Canada’s railway’s strike is official as businesses brace for gridlock and COFI highlights forestry impacts. In other Business news: the Fort Nelson First Nation says yesterday’s Tyee article is full of errors and inaccuracies; mass timber construction makes headway in Michigan and Washington; Canada’s wood product prices fell 3.4% in July; and sluggish home sales are expected to continue in the US.
In Forestry/Wildfire news: Canada and Nova Scotia will restore wildfire affected areas; the Nature Conservancy acquires a New Brunswick seaside forest; Alberta wildfires are impacting woodland caribou; wildfire concerns are easing in BC; a US report on funding challenges in urban forested areas; a new conservation area is created in southeast Virginia; and should humans “play God” to determine the fate of spotted owls.
Finally, this wild-man is a Vermonter punk musician, forester and author.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
They call it the granddaddy of international trade disputes, and in the latest round, Canada has been hit once again by the U.S. The dispute over exports of Canadian softwood lumber to the U.S. has been ongoing since the early 1980s, with the Americans insisting that the Canadian lumber industry is unfairly subsidized. The U.S. Department of Commerce claims this entitles the U.S. to levy tariffs on lumber. These charges have already cost Canadian producers $10 billion since 2017 and have led to thousands of job losses in Canada. …The Americans are now increasing their current duties on Canadian softwood lumber products from 7.99% to 14.54%. …The U.S. increase is also retroactive, meaning it will apply to 2022 exports as well as future shipments. Canadian industry leaders and governments are outraged. …But if Donald Trump is elected president in November, expect worse. It was under his presidential watch in 2017 that the tariffs went as high as 24%.
VANCOUVER — The BC Council of Forest Industries calls for all parties – employers, unions, and the federal government – to consider the far-reaching consequences of a railway shutdown and to work urgently towards a resolution.” “Rail transportation is the backbone of our industry, enabling the movement of lumber, pulp, and paper products across North America and to global markets. The potential disruption of these services poses a severe risk to the forest sector and the economic stability of forestry-dependent communities across the province. A simultaneous work stoppage at CN and CPKC could result in tens of millions of dollars in weekly losses for the forest products manufacturing sector.” Niquidet emphasized that the majority of the forest sector’s products rely on rail transport, particularly for exports to the US. “Within the first week of a strike, we could face widespread mill curtailments, further threatening jobs and economic activity in our communities.”
VANCOUVER, BC — Conifex Timber announced that, in light of imminently expected transportation challenges that will affect all Canadian lumber producers for an unspecified period, together with already existing unfavourable market conditions, Conifex is reducing its sawmill operating schedule at its Mackenzie, British Columbia site to a one-shift basis for the foreseeable future and temporarily curtailing its power plant, each commencing on August 26, 2024. We anticipate an end to the curtailment of our power plant by September 30, 2024. …“Unfortunately, a reduced operating schedule at the sawmill is necessary for the foreseeable future due to the combined impact of our inability to ship production on a two-shift basis to end markets for an unspecified timeframe, reduced demand for our lumber products, low lumber prices and punitive lumber export duty impositions,” said Andrew McLellan, President and COO of Conifex.
BURNABY, BC — Interfor announced that it will indefinitely curtail operations at its sawmills in Meldrim, Georgia and Summerville, South Carolina. These curtailments are in response to persistently weak lumber market conditions. Log deliveries will be curtailed immediately, followed by an orderly wind-down of operations, which is expected to be completed by the end of the third quarter of 2024. Both sawmills produce kiln-dried Southern Yellow Pine dimensional lumber and have a combined annual capacity of 330 million board feet. These indefinite curtailments will impact approximately 180 employees across both facilities. Interfor expects to mitigate some of the impact on affected employees. The expected impact of these curtailments on production volume for the remainder of 2024 was included in Interfor’s press release dated 
GERMANY — The State of Baden-Württemberg faces potential liability of up to Euro 500 million following a precedent-setting ruling by the Stuttgart Court of Appeals. On August 15, 2024, the court held the state liable for violating EU competition laws through its centralized sale of timber, in a decision that marks the first time a German court has established civil liability in a major cartel case without a prior decision from an antitrust authority. The case centers on Baden-Württemberg’s decades-long practice of bundling and jointly selling timber from state, municipal, and private forests. The court found that this arrangement restricted competition and led to inflated timber prices, ultimately harming sawmills that depended on the state as a dominant supplier. The next phase of the legal battle will focus on determining the exact compensation owed to the sawmills. The ruling is open to appeal. …Its broader implications, however, may ripple across the European Union.
Prices of products manufactured in Canada, as measured by the Industrial Product Price Index (
Statistics Canada’s July consumer price index showed a significant cooling in inflation, with the rate easing to 2.5 per cent — its slowest pace since March of 2021. Economists believe this latest reading cements a 25-basis point cut by the Bank of Canada in September, and they predict further rate cuts before year’s end. …Claire Fan, at Royal Bank of Canada, said “The scope of price pressures continue to normalize — the diffusion index says the breadth of inflation in Canada is looking similar to pre-pandemic norm in 2019.” …Olivia Cross, economist with Capital Economics, thinks core inflation measures may surprise to the downside of the Bank of Canada’s forecasts, which raises the possibility of a steeper policy cut by the central bank later this year.
PRINCE GEORGE, BC – The Honourable Diane Lebouthillier, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans Canada and the Canadian Coast Guard announced the Government’s intention to construct a new Pacific salmon hatchery in Prince George, BC, to support conservation and rebuilding of Chinook and sockeye salmon. The proposed hatchery will be built through federal investments under the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative (PSSI) and operated by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) in collaboration with Lheidli T’enneh First Nation and with support from Canfor Pulp Ltd. Construction is expected to begin this fall on federally administered land on the north bank of the Nechako River, near its confluence with the Fraser River. The proposed conservation hatchery will fill a critical infrastructure gap in the upper Fraser River region, serving to boost survival of numerous at-risk salmon stocks.
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, and the Honourable Tory Rushton, Nova Scotia’s Minister of the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, announced a joint investment of more than $40 million to plant up to 21 million trees by 2031 on private and public lands in Nova Scotia. This funding will result in the planting of more than 21 trees for each resident of Nova Scotia. …The funding will strengthen Nova Scotia’s tree-planting supply chain, from seed collection to nurseries to tree planting and monitoring. This work will create hundreds of jobs across the forestry sector in Nova Scotia. Federal funding comes from the 2 Billion Trees program, part of the Government of Canada’s broader approach to nature-based climate solutions. 
Cities need to diversify the funding sources used to 
WASHINGTON — To figure out what really works when nations try to fight climate change, researchers looked at 1,500 ways countries have tried to curb heat-trapping gases. Their answer: Not many have done the job. And success often means someone has to pay a price, whether at the pump or elsewhere. In only 63 cases since 1998, did researchers find policies that resulted in significant cuts of carbon pollution, a new study in Thursday’s 
BRAZIL — Extreme weather has made 2023 virtually certain to be the warmest year on record, signaling unprecedented climate and biodiversity crises. Brazil, the world’s most biodiverse country, with two hotspots and complex social and economic layers, has experienced escalating environmental degradation over the past years. Alarming rates of native vegetation loss, wildfires, severe and prolonged droughts, and heatwaves have adversely impacted several Brazilian ecosystems and societies. Despite the country’s decisive role in global carbon neutrality, bridging the gap between Brazil’s discourse on the international stage and its concrete actions at home remains a significant challenge. This correspondence underscores the urgent imperative for national engagement and commitment to halt and mitigate these crises.