US housing starts plunged 15.4% in May, while permits were little changed, signalling continued caution among builders. In related news: oil prices eased, though a return to pre-conflict norms appears unlikely; and the US continues to process tariff refunds. In Business news: J.D. Irving responds to an air quality incident; Stora Enso curtails its Veitsiluoto sawmill in Finland; US lawmakers propose Mass Timber Federal Buildings Act; Oregon State University readies first-of-its kind mass timber lab; and New Zealand tests CLT’s earthquake readiness.
In Forestry/Wildfire news: the BC Council of Forest Industries rebuilds public support; Saskatchewan strengenths its wildfire strategy in response to MNP review; all of Oregon officially enters fire season; Georgia wildfires are up 90% in 2026; ENGOs raise alarm over the Roadless Rule repeal; and utility operators push for passage of the Fix Our Forests Act.
Finally, New Zealand battles invasive contorta pine, it’s most damaging wilding tree.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News Editor
Vancouver, BC — Canfor Corporation announced today that it has entered into an agreement with PinkWood Ltd. to purchase its I-joist business for $68.0 million, including working capital. Founded in 2009, PinkWood is the largest Ijoist facility in Western Canada, producing engineered wood joists for residential, multi-family, and commercial construction. Located in Calgary, AB, PinkWood has 120 employees, with production capacity of 46 million linear feet. The purchase price represents a 5 times EBITDA multiple based on current production levels and earnings, including identified synergies. … “PinkWood is a leading manufacturer of high-quality I-joists with a strong management team and stable returns,” said Susan Yurkovich, President and CEO of Canfor. “Canfor’s acquisition of PinkWood complements our operations in Western Canada by enhancing product diversification and supporting the continued expansion of our value-added manufacturing capabilities.
MILDMAY — The Ontario government is investing $1.6 million in Bernie McGlynn Lumber Ltd. to support a major expansion and modernization project at the company’s sawmill in Mildmay. The investment will more than double the company’s production space, increase output by 47 per cent, create five new good-paying jobs and support 13 existing positions. As part of its plan to protect Ontario forestry workers and businesses, the province is making strategic investments to help the forest sector adapt, compete and grow in the face of U.S. tariffs. …The government’s investment through the Forest Sector Investment and Innovation Program will support Bernie McGlynn Lumber’s $5.3 million project to construct a new 30,000-square-foot facility and install upgraded equipment, including a first-in-Ontario thermal-treating kiln system and a double-bladed bandsaw. 
The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities today launched a Request for Proposals (RFP) to assess the feasibility of repurposing closed wood products manufacturing facilities, including pulp and paper mills, for bioenergy. The initiative will make available up to $500,000 in pre-development funding to support one or two facilities across the United States. Across the country, idled wood products facilities have left behind industrial infrastructure, utility connections and skilled workforce capacity at a time when forest-dependent regions are urgently seeking new economic anchors. Since 2015, more than 40 U.S. pulp and paper mills have closed, removing roughly 60 million green tons of annual wood demand from rural communities. The Endowment’s market initiative seeks to determine whether these sites can be reactivated as biopower generation or biofuel production facilities, creating new markets for low-value wood fiber and supplying renewable energy to a growing economy.
Mississauga city staff are reviewing a proposal for a “wood recovery facility” and an associated office building near Winston Churchill Boulevard and Lakeshore Road near the Oakville border. Applications have been submitted to amend the official plan and zoning to permit the facility, which would recover wood material to be used as a fuel source, according to the city. …local councillor, Alvin Tedjo said the cement plant provides roughly a third of all the cement for the province but still uses coal, adding the proposed wood recovery plant would provide low-carbon fuels. “The idea is that this plant would then create and process the materials in order to be used in the cement process which would then significantly reduce the use of coal and actually is part of removing coal completely from the (cement) plant so that we can be fully coal-free in Mississauga,” Tedjo said in a June 4 interview.
