Breaking News: The US Department of Commerce today announced the final anti-dumping duty rate of 20.56% in the sixth annual antidumping review of unfairly traded Canadian softwood lumber imports into the United States.
The Forest Stewardship Council lifted its suspension of Asia Pulp & Paper in the interest of speedy redress—to Greenpeace’s dismay. In other Business news: Kruger plans a $700M modernization of its Corner Brook mill; Northern Pulp’s cleanup plan is still pending; Port Angeles demands a full cleanup of Rayonier mill site; UPM to curtail paper production due to overcapacity; Weyerhaeuser posts lower Q2, 2025 earnings; the US plans to continue investigating hardwood plywood imports; and the USDA draws criticism for relocating DC staff. Meanwhile: Ontario invests in forest biomass; and the Wood Flooring Association has a new CEO.
In Forestry/Wildfire news: BC’s Forest Practices Board released its annual report; West Fraser and Lake Babine Nation celebrate a new tenure; Ben Parfitt on the fibre challenge faced by BC’s value-added mills; a blockade highlights Quebec’s Indigenous consultation gap; Thompson River University joins National wildfire resilience network; Washington state secures long-delayed wildfire funds; a study say US forest diversity continues to decline, the Fix Our Forests Act draws fire; and Congress moves to stop killing of barred owls.
Finally, West Fraser was justified in safety violation firing, and WorkSafeBC’s proposed regulatory amendments.
VICTORIA – The Forest Practices Board has released its 2024-25 annual report, highlighting nearly three decades of independent oversight and a continued commitment to sound forest and range practices throughout British Columbia. This year’s report reflects a sector in transition with growing pressures from climate change, wildfires and the need to modernize land management — all requiring strong oversight and innovative responses. Highlights include:
In April 2021, Shreveport attorney Rich Lamb saw an opportunity. Lamb’s family has owned timberlands for several generations. …Fast forward to today. A more than $100 million Southern yellow pine sawmill sits outside of Plain Dealing. …Lamb learned that Canadian companies were relocating to the southern United States to build sawmills due to the unfavorable business climate in Canada. Lamb raised money and recruited Canadian company Teal Jones as an operating partner… Teal Jones acquired 57% of the sawmill, with Lamb and local investors owning the remaining 43%. But in 2024, Teal needed to sell. “Because of the pricing environment, interest rate environment and political climate in Canada, Teal Jones got into financial distress and went into reorganization,” Lamb explained. “They needed to sell their 57% interest to get liquidity.” Fortunately for Lamb and his group, a new buyer was found. Earlier this month, Sumitomo Forestry America Inc. purchased Teal Jones’ stake in the mill.
Mass timber may have antimicrobial benefits that could make it useful for hospital construction, according to a recent study from the University of Oregon. The research team found that when wood was exposed to a brief wetting, it tested lower for levels of bacterial abundance than an empty plastic enclosure used as a control. “People generally think of wood as unhygienic in a medical setting,” said Mark Fretz, assistant professor, co-director of the University of Oregon’s Institute for Health in the Built Environment and principal investigator for the study. “But wood actually transfers microbes at a lower rate than other less porous materials such as stainless steel.”
Mass timber is an emerging construction technology growing in popularity in the United States. One obstacle to the gradual adoption of mass timber construction is the limited availability of qualified engineers and designers. Although successful efforts have been made to address research topics related to mass timber design and … adoption as a construction material, little research has been conducted to identify desired student outcomes for undergraduate civil or structural engineering students working with mass timber after graduation. This paper describes the development of an industry-guided educational resource for curriculum development to improve the alignment between undergraduate student outcomes and employer requirements related to mass timber design. …The findings reflect a prioritization of competencies related to the design of mass timber elements and structures, an understanding of material characteristics, the navigation of available design resources, contributions to project deliverables, and the support of sustainability goals. 
…The National Film Board–produced Incandescence is just one of several documentaries either released this year or currently in production that speak to the province’s new reality and the urgency of the climate crisis that’s fuelled it. This spring, B.C.’s Knowledge Network released a five-part docuseries called Wildfire, about BC Wildfire Service firefighters and the on-the-ground reality of their work. A third crowdfunded documentary, BC is Burning, recently finished production and had its first community screenings in the Okanagan in June. The appearance of these films feels especially timely, and speaks to deeper trends around documentary as a storytelling tool in times of social or ecological crisis. “Environmental documentaries have kind of come in waves that are often in response to policy,” says Chelsea Birks, the learning and outreach director at Vancouver’s The Cinematheque and a film studies lecturer at the University of British Columbia. She says climate change is not an easy subject to capture.
