Effective August 19th, the United States will apply new US tariffs of 50% on a range of BC forest products exports to the US. …While initial news coverage tended to make light of the trade action likely because of the likely symbolic inclusion of hockey sticks, the implications for BC’s already beleaguered forest products sector are serious. …I estimate that BC exported up to approximately $991 million of forest products potentially subject to Section 338 tariffs to the US in 2025. …The impacts of these new tariffs extend well beyond hockey sticks and are likely to be felt across a broad range of forest manufacturing segments. Major producers of veneer, LVL, plywood, MDF, paper products and furniture could be affected directly. However, the impacts may be felt further down the value chain.
Determining which US duties and tariffs applied to Canadian forest products has become increasingly complex. One major difference from previous tariff threats is that the new Section 338 tariffs apply to CUSMA-compliant products, that would otherwise qualify for tariff-free access to the US market. Products already covered by Section 232 are exempt from the new Section 338 measures. This includes Canadian logs and softwood lumber, which are currently subject to a 10% Section 232 tariff as well as upholstered furniture and kitchen cabinets and vanities, which currently face a 25% tariff that is scheduled to increase on January 1, 2027. There are also products that are not covered by Section 232 tariffs but are subject to softwood lumber antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CVD) duties, and which may also be captured by Section 338 tariffs, resulting in a potentially devastating cumulative burden.
For all manufacturer of the products listed, it’s the indirect exposures and the potential impact on downstream supply chains that is hard to assess. …Section 338 tariffs are yet another critical blow that could lead to lower harvesting, reduced manufacturing, and potentially additional curtailments or mill closures for small and large businesses.
Canada-U.S. trade talks are down to the wire this week as Ottawa tries to avert punitive new tariffs scheduled to be imposed by the Trump administration on Wednesday. …Five sources briefed on the discussions said Section 232 tariffs on autos and lumber remained the biggest points of contention. …On forestry, the US does not want to offer any reduction of Section 232 tariffs on the sector. Instead, the US has argued that Canada should wait for the results of a separate review by the US Department of Commerce that is expected to reduce a different set of tariffs on softwood lumber. …A different source said the best Canada could hope for is an agreement from the U.S. to discuss forestry tariffs further. BC’s forestry industry has been hit hard by the Trump policies because the Section 232 tariffs on lumber stack on top of pre-existing countervailing and anti-dumping tariffs. The B.C. Lumber Trade Council’s interim president, Kim Haakstad, said Sunday she is concerned that if the 232 tariffs stay in place, more mills could close. [to access the full story a Glove & Mail subscription is required]
As the clock ticks toward U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest tariff deadline, Canada and the U.S. aren’t at a point where a tariff deal can be reached — and Canadian officials are not satisfied with the latest U.S. offer, according to two sources with knowledge of the trade talks. According to sources on both sides of the border, the Americans offered a new proposal on Tuesday which would lower some of the sectoral tariffs but not to the degree that the Canadian side would like to see. CBC News is not naming the sources because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Negotiators have been going back and forth in recent weeks in an effort to reach some sort of deal before Aug. 19, which is when Trump has promised a 50 per cent levy on hundreds of Canadian goods in addition to the sectoral tariffs already in place.