Three years ago, the Ontario Building Code required that any developer taking on a mid-rise wood-frame building had to construct stairwells out of non-combustible material. That was expensive. It made construction challenging, and, according to the 
New York’s Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (PRRIA) has not reached the finish line. The state legislature adjourned without voting on
Japanese domestic 2×4 production rose 33.9% in 2025 to 112,610 m³, while more housing companies are specifying domestic dimension lumber. For Canadian exporters, the message is clear: competition is no longer only imported lumber from Europe or Russia. Domestic Japanese producers are also gaining ground, especially in Sugi-based 2×4 applications. Japan’s domestic 2×4 segment is still relatively small compared with the country’s total structural wood market, but the latest survey results show a market moving decisively in favour of local supply. That matters for Canadian producers because Japan remains one of the world’s most important premium wood markets, and 2×4 construction has historically been a core outlet for Canadian dimension lumber. The Association to Promote the Use of Domestic Wood in 2×4 Construction recently released the results of its annual survey of domestic 2×4 production and usage trends. …The survey results indicate a significant increase in Japanese domestic dimension lumber production and consumption. 
The first eight wolves arrived through the Roosevelt Arch on the morning of 12 January 1995, in a horse trailer escorted by two park service patrol cars. The wolves had been live-trapped in three different packs in Jasper National Park and the surrounding wilderness of Alberta, Canada, weighed, fitted with radio collars, and flown south. Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation lawyers had obtained a stay from a federal appeals court before the plane landed, and the wolves spent the next several hours confined in their transport crates while the legal status of the project was resolved. The stay was lifted just after midnight. …What happened in the thirty years after 1995 has become one of the most-cited and most-contested case studies in contemporary ecology.
Mature and old-growth forests are vital for biodiversity, carbon storage, cultural traditions and economic activity. But in Alaska and British Columbia, these rich resources haven’t been reliably mapped, leaving much unknown about what land is protected. Now, University of Oregon researchers are leading a comprehensive mapping effort that sheds light on the location, makeup and conservation status of old-growth forests across the region. Their data show that more than 40% of mature and old growth forests in the study area are in places that lack permanent legislative protection. These forests also store the most carbon in the study area. …Old-growth forests in Alaska and British Columbia are protected through a range of land classifications, including national parks, national monuments and wilderness areas. But by far the greatest area of old-growth forest was found in “Inventoried Roadless Areas” in Alaska.
When BC’s community forestry leaders gather each year, one of the sector’s highest honours is the Robin Hood Memorial Award for Excellence in Community Forestry. Established in 2016, the award recognizes the community forest that best exemplifies the values of British Columbia’s community forestry program—leadership, innovation, local economic opportunity, stewardship, and a passion for community forestry. The award is presented jointly by the 
The rain this weekend … has certainly reduced the fire danger rating in B.C. The precipitation, even though it varied in different regions, was widespread throughout the province. According to Taylor Colman, fire information officer at the BC Wildfire Service, the rain lowered the fire rating from high and extreme to moderate in Chilcotin, the Peace Region, the South Thompson, and the Fraser Canyon. “The rain rehydrated those lighter forest fuels such as grasses, needles, brush, anything on the surface layer of the forest floor and then the duration and the amount was enough to penetrate into the deeper layers of the forest floor as well,” Colman explained. “… so that reduced the fire danger rating in those areas of concern.” …There are currently 16 active wildfires in B.C.
A forestry group that was granted an interlocutory injunction halting a blockade by a family from Matachewan First Nation (MFN) so it could complete tree-harvesting work in northern Ontario will sit down in a listening circle with them later this month in a case that may see further court action. The Timiskaming Forest Alliance Inc. (TFAI) is a consortium of forestry companies and First Nations, including MFN. It has a licence from Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) to harvest 101 hectares, referred to as Cairo 173… The family involved includes Dorothy Larkman, who said she decided to take action after seeing machines tearing out blueberry bushes on Cairo 173, which is about 60 kilometres west of Kirkland Lake and south of the Ojibway First Nation. …Listening circles are rooted in Indigenous traditions. …Michael Swinwood, Larkman’s lawyer, said the MNR will also have representation at the listening circle. 