Forming an unusual alliance, environmental and animal welfare groups have pulled together a bipartisan effort in Congress, united by universal disdain for a Biden-era plan to massacre nearly 500,000 barred owls. Killing off barred owls in an effort to save endangered spotted owls is “wasteful, inhumane and unworkable,” Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy said. Those groups hailed the introduction Wednesday of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to nullify the Biden-era barred owl management strategy. …In September 2024, the Biden administration approved a $1.3 billion plan for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) agents to shoot about 470,000 barred owls over the next 30 years in Washington, Oregon and California. The justification was to give spotted owls a better chance of recovery under the assumption that barred owls bully their smaller cousins out of vital, old-growth forest habitat. …Federal wildlife agents have killed roughly 4,500 barred owls since 2009. 
U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, and Rep. David Rouzer, R-North Carolina, recently introduced the bipartisan Jobs in the Woods Act, which aims to connect young people with careers and training in forestry. 
The Salt River Project has extended its partnership with the state to thin watersheds, which will also improve fire protection for communities in Rim Country and the White Mountains. In the past five years, The Valley utility has worked with the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management to thin 35,000 acres of overgrown forest, including a portion of the watershed of the C.C. Cragin Reservoir. SRP has also signed long-term contracts to buy electricity from NovoBiopower, the state’s only biomass burning power plant. The Snowflake power plant remains crucial to forest restoration efforts by providing one of the few markets for the tons of low-value biomass removed on each acre treated. SRP issued a release this week stating it hopes to fund the treatment of another 52,000 acres in the next five years. SRP also helped thin overgrown forests outside Payson, adding to a buffer zone protecting the community from wildfires.
Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) in central Colorado has been dealing with a mountain pine beetle infestation for the last two years, but the Gunnison County resort is fighting back using small packets of pheromones stapled to trees. Beetles were first detected mountainside at CBMR in 2023… During the 2024 season, ground crews revisited large areas of lodgepole pine within and around CBMR’s boundaries, confirming limited but recent beetle activity among the trees. …But now CBMR Mountain Operations, alongside rangers with the U.S. Forest Service, are fighting the beetles back with the help of verbenone pheromone packets. Verbenone is an anti-aggregation pheromone produced by mountain pine beetles to indicate a tree has reached maximum capacity, letting other beetles know there are no resources available to consume within the tree.
The state of Washington will get about $20 million for wildfire fighting efforts after a months-long delay, a Washington congresswoman confirmed Thursday. The Trump administration distributed $280 million in federal funding to forestry agencies across the country, according to the office of U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington. The money will help fund the Washington State Department of Natural Resources’ efforts to train and equip wildland firefighters across the state. “The state of Washington is in the middle of an active and dangerous wildfire season,” Cantwell said in a news release. “After questioning the Chief of the Forest Service and the Secretary of Agriculture, I am pleased that Washington — and all states — are finally receiving the funding they need to prepare for and respond to wildfires this summer and in the future.”
KALAVRYTA, Greece – Around the village of Kalavryta in southwestern Greece, hundreds of dying fir trees stand out among the dark green foliage, a stark reminder of how drought slowly drains the life from nature. Greek fir species Abies cephalonica are known to need cooler, moist climates. But prolonged droughts in recent years linked to a fast-changing climate in Greece are leaving them exposed to pest infestations, scientists and locals said. …Less water and moisture mean that fir trees become more vulnerable to attacks by pests that bore into their bark to lay eggs and create tunnels, disrupting the trees’ ability to transport nutrients between roots and branches and leading to their death. …In Kalavryta, authorities plan to remove dead and infested trees to limit the damage. But this might not be enough to save the forests. “We cannot stop climate change,” director of research at the National Observatory of Athens, Dr Kostas Lagouvardos said.
Costa Rica is advancing with the creation of a National Forest Traceability System, a key tool to guarantee the legality and sustainability of timber use. Public and private sectors came together for the first time to plan this initiative. This process is led by the Ministry of Environment and Energy through the Vice Ministries of Environment and Strategic Management of Costa Rica, with technical support from the FAO. It is part of a national strategy to strengthen forest legality, reduce the risk of illegal timber trade, and enhance the competitiveness of the Costa Rican forestry sector in demanding markets such as Europe (EUDR) and the United States (Lacey Act). “Costa Rica has made significant progress in forest legality, but the next step is to integrate technology and innovation into the process to ensure traceability from the farm to the primary wood product,” commented Franz Tattenbach, Minister of Environment and Energy.
