Wisconsin-based Besse Forest Products closed three wood product mills, drawing union complaint. In related news: Willamette Falls Paper is closing its West Linn, Oregon mill; Canfor to curtail its Fort St. John sawmill for two weeks; New Zealand’s Winstone Pulp curtails operations; AZEK is partnering with Doman Building Materials and Clearwater Paper and Rayonier Advanced Materials report Q2 results. Meanwhile: the University of Maine is turning wood products into jet fuel; and a fire destroyed an under-construction 6-storey wood frame development in Vancouver.
In Forestry news: Canada extends the consultation period to protect Quebec caribou; debris from BC’s landslide raises concerns over salmon runs; a BC Forest Practices Board audit finds issues with BCTS road and bridge maintenance; University of Arkansas researchers develop remote sensing breakthrough; and an Oregon study on managing regrowth for climate mitigation.
Finally, Oregon nears record for forest area burned as fire season approaches its apex.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
MONTREAL – Shippers and producers are holding their breath ahead of a possible strike by thousands of railworkers this month that would halt freight traffic, clog ports and disrupt industries. “The railways are two ribbons that go east to west, and there’s not much alternative if you cut those two ribbons,” said John Corey, president of the Freight Management Association of Canada. “The ports become useless. Nothing moves anywhere.” Canadian railways haul more than $350 billion worth of goods and more than half of the country’s total exports each year, according to the Railway Association of Canada. … In May, then-labour minister Seamus O’Regan, in an apparent move to delay the disruption, asked the country’s labour board to review whether a work stoppage would jeopardize Canadians’ health and safety. Either way, observers says the possibility of a strike will likely remain on the table after the decision — expected this Friday.
FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — A Revised Curtailment Notice has been issued for the Fort St. John Canfor sawmill. According to the notice, the mill will be temporarily curtailing its operations due to an impending rail strike. According to a report from the Canadian Press first published August 5th, the strike would involve “thousands of railworkers” and affect freight traffic across the country. The revised curtailment will run from August 19th until the 30th. Weekday shift workers will re-start their first regularly scheduled shift on September 3rd, graveyard shift workers will return on the 2nd, and weekend shift personnel will resume their work on August 30th. The notice also says that critical positions will be scheduled “as needed.”
The cost of emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is set to decouple from gas prices in the European Union, marking an historic shift in the dynamic between the two markets, according to the EMEA head of natural resources research at Goldman Sachs Group. The EU is facing “a complete break from the historical relationship where lower gas always meant lower carbon,” Goldman’s Michele Della Vigna said. The development reflects the changing dynamics affecting the carbon market, including shrinking emissions caps, with industry replacing power producers as the biggest buyers of permits to pollute and “a complete change in the gas market,” he said. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered a new wave of energy investment in Europe. …Goldman predicts that infrastructure investments will drive up global liquid natural gas supplies by 50% in the next five years, leading to a halving of gas prices over the period.
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is seriously concerned about allegations regarding 
EDMONTON, Alberta — Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, with Todd Loewen, Minister of Forestry and Parks, announced a joint investment of over $57 million over five years under the Government of Canada’s Fighting and Managing Wildfires in a Changing Climate Program – Equipment Fund. This funding is already supporting Alberta’s efforts to purchase key wildland firefighting equipment as well as hire and train key personnel to enhance provincial readiness and capacity to prepare for and respond to wildland fires. So far, Alberta has purchased aircraft parts, general wildfire equipment including pumps and hoses, and telecommunications equipment. …The funding announced today will continue to enhance fire management efforts across Alberta by procuring and upgrading specialized wildland firefighting equipment and by hiring and training personnel to increase wildland fire preparedness and response efforts.
New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservative government spent two years increasing protected natural areas from just under five per cent of the province’s land and freshwater to 10%, a doubling that was proudly announced in December 2022. But now there’s a push from conservationists for far more: to hit 30% by 2030, the vaunted “30 by 30” that the Trudeau Liberal government pledged at a United Nations biodiversity forum. …The province’s timber industry isn’t rejecting the “30 by 30” idea outright, but it has concerns that the target would zero-in on Crown or public land, where four big for-profit firms have longterm leases to cut wood – J.D. Irving, Twin Rivers, Interfor and AV Group. Kim Allen, the executive director of Forest New Brunswick, points out that New Brunswick, unlike larger provinces like British Columbia or Quebec, whose territory is more than 90% public land, only has about half of its land in public trust. The rest is private.
SAO PAULO — Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva came into office in 2023 pledging to tackle deforestation in the Amazon. …But a new study indicates that deforestation alone accounts for an only fraction of climate damage involving the Amazon. Logging, forest burning and other forms of human-caused degradation, along with natural disturbances to the Amazon ecosystem, are releasing more climate-warming carbon dioxide than clear-cut deforestation, the study published on Monday in the journal 
The trade in black market timber is now the third most profitable cross-border crime after counterfeiting and drug trafficking, according to Interpol. The global fraud is destroying critical forests, undermining international sanctions and decimating indigenous lands and livelihoods. But authorities are hitting back. The Financial Times’s Madeleine Speed visits the high-tech forest detectives fighting the multibillion-dollar trade in tarnished timber. [Video story]
