President Trump revives talk of scrapping the North American trade pact—but time may not be on his side. In related news: Canada’s ambassador to the US, Kirsten Hillman is leaving her post; and a new report says tariffs are hurting every US border state. In other Business news: a strike has been called at Krugers’s LaSalle plant; more questions on the future of Terrace Bay’s pulp mill; and the fight to save Viking Lumber in Alaska. Meanwhile, the US interest rate reduction will help; Home Depot forecasts slower growth; and RYAM’s CEO De Lyle Bloomquist is retiring.
In Forestry/Climate news: the US Congress renews funding for rural counties and schools; concerns mount over changes to the US Endangered Species Act; the US Forest Service reduced wildfire risk treatments in 2025; Mosaic Forest Management is revamping its backcountry access strategy; and Weyerhaeuser signs a biocarbon MOU.
Finally, how the Next Big Thing in Carbon Removal sunk without a trace.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News Editor
Domtar officials are reassuring their Port Alberni workers that the closure of the company’s Crofton Mill will have minimal impact here. Chris Stoicheff – Senior Director of Public Affairs at Domtar – says the company and entire industry needs provincial forestry rules to change to ensure fibre supply to BC mills. “We’re going to continue to operate that mill for the foreseeable future, but I think we’re also quite direct about the challenges that the industry is facing in BC and what we’ve been quite clear that those are policy driven constraints.” he said. Stoicheff says while most of Port Alberni’s pulp came from Crofton, that supply will now come from their Howe Sound mill. He said local MP Gord Johns work to secure a biomass tax credit is an example of the government support the forest industry needs.
The effect of 10% tariffs on Canadian wood imports was the subject of a public hearing before the state’s Maine-Canadian Legislative Advisory Commission Wednesday. Dana Doran is executive director of the Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast who says his members are struggling to stay afloat. “If they buy wood from Canada it’s hit by a 10% tariff on those raw logs. If they export any of their finished product they’re subject to any of the export tariffs,” Doran said. “So we’ve seen a chaotic situation that has occurred over the past 8 weeks because of the situation with tariffs.” Doran says if the U.S. had more domestic manufacturing of building and construction products it would have a bigger share of the marketplace, which could blunt tariffs. But Canada, he says, has 60% of that market.
When Prime Minister Mark Carney toured Intelligent City’s advanced manufacturing facility in Delta, B.C. this spring, it was more than just another campaign stop. It signalled that prefabricated and modular construction has moved from the margins to the mainstream of Canada’s housing conversation. That recognition is overdue. If we are serious about tackling Canada’s housing affordability crisis by delivering more homes at scale, governments need to stop paying lip service to the huge potential of off- site construction and start putting it into policy and practice. …First, governments should publish a multi-year prefabricated housing procurement roadmap. Off-site manufacturing depends on predictable, portfolio-scale demand. A provincial roadmap in British Columbia, for example, that consolidates housing needs across ministries, Crown agencies, and municipalities would give factories the confidence to invest in automation, skilled labour, and supply chains.
Mosaic Forest Management is moving forward with plans to modernize its access program, following a survey earlier this year. In May, 7,600 respondents “clearly indicated Islanders want well-managed public recreation access,” Mosaic said. To that end, Mosaic hired RC Strategies and Legacy Tourism Group. The two firms will build a stronger system for managing recreation on Mosaic lands, balancing public access with environmental protection, safety, and operational needs. Pilot initiatives are expected to be implemented in 2026. …The upcoming engagement process will include First Nations, users, and community members, [as well as] local and provincial governments to address challenges that private forest landowners cannot resolve independently. …“Mosaic is taking a progressive step that very few private landowners have undertaken at this scale,” said Justin Ellis, Partner at RC Strategies. “We’re excited to help develop a recreation access program that balances great outdoor experiences with the operational and environmental realities of a privately owned working forest.”