Canada’s top trade negotiator has warned her American counterparts that if the White House imposes new tariffs on Aug. 19, the move would represent a “cliff” that risks halting negotiations with the U.S. According to five sources briefed on the discussions, Janice Charette delivered the message in a meeting last week with United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. Four of the sources said Ms. Charette cautioned the Americans on the public mood in Canada should President Donald Trump make good on his threat to impose the new tariffs. The sources said she warned the officials that Ottawa would not be able to rein in or control the public or premiers’ reactions and the federal government will have lost the room to negotiate with the Americans. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the sources, who were not authorized to disclose details of their private briefings on the sensitive trade talks. [A Globe and Mail subscription is required for full access]
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Many Canadian exporters are facing the threat of 50% duties on their goods under Section 338 tariffs. …These firms may also need to increase their customs-bond coverage, which guarantees payment of duties and fees if an importer defaults, as higher tariffs increase the US government’s exposure. But trade lawyers and customs professionals say another change could affect far more Canadian exporters… an executive order that seeks to tighten US customs enforcement to crack down on trade fraud and shell importers that evade duties. “They’re going to a stricter importer regime … directing US authorities to strengthen the importer registration, bonding, disclosure, vetting, and enforcement,” said Martha Goncalves, at PwC Canada. …“The US trying to change the global trading system, and this is just part of their playbook,” she said. “Unfortunately, we get hit hardest because we have such a big footprint of Canadian exports going to the US”
Canadian lumber company Interfor Corp. confirmed plans Friday to move corporate support functions to the United States from its Burnaby, BC headquarters. “We recently announced the transition of certain corporate support roles to our Peachtree City office in Georgia, where the majority of our operations are located within the Central, Eastern and Atlantic time zones,” Ian Fillinger, the company’s CEO, said on a conference call with analysts. “This change is intended to better align our support functions with the needs of our business while maintaining a strong corporate presence in both Canada and the United States.” …“This is not a redomiciling of the company, nor does it alter our longstanding commitment within our Canadian operations, mills, employees, or communities,” Fillinger said. “Our leadership team remains in place, and Burnaby will continue to play an important role as our corporate headquarters.” [A subscription to the National Post is required for full access]
Canada and the US are discussing a prospective deal in which Ottawa would agree to a long list of Trump administration trade demands in exchange for some relief on sectoral tariffs. According to three sources, the two sides have discussed in-depth proposals and traded written bargaining positions but an agreement has not yet been reached. …Canada would concede on a range of trade issues that the US considers the biggest bilateral trade irritants, including autos, alcohol dairy. …In return, the US. would lower sectoral levies, known as Sec. 232 tariffs, on steel and aluminum, with Ottawa also pushing for relief on autos and forest products. Canada is also hoping to avoid Trump’s latest round of threatened tariffs, scheduled to take effect in less than two weeks’ time. …The deal under discussion would represent only the first phase of trade talks and is being described as an “interim deal.” [to access the full story a Globe and Mail subscription is required]
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Hundreds of wildfires are burning across North America, putting communities, buildings, and firefighters at risk. With blazes in Washington state, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, California, Utah, and in Canada, especially in British Columbia, Ontario, and the Northwest Territories, there have been plenty of headlines about the devastation. Last month, smoke from Canadian boreal forest fires poured into the United States, triggering air quality alerts for more than 120 million Americans. …Four Republican lawmakers accused Canada of failing to do enough to prevent wildfire smoke from hitting the United States, claiming that “continued inaction” was “unacceptable.” President Donald Trump also expressed frustration. …Forest management experts say Trump is oversimplifying a much more complicated problem. The U.S. and Canada have forests that are different in structure, but both now face many of the same fire pressures, says Lori Daniels, a professor of forest and conservation sciences at the University of British Columbia. [A subscription to the National Post is required for full story access]
COSMOPOLIS, Washington — The US Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], in coordination with the Washington State Department of Ecology, began a time-critical chemical removal action at the dormant Cosmo Specialty Fibers pulp mill in Cosmopolis, the EPA announced. The announcement states that for the past two years, the EPA and Department of Ecology have worked closely to assess conditions at the non-operational facility and identify actions needed to reduce potential risks to the community and the environment. More than 750,000 gallons of waste chemicals remain at the site, and the facility has accumulated more than $2 million in environmental fines. …Weyerhaeuser operated the mill until 2006, when production shut down. …In 2011 the mill resumed operation as Cosmo Specialty Fibers. The pulp mill had been in intermittent operation since 2011 and shut down in December 2022. UK-based Charlestown Investments and Richard Bassett acquired Cosmo Specialty Fibers in early 2023 with the intent of restarting the mill.
