Blog Archives

Today’s Takeaway

BC announces review of BC Timber Sales, monies for value-added manufacturing

January 13, 2025
Category: Today's Takeaway

BC announced support for the forest-sector with $5.1 million for valued-added manufacturing. In related news: BC Timber Sales is being reviewed; lumber prices hit a 6-week high; and the US housing market moderates amid higher energy costs. Meanwhile, Canadian premiers say nothing is off the table in response to US tariff threats; and the world’s 4th largest global forestry fund secures new investors.

In Forestry/Wildfire news: a much needed break for the wildfires in California; students can enrol in BC’s first wildfire studies program; Alaskan bears become internet sensations; the costs of Hurricane Helene are totalled; and the best places to plant 2 billion trees are probably not where you think they are.

Finally, why US National Park advisors make sequoias look like ‘giant baked potatoes’.

Suzanne Hopkinson, Tree Frog Editor

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Business & Politics

B.C. promises help for forest industry ahead of potential tariff increase

Global News
January 16, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

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Joint Statement on the Future of B.C.’s Resource Sector

By Resource Works Society
GlobeNewswire
January 16, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

As leaders in British Columbia’s business and resource sector, we welcome Premier Eby’s commitment to strengthening B.C.’s economy through responsible resource development. His remarks at the BC Natural Resources Forum underscore the vital role resources play in our province’s prosperity—from the contributions they make to family-supporting jobs, to the revenue they generate for public services such as healthcare, to their support of reconciliation. In the face of large government-budget deficits, weak private-sector job growth, and global uncertainty, including the possibility of U.S. tariffs, B.C. must take bold steps to strengthen its economic resilience. Growing our economy by supporting the development of our resources makes sense. The Premier outlined a vision for cutting red tape, speeding up decision-making, and ensuring the government is no longer working at cross purposes to industry as a way to encourage this growth.

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Finance & Economics

Home insurance rates likely to spike in 2025 following severe weather events, insurers warn

By Liam Britten
CBC News
January 14, 2025
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: Canada, Canada West

With 2024 being the single-most expensive year on record in terms of insurance payouts in Canada, following a swath of devastating weather-related disasters, insurers are warning that home insurance rates in 2025 are likely to increase significantly. The Insurance Bureau of Canada says insurers paid out $8.55 billion in 2024, more than $2 billion more than 2016, the next worst year on record. It came after hundreds of homes were obliterated by a wildfire in Jasper, Alta., and parts of the Greater Toronto Area were underwater from floods in what was a year of climate-driven disasters in Canada. B.C. saw its fourth-worst wildfire season by total area burned last year, as well as a series of storms towards the end of the year that caused multiple deaths from flooding and landslides.

Related content in The Globe & Mail: How the California wildfires could affect insurance rates in Canada [requires a subscription]

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Those rebuilding after L.A. fires will likely face higher lumber prices as Trump tariffs loom

By Don Lee
MSN
January 16, 2025
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: United States, US West

Devastating, often tragic as the Los Angeles wildfires have been, rebuilding could bring nightmares all its own, including murky insurance rules, material shortages and potentially higher cost for everything from lumber to bathtubs. In terms of economic upheaval, it could be the construction industry equivalent of what the COVID-19 pandemic did to the economy just a few years ago. Lumber is the single biggest component of homebuilding materials, accounting for about 15% of overall home construction costs. Southern California builders use wood for framing homes that’s sourced mostly from Canada and the Pacific Northwest. And the last couple of years have left the lumber industry ill-prepared for a big surge in demand.

Readers with an account can find the original story in the Los Angeles Times here

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New Forests raises €410m for sustainable forestry fund backed by European investors

By Ian Lewis
ImpactInvestor
January 15, 2025
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: International

Investment manager New Forests said it had raised some A$450m (€410m) from Australian and European institutional investors at the first close of its Australia New Zealand Landscapes and Forestry Fund. The fund is targeting an overall size of A$600m, which New Forests hopes to reach within the next year. David Shelton, New Forests’ managing director, Australia and New Zealand and global head of investments, said investment in the forestry and land use sectors was a crucial in creating a pathway towards net zero. Shelton said the fund still had a core focus on forestry, because most of its investor clients still wanted to invest in a forestry fund, but the fund’s structure gave it flexibility to transition some land between forestry and sustainable agriculture, or to acquire agricultural land in response to a particular price trend.

