Trump signals furniture tariffs are coming in 50 days—referring to US Section 232 investigation on timber, lumber and wood products. In related news; BC’s forest industry fears additional forest product tariffs; and an economist says lumber tariffs undermine Canada’s capacity to invest in forest management. In other Business news: SFPA welcomes EU recognition that US poses negligible risk under EU’s Deforestation Regulation; Interfor defers its plan to spray glyphosate in Ontario; a BC MLA speaks to inaction on forestry; the labour dispute at closed Galloway, BC mill continues; Maine falls behind on the CLT front; and the US Fed signals rates cuts are coming.
In Forestry/Wildfire news: UBC’s Lori Daniels says Port Alberni fire is a harbinger of things to come on the BC coast; wildfires prompt evacuations north of Hope, BC; in Annapolis County, Nova Scotia; and central Oregon and California. Meanwhile: BC hunting lodge loses logging appeal; and Woodlots BC announced its 2025 Conference & AGM dates.
Finally, Wisconsin researchers listen to forests to learn about protecting them.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News Editor
A B.C. Supreme Court justice has authorized the process that will ultimately lead to the sale of the Nova Scotia timberlands, Crown land leases and a nursery controlled by Northern Pulp. Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick approved a $104-million baseline bid for the assets by Macer Forest Holdings on Thursday. Macer’s bid, known as a stalking horse agreement, positions the Ontario-based company to pick up the …Pictou County pulp mill assets unless other interested parties come forward. If other bidders are identified by Nov. 20, an auction would be held using the stalking horse price as the starting point. …If Macer is not successful at auction, it would receive compensation of up to about $3.1 million. …Proceeds of the asset sale are to go toward Northern Pulp’s debts, including money its parent company, Paper Excellence, has lent it for the creditor protection process, the cost of winding up company pension plans and some of what is owed to the Nova Scotia government for previous loans.
Canadian business owners are sharing growing fears that things could go from bad to worse if the U.S.-imposed trade war doesn’t end soon. New data from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) shows those business owners are being hit the hardest, particularly in B.C. “Two-thirds of B.C. businesses import or export directly to the United States, and when you look at those who do so indirectly, so they buy from importers or exporters, that number jumps up to 80 per cent of all businesses exposed to trade with the United States. So, that’s a huge number,” Ryan Mitton, director of Legislative Affairs in B.C. at the CFIB said. He adds that the situation appears even more grim for hard-hit industries like steel and lumber. “…one in five in BC have been impacted by softwood lumber tariffs, and that’s the highest rate of all the provinces in Canada,” he adds.
HAMILTON — The Ontario government is delivering on its plan to protect Ontario workers by investing $70 million in expanded training and employment services for those affected by U.S. tariffs and policies. This funding includes support for the province’s 
SLB-Funded NYC Mass Timber Studio Expands With Landmark Projects: Building on the success of its first round of projects in 2024, the NYC Mass Timber Studio announced a second cohort of selected projects this month to help catalyze deployment of wood construction throughout New York City. … After supporting successful accelerator programs in Boston, Georgia, and New York City, the SLB is now exploring collaborations with cities in Arizona, California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Texas. 
…calls are growing for Canada to change how it prepares for, reacts and responds to the natural disasters. Experts say Ottawa needs to rethink how it deals with wildfires… Ken McMullen, the president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, which represents municipal firefighters, has been calling for the creation of a national fire administration. …When asked by CBC News if the federal government will create a new entity or program to improve wildfire response, federal Emergency Management Minister Eleanor Olszewski said it is one idea under consideration. …While suppression is critical, Yolanda Clatworthy, the interim director of the Mitigating Wildfire Initiative, argues that it does not address the root cause of the wildfire crisis. …She said mitigation and prevention work can include choosing where homes are built, how communities are protected, how forests are managed, as well as supporting Indigenous fire stewardship and moving away from fossil fuel expansion.
Both Canada and Australia have experienced megafires in the past few years, the size and severity of which have been unprecedented. It has been suggested that Canada needs to “fight fire with fire” in order to solve the problem, and follow Australia’s lead in tackling this national environmental issue. Wrong. Rather, it is critically important that Canada does not repeat the mistakes that Australia has made. The widespread application of prescribed burning or hazard-reduction burning has been proposed as a way to protect people and property in Canada. Prescribed burning to reduce fire hazards has been employed throughout large parts of Australia. Yet robust scientific evidence showing that it is effective is remarkably limited. In some places, prescribed burning can reduce fire severity and restrict fire spread for a few years, but afterwards the regrowing vegetation becomes more flammable – an increased fire-risk effect that can last for many decades. That is: short-term gain, but long-term pain.