SEARSMONT, Maine —Federal investigators say firefighters unknowingly used a suppression tactic that likely contributed to the deadly explosion at Robbins Lumber mill fire in Searsmont in May. The report from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) says that neither workers nor responding firefighters understood that the silo involved was designed to limit oxygen or that its contents posed a combustible dust hazard. … A preliminary investigation classified the fire as accidental and identified combustible dust as the cause of the subsequent explosion. The report says the silo was an oxygen-limiting model, which is designed to restrict the amount of air entering the structure. NIOSH said mill employees and firefighters interviewed after the explosion did not know the silo was oxygen-limiting and were unaware that the wood shavings and sawdust inside constituted a combustible dust hazard or that there were different risks with that silo as compared to other designs.
There have been three price increase announcements by the majority producers of containerboard in just five months; most recently PCA’s announcement of a $140/ton (liner and medium) increase effective September 1, 2026; IP announced $80/ton for September 1, 2026, and Smurfit Westrock announced $100/ton. These latest announcements all took place within 3 days of each other. AICC believes these increases are without economic justification based on current rawmaterial inputs and economic data. Producers cite (as they have, again without objective justification,and unconvincingly in such a relatively short period of time in between them) economic need, high operating rates (e.g., Inflation, fuel, labor, insurance), and tight supply to justify these increases. AICC is skeptical of these reasons in the current containerboard and corrugated market. Arguably, the increases are reflective of a small group of producers having market dominance.
NEW YORK, NY — Mercer International reported second quarter 2026 Operating EBITDA of negative $21.0 million, a decrease from negative $20.9 million in the same quarter of 2025 and positive $7.8 million in the first quarter of 2026. In the second quarter of 2026, net loss was $76.0 million compared to $86.1 million in the same quarter of 2025 and $52.0 million in the first quarter of 2026. Mr. Juan Carlos Bueno, Chief Executive Officer, stated: “Our pulp sales realizations remained steady this quarter, as continued economic uncertainty delayed market recovery. Our second quarter results were also weighed down by rising European fiber costs, driven by regional supply shortages and intense competition for sawmill residuals from energy producers. As a result, we recognized a non-cash impairment of $29.0 million primarily against pulp and fiber inventory.
BURNABY, BC — Interfor reported its second quarter of 2026 results. The company recorded net earnings in Q2’26 of $1.0 million, compared to a net loss of $63.3 million, and net earnings of $11.1 million in Q2’25. Adjusted EBITDA was $92.3 million on sales of $804.4 million in Q2’26 versus $30.7 million on sales of $643.2 million in Q1’26 and Adjusted EBITDA of $17.2 million on sales of $780.5 million in Q2’25. ….Lumber production of 927 million board feet was up 71 million board feet versus the preceding quarter driven primarily by the ramp up of the recently rebuilt Thomaston, GA sawmill. …The Company is well positioned to navigate this volatility with a diversified product mix in Canada and the US, with approximately 65% of its total lumber produced and sold within the US Ultimately, only about 20% of the Company’s total lumber production is exported from Canada to the U.S. and exposed to duties, tariffs or other potential trade measures.
The United States’ share of Canada’s softwood lumber exports fell by 1 percentage point to 89% in January-June 2026. Canada exported 13.2 million m3, down 12%, while export value fell 26% to $2.45 billion and the average price declined 16% to $186 per m3. …Shipments to the US fell 13% to 11.7 million m3, a reduction of 1.73 million m3 from a year earlier. Export value dropped 29% to $2.02 billion, and the average price fell 18% to $172 per m3. The listed destinations with higher shipments added 77 thousand m3, equal to about 4% of the US shortfall. Declines in Japan, the Philippines, Germany and the remaining destinations totaled 128 thousand m3, leaving total non-U.S. exports down 51 thousand m3, or 3%, at 1.50 million m3. China remained Canada’s second-largest market with a 4% share. Shipments rose 3% to 525 thousand m3. Japan ranked third with a 3% share, but shipments fell 19% to 373 thousand m3. Taiwan accounted for 1.4%, the Philippines retained a 0.8% share, Mexico rose to 49 thousand m3,Germany received 33 thousand m3.