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Wood, Paper & Green Building

Los Angeles Fire Victims Turn to Prefab Homes for Quick Builds

By Sophie Alexander
MSN
January 20, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States

Even as fires continue to burn across Los Angeles, many of those who lost their houses are already making plans to rebuild. To overcome labor shortages and speed up the process, some are turning to prefabricated homes… Michael Wara, senior research scholar at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment, said much of Paradise, California, was rebuilt with prefabricated homes after the devastating 2018 Camp Fire. He expects the same in Los Angeles. “There are not enough general contractors in Los Angeles to rebuild 12,000 structures in addition to all the other work,” he said. “Solutions where you can build most of the homes somewhere else not subject to the labor constraint that will affect Los Angeles could be particularly attractive.”

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Housing solutions: The mass timber promise

By Kelley Christensen
University of Oregon, Office of the VP for Research and Innovation
January 9, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US West

It’s a familiar story: For years, housing costs have soared while demand rapidly outpaced new construction. Adding to the crisis are a stuttering supply chain, outdated building codes, and too few forestry professionals. In such a landscape, the American Dream of owning a home begins to seem but a fantasy. But this isn’t where the story ends; rather, it’s the beginning of a new one. A collaborative effort between universities, private industry, and state agencies combines new research, innovative manufacturing and construction, forest stewardship, and sustainable design into a force that’s greater than the sum of its parts… After a hollowing out over the past 50 years, the forestry industry has continued to face two critical challenges: the high cost of forest restoration and a shrinking, aging forestry workforce.

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University of Maine’s new forest bioproducts program critical to $22 million ‘Tech Hub’ investment

UMaine Newsroom
January 16, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US East

Following the recent announcement by Gov. Janet Mills and Maine’s Congressional delegation that Maine’s Forest Bioproducts Advanced Manufacturing Tech Hub will receive an additional $22 million to position Maine as a global leader in forest-based biomaterial production and manufacturing, the University of Maine is advancing plans to launch its Forest Bioproducts Technology Maturation Program, a critical component of the Tech Hub. The Forest Bioproducts Tech Hub’s goal is to accelerate research and development of natural polymers and other wood fiber bioproducts that can sequester carbon and replace plastics and toxic chemicals, while bolstering “Made in America” supply chain goals… The program will demonstrate new technologies and manufacturing processes at commercial scale, unlocking the potential for forest biomaterials to reach new high-value markets such as plastics and fuels replacements, textiles, building materials, biomedical applications and packaging.

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Architects are bringing nature home by making trees part of the plan

By Kim Cook
Coast Reporter
January 15, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

By now, you may be familiar with biophilic design — it’s the idea of integrating nature into design to enhance our connection to the environment. Sustainability, wellness and harmony are usually part of the deal. Some architects and home designers are using one particular biophilic element to striking effect: trees. We’ve already seen public spaces around the globe incorporate trees in remarkable and beautiful ways. The Ford Foundation in New York boasts a 12-story-high atrium filled with magnolias, eucalyptus, jacaranda, cryptomeria, iron bark and pear trees. The Winter Garden atrium in lower Manhattan’s Brookfield Place is home to 16 40-foot-tall Washingtonia palm trees. Singapore’s Jewel Changi airport features 2,500 trees — natives to Madagascar, Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia — in a 6-acre indoor forest with walking trails. If you’re flight’s delayed, lucky you.

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Forestry

B.C. Timber Sales review heavy on economics, light on environment

By Bill Metcalfe
Ladysmith Chemainus Chronicle
January 22, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

The B.C. government has tasked new Forest Minister Ravi Parmar with reviewing its lead timber agency, B.C. Timber Sales. The Jan. 15 news release announcing the review, and Premier David Eby’s mandate letter to Parmar, both downplay the environment in favour of the business side of forestry… There is no mention of watersheds, biodiversity, wildlife, and climate change in either the news release announcing the review or in the mandate letter, which mentions old growth once in passing. Asked why it is not mentioned in the above six reasons for the BCTS review, or in Eby’s mandate letter, Parmar said, “I’m fully committed to fulfilling my obligations on the old growth action plan. … Biodiversity, taking care of our lands, being good stewards of our land, is critical to me, and it’s going to be a huge part of this review.”

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New forestry advocate society presses for working forest legislation

By Nelson Bennet
Business in Vancouver
January 22, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

In a mandate letter to Ravi Parmar, B.C.’s new minister of Forests, Premier David Eby directs Parmar to somehow come up with “a sustainable land base” that will ensure an annual harvest of 45 million cubic metres of timber to help support a floundering forest industry. That could be a tough order to fill, given the caveat attached to Parmar’s mandate that he do this “while fulfilling our commitment to protect old growth.” Old growth, after all, has been estimated to make up about one quarter of B.C.’s annual allowable cut (AAC) overall, and 50 per cent of the coastal AAC… The single biggest uncertainty is dwindling access to raw timber. In its letter to political leaders, the society asks for a working forest protected through legislation.

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Squamish Nation Forestry project funded with $50K provincial grant

By Bhagyashree Chatterjee
The Squamish Chief
January 20, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

The provincial government is injecting cash into early-stage planning for a potential forestry project by Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) and its economic development arm, Nch’Kay Development Corporation, it was announced last week. With $50,000 from the BC Manufacturing Jobs Fund, the Nation will conduct pre-construction engineering and site assessments to determine the potential for a future capital project… Though details of the project haven’t been finalized, it represents a larger push in the forestry sector to use resources more efficiently, shift away from old-growth timber reliance, and invest in high-value manufacturing. The BC Manufacturing Jobs Fund is partnering with forestry companies throughout the province to grow and stabilize their operations and get the most out of our fibre supply, while producing more made-in-B.C. engineered wood products.

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Whistler ecologist issued cease-and-desist from Forest Professionals BC

By Brandon Barrett
Pique News Magazine
January 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Rhonda Millikin, an award-winning ecologist who has questioned Whistler’s approach to wildfire mitigation, was issued a cease-and-desist letter last month from Forest Professionals British Columbia (FPBC), which said she is not certified to offer forestry advice. The FPBC said in its Dec. 14 letter that Millikin was unlawfully engaged in the reserved practice of professional forestry by providing advice and recommendations to the RMOW to limit or cease forest fuel-thinning efforts. “On principle, we don’t have an issue with people, whether a member of the public or someone from a different profession, researching or holding opinions or even talking about those opinions,” explained Casey Macaulay, the FPBC’s registrar and director of act compliance, who authored the cease-and-desist letter. “Where it’s an issue is when they start to advocate for a particular practice, and in this case, where that practice is so out of sync with the current science and the current practice of protecting communities from wildfires.”

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Maple Ridge cedar mill receives $1.3 million from province

The Maple Ridge-Pitt meadows News
January 16, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

A Maple Ridge company was one of the beneficiaries of the provincial government’s recent announcement of support for forest sector manufacturers. Cedarland Forest Products, based on 256th Street, will receive as much as $1.3 million to buy and install new high-temperature kilns and a moulder, allowing the company to diversify its wood fibre sources to include underutilized species, and reduce its reliance on old-growth cedar. Cedarland produces lumber and profiled cedar products including siding, decking and panelling. The new initiative will enable Cedarland to produce new thermally modified wood products, access new markets, and create 23 new forestry jobs. “Support from the BC Manufacturing Jobs Fund will help Cedarland install new advanced equipment, keeping us on the leading edge of re-manufacturing,” said Jeremy Hamm, general manager. “We will now be able to produce high-end finished products from a variety of B.C. species, while adding value every step of the way.”

Other recipients of recent funding: 
Kelowna company receiving government funding as part of forestry project boost

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Lil’wat Nation to update Land Use Plan

By Luke Faulks
Pique News Magazine
January 16, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Lil’wat Lands and Resources is set to undertake a top-to-bottom update on its land-use plan—and it’s looking for help from Nation members. Since its passage in 2006, the Lil’wat Land Use Plan (LLUP) has provided a high-level vision for the Nation’s traditional territory that respects and recognizes Lil’wat principles. The policy addresses water security, fishing grounds, wildlife protection (for food and culture), diversity of vegetation and heritage preservation. The forestry section of the LLUP was updated in 2024 with funding from the province to address old-growth forest management. The addendum was spurred by a shift in management over Lil’wat Forests; Lil’wat Forestry now oversees a majority (76 per cent) of forested space in the traditional territory.