Funding for replanting harvested Crown forests in Ontario depends heavily on how much wood is cut, foresters say, creating challenges for renewal efforts during market downturns and reduced harvest levels. Back Roads Bill explores regreening efforts and issues surrounding it. …The forest sector has been a lifeline for communities across the country and an important pillar of Canada’s economy. In the face of unjust U.S. trade measures and climate goals, Canada’s forest industry is pivoting from traditional lumber toward a bioeconomy. It was on February 26 of this year that the federal government took decisive action with a massive $500-million transformation fund. This will support the forest sector, protect workers and their jobs, and give companies the stability they need to weather short-term shocks and retool for a stronger, more diversified future. …A couple of other things though. Our forests are well managed. And we need trees and therefore tree planting.
A photosynthesizing tree is not necessarily growing — a new study of oak trees, published in the journal 
SEATTLE — Few public universities get more federal research funding than the University of Washington. So as President Trump has already cancelled or suspended about a quarter of all funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes for Health, the atmosphere on this leafy Seattle campus is tense. The anxiety is even trickling down to lower profile places once considered safe from White House politics, like UW’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. Here, newly proposed U.S. Forest Service funding cuts and a larger reorganization of the agency would have immediate consequences as the West looks poised for an epic summer of wildfires and smoke. “We have a wildfire crisis in the West [and] in the United States,” says Ernesto Alvarado, a fire ecologist and associate professor at the school. …But the Seattle smoke lab is now on a list of 56 out of 90 research stations identified for closure.
The U.S. Forest Service has faced budget and staffing cuts under the Trump administration, and a new analysis shows those cuts are impacting how much land the agency is able to treat to prevent wildfires. The Forest Service treated 35 percent fewer acres for wildfire mitigation in 2025, compared with the previous year. Mitigation efforts include tree thinning, brush clearing, and prescribed burning. That’s according to Forest Service data assessed by the public lands advocacy group, Center for Western Priorities. That means nearly one and a half million fewer acres were treated overall. These treatments lower wildfire risks, and make fires easier to fight, which better protects communities and keeps firefighters safe. In a state-by-state breakdown, the Center’s analysis found 63% less acres of Forest Service land in Montana were treated for wildfire risk. The Trump administration has proposed further cuts to the U.S. Forest Service’s budget, staff, and local support – including closing regional offices nationwide.
…Decades of fire suppression have left many dry pine forests overcrowded with small trees and dense brush. …Foresters largely agree on the solution: restore forests through thinning and prescribed fire. The problem is that restoration work is expensive, especially when it involves removing small-diameter trees that have little commercial value. …Taxpayers shoulder most of the burden while hazardous fuels continue accumulating across millions of acres. …Oregon is well positioned to tackle this problem. New wood products such as mass timber can create markets for the very material that restoration projects remove. Instead of treating small trees as waste, we can turn them into building materials… The goal is to keep large fire-resistant trees while removing smaller fuels that make forests more vulnerable to extreme fires. …Oregon already has the tools and workforce to address this problem. The question is whether we are willing to act before the next historic fire season arrives.
Wildfires are reversing decades of air quality improvements across much of the US. Expanded use of prescribed fire is a primary proposed solution, but air quality trade-offs—more initial smoke for less smoke later—remain poorly quantified. Using two decades of satellite-derived measurements of fire severity and smoke particulate matter across California, we assessed the causal effect of low-severity wildfire, a proxy for prescribed burning, on subsequent wildfire activity and air quality. We found that low-severity fire reduced the probability of very-high-severity wildfire by 92%, with reductions lasting a decade and extending 5 kilometers from treated locations. Reduced future smoke far outweighed the smoke produced during treatment, with benefit-cost ratios exceeding five after a decade. Sustained treatment of 500,000 acres annually would reduce cumulative smoke fine particulate matter (PM2.5) by about 10% after a decade.