While North American softwood lumber consumption has declined in 2026, prices have remained surprisingly resilient due to constrained supply, reduced production, and persistent structural demand for housing despite ongoing affordability challenges. …On one hand, builders continue to face affordability concerns, elevated mortgage rates, and cautious consumers. On the other hand, lumber prices have generally strengthened throughout 2026, despite year-over-year declines in consumption. Here’s what the latest market indicators are telling us. …The U.S. housing market continues to balance between long-term demand for new homes and short-term economic pressures. …These trends suggest that, while housing demand hasn’t disappeared, the market is adapting to economic realities rather than expanding uniformly. …Although North American lumber consumption has declined year over year, production has also contracted. Reduced output across both the United States and Canada has helped keep supply relatively tight, supporting pricing across many lumber grades.
Americans who act as their own builder put wood framing into 96 per cent of the houses they finished in 2025, up from 93 per cent a year earlier, in a segment where concrete held 2 per cent. That is according to the United States Census Bureau, whose 
Urban conversations in North America often seem trapped between competing visions… between detached suburban development, low-scale missing middle housing, and high-rise intensification. An alternative lies in a form of urbanism that has shaped some of the world
With interest from Big Tech and a new bill before Congress that would expand its use in federal projects, mass timber is on the cusp of a new era of growth. Relatively stable lumber prices that buck the broader trend of increasingly expensive construction inputs are meeting with greater levels of comfort around the material’s use to drive faster adoption after years of cautious incorporation. “There’s a more robust supply chain and we’re getting more experienced,” said Dean Lewis, director of mass timber and prefabrication for Skanska USA. “When you say, ‘I want to use mass timber,’ people aren’t like, ‘What is that?’ They want to know what you want to do with it. The conversation has changed.” Construction using mass timber is expected to grow to a $5.7B market by 2030, with annual growth rates topping 20% to 30%, according to Grand View Research data. [to access the full story a BISNOW subscription is required]
Washington has been developing new wildfire safety regulations for several years, including building codes for homes constructed in risky areas and rules for managing plants and vegetation. But restrictions that affect people’s homes and gardens can be unpopular. After public pushback, state legislators backtracked and repealed some of the requirements. Other Western states have also struggled to pass wildfire regulations affecting homeowners’ properties. …Understanding wildfire risk can be challenging in many Western states. For floods, the federal government releases national maps showing which places are at risk of inundation. Wildfire mapping is left to the states, which involves using complex computer models to determine the chances of a fire based on vegetation, terrain and fire behavior. …Washington state officials say the new wildfire maps will be released in December. …Oregon faced similar pushback while developing its wildfire regulations. …Building codes for housing in wildfire-prone areas were pioneered by California.
NORTH DAKOTA — Eric Hoffer, senior project manager at JLG Architects in Bismarck, North Dakota, says mass timber projects are surging due to updated building codes, regional supply chain advantages and a growing focus on embodied carbon — the emissions from manufacturing and transport. Despite accounting for fewer than 1% of national building projects, mass timber is one of sustainable architecture’s fastest-growing trends, with roughly 20% annual growth. “Mass timber sequesters carbon, which then acts as a carbon sink,” Hoffer explained. …The growth of mass timber construction, including cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glue-laminated timber (glulam), continues to gain momentum. Project owners are choosing mass timber for a number of reasons, including lower embodied carbon than conventional concrete and steel, faster prefabricated construction, and the warm, natural interior aesthetics it provides. …Some examples of mass timber projects in the region include the Wurth Elektronik Headquarters expansion in Watertown, South Dakota, completed this spring. 