Peter Constabel, a professor in the biology department at the University of Victoria said that several years of repeated drought in B.C. mixed with heat stress has increased the likelihood of branches breaking off, it could even happen on a “perfectly calm day” without any breeze. The consequences can be tragic. Constabel, who specializes in tree health said, “it’s the drought that specifically causes this, and somehow it stresses the tree and drops the branch, or the branch falls. If you get cumulative droughts, of course, it weakens the tree overall”. …Dry spells can leave trees in a weakened state, Simon Fraser University biological sciences professor Jim Mattsson said, reducing photosynthesis and growth, cutting their energy or sugar reserves, and lowering production of chemical defences. All of these can cause a chain reaction increasing trees’ susceptibility to insects and fungal diseases, causing trees to rot inside, weaken and potentially topple over.
In the Summer Almanac you’ll find these headlines and much more:
Global warming is predicted to drive one of the greatest declines in caribou populations in the last 21,000 years, with British Columbia’s herds expected to see declines of up to 61 per cent by 2100 if high rates of warming go unchecked, a new study says. Caribou — also known as reindeer in Europe and Asia — have survived several spells of Arctic warming in the past. Their presence across the planet’s tundra, forests and mountains have long supported Indigenous populations while acting as ecosystem engineers, disturbing the soil and trampling vegetation in a way that promotes new plant growth. …Human disturbance of those landscapes — from logging to road building — has already led to a two-thirds decline in the global population over the past 30 years. New 
The Cowichan Valley Citizen has published two letters to the editor referencing the North Cowichan Municipal Forest Reserve
The historic wildfires that ripped through Quebec in 2023, destroying millions of hectares of forest and impacting thousands of people, is estimated to have cost over $8 billion. That’s according to a new provincially funded study published Wednesday by Nada Conseils — a climate action consultancy firm — highlighting the impacts and collective costs of the fires on citizens, governments, businesses and ecosystems. According to SOPFEU, the agency responsible for wildfire prevention and suppression in Quebec, the 2023 wildfire season was the worst in over 100 years with 713 fires — 99.9 per cent of which were caused by lightening — burning 4.3 million hectares of forest. …For governments, much of the costs incurred stemmed from firefighting operations, emergency services including evacuations and housing evacuees, and financial assistance programs. …The report notes that some of the most significant costs for citizens were linked to property damage, as well as financial impacts related to lost income and increased expenses.
The odds of high-severity wildfire were nearly one-and-a-half times higher on industrial private land than on publicly owned forests, a new study found. Forests managed by timber companies were more likely to exhibit the conditions that megafires love—dense stands of regularly spaced trees with continuous vegetation connecting the understory to the canopy. The research, led by the University of Utah, University of California, Berkeley, and the United States Forest Service, is the first to identify how extreme weather conditions and forest management practices jointly impact fire severity. Leveraging a unique lidar dataset, the authors created three-dimensional maps of public and private forests before five wildfires burned 1.1 million acres in the northern Sierra Nevada, California. …Although the study demonstrates that private industrial lands fare worse, both private and public agencies have much room for improvement to protect our nation’s forests.
PORTLAND, Oregon — The USDA Forest Service and the Oregon Department of Forestry are investing $750,000 to restore oak habitat and reduce wildfire risk in the southern Willamette Valley. The project will reduce the risk of uncharacteristic wildfire and restore fire-adapted oak ecosystems that are important to wildlife, water quality, and rural communities. Work includes treating 150 acres of hazardous fuels while supporting partner efforts to treat an additional 1,200 acres — for a total of 1,350 acres restored. Landowners will receive assistance to implement oak management activities, including hazardous fuels mitigation, that promote resilient and fire-adapted forests. This investment is part of the Forest Service’s Landscape Scale Restoration (LSR) program, a nationally competitive grant program that supports collaborative, science-based projects across state, tribal, and private forestlands. The Forest Service invested $7 million to fund 19 projects nationwide, including $300,000 to this project in Oregon.