Deming, Washington — Leroy Sande was pioneering a road with his excavator in Southeast Alaska when stumps, rocks, everything else — including his rig — started to pitch down the hillside. As if reaching out with his own arm, the logger instinctively grabbed at the slick sandstone beneath 10 feet of soil with the excavator’s bucket. “Well, you ain’t grabbing sandstone,” Sande, now 83, recalled. “…There was nothing to grab onto that wasn’t going down the hill.” About 400 yards down slope, the excavator tipped over and came to a stop. It was the only time in his 50-plus-year career in the woods that Sande put an excavator on its side, and even then, he emerged from the machine unscathed. Logging is the most deadly occupation in the nation… Injuries that aren’t fatal can put someone out of work for weeks, months, years or the rest of their life. The annual 
Barred owls …are now officially under attack themselves. Theoretically, they’ve been in danger since the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife released its barred owl management plan in 2024, announcing its intention to kill tens of thousands of barred owls per year for up to 30 years to protect the northern spotted owl and California spotted owl populations. The federal government and some environmentalist groups agree that protecting the endangered owl is necessary, but others argue it is inhumane and exists only to aid the timber industry. It’s been two years since the plan’s announcement, but only since November has a group in Washington officially begun killing barred owls… The Yakama Nation Tribe in South Central Washington has initiated barred owl management on reservation lands and is actively killing the once-protected species. They are the first and currently the only group in Washington to do so.
Wildfire season is upon us in Northern Arizona. Although our fire-adapted ponderosa pine forest could experience a wildfire at any time, May and June are typically the driest and most fire-prone months for large, destructive wildfires, following spring’s gusting winds that strip moisture from grasses and downed logs. National Weather Service (NWS) officials say this year, especially, we need to be particularly vigilant as winter’s snowpack was far below normal. Although last fall’s warm storms bumped up precipitation for the year with 0.93 inches above-normal rainfall, winter snowfall fell short. Just 26.9 inches of snow landed in Flagstaff for the 2025-’26 winter season, far below the 90-inch annual average. Thus, Flagstaff is entering summer with a snowpack deficit that ranked this winter season as the fourth-lowest snowfall in Flagstaff’s recorded weather history, dating to 1899.
Three environmental groups are suing to block the logging of nearly 400 acres of state forestland in Washington’s Elwha Watershed. Filed Monday, the lawsuit against the state’s Department of Natural Resources argues the agency failed to adequately assess the environmental harm of two timber sales, known as “Parched” and “Tree Well.” Logging would pose a “direct threat” to Port Angeles’ drinking water, which is sourced solely from the Elwha River, the lawsuit contends. “There’s only about 800 acres of structurally complex forests left in the watershed. And nearly half of those are these two timber sales that we appealed,” said Elizabeth Dunne, an attorney with Earth Law Center… Under the Department of Natural Resources’ standards, only trees that predate 1850 are considered old growth and set aside for conservation. The oldest stands proposed for harvest in the Parched sale are around 140 years old, dating back only to the 1880s. 
In fall, hoards of winter ticks latch on to New Hampshire’s moose — sometimes upward of 50,000 per adult animal. Over the course of the winter, the ticks drink their fill of blood, weakening adult moose and sometimes killing calves. …a team of New Hampshire researchers has a new hypothesis: Could the way forests are logged make moose more or less likely to encounter parasites? …Winter ticks are the driving force behind years of decline in Northeastern moose populations. …In recent decades, parasitism of moose by winter ticks has boomed… major driver was a boom in the local moose population… The sheer abundance of hosts helped tick populations in the region reach the high levels they remain at today. …One option is raising hunting quotas to reduce the number of moose… Another line of attack is the use of pesticides. …But there’s another idea … that has not been extensively studied: managing their habitat.
