CHICAGO — The North American Wholesale Lumber Association (NAWLA) announced that its wholesaler and manufacturer member companies have approved a set of recommended amendments to the association’s bylaws. …The amendments strengthen NAWLA’s ability to serve an increasingly diverse and interconnected distribution ecosystem. Key updates include:
- Expanding the definition of “wholesaler” membership to reflect the range of distribution models operating in the industry today—including one‑step and two‑step distributors, buying groups and importers/exporters who take title to the products they sell and operate within the wholesale distribution model.
- Broadening eligibility to participate on the NAWLA Board of Directors, including allowing affiliate members to serve on the Board and manufacturer members to serve as officers on the Executive Committee.
- Preserving wholesalers as the majority representation on both the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee at all times.
WASHINGTON — Every day more than $4 billion worth of goods cross the United States’ borders with Canada and Mexico. …Much of this bustling cross-border commerce is duty-free, thanks to the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, that President Trump negotiated with America’s northern and southern neighbors during his first term. But the future of the USMCA , which took effect July 1, 2020, is cloudy as the three countries begin what could be a tempestuous attempt to renew the pact this year. The United States is demanding changes to the treaty. …Trump also suggested last fall that the United States could negotiate separate deals with Canada and Mexico, ending the three-country North American bloc that previous administrations saw as crucial to competing economically with China and the European Union. The talks kick off Monday between US and Mexican trade officials. …At stake is $1.6 trillion worth of annual trade in goods.
USW members voted overwhelmingly this winter to ratify a new four-year master agreement that provides significant annual wage increases and additional benefits for about 2,400 members of nine local unions at Domtar paper facilities across the United States. The contract, which runs through December 2029, followed months of member preparations and bargaining during a period of major changes in the company and across the paper industry. It was the first time USW members bargained a new agreement since Paper Excellence acquired Domtar in 2021 and then Resolute in 2023. …“With new ownership and leadership at the table, we knew this round of bargaining would be challenging,” said International Vice President Luis Mendoza, who oversees the union’s paper sector. …The agreement… included a signing bonus, a boost in pension payments, wage increases of more than 12% over the life of the contract, and continued affordable health care coverage.
If you want to understand why the American starter home seems to have gone extinct, don’t look at greedy developers, rapacious investors or discriminating banks. Look at the government policies that make building these homes all but impossible. New research puts hard numbers on one part of the problem — and they’re staggering. …Federal, state and local governments have accelerated this decline by increasing construction costs through several channels. …In some cities, such as Los Angeles, the time it takes to get building permits amounts to almost half the construction time. …Land in many localities is made artificially expensive by regulations that dictate home sizes, yard sizes, building setbacks, parking and more. …Federal policies pile on more costs. …Canadian lumber, for example, is roughly 80% of all US imports and is currently subject to “trade remedy” taxes of more than 25%. Similar duties cover a wide range of products that US homebuilders use every day.
WASHINGTON — The Senate passed a bill Thursday aimed at boosting the supply of housing and bringing down prices, marking a rare bipartisan breakthrough on a major issue. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, written by Sens. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., won 89 votes. Ten senators voted against it. Scott is the chairman of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and Warren is the ranking member. The 
METCALFE, Georgia — Plantation Pine Products officially opened their doors at the former site of Hood Industries, signaling an exciting new chapter in a timber mill with a storied history. …The $25 million investment is set to provide 100 jobs, with the first mill employees reporting for duty in July, when it will once again come alive. Operated by Steve Conner, Plantation Pine Products will be one of the many “bread and butter businesses” of Thomasville. …“Forestry is woven into the fabric of rural Georgia in a way that no other industry can match,” Michelle Shaw said for the Georgia Department of Economic Development. …The reopening of the mill comes at a crucial time following the devastation of Hurricane Helene in 2025 and reinforces the resiliency of timber producers across Georgia.
KINGSPORT — Domtar’s Kingsport mill told the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation that it will try a method to improve wastewater quality at its wastewater lagoon this week. The mill said it will add an oxidant near the outlet of the lagoon’s settling zone for about 30 days to see if it would improve the effluent water quality. “It will be fed at a low rate of approximately 1 [part per million] with monitoring and testing being done at our effluent sample point before the discharge to the river,” the letter states. The mill has also tried chemical treatments and injecting liquid oxygen to address sulfuric odors attributed to the 25-acre wastewater lagoon.It is currently constructing a new wastewater treatment system, an anaerobic digester, to address wastewater odors attributed to the mill. Construction is expected to complete near the end of 2026.
Ukraine’s state forestry sector has reported its strongest financial performance to date. Despite operating during wartime conditions, the industry delivered a significant increase in profitability last year. The results were announced during the annual public report presented by Viktor Smal, head of the State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine. According to the report, the state enterprise Forests of Ukraine generated net profits of UAH 6.9 billion, equivalent to approximately US$167 million. The result represents a 2.76-fold increase compared with 2024. The achievement is considered a milestone for the country’s forestry management system. Industry leaders attribute the growth largely to procurement reforms introduced after 2020. These reforms were designed to improve transparency and reduce financial leakage within the sector. …Profitability within the forestry industry also improved considerably. The sector recorded an overall profitability rate of 22.8%. This figure increased by 12.3% points compared with earlier results.
