IRVING, Texas — Builders FirstSource announced that it has published its 2025 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report, highlighting how the Company aligns and advances sustainability within its business strategy to deliver value for its customers, team members, and stakeholders. …Highlights from the 2025 CSR report include: Delivered an industry-leading total recordable incident rate of 1.39, a year-over-year reduction of 10%, meeting our 10% annual goal >60% of the Company’s facilities were accident-free in 2024. …~89% of the Company’s wood is from Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) or Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified vendors >7.5 million trees saved since 2019 through sales of the Company’s more efficient manufactured products. …We continued to provide innovative products and solutions allowing our customers to operate more sustainably. Our safety-always mindset is a core value embedded in our culture and operations,” said Peter Jackson, CEO.
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February 2025 Southern Pine lumber exports (treated and untreated) were up 4.7% to 40.8 Mbf over January but were down 15% over February 2024, according to February 2025 data from the USDA’s Foreign Agriculture Services’ Global Agricultural Trade System. When looking at the report by dollar value, Southern Pine exports are down 4% compared to the first two months of 2024 at $32 million. Mexico led the way at $8.4 million, followed by the Dominican Republic at $6.7 million, and Canada at $3.3 million. The total global value in February, however, hit a five-month high of $16.5 million. Treated lumber exports, meanwhile, were down 8% to $18.3 million through the first two months of 2025 compared to a year ago led by Jamaica at $3 million, the Leeward-Windward Islands at $2.6 million, and the Netherlands Antilles with $2 million.
NEW YORK — Associated General Contractors of New York State CEO Mike Elmendorf says that under the tariffs proposed by President Trump, the cost for any kind of construction could further skyrocket. “When tariffs go on a material that is sourced from outside the United States, a funny thing happens,” Elmendorf said. “In many cases, domestic producers or suppliers of that material raise their price too because they can. Not as much as the tariff, but it sort of, it pushes everything up.” …Canadian lumber is one of the most critical imports needed for U.S. construction. “Especially the builders up in Western New York are concerned it’s going to affect them quicker and harder than the rest of the state,” said New York State Builders Association Executive Director Mike Fazio. Elmendorf said what might be an even bigger issue than the tariffs themselves is the uncertainty surrounding them.” 
Increased timber production may be coming to the Volunteer State, impacting the Appalachian forests in East Tennessee. A new emergency order from the U.S. Department of Agriculture allocated 59% of national forests across the country for timber production. …However, the economics benefits of logging come at a steep price, according to The Wilderness Society. “Don’t be fooled: the Trump Administration and its allies in Congress aren’t trying to solve the wildfire crisis or protect communities threatened by it. Instead, they are aiming to deepen the pockets of private industry to log across our shared, public forests, while sidestepping public review,” said Josh Hicks, Conservation Campaigns Director at The Wilderness Society. …A majority of the impacted U.S. Forest Service areas are in the western half of the United States. However, the USDA declaration also impacts Appalachia and East Tennessee. The affected areas total more than 112 million acres of U.S Forest Service land.
From the summit of Katahdin, the view is of forests stretching in all directions. …Forty-five years ago this scene would have been quite different. A voracious insect called the spruce budworm was ravaging Maine’s North Woods, killing mountainsides of balsam fir and red spruce. …Today, foresters and landowners are nervously tracking a renewed spruce budworm presence in the North Woods. The insects have already stripped hundreds of thousands of forest acres in Quebec and Ontario. After decades of heavy logging, scattered tracts are being managed with ecological timbering methods that strive to maintain natural systems — but most are not. Questions abound over how the state’s forests, both the northern timberlands and smaller, privately owned tracts throughout the state, will fare in a world beset by climate change. …And there’s the coming spruce budworm invasion. 
FORT STEWART, Ga. — This week, NASA scientists have been on the ground with the Fort Stewart forestry team, studying different aspects of prescribed wildfires. It’s an unlikely duo, learning a lot from each other, in this partnership between the federal space agency and Army’s forestry team on post. The team ignites 115,000 acres annually, during the Dec. 1 to June 30 season. …they do it to lower wildfire risk, to keep military training missions moving, and to rejuvenate the environment. …“The prescribed fire program here at Fort Stewart is very successful,” said scientist Jacquelyn Shuman, with NASA Firesense. Shuman and her researchers needed a place to safely study different parts of wildfires, what better place than Fort Stewart, Shuman says. “NASA has been collecting information about fire for decades,” Shuman said. NASA scientists are studying the fires’ emissions, how it releases its heat, and how wind changes the behavior of the blaze.
Environmentalists are voicing outrage over the Trump administration’s move to invoke emergency powers to ramp up timber production from national forests in northern New England and across the country. The bulk of the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire and much of the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont were included in US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’s announcement earlier this month that an “emergency situation” exists across 112.6 million acres of federally managed land. Heightened risks for wildfires and infestation by insects and disease have contributed to “a full-blown wildfire and forest health crisis” across more than half of all National Forestry System land, Rollins wrote. …Zack Porter, executive director of Standing Trees, an advocacy group that has opposed increased logging on public lands, said the secretary’s memo is an “outrageous” effort to bypass public input on how national forests should be used.
Virginia — …Slowly but steadily, the oak is disappearing from our forests and from our landscape. To use just one typical measure: In Shenandoah National Park, the oak canopy has shriveled by 20 percent over the past 20 years, according to a study funded by the Shenandoah National Park Trust. The oak’s decline is accelerating in a vicious arboreal cycle. There are many reasons for this, but one rises above all others. Oaks are fire-dependent, meaning they require frequent fires to regenerate. But fire-suppression efforts over the past century have broken this timeless pattern. Fire-intolerant trees with far less ecological value — maple, beech, basswood, black gum, tulip trees — have risen to replace the oak, hickory and pine forests, which need regular fire to open the forest canopy, bring in light and eliminate competitors. The best way to save the oak, and the countless critters that rely on it, is to return fire to our landscape. [A Washington Post subscription is required for full access]
In the months after Hurricane Helene leveled thousands of acres in Pisgah National Forest, John Beaudet and other volunteers cleared downed trees from the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. Chopping them up and moving them aside was back-breaking work, but essential to ensuring safe passage for hikers. So he was dismayed to learn that a section of the trail in western North Carolina could remain closed for more than a year because the National Forest Service wants that timber left alone so logging companies can clear it… The fast-track approach to environmental review following Helene has many people concerned that the public isn’t being given any chance to inform the process. According to forest advocates who have been in communication with the Forest Service, the government reportedly plans to announce 15 salvage projects in western North Carolina. Volunteers, scientists, and hikers are asking for transparency in a process they say could prioritize profit over ecosystems.
In Ocean County, the Jones Road Wildfire continues burning into its sixth day. Roads are now back open including Wells Mills Road. The command post sits at Wells Mills County Park. As of Sunday, over 15,000 acres have burned, and it is now 65% contained. Four structures were threatened as of Sunday. Evacuations have been 100% lifted for residents previously evacuated in Lacey and Ocean townships. Crews Sunday were working on hotspots and patrolling the fire perimeter.
A New Jersey teenager is being charged with arson following a