These letters are all in today’s Victoria Times Colonist “Letters” section:
I have great sympathy for mill workers in Crofton and Chemainus and the other 43 mills in towns throughout B.C. that have closed because there is “insufficient viable fibre supply.” This statement is smoke to hide the fact that the companies, with the complicity of the province, have over-harvested the forest since at least the 1970s. Second-growth trees are not as voluminous as virgin timber. Second-growth is harvested in a last gasp to get as much profit from the woods before shuttering mills due to “insufficient viable fibre supply”. The forest sector has made high profits and paid tariffs and softwood lumber duties since the 1980s, and now that the merchantable timber is gone, the blame is being transferred. …This situation even has a name — “The Fall Down Effect” — and has been predicted since the 1970s. …Timber processing will have to adapt to less volume and evolve toward greater value added.
Further testing has confirmed that a sample submitted from a male white-tailed deer harvested east of Enderby is negative for chronic wasting disease (CWD). CWD is an infectious and fatal disease affecting cervids, including deer, elk, moose and caribou. The initial screening test by the B.C. Animal Health Centre showed a “non-negative” finding for the sample, meaning the disease could not be definitively ruled out and required more testing. Following standard protocol, the sample was sent to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency reference laboratory for confirmatory testing. The laboratory conducted confirmatory testing using three different methods. All results were negative for CWD.
The Trump administration’s pending deletion of the Endangered Species Act’s definition of “harm” will have an outsize impact on imperiled species in Northwest forests targeted for logging, especially the northern spotted owl, environmental attorneys say. Habitat for several species, including the threatened owl and the endangered marbled murrelet seabird, overlap with federally-managed forests in Oregon, Washington, and California, where logging is expected to increase under White House emergency orders and a new law that requires a roughly 75% increase in timber harvesting in national forests by 2034. “Without adequate, suitable places to live and reproduce, species go extinct,” said Melinda Taylor, senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. “Repealing the definition of harm would undermine almost all of the regulatory framework in place to protect endangered species.” 
A new analysis making the rounds on Capitol Hill says the U.S. Forest Service sharply scaled back prescribed burns, thinning and other fuel-reduction work this year, leaving far fewer acres treated than in recent years. Through the first nine months of 2025, the agency logged under 1.7 million acres of treatments, well below the roughly four-year average that wildfire experts say is needed to protect communities and watersheds. The drop-off has Democratic senators and veteran firefighters pressing the agency for staffing numbers and a concrete plan to catch up before next fire season. As reported by Times of San Diego, the data cited by lawmakers comes from an analysis compiled by Grassroots Wildland Firefighters that compares the January-September 2025 total to a roughly 3.6 million-acre annual average from 2021-2024. Senators circulated that tally in a letter demanding detailed staffing and mitigation plans from the Forest Service.
Despite a growing chorus of conservation advocates calling on Montana’s congressional delegates to defend roadless wildlands through permanent protections, a bill to do so seems unlikely to advance without Republican support, including that of U.S. Sen. Steve Daines. A Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee on which Daines serves held a hearing Dec. 2 to consider a slate of 26 public lands and wildfire bills, among them a measure to enshrine the decades-old Roadless Rule into law. Re-introduced in June … the Roadless Area Conservation Act would protect nearly 60 million acres of national forestland. Although it has failed before, its supporters say this version comes at a pivotal moment as the Trump administration moves to roll back safeguards introduced in 2001. Hoping to capitalize on the bipartisan support that helped cleave a public land sale provision out of [the] One Big Beautiful Bill Act … conservation groups this week mounted a similar pressure campaign on Daines.
BOISE, Idaho — Governor Brad Little joined U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz and Idaho Department of Lands Director Dustin Miller on Friday to renew and expand Idaho’s Shared Stewardship agreement with the federal government — a move aimed at increasing the pace and scale of forest management across the state. The updated agreement establishes a collaborative framework between the U.S. Forest Service and the State of Idaho to strengthen policies related to forest restoration, land management, and wildfire mitigation “across Idaho’s forests and nearby communities.” Building on the landmark 2018 Shared Stewardship agreement, the new plan deepens joint efforts to boost timber production, accelerate wildland restoration, and expand forest health projects on national forests and adjacent state and private lands. The partnership reaffirms each side’s commitment to proactive landscape management as fire seasons grow increasingly longer and more intense.