In 2023 and 2024 the world’s forests absorbed only a quarter of the carbon dioxide they did in the beginning of the 21st century, according to data from the World Resources Institute’s Global Forest Watch. Those back-to-back years of record-breaking wildfires hampered forests’ ability absorb billions of tons of carbon dioxide, curbing some of the global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions. Those two years also marked the first time wildfires surpassed logging or agriculture-driven deforestation as the biggest factor lowering forests’ carbon-capturing ability. It’s an emerging pattern that’s different from the last big drop, in 2016 and 2017, which was largely the result of increased deforestation for agriculture. …Other recently published studies suggest that climate change is making extreme-forest-fire years more common, and the worst events more frequent and intense. …“We’re reaching the point where global warming is feeding the warming,” said Werner Kurz, an emeritus scientist for the Canadian Forest Service. [A subscription to the New York Times is required to access the full story]
Join Us in Halfax, Nova Scotia, September 23-24, 2025 for Biomass for a Low-Carbon Future. We are pleased to announce that the speaker line-up for more sessions has been finalized for the Wood Pellet Association of Canada Annual Conference in September. As the world moves toward a low-carbon future, biomass and wood pellets play a key role in ensuring Canada has renewable and responsible energy. Join us for Biomass for a Low-Carbon Future to explore the numerous opportunities biomass presents. Our keynote speaker, Dr. Jamie Stephen of TorchLight Bioresources, will explore how local biomass energy is the essential foundation for a competitive and prosperous Maritime economy. The event will also feature a Market and Policy Update: Navigating Regulatory Change. From the impacts of EU trade measures to the effects of U.S. tariffs on fibre supply and pricing, this session explores the economic and policy realities. Be a part of the dialogue transforming our future.
THUNDER BAY — The Government of Ontario is protecting workers and jobs in the forest sector by investing over $6.2 million in research, innovation and modernization projects in Northwestern Ontario. As part of the government’s plan to protect Ontario, the investments from the Forest Biomass Program will boost Ontario’s forest sector’s competitive advantage by creating new jobs, increasing productivity and opening up opportunities for new revenue streams in new markets for underused wood and mill by-products, known as forest biomass. …Ontario’s investment is supporting 
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Rainfall continues to help crews fighting fires in Newfoundland and Labrador as the number of active wildfires drops from five to three, says the provincial fire duty officer. The active wildfires are the Winokapu fire in Labrador and the Chance Harbour fire in Newfoundland. The Ragged Harbour fire, which forced nearby Musgrave Harbour residents to evacuate over the weekend, also continues to burn. Wes Morgan said Wednesday morning that firefighters hit the ground on Tuesday to fight the Chance Harbour fire, located on the Bonavista Peninsula. “The precipitation that was forecasted did come true and we did see significant amounts of rain — that was a real advantage to us,” he told CBC. Morgan said they haven’t seen any additional fire growth, but it remains steady at 1,820 hectares. “Overall, it was a really great day and spirits are good and crews were back out in that way again this morning,” he said.
A firefighting helicopter crashed into the sea while attempting to collect water to combat a blaze in Athens. All three crew members were rescued and taken to a nearby hospital. Greece is combating a surge in wildfires amid soaring temperatures. A large wildfire broke out near the southern Greek city of Corinth on Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of several villages as firefighters battled flames under scorching conditions, authorities said. More than 180 firefighters, supported by 15 aircraft and 12 helicopters, were deployed to tackle the blaze in a pine forest in the mountainous area of the municipality, according to the local fire department. There were no immediate reports of injuries. 
At least 10 forestry and rescue workers have been killed while battling wildfires in Turkey’s central Eskisehir province. Some 24 forest workers and volunteer rescue personnel were left “trapped inside the fire” following a change in the direction of the wind, Turkey’s Agriculture and Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said in a post on X. Five forestry workers and five volunteers from the AKUT rescue organisation lost their lives and 14 forest workers were taken to hospital, he said. The blaze in the Seyitgazi district of the province began on Tuesday morning and started spreading towards nearby areas, local media said.