International Paper to divest 5 European corrugated box plants as required per its DS Smith acquisition. In other Business news: tariffs may trip-up Godfrey Wood Products’ new OSB mill in Maine; Jasper Lumber’s Alabama sawmill upgrade nears completion; Unifor calls for a Team Canada approach on duties; Adera Development says trade war could boost mass-timber; BC’s Forest Minister says US customers are afraid to protest; and how Vanderhoof, BC is faring after its sawmill closed. Meanwhile: Canada’s housing starts fell in March, and a new report on Canada’s housing crisis.
In Forestry/Wildfire news: the European Space agency is launching a new biomass satellite; Clemson University awards honour forestry accomplishments; University of West Alabama expands its forestry program; BC’s firefighters gather to train; Wisconsin sees records start to wildfire season; California ups investments in wildfire prevention; Eastern White Pine is at risk in the US East; and US logging order sparks fear in the US Southeast.
Finally, research on the value of tropical forests as natural factories of plant chemicals.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News
British Columbia’s forests are increasingly on fire—and the consequences are catastrophic. As we approach another fire season, communities, ecosystems, and livelihoods are at growing risk. In this crisis, BC is Burning, a new two part documentary, offers both a wake-up call and a beacon of hope. The film explores fuel loading, carbon emissions, proactive forest management and the need for a shift from suppression to increasing proactive prevention activities, offering solutions to reduce the mega-fires that are becoming all too common. … The core message of BC is Burning is the importance of active forest management. By managing forest landscapes… we can reduce fuel loads and prevent catastrophic fires. … BC is Burning is more than just a documentary—it calls for collective action. …become part of the conversation. Together, we can turn the tide on wildfires and ensure that our forests—and our future—remain safe and resilient.
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump partially reversed course Wednesday on his global trade war following days of market turmoil — but he’s not offering any changes to the tariffs hitting Canada. Trump immediately paused for 90 days the levies on nations slapped with the highest duties under his “reciprocal” tariff regime. A White House official later clarified that a 10 per cent baseline tariff will remain in place for all countries. The president has held fast to his plan to rapidly realign global trade through a benchmark “reciprocal” tariff — but his tariffs have spread chaos throughout global markets. …On social media, Trump said he made the decision after more than 75 countries called his administration “to negotiate a solution.” Later at the White House, the president said he lowered the levies because “people were jumping a little bit out of line.” “They were getting yippy, you know,” Trump said. “They were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid.”
Officials in Fox Creek Alberta are trying to find ways to better protect the community from future fires. One option includes using fungi. …This summer, researchers from Lac La Biche, Alta.-based Portage College will go into the the boreal forest surrounding Fox Creek to collect local fungi. Spores from that fungi could later be used to inoculate wood in man-made slash piles. Forests are thinned to remove wood biomass so there is less material to burn during a wildfire. Wood that has been removed can be stored in massive slash piles, which can be fire risks themselves. Fungi could be used to break down the wood faster, returning them to soil, said Michael Schulz, research chair in environment and sustainability in the boreal forest at Portage College. 
The Bow Valley—encompassing Banff National Park, the Town of Banff, Canmore, and MD of Bighorn—is at imminent risk of a catastrophic wildfire. Despite commendable efforts in localized fire prevention (e.g., firebreaks, fireguards, neighbourhood mitigation), it is our opinion no comprehensive measures are in place to address the risk of an extreme wildfire—the kind that devastated Fort McMurray (2016) and Jasper (2024). A fire of that scale in this region would be both a national tragedy and a global environmental disaster. …Our call for action for our federal candidates: Acknowledge the real and rising risk of a Class 6 wildfire in the Bow Valley; While working with the Province and Indigenous Peoples, support federal investment in a landscape-scale fire mitigation strategy for the Bow Valley; Advance policy reform recognizing forests as carbon assets requiring active stewardship; and Champion this initiative as a model for national wildfire and carbon management.
On March 31, the Supreme Court of B.C. released its decision on a historic case with implications for the future of resource management in Canada. The judge sided with the Haida Gwaii Management Council and Province of British Columbia against logging giant Teal Cedar Products Inc., which argued its profitability had unjustly diminished due to the former’s sustainability regulations and improved forestry stewardship standards. In its defence, Haida Gwaii Management Council and the province pointed to Teal’s careless logging and business practices, which it continued despite expert, repeated advice from Haida and Crown governments. Proceedings involved numerous expert witnesses … in 2023. Almost exactly two years later, the judge dismissed Teal’s claims. …If corporations were to earn the power to sue governments any time they passed new legislation to uphold sustainable and ecologically sound practices, then we would witness a nation-wide proliferation of lawsuits arising from every sector. 
President Donald Trump wants to create a new federal agency that will be responsible for “all wildland fire fighting nationwide” by 2026, according to a draft executive order currently under review at the White House. The draft order, which was obtained by POLITICO and confirmed by three people familiar with the situation, would launch a national wildland firefighting task force in the next 90 days, combining resources from the Departments of Agriculture, Interior and Homeland Security. The White House’s eventual goal, according to the document, is to have Congress create a National Wildland Fire Agency in the next two years. The order aims to “eliminate red tape, reform our agencies and reforge our efforts around the priority to address fighting fire fast,” the document reads. It comes four months after wildfires devastated Los Angeles, a disaster that has created a sense of bipartisan urgency to improve forest management and cut down on wildfire risk. [A Politico subscription is required for full access]
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senators Angus King (I-ME) and Jim Risch (R-ID), co-chairs of the 
BONNERS FERRY, ID – A federal district court has stopped a logging project in northern Idaho that would have carved more roads into the area and harmed the Selkirk grizzly population habitat. Only about 50 grizzlies live in the region. Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, which has been in litigation with the U.S. Forest Service over this issue for nearly six years, said the project would have resulted in more roads than is allowed under the agency’s rules. “The Forest Plan, which is their management plan that governs the forest, limits road density in Selkirk grizzly bear habitat,” he said, “because most grizzly bears are killed within a third of a mile of a road, and it’s usually a logging road.” The court decision found the government had been violating road construction limits for years. Court documents show the goal of the Hanna Flats Good Neighbor Authority Project was to reduce wildfire risk.
Amid a growing number of wildfires, mostly across Western states, a U.S. Senate bill is aiming to protect areas where communities are most vulnerable to fires, using “good neighbor” agreements, cross-boundary collaboration and the expansion of tools to prevent fire hazards. The bill, titled the 
DULUTH — The U.S. Forest Service will not log in designated wilderness areas like the Boundary Waters, federal officials clarified Tuesday evening, days after issuing an emergency order intended to boost logging on national forest land throughout the country. … Wide swaths of several wilderness areas, like the Boundary Waters, were included in that total, and 
There are many contradictory myths about Northwoods lumberjacks and the work they did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were depicted as hard-living, violent men, but also as upstanding, conservation-minded gentlemen. Recently, Willa Hammitt Brown, the author of the book “