ATLANTA — The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service announced it is investing more than $2.1 million in four projects across nine states in the Southern Region to restore state and private forestlands. These investments directly support the agency’s efforts to reduce wildfire risk, increase timber production, and expand rural economies, while providing critical support to landowners across management jurisdictions as they work to promote healthy, productive forests that benefit rural communities. The investments, totaling more than $7 million nationwide, are being delivered as competitive grants through the Landscape Scale Restoration program. Of the total funding, $600,000 will support two projects for federally recognized tribes. …In the Southeast, protecting wildlife habitat and restoring important forest ecosystems such as longleaf pine and oak are important priorities to ensure continued economic productivity of rural working lands.
One of the key agreements for Amazon rainforest protection – the soy moratorium – has been suspended by Brazilian authorities, potentially opening up an area the size of Portugal to destruction by farmers. Coming less than three months before Brazil hosts the Cop30 climate summit in Belém, the news has shocked conservation groups, who say it is now more important than ever that consumers, supermarkets and traders stand up against Brazilian agribusiness groups that are using their growing political power to reverse past environmental gains. Brazil is the world’s biggest soya bean exporter. The legume … posed a huge deforestation threat to the Amazon rainforest until stakeholders voluntarily agreed to impose a moratorium and no longer source it from the region in 2006. …Greenpeace Brazil called the move a “terrible mistake”, which was the result of political pressure from the “regressive wings of agribusiness”…
The Forest Stewardship Council has allowed Asia Pulp & Paper — “one of the world’s most destructive forestry companies” — to resume its remedy process toward regaining certification it lost in 2007 for deforestation and land conflicts. Watchdog groups say the decision is premature because a legal review of APP’s links to Paper Excellence/Domtar, the biggest pulp and paper company in North America, is still unfinished. Critics warn the move could erode trust, enable greenwashing, and expose communities in conflict with APP-linked companies to further harm. NGOs are calling for the remedy process to be paused until the review is completed and for full transparency on corporate ownership and compliance.
The Province of B.C. is lending its expertise to Mosaic Forest Management as it develops plans to reopen the Bamfield Main Road, sections of which were rendered unsafe due to the Mt. Underwood wildfire. “We recognize the importance of Bamfield Road to the Huu‑ay‑aht First Nation and area residents,” said Mike Farnworth, Minister of Transportation and Transit. “There is substantial work necessary … to reopen Bamfield Road. Ensuring the safety of the travelling public is the top priority, and the Province will continue to support to Mosaic throughout this process.” Initial engineering assessments have determined a section of the Bamfield Road managed by Mosaic is unsafe for all traffic, prompting Mosaic to close the route with a section of the road being defined as a No Work Zone by BC Wildfire Services. Falling rocks, dangerous trees and a fire-damaged slope are presenting exceptionally challenging conditions, and there is no timeline for reopening the road in its current configuration.
Don’t miss the August WorkSafeBC Health and Safety News:
The Occupational Health and Safety Regulation provides that, except as otherwise determined by WorkSafeBC, an employer must ensure no worker is exposed to a substance exceeding the Threshold Limit Values (TLVs) prescribed by the 
As Saskatchewan experiences one of its worst wildfire seasons on record, smoke continues to prompt air quality alerts for the public. …however, less than five per cent of personnel working the wildfires in Saskatchewan are wearing masks, and despite the health risks, that’s not likely to change any time soon. “Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) personnel have access to N95 masks if they wish to wear them on the fire line, but most choose to wear bandannas,” the SPSA wrote in an email to paNOW. Structural firefighters within urban centres are required to wear self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) to protect them from smoke inhalation and exposure to harmful airborne contaminants, but in Saskatchewan, using facial protection is voluntary for wildland firefighters, and there is no provincial protocol to use them. …N95 masks can help reduce exposure to fine particles, but don’t filter out harmful gases. Bandannas offer little to no protection.
Sharie Minions told a news conference Tuesday that officials are working with the BC Wildfire Service to update two evacuation orders and three alerts that are in place due to the out-of-control Mount Underwood fire. The regional district’s chief administrative officer Daniel Sailland said about 50 permanent residents had to be evacuated along with approximately 150 campers and other visitors due to the fire, which was discovered Aug. 11. Fire information officer Karley Desrosiers said 160 personnel are working on the fire, which is not expected to grow beyond its current 36 square kilometres as the area warms up after several rainy days. “We have received considerable rain since Thursday, and more rain is expected today,” she said. “Going forward, we are expecting conditions to get a little bit warmer and a little bit drier and a bit windier as well. …The blaze has shut off power and the main road access to Bamfield since Aug. 11. 