The Babylon Fire left parts of the burned landscape more vulnerable to flooding, erosion and debris flows, with increased runoff and erosion likely to recur intermittently for five to 10 years as the landscape recovers. The Forest Service’s newly released Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) report recommends emergency work to reduce those risks, including road-drainage improvements, debris racks at culverts, warning signs, closures and stabilization at old mine sites. Although the most severe soil damage covered only 5% of the area assessed, the report identified five drainages with the highest potential for debris flows. The lightning-caused Babylon Fire started June 26 in the Abajo Mountains about 25 miles southwest of Monticello and burned across parts of Elk Ridge, Dark Canyon Wilderness and Bears Ears National Monument within the Manti-La Sal National Forest. …The report says ground cover typically takes three to five years to re-establish and can take up to 10 years, particularly if drought persists.
The northern spotted owl is in trouble—per usual. This vanishingly rare subspecies of spotted owl earned its iconic status in the late ’80s and early ’90s, during the height of the Timber Wars in the Pacific Northwest. For forest defenders, the spotted owl is a sacred totem. For loggers, it’s been a pest. In 1990, federal officials reclassified the raptor as a threatened species, and greens won the Timber Wars with the establishment of the Clinton-era Northwest Forest Plan. The spotted owl left the trees standing—yet the number of spotted owls continued to decline. The culprit? The barred owl. …Today, just 15,000 spotted owls remain across North America; in comparison, there are some 3.5 million barred owls. So officials with the US Fish and Wildlife Service have come up with a bold plan to help the spotted owls: Shoot the barred owls.
Drought and wildfires are straining wildlife and the habitats they depend on across Colorado, prompting Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) to closely monitor habitat conditions as animals face increased stress in their search for food, water and shelter. Wildfires rapidly alter ecosystems by removing vegetation that provides food and cover for wildlife. While ecosystems are adapted to periodic fire and will recover over time, large wildfires may reduce habitat quality, displace animals and increase competition for limited resources. Species unable to relocate quickly or that rely on specialized habitats are especially vulnerable this summer. …CPW is adjusting hunting and fishing season structures and license quotas in areas affected by wildfire damage, closing boating ramps during extreme drought conditions, and establishing voluntary and mandatory fishing closures to help sustain healthy habitats and wildlife populations. …Give wildlife extra space and respect area closures. Do not feed wildlife; let them find natural food sources. 
Today, many Washingtonians may be unaware that a looming federal policy change could have major consequences for the availability, quality and cost of the freshwater they rely on daily. …In August 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture officially launched a process to rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Implemented in 2001, the Rule designated special areas across nearly 60 million acres of forests within the National Forest System. …The Rule reflects scientific evidence that extensive logging and road building contributed to widespread loss and fragmentation of habitat for wildlife and salmon, and degraded water quality for downstream communities. Just how important are roadless areas in national forests? To answer this question, we conducted the science and 
The soupy, toxic fog that hung over Seattle and the Puget Sound region last week was a constant reminder of the wildfires raging across Eastern Washington. It can feel insufferable and inevitable — that the fires will burn, increasingly in every corner of the state, as the years become hotter and drier. But rather than resigning ourselves to this fate, the smoky skies should reinforce a call to action, for every Washingtonian. The wildfires that consumed neighborhoods in Spokane and enveloped forests in Chelan and elsewhere have a kind of performance-enhancing drug feeding their flames: climate change. As a society, we can choose to deny this reality, but it does little good to do so. The forecast each year will continue to be tinderbox-like conditions. We must do all we can to prepare for it. …Inaction will lead to devastation. Facing this growing risk is the only option. [to access the full story a Seattle Times subscription is required]
The closure of Finch Paper’s pulp mill in Glens Falls, New York, is a blow that will echo across the Northeast for years. For loggers, truckers, foresters and woodlot landowners, this is not some distant threat to worry about in the future. It is — today — lost income, lost markets for wood and the continuing fraying of a way of life. One of us has spent a career in forestry; the other leads a wilderness protection organization. …we both understand a truth: The amount of land we can set aside as wilderness depends on how well we manage the rest of the forest and thus the health of the timber industry. Both wildlands and managed woodlands are needed. …Put simply, wilderness advocates should be rooting for a thriving forest economy. And loggers should welcome a network of wildlands that keeps large forest blocks whole … and models the full range of what these forests can be. 