From the rainforests of French Guiana to ancient woodlands in eastern France, thousands of hectares of forest are gaining new protections. On 9 June, France said it has created seven new biological reserves and expanded two existing ones. Together, they safeguard an additional 157,000 hectares of forest as it works toward placing 10 per cent of its land under ‘strong protection’ by 2030. “This translates into less pressure on natural environments and stronger protection for species and habitats,” says Monique Barbut, France’s minister for ecological transition, biodiversity and international climate and nature negotiations. However, the vast majority of that land – around 99.5 per cent – lies in a single reserve in French Guiana, France’s overseas territory in South America. The new reserves in metropolitan France collectively cover under 1,000 hectares. …The remaining eight reserves, spread across metropolitan France, range from the mountain forests of Bannes-Ravines in the Vosges to the Mediterranean woodlands of Pas de la Lauze in Hérault.
THE HOT DRY spell at the end of May was welcome sunshine after a particularly wet and miserable winter. However, the flip side of the nice weather is the near inevitability with which it is accompanied by large fires on the hills. A blaze engulfed the south Dublin Mountains as well as areas of Wicklow. National Parks and Wildlife Service described as “lit intentionally, destroying hundreds of hectares of habitat and all associated animals, insects and plants within it”. …Shocking and disruptive as these fires are, they are nothing new. According to the 
TURKEY — The Istanbul Governor’s Office announced that access to forested areas across the city, as well as lighting fires for barbecues, gas stoves, hookahs and similar purposes, will be prohibited between June 8 and Oct. 15. In a statement the governor’s office said the increase in human and vehicle activity in forest areas during the summer months raises the risk of wildfires. To prevent risks that may arise intentionally or through negligence, authorities decided to implement a series of measures. The restrictions also prohibit the burning of stubble, trees, branches and all types of vegetation for purposes such as cleaning vineyards, gardens, olive groves and agricultural fields in villages and neighborhoods, including those located within, adjacent to or otherwise connected to forest areas. There are no restrictions on picnics, sports, walking or similar activities in designated picnic and recreation areas, groves, parks, nature parks and ecotourism sites within Istanbul.
The world is losing its forests faster than it can save them, with severe consequences for the climate, biodiversity and over one billion people who depend on forests for their livelihoods, according to the United Nations’ latest Global Forest Goals Report 2026. Although many countries have expanded forest restoration efforts, strengthened governance frameworks, and improved monitoring systems, progress remains critically insufficient to halt deforestation, lift forest-dependent communities out of poverty, and meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. “We know what to do. We need to act on the information and knowledge we have. But do we have the will to act?” said Éliane Ubalijoro, chief executive officer of Landscape Alliance, the new operating name of the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR & ICRAF). That question runs through the report, which finds that existing tools, policies and institutions have yet to deliver change at the scale required. 
Here’s the latest news concerning climate change and biodiversity loss in B.C. and around the world, from the steps leaders are taking to address the problems, to all the up-to-date science. Human activities like burning fossil fuels and farming livestock are the main drivers of climate change, according to the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change. The panel, which is made up of scientists from around the world, including researchers from B.C., has … issued a code red for humanity and warns the window to limit warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial times is closing. …El Niño — a climate cycle that causes unusually warm ocean surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, altering global weather patterns — has begun and is expected to grow to historical strength, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
Attend WPAC’s annual conference, September 22-23, 2026! This year’s theme, Building Canada Stronger: Navigating the Global Wood Pellet Transition, covers securing supply, resilient energy and next-gen bioenergy. Day 1, Tuesday, September 22, 2026, focuses on the global outlook, policy and supply foundations. …There are still sponsorship spots available for the conference—Canada’s largest gathering of our industry. This event brings together key decision-makers from across Canada and global markets, offering a unique opportunity to increase your visibility, connect with partners, and strengthen your position in the sector. It’s also an opportunity to support WPAC’s advocacy, safety initiatives and industry-wide technical leadership in Canada and around the world.
