seem to land right on the amphibians’ noses. “You would think that a frog would be the worst place to land, because frogs love to eat mosquitoes,” said Gould, a behavioural biologist at Australia’s University of Newcastle. Gould has concluded it’s a “highly specialized feeding strategy” by the mosquitoes. The observations could help scientists better understand how a deadly disease spread among frogs, which is key for their conservation. Although the frogs are different, the mosquitoes are all from the same species, Mimomyia elegans. Native to Australia, they feed off many different kinds of animals, including mammals and birds. “Which makes the observation a bit more interesting,” Gould said, “because, for such a generalist feeder, it seems to have such a specialized behaviour when choosing amphibians as a blood host.”
VANCOUVER, BC – VIDA AB, owned 70% by Canfor Corporation, announced that it will invest approximately 700 million SEK (CAD$85 million) at its Bruza Sawmill in Hjältevad, expanding production from 175 million board feet to 240 million board feet. This major investment includes a new high-capacity planing mill equipped with the latest technology, a new boiler, wood drying kilns and warehouse. …”This investment clearly demonstrates that we believe in wood as the material of the future, and in Hjältevad as a place to grow our business,” said Måns Johansson, CEO of Vida AB and President, Canfor Europe. Construction of the planing mill will commence in spring 2024 and is expected to be in full production in 2026. Due to the increased capacity, Vida will grow its Bruza team as it introduces a second production shift. 
LONDON — After substantial participation at COP28 in Dubai, an expanding group of leading global sustainable forestry companies working together as the International Sustainable Forestry Coalition (ISFC), has announced the formalization of the organization. The Coalition has successfully registered in the United Kingdom as a not for profit Company. Three Directors of the Company for 2024 include: ISFC Chair will be Dr. David Brand, Executive Chair, New Forests; ISFC Vice-Chair will be Mr. Doug Long, Executive Vice President & Chief Resource Officer, Rayonier; and ISFC Treasurer will be Mr. John Kornerup Bang, Senior VP, Sustainability Transformation, Stora Enso. Executive Director of the ISFC Mr. Ross Hampton said, “There are now 13 of the world’s largest forestry companies supporting the mission of the ISFC and aiming to take a more active role in the vital conversations about the transition to a sustainable society.
The UK government is to start work on creating a risk register of data on mass-timber buildings, as part of a package to allay insurer fears over the material’s use in construction. In its 
Energy giant Drax is expecting a long-awaited report into the government’s biomass strategy from the National Audit Office to be published this month, as it looks to turn the page from an ongoing scandal over the environmental credentials of its biomass materials. …The strategy allows for the burning of biomass materials – such as wood pellets – as long as they are counterbalanced by carbon capture facilities. Campaigners said Drax was using pellets from so-called ‘primary’ Canadian forests for biomass power generation, a claim Drax continues to deny. The NAO report is expected to deliver a verdict… though it would not be a binding recommendation and the government would still be the final arbiter. …The company has been in discussions with the UK Government on a bridging mechanism between the end of the current renewable schemes in 2027 and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) operations at Drax Power Station.
DUBAI — François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry… announced the launch of the Cement & Concrete Breakthrough initiative at COP28. This initiative reaffirms Canada’s commitment to… accelerate investments in the technologies, tools and policies that the cement and concrete industry needs to realize net-zero solutions by 2050. Co-led by Canada and the UAE, this breakthrough initiative will enable countries to share best practices to decarbonize the cement and concrete sector. It will engage a variety of partners at the global level, providing an opportunity for Canada to drive the adoption of low-carbon cement products and solutions that build on the global recognition of Canada’s 
Just over 44,000 species are threatened with extinction – around 2,000 more than last year – according to the latest Red List of Threatened Species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature released the global report at COP28 in Dubai on Monday. It was mainly bad news. This year’s list includes information on 157,000 species, about 7,000 more than last year’s update. It shows how climate change is worsening the planet’s biodiversity crises, making environments more deadly for thousands of species and accelerating the precipitous decline in the number of plants and animals on Earth. …Species of salmon and turtles are among those facing a decline as the planet warms. …Frogs, salamanders and other amphibians are suffering the most. About 41 per cent of these species are under threat. …Two antelope species are fairing better, although they still have a long way to go before their long-term survival is stabilised. 