Reforms to Australia’s nature laws have passed federal parliament. A longstanding exemption that meant federal environment laws did not apply to native logging has finally been removed from the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Native forest logging will now be subject to national environmental standards – legally binding rules supposed to set clear goals for environmental protection. This should be a win for the environment, and some have celebrated it as an end to native forest logging in Australia. But the reality is such celebrations are premature. We don’t have all the details of the new standards, or know how they will be enforced and monitored. Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt has told the forestry industry, including in Tasmania, that native forest operations will continue as usual. In an interview with ABC Radio Hobart, he said the changes keep day-to-day forestry approvals with the state government, but introduce stronger federal oversight.
Welcome to the Wood Pellet Association of Canada’s Fall 2025 newsletter. We hope you enjoy reading it, and we welcome your feedback. The Headlines:
The Arctic Energy Alliance and the Wood Pellet Association of Canada will co-host the Arctic Bioenergy Summit and Tour this January in Yellowknife—an emerging hub for northern renewable energy innovation. With the speaker roster nearly complete, Day 1 will set the tone with a deep dive into bioenergy’s role across Canada’s North, from evolving policy frameworks to community-led energy solutions. Sessions will explore regional strategies, technology developments, and bioenergy success stories, highlighting what’s working in remote and Indigenous communities and the lessons learned along the way. Speakers will also tackle supply-chain challenges, including logistics, fuel production and distribution, and the unique complexities of operating in northern climates. The program wraps up with a networking reception—an opportunity for delegates to connect, share insights, and build partnerships advancing sustainable energy in the Arctic and beyond.
Pulp and paper mills sit at the intersection of several decarbonization pressures. …This makes them tempting targets for hydrogen developers who are trying to find new markets… In Prince George the firm Teralta attempted what was possibly the only hydrogen-for-energy scheme in British Columbia with a chance of working. Their idea was to capture hydrogen produced as a by-product by the nearby chemical plant Chemtrade (from its sodium-chlorate process), purify and pipe it about 500 metres to a nearby pulp mill owned by Canfor. …The 
Federal funding of nearly $460,000 will enable Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek to move forward with the installation of a district biomass heating system in the community. The project is one of 10 being supported with $4.8 million from FedNor’s Northern Ontario Development Program, announced Dec. 5. Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek — also known as Sand Point First Nation — has been 
The Family Forest Carbon Program pays landowners not to timber their trees, then sells the additional growth as carbon credits. But critics question whether it leads to overall emissions reductions. David Funk has spent decades working to restore the native forest ecosystems of southeast Ohio. Now, he’s finally getting paid for it—through a carbon credit program. “The Nature Conservancy reached out and knew that I was very active in the preservation of woodlands in southeastern Ohio,” Funk said. “It was just a perfect fit for what we do.” That’s why Funk was eager to become the first Ohio member of the Family Forest Carbon Program. An initiative of the American Forest Foundation and the Nature Conservancy, the FFCP pays private landowners not to timber the forests on their properties for 20 years. It also provides free consultations with forest managers to facilitate whatever goals landowners may have for their woods—hunting, hiking, even sustainable harvesting.
Thunder Bay – For more than 100 years, the pulp and paper mill in Dryden has been the most important building in this small city in northwestern Ontario. It was the engine of the local economy, providing jobs for generations and connecting Dryden to a larger network of forest products that includes Thunder Bay and other communities in the area. But the same industrial complex also caused one of Canada’s worst environmental disasters. In the 1960s and 1970s, a chlor-alkali plant that was part of the mill dumped an estimated 9,000 to 10,000 kilograms (about 10 metric tons) of mercury into the English–Wabigoon River system. …People have lived with symptoms of mercury poisoning for generations, including Minamata disease. Commercial fishing was stopped, and guiding jobs disappeared. The main question is still painfully unanswered decades later: Who should pay to clean up the river, fix the land, and help the people who were hurt?