President Trump’s trade war goes global—blows up postwar order. In related news: Bloomberg says US emerges as the biggest loser; Politico says Trump’s math is crazy; Canada dodges bullet but will fight existing levies; New Zealand says timber exemption may be temporary; how tariffs will hit US construction; and what’s at stake for softwood lumber.
In other news: Teal Jones loses bid for damages over Haida Gwaii; Canfor Corporation and International Paper release their sustainability reports; Oklahoma’s governor looks to dissolve its forestry service; BC’s Ravi Parmar appoints Makenzie Leine as new Deputy Minister of Forests; and Louisiana Pacific updates its management team. Meanwhile: a new NAHB survey on who makes the decision on which products use; and caring for trees after the ice storm.
Finally, Don Wright says Canada should fight tariffs like Muhammad Ali, not Joe Frazier.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News Editor
Teal Cedar Products has lost a bid for damages against the B.C. government over its declaration of First Nations rights on Haida Gwaii. The company argued the recognition of title over the lumber-rich but highly protected island archipelago deprived it of its ability to harvest despite Teal holding tree farm and forest licences in the area. It argued the B.C. government didn’t act in good faith, essentially expropriated property where Teal had business interests, and failed in a promise to keep the company whole during its negotiations with the Haida Gwaii Management Council over Indigenous title to the former Queen Charlotte Islands. B.C. Supreme Court Judge Brenda Brown rejected all three rationales and dismissed the claim for damages against either of the defendants, the B.C. government or the management council. …Teal obtained the two tenures from TimberWest in 2008, before selling them to A&A Trading Ltd. in late 2016.
Vancouver, BC — This week, the BC Council of Forest Industries (COFI) will welcome more than 600 industry, government, and Indigenous leaders to Prince George for a sold-out COFI 2025 Convention, running April 2-4. As one of the largest annual gatherings of the forest sector in Western Canada, the convention focuses on urgent challenges facing the industry—and the path forward. Attendees are set to explore how the sector can respond to rising US tariffs, global trade uncertainty and regulatory complexity. Discussions will center on strategies to improve industry competitiveness, strengthen partnerships with First Nations and sustain local jobs, while positioning BC as a global leader in sustainable forestry. … A highlight of the convention will be the release of a new study comparing international forest jurisdictions by Glen O’Kelly, CEO of O’Kelly Acumen, benchmarking BC’s performance against leading forestry regions—including Sweden, Finland, Austria, the US, and Brazil. 
In the course of their business, home builders and remodelers buy many different products— ranging from lumber and other wood products to electrical and plumbing fixtures, a variety of materials used to finish various areas of the house, appliances, and even tools. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) recently surveyed both its single-family builders and its remodelers, asking them who’s most often responsible for choosing these products. In a separate question, NAHB also asked where these products are purchased irrespective of who chooses them because even when they’re not the ones driving the product choice, builders and remodelers often know where the product is being purchased. …The survey results show that, irrespective of who actually makes the purchase, it is the builders and remodelers themselves who most often influence product selection and therefore should most often be the prime targets for manufacturers looking to effectively market building products. 
A recent study published by the Colorado State Forest Service took a deeper look into the impact of Colorado’s trees and how they store carbon. The findings reported that some of Colorado’s forests release more carbon than they draw due to dying trees that are actively decomposing. …it should be kept in mind that this data applies to recent years, and results fluctuate and can be nuanced. “(The) bigger picture of this report found that Colorado’s forests hold a lot of carbon, and that continues to this day, and it’s just in recent years that it’s releasing slightly more carbon than it adds,” Vorster said. “But when you just put it in perspective, if you were to compare the amount of carbon that it holds compared to what it releases, it’s like 0.06%, so a very tiny fraction of it at least every year. … It’s pretty close to a balance.”
Gland, Switzerland – The number of fungi species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species has surpassed 1,000, confirming that deforestation, agricultural expansion and urban development are driving these species to decline worldwide. The IUCN Red List now includes 169,420 species, of which 47,187 are threatened with extinction. The addition of 482 newly assessed fungi species brings their number on the IUCN Red List to 1,300, of which at least 411 are at risk of extinction. “Fungi are the unsung heroes of life on Earth – yet they have long been overlooked. …we have taken a vital step forward: over 1,000 of the world’s 155,000 known fungal species have now been assessed for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the most comprehensive source of information on extinction risk. Now, it’s time to turn this knowledge into action and safeguard the extraordinary fungal kingdom,” said Dr Grethel Aguilar, IUCN Director General.
Living trees absorb carbon, aiding climate change mitigation. But what role do dead trees play in carbon storage? UVM researchers found that large, downed trees in streams tie up tremendous stores of carbon—and this pool of carbon storage is growing over time. Moreover, large trees in streamside forests proved important for recruiting carbon into streams over time—reflecting the environmental value of big, old trees. “We know that about 20% of global annual greenhouse gas emissions come from land use and deforestation,” University of Vermont professor and study author Dr. William Keeton said, “but we can also use forests and other land cover as what we call a natural climate solution—finding ways to sequester and store more carbon in vegetation.” Keeton had long suspected that water-bound wood in old-growth forests was surely storing carbon—but how much? Turns out, quite a lot.
In the past, intact forests absorbed 7.8 billion tonnes of CO₂ annually – about a fifth of all human emissions – but their carbon storage is increasingly at risk from climate change and human activities such as deforestation. A new study from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) shows that failing to account for the potentially decreasing ability of forests to absorb CO₂ could make reaching the Paris agreement targets significantly harder, if not impossible, and much more costly. “Right now, our climate strategies bet on forests not only remaining intact, but even expanding,” explains Michael Windisch, the study’s lead author and PIK guest scientist. “However, with escalating wildfires like in California, and continued deforestation in the Amazon, that’s a gamble. Climate change itself puts forests’ immense carbon stores at risk.” … “We must act immediately to safeguard the carbon stored in forests,” Windisch emphasises. 
At least a half-dozen large wildfires continued to burn in the Blue Ridge Mountains of South Carolina and North Carolina on Thursday, leading to states of emergency and evacuations as firefighters deployed from other parts of the US to help bring the blazes under control. In North Carolina, progress was being made in containing two of the largest wildfires burning in the mountains, but officials warned that fire danger remained from dry and windy conditions. The news was worse in South Carolina, where two fires nearly doubled in size on Wednesday. Hundreds of people have been asked to leave their homes in the two states. Wednesday’s dry weather led to several new fires in western North Carolina and prompted the state’s governor, Josh Stein, to declare a state of emergency in 34 western counties. At least nine fires were active in that part of the state, officials said.