Protecting and restoring forests is one of the cheapest and most effective options for mitigating the carbon emissions heating Earth. Since the third UN climate change summit, held in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, different mechanisms have been trialled to raise money and help countries reduce deforestation and restore degraded forests. …At the current climate talks, COP28 in Dubai, Brazil has proposed a “tropical forests forever fund” with an outlay of US$250 billion, which would /s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/reuters/6714150d-0a78-45c1-b912-9d46775e577d.png)
EU regulations are hampering Irish efforts to boost forestry, the industry warned European officials and politicians at a recent meeting. The Republic is planting about 2,000 hectares of new forest per year, well below the Government’s target of 8,000. Forest Industries Ireland (FII) blames increased regulation for the slowdown in planting, which the group predicts will result in the State falling short of its farming and land use climate change targets. The organisation told EU officials and members of the European Parliament (MEPs) at a meeting in Brussels that EU policies and regulations were hindering the Irish industry’s growth. Tougher EU environmental regulations are ruling out large tracts of land in the State from commercial tree planting, the FII says. …FII director Mark McAuley said the regulations left little appetite among farmers for new tree planting. 
The UK government recognises the importance of waste wood biomass and is considering transitional support for the sector after the Renewables Obligation Certificate (ROC) and Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) subsidies end, according to Energy Minister Graham Stuart. Stuart’s comments came in his recent response to a letter sent by the Wood Recyclers’ Association to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. In the letter, WRA chair Richard Coulson asked for urgent clarity over future support for waste wood biomass, given that the ROC and RHI subsidies all end by 2038, the earliest being in the mid 2020s. Stuart’s response, dated 20 November, said: “The government recognises the important role of sustainable biomass, including waste wood biomass, in achieving the UK’s net zero targets, and in balancing the energy grid/ensuring security of supply.”
Bioenergy has been in the headlines, especially regarding the reform of the EU’s rules for how burning forest wood qualifies as “renewable energy.” It’s always been far-fetched to rely on burning trees — which emit more CO2 than coal when burned and take decades to regrow — as a way to “reduce” emissions. But climate policy could be about to go further off-track with a new focus on biomass energy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS, as a way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere (in climate-speak, achieve “negative emissions”). …BECCS is a prime example of how to waste money on a hopeless technology. The idea is to take CO2 emissions from burning biomass — mostly derived from forests — concentrate it, and pump it belowground into geological formations. …In fact, promoting the logging of more forests will possibly increase CO2 emissions, because logging causes forest ecosystems to leak carbon.
For all the focus on technology to combat climate change, we have no greater ally than Mother Nature. In the closing days of the United Nations COP28 climate talks, conservation scientists stressed the importance of forests, grasslands, oceans and other ecosystems to absorb enormous amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. “The science is clear. Conserving nature is absolutely essential if we are to reach global climate goals,” Campaign for Nature Director Brian O’Donnell said. …More than $2.5 billion in financing to protect and restore natural systems was mobilized, and officials strengthened an international agreement to protect biodiversity. However, a pair of reports released during the conference pointed out the wide disparities between the current efforts to protect natural systems and the economic pressures that destroy and degrade them. …The U.N. Environment Programme’s “State of Finance for Nature” report released Saturday at COP28 identified approximately $200 billion in total investments in nature-based solutions in 2022. 
At COP28, ecologist Thomas Crowther, former chief scientific adviser for the United Nations’ Trillion Trees Campaign, was doing something he never would have expected a few years ago: begging environmental ministers to stop planting so many trees. Mass plantations are not the environmental solution they’re purported to be, Crowther argued. The potential of newly created forests to draw down carbon is often overstated. They can be harmful to biodiversity. Above all, they are really damaging when used as 
Voluntary carbon markets have been at the forefront of allegations of greenwashing in recent years. …Carbon credits linked to forest initiatives have attracted particularly strong criticism recently, with companies accused of using these credits as offsets to avoid responsibility for reducing their own emissions. …As a result, confidence in the market has been shaken, choking off a potentially vital financial source for forest countries. To be clear, the problems with forest carbon markets that have hit the front pages are very real. But they aren’t the full story. …We shouldn’t gloss over bad practice. But we also shouldn’t overlook the years of work done by governments to ensure forest carbon transactions can be done with integrity. This includes the creation of the U.N.’s REDD+ framework for “reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries.