Canada’s lumber industry is warning of a crisis as BC and Ottawa prepare for softwood summit. In related news: the feds bank on housing-push to help the sector; and Kelowna MP Helena Konanz, Alberta’s Jason Krips and industry analyst Russ Taylor opine on Canada’s dilemma. Meanwhile: Kruger’s Corner Brook mill will pause due to low water levels; Weyerhaeuser reports Q3 net earnings and timberland sales; and the latest from the Softwood Lumber Board; BC’s Value-Added Accelerators; and the Forest Enhancement Society of BC.
In Forestry/Wildfire news: FSC collaborates to support biobased supply chains; the Fix our Forest Act is poised to pass the US Senate; a new forest plan is coming to the Pacific Northwest; the plan to kill barred owls creates odd bedfellows; Washington state has a mountain pine beetle problem; New Brunswick honours its firefighters; Banff takes lessons from Jasper’s 2024 fire; and Northwest Ontario burned eight-times more area this year.
Finally, a doctor recommended forest remedy that may help protect against dementia.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News Editor
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The BCIT School of Construction and the Environment offers two Associate Certificate programs designed to support workforce development in the North American lumber and sawmill sector: 
…Arkansas’ forestry industry is feeling the weight of a slowing housing market, a declining demand for many of its products and trade disputes and regulations that have closed off foreign markets. In recent years, several mills in Arkansas have closed — evidence of economic struggles for the industry. In September, Domtar’s sawmill in Glenwood announced a temporary shut down, affecting 150 workers. Shields Wood Products also shut down. Arkansas House Speaker Brian Evans signed on to a letter … calling on Congress to step in and help expand the export market for their states’ foresters. …the Arkansas Economic Development Commission said the state exported $6.45 billion in forestry products in 2023, the largest destinations being Canada, Mexico and Japan. The letter from the state house speakers to Congress makes specific mention of the Chinese market, which cut off the import of logs from the U.S. in March as part of retaliation for American tariffs, Reuters reported. [Access to the full story may require a subscription to the Gazette]
Since its inception almost 10 years ago, the Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC) has been guided by a simple but powerful principle: collaboration drives impact. …Partnering with First Nations organizations has also deepened our understanding of how traditional knowledge can guide projects with a generational focus. This approach has helped foster greater Indigenous participation and leadership within forestry, contributing to a more inclusive and sustainable future. …Together, we are investing in projects that help create healthier, more productive and resilient forests for the future, and we are also strengthening the relationships that help make it all possible. 
On Friday, October 17, the Ministry of Forests, through the Value-Added Accelerators, in partnership with the BC First Nations Forestry Council, the Council of Forest Industries, and the BC Value-Added Wood Coalition, hosted the Coastal Currents Regional Fibre Flow Forum in Richmond. Coastal Currents was designed to bring together stakeholders from across the coastal region to share insights, discuss fibre flow challenges and opportunities, and foster connections that support business development. Modeled after successful regional forums such as Roots in the Koots (Nelson), the Robson North Thompson Forestry Coalition, and the Northwest Fibre Symposium (Terrace), this event focused on collaboration within a specific geographic area to strengthen the value-added wood sector. The response was overwhelming, the session sold out, welcoming over 70 participants with strong representation from both the value-added and primary sectors.
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The Province is making 187 amendments to 38 regulations across 10 ministries to reduce red tape, improve permitting timelines and make government services more efficient and accessible. This work is part of Better Regulations for British Columbians (BR4BC) amendment package… This year’s focus is on expediting permitting and approval timelines for people and businesses in British Columbia. By streamlining approval processes, such as removing construction permit requirements for very small private water systems, simplifying the level of authority needed for special-use forestry permits, and eliminating outdated provisions related to soil relocation and open burning activities, the Province is making it easier to do business in B.C.