The Bank of Canada held its benchmark interest rate at 2.25% today as the economy performs below expectations, but war in the Middle East threatens higher inflation. The central bank’s decision to keep to the sidelines today was widely expected, but the future path for the policy rate is much less clear. Governor Tiff Macklem says in prepared remarks that the Bank of Canada is in a “dilemma” with U.S. trade uncertainty keeping the economy soft, but the Iran war sending global oil prices surging and likely spurring higher inflation in the months to come. Macklem says the central bank will look through the immediate inflationary hit from the war, but monetary policymakers will move to prevent persistent price hikes if the conflict persists or broadens. Statistics Canada reported an economic contraction in the fourth quarter of the year and sharp job losses in February.
Mercer posted Q4 earnings per share (EPS) of -$4.61 against a consensus estimate of -$0.83, a miss that signals the commodity cycle has gone from painful to existential. The headline driver was a $238.7 million non-cash impairment charge, including a $203.5 million write-down on its Peace River hardwood pulp mill. …International Paper’s Q3 2025 losses look alarming on the surface, with a $1.01 billion impairment on its Global Cellulose Fibers business and $675 million in accelerated depreciation from mill closures. But adjusted EBITDA came in at $859 million, up 28% sequentially. IP is taking pain by choice. Mercer is absorbing pain it cannot control. …IP’s pivot to pure-play global packaging via DS Smith gives it pricing leverage and diversified end markets. Mercer’s mass timber order book, at roughly $163 million in contracts including data center projects, is a genuine bright spot, but it cannot offset a pulp business bleeding cash.
Canadian housing starts posted a modest rebound in February, but economists and industry data pointed to a market still losing momentum beneath the surface. The latest figures suggest builders are working through earlier project decisions while facing weaker demand, higher costs and a darker macro outlook. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) reported that the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts rose 4.5% month over month to 250,900 units in February. That’s up from a revised 240,148 in January. The six‑month trend – a moving average used to smooth volatility – inched up just 0.4% to 256,005 units, essentially flat. …“Looking ahead, we expect heightened levels of business uncertainty and construction costs to weigh on the rate and trend of housing starts in the near‑to‑medium term.” …Among Canada’s largest centres, Montreal posted an 
Lumber futures climbed past $600 per thousand board feet as stabilizing housing sentiment and tightening production capacity across North America reversed a two month downward trend. The NAHB Housing Market Index edged up to 38 in March with buyer traffic and future sales expectations showing marginal gains despite persistent economic uncertainty. While 37% of builders continue to offer price cuts to attract buyers the market is finding support from a 29.1% surge in multifamily housing starts and a 7.2% rise in total residential construction activity. On the supply side mill closures and elevated duties on Canadian imports are projected to remove over 1.3 billion board feet from the market this year. Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East further pressure the outlook as rising energy costs inflate transport and shipping expenses for global timber. These factors suggest a shift toward a supply constrained environment that offsets the impact of high mortgage rates.
Canada’s unemployment rate rose to 6.7% in February as more people looked for work and the economy shed 84,000 jobs, according to the latest report from Statistics Canada, released Friday. The country’s employment rate fell 0.2 percentage points to 60.6%, the second consecutive monthly decline. …Nearly 23% of the 1.5 million people who were unemployed in February were in long-term unemployment and had been continuously searching for work for 27 weeks or more. Statistics Canada said that percentage was little changed from a year ago, but “significantly above” the pre-COVID-19 pandemic average of 17.1% recorded during 2017-19. Economists had been expecting a gain of 10,000 jobs in February but the numbers were “weaker than expected,” said Andrew Hencic, director and senior economist at TD Economics. “Looking forward, we are expecting the labour market to tread water in 2026, as a rapid slowdown in population growth drags on labour supply, and soft economic momentum limits hiring,” he said.
Lumber increased to 602.00 USD/1000 board feet, the highest since February 2026. Over the past 4 weeks, Lumber gained 1.1%, and in the last 12 months, it decreased 9.51%.
WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve officials, convening in a wartime setting that began less than three weeks ago, are expected to hold interest rates steady on Wednesday even as a fresh jump in oil prices and data showing a rise in some aspects of inflation even before the start of the war with Iran may prompt them to recast the outlook for the U.S. economy, inflation and monetary policy. New projections to be released by the U.S. central bank at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) will show how policymakers assess the economic impact of President Donald Trump’s decision to launch an open-ended conflict in the Middle East, but the environment remained volatile even as they began the second day of their latest two-day policy meeting. …US producer prices rose in February by 3.4% on a year-over-year basis. Rising producer prices can feed into retail costs and signal higher future inflation.
WASHINGTON — The US economy, hobbled by last fall’s 43-day government shutdown, advanced at an unexpectedly sluggish 0.7% annual rate from October through December, the Commerce Department reported Friday in a big downgrade of its initial estimate. Growth in gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — was down sharply from 4.4% in last year’s third quarter and 3.8% in the second. And the fourth-quarter number was half the government’s first estimate of 1.4%; economists had expected the revision to go the other way — and show stronger growth. Federal government spending and investment, clobbered by the shutdown, plunged at a 16.7% rate, hacking 1.16 percentage points off fourth-quarter growth. For all of 2025, GDP grew 2.1%, solid but down from an initial estimate of 2.2% and from 2.8% in 2024 and 2.9% 2023.
Timber imports into the United Kingdom declined to their lowest level in more than ten years during 2025. The data was reported by Timber Development UK (TDUK), the industry body representing the national timber supply chain. According to the organisation’s latest market review, total timber imports reached 9.1 million cubic metres in 2025. This figure represented a 2.2% decrease compared with the previous year. …Timber demand in the United Kingdom has now remained relatively flat for four consecutive years. …Softwood remains the dominant component of the UK timber market. The material accounts for approximately 61% of total timber imports. However, softwood imports declined by 4% during 2025. …Several traditional suppliers exported smaller volumes to the UK. Other suppliers partially offset these declines. Imports from Latvia and Finland increased during the same period. …Performance within the engineered wood category was uneven. Laminated veneer lumber and timber I-beams both recorded steady growth during the year.
TORONTO — Bespoke Metrics announced the finalization of its Mass Timber Project Scoring Methodology, following the close of a public comment period. Bespoke Metrics was engaged by the Climate Smart Buildings Alliance and the Canadian Wood Council, through the Mass Timber Insurance Action Plan, to develop this methodology as part of broader efforts to enhance transparency, comparability, and insurability in the use of sustainable construction materials. By standardizing how mass timber experience and risk management practices are evaluated, the framework supports more informed decision-making among owners, insurers, and lenders. …Mass timber presents significant opportunities as a lower-carbon building material, but it also introduces unique risk factors–including combustibility considerations, moisture sensitivity, supply chain constraints, and a more limited pool of experienced subcontractors and suppliers. The finalized methodology is designed to ensure these factors are consistently and transparently reflected in contractor risk assessments. …The final methodology is 
At the Natural Resources Forum in Prince George, the Council of Forest Industries announced its new platform entitled “Forestry is a Solution”. It is asking British Columbians to voice their support for forestry workers by pushing the BC government to speed permitting and access to timber but the main problem is that much of the timber needed does not exist because of decades of over-cutting. That is why more than 100 mills in BC have shut down since 2005. What COFI is really asking for is more access to protected areas, fire- and insect-damaged forests and the very modest and dwindling areas of remaining, unprotected old growth forests. …What is needed now are some major changes in how forests are monitored and trees allocated, with a lot less cutting and no cutting in primary forests whether old growth or fire or insect-damaged forests. …But what is allocated for cutting must make ecological sense.
From the moment he became BC’s forests minister, Ravi Parmar has been under pressure to increase logging rates in the province. One way he has decided to do that is by expediting the logging of forests burned in recent wildfires. He issued the Fort Nelson First Nation a new licence to log 100,000 cubic metres of trees in burned forests in BC’s remote northeast corner. …A number of industry associations, including the Council of Forest Industries, asked him to set “definitive, aggressive timelines for completion” of plans to accelerate logging in burned forests. …But increasing “wildfire salvage” of forests, Parmar is travelling down the same road that has seen BC’s logging rates plummet by more than half since the heyday of the 1980s. …Accelerated logging of burned trees may help bend the curve, but history shows that it is short-lived and comes at the cost of degraded ecosystems and even sharper declines ahead.
Years after logging at his Mariaville woodlot, Bob Seymour expected to see new hardwood trees growing in the understory. In fact, he took it as a given after decades in the Maine woods that natural regrowth would crop up. Instead, almost all of the young trees in some sections are eastern white pines he had planted. He believes that’s largely because deer populations are growing and eating more hardwood saplings, which means fewer trees and less diversity in the future. …It’s one of the most concerning changes that Seymour, a retired UMaine silviculture professor, has seen in almost five decades of experience researching forest management. …Such challenges to understanding and managing the Maine woods have grown in recent years amid climate change, which has brought destructive new pests, fast-moving diseases, invasive plants that take over, and warmer winters that change growing, harvesting and wildlife conditions.
President Trump has invited farmers and biofuels producers to the White House for a big event next week as the industry awaits the government’s announcement on mandates for the fuel additives. The “celebration of agriculture” event is scheduled for March 27. The invitation said: “Later this month, following National Agriculture Week, President Trump plans to host hundreds of farmers and ranchers from around the country on the South Lawn to shine a spotlight on the men and women growing our food, fiber, and fuel.” The US Environmental Protection Agency’s decision on biofuels is expected around the end of March. The renewable volume obligations, or RVOs, mandate how much biofuel, such as corn-based ethanol and biodiesel, must be blended into the nation’s fuel supply. Next week’s meeting could have an impact on the markets amid speculation on the RVO decision coming later this month.
COCHRANE, Alberta — West Fraser Mills has been charged in relation to a workplace death in Alberta 