The European Union Deforestation Regulation has been postponed, amended and simplified since it came about in 2023, yet the central compliance challenge confronting wood pellet producers has barely changed. Producers shipping into the European Union will need to demonstrate that their fiber is legal and deforestation-free, identify the plots where the wood was harvested and preserve the connection between those plots and the finished product. That requirement reaches beyond conventional sustainability certification and deep into supplier networks that were not designed to provide plot-level information. …The delay has given the industry a longer runway, but the remaining work lies at the hardest end of the supply chain: beyond the pellet plant, beyond direct suppliers and back to the land itself. Producers that can make that connection auditable will enter the next phase with more than a completed due diligence statement; they will possess a clearer view of the fiber networks on which their businesses depend.
Under U.S. federal policy, wood pellets are classified as carbon neutral renewable energy. That label, assigned in an overlooked 2018 rider buried in a massive appropriations bill, is worth billions of dollars. The people who lobbied hardest to put it there were investors who may make billions as a result of that controversial decision. Enviva, the world’s largest wood pellet producer, was built with private equity money. Riverstone Holdings first invested in 2010 through its $4.3 billion Riverstone/Carlyle renewable energy fund, then led a recapitalization worth more than $1 billion in 2020, bringing in money from investment firms Goldman Sachs, Mubadala, Fortress, and Neuberger Berman. None of them were betting on wood, but on a label. Take away the renewable designation and the business disappears. It only works when governments agree to count pellets as “clean.” …Congress should immediately strip the carbon neutrality language from spending bills, keep biomass out of clean energy tax credits, and let the EPA follow the evidence.
The contiguous United States sizzled to its hottest month ever last month, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. July averaged 76.89 degrees Fahrenheit across the Lower 48 states, eclipsing the Dust Bowl’s July 1936 by an eighth of a degree. Records go back to 1895 “It’s not good when you’re breaking records from the Dust Bowl,” said meteorologist Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections. …The heat was so widespread that every one of the Lower 48 states was at least 1 degree Fahrenheit warmer than the 20th century average, said Russ Vose, chief of monitoring at NOAA. …What’s happening now is due to the burning of coal, oil and gas, scientists said. “Extremely high temperatures across the continental U.S. this summer, along with intense drought and fire conditions, are absolutely consistent with the climate change signal,’ said Katharine Jacobs, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona.
SEARSMONT, Maine — Two volunteer firefighters died and 11 others were injured after an oxygen-limiting silo exploded during a fire at a Maine lumber mill. The 20-by-60-foot silo contained kiln-dried wood shavings and residual sawdust. Neither facility employees nor responding firefighters recognized that the silo was oxygen-limiting or that its contents posed a combustible dust explosion hazard. Crews directed water through an opening into the silo’s base for more than 30 minutes. At approximately 11 a.m., firefighters heard a “whoosh” as smoke rapidly vented from the top, and the silo launched into the air as fire erupted below it. NIOSH’s investigation highlights the need for hazard-specific preplans, disciplined accountability and tactics designed for oxygen-limiting silos. Recommendations for fire departments include:
Evacuation orders are in place across parts of the Western U.S. and Southwest Canada as extremely hot and dry conditions fuel the spread of wildfires in the region. There were 183 new fires, including eight large ones, across the U.S. since Saturday, the National Interagency Fire Center reported on Sunday. More than 30,000 personnel with over 640 crews were assigned to the fires. Firefighters were battling more than 94 large fires across the country, the agency also said. …Two pilots died on Friday after their helicopter crashed while battling the Widemouth 2 Fire in Fishlake National Forest, the U.S. Forest Service confirmed Sunday. …In Oregon, a bulldozer operator identified by officials as Jason Ensign, died battling the Wrights Spring Fire, which has spread over 33,000 acres and was 0% contained as of Sunday afternoon. …In Canada, there were more than 100 active wildfires in the British Columbia. …A 