The TLA commends the Provincial Forest Advisory Council (PFAC) for its ongoing work to develop a long-term vision for BC’s forest sector, and 
DRYDEN — Wildland fire crews were kept “very busy” throughout the 2025 forest fire season as Northwestern Ontario saw over 560,000 hectares go up in flames. “It would be fair to call the 2025 wildland fire season a very busy one in the Northwest,” said Chris Marchand, a fire information officer with the Ministry of Natural Resources’s regional fire management centre in Dryden. “Often in the spring, you hear us speak of the volatility of spring fire hazard conditions,” he continued. “And this year, from about the second week of May, it really provided a good demonstration of how a few weeks of dry weather combined with high winds and low humidity can really produce extreme fire behaviour in forests that haven’t greened up yet.” Those early conditions were the spark for a season that saw 560,234.9 hectares burned by 435 fires in the Northwest region alone. Comparatively, the Northwest’s relatively slow 2024 season saw 69,938.3 hectares burned in 218 fires.
SEATTLE — …Of Washington’s 22 million forested acres, the Department of Natural Resources manages about 3 million acres of state land. Of those, 545,000 acres are now dead or dying — the equivalent of more than 500,000 football fields. …Washington’s severe drought has weakened trees across the state. Then came powerful storms—including last November’s bomb cyclone and February’s windstorm—that battered already-stressed trees to their breaking point. …As droughts intensify and insects thrive in warming forests, trees are dying of thirst while being eaten alive. It’s a double assault turning once-green mountainsides into graveyards of standing dead timber—impacting both eastern and western Washington. “We’re concerned this trend could continue as our climate continues to warm,” Commissioner Upthegrove said. One solution is to remove dead or dying trees and replant more resilient species like hemlock or cedar. However, according to the DNR, the funding needed to address these issues has vanished.
Washington’s lands commissioner, Dave Upthegrove, is on a mission to secure $60 million of additional wildfire funding in next year’s legislative session, despite a tightening budget outlook. On Monday, he and a leading Democratic House lawmaker indicated that they want to tap revenue from the state’s cap-and-trade program for at least some of that money. The maneuver would mean turning to a steady-flowing stream of cash at a time when the state’s operating budget is squeezed. “Climate Commitment Act dollars are going to be on the table,” said state Rep. Larry Springer, D-Kirkland, who is deputy House majority leader. Lawmakers this year already started dedicating some of the climate dollars to the wildfire programs in question. At issue is funding provided under a 2021 law known as House Bill 1168, which passed with broad bipartisan support. With that legislation, lawmakers committed to direct $500 million over eight years to wildfire programs.
SOUTH BEND, Washington — Pacific County Commissioners Jerry Doyle, Lisa Olsen and David Tobin sent a scathing letter on Oct. 20 to the Washington Forest Practices Board (FPB) regarding a proposed increase in timber-harvest buffer zones along streams. Rural counties and forestry groups are mounting a vigorous push against bigger setbacks away from small non-salmon-bearing streams, arguing that over the course of time the loss of timber acreage will add up to billions in lost local economic activity and millions less taxes that currently support government services. Washington state established the Forest Practices Act and the FPB in 1974. It is tasked with establishing laws to “protect salmon, clean water, and the working forest economy.”
A Montana logging project in grizzly habitat in the Kootenai National Forest will remain on hold until federal officials reassess how road use — particularly illegal road use — impacts the bears, a federal judge ruled on Monday. “This court has repeatedly held that it is arbitrary and capricious to not include illegal motorized use that it knows to occur into calculations, regardless of whether the use is chronic and site specific,” U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen wrote in the 40-page opinion. The Center for Biological Diversity led environmental groups in suing the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2022, seeking to block the Knotty Pine Project, and Christensen granted the environmentalists’ motion for a preliminary injunction the following year. …Christensen found the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to take a hard look at the impact of unauthorized road use on grizzly bears.
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Ash trees are an important part of the basket weaving tradition, which has long played a significant cultural, spiritual and practical role in the lives of tribal citizens across the country, including John Daigle, a citizen member of the Penobscot Nation in Maine. But the emergence of the emerald ash borer beetle …has posed challenges for Indigenous basket makers. A grant awarded to Daigle, a professor of forest recreation management at the University of Maine, could help preserve and advance the craft. It’s part of the Indigenous Forest Knowledge Fund, a program run by the Northeastern States Research Cooperative to support projects related to tribal homelands or ancestral territories of the Northern Forest region… Daigle’s project was one of three winners this year. His team will also develop technologies to support the processing and storage of ash splints before widespread ash mortality, which could help sustain basket-making supplies.
The Earth’s forests, soil and oceans are reaching their critical limits to naturally store carbon, as decades of climate change take their toll, according to a new analysis. The 