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Indigenous owned Cariboo wood business ‘on the verge of success’

By Andie Mollins
Williams Lake Tribune
January 15, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Terris Billyboy

If anyone can get things done, it’s Terris Billyboy.  As the new general manager of Yunesit’in’s Leading Edge Wood Products, Billyboy’s vision is to ramp up production and get the business name circulating.  Based out of Horsefly, just east of Williams Lake, Leading Edge provides high quality wood productsfrom flooring and siding to glulam beams and rough-cut lumber. The business also offers lumber drying services and custom timber preparation and promotes a sustainable approach to the industry. “When I started it was so overwhelming,” Billyboy told the Tribune. She stepped into the role in May of 2024 after working as a labourer with West Fraser for eight years. Her career was essentially set at the plywood plant in Williams Lake; she was among the third generation of her family to work for West Fraser and was in her second year of a millwright apprenticeship.

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First courses in TRU’s Wildfire Studies program to begin in September

By Aaron Schulze
CFJC Today
January 15, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Details of a Wildfire Studies Diploma program at Thompson Rivers University have been unveiled. Following a 30-day public feedback process, TRU says the university’s Senate and Board of Governors approved five certificates and one diploma program at the Centre for Wildfire Research, Education, Training and Innovation (TRU Wildfire). In a news release issued Tuesday (Jan. 14), TRU says three of the certificates that are expected to start in September 2025 are each a semester in length and equal to nine credits. They include Wildfire Science (Faculty of Science), Sociocultural Dynamics of Wildfire (Faculty of Adventure, Culinary Arts and Tourism) and Wildfire Communications and Media (Faculty of Arts)… While training is expected to begin in existing facilities, a state-of-the-art training facility and building on the TRU campus is also in the works.

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Elkford to bill Canfor for unattended burn piles

By R McCormack
MyEastKootenayNow
January 15, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

The District of Elkford will send Canfor the bill after the District’s fire department responded to some unattended burn piles north of the community. “We understand that Canfor has registered these piles with the BC Wildfire Service as required,” said Elkford officials. “However, these piles are being lit and burned without consultation or advisement to the District of Elkford.” Director of Elkford’s Fire and Emergency Services Enzo Calla says the company also broke Category 3 Open Burn regulations with the November fires. “This was in contravention to the burning index that was issued for that time. We had a cold front inversion,” said Calla. “It kept the smoke at a low level within the municipal district for several days.”

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City seeks new urban forester and new urban forestry plan

By Matt Prokopchuk
Tbnewswatch.com
January 21, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

Cory Halvorsen

The City of Thunder Bay is currently working at hiring a new urban forester, according to the city’s manager of parks and open spaces. “We’re still working through the recruitment on that, so it’s vacant at this time,” said parks manager Cory Halvorsen. Aside from drafting up a new management plan, Halvorsen said that other top priorities for urban forestry include continuing to manage the emerald ash borer (both by removing infected ash trees and replacing them with other species, as well as treating a set number of existing ones with an insecticide), and following through on proactive maintenance and increasing the number of planted trees. “Every year we do have — whether it’s through impacts from EAB or just the natural cycle of the trees — we have a certain amount of loss each year that we offset through the annual tree plant,” Halvorsen said.

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Thessalon lumber mill closure is a ‘significant loss for the community’

By James Hopkin
Sootoday.com
January 20, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

A lumber producer in Thessalon, Ont. that has been active for more than seven decades quietly shuttered its operations late last month — resulting in the layoff of roughly 40 employees in the weeks leading up to its impending closure. Midway Lumber Mills Ltd. first notified employees of plans to shut down the mill and lay off its workforce in October of last year, the soon-to-be former chair of USW Local 8748 told SooToday on Monday. “We got nine weeks advance notice that it was going to happen,” said Derrick Bookman, who has worked in a number of roles at the mill over the years. “They went above and beyond.”

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How America courted increasingly destructive wildfires − and what that means for protecting homes today

By Justin Angle
Lake Country News
January 18, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States

Today, state, federal and private firefighters deploy across the country when fires break out, along with tankers, bulldozers, helicopters and planes. The Forest Service touts a record of snuffing out 98% of wildfires before they burn 100 acres (40 hectares). One consequence in a place like Los Angeles is that when a wildfire enters an urban environment, the public expects it to be put out before it causes much damage. But the nation’s wildland firefighting systems aren’t designed for that… More than one-third of U.S. homes are in what’s known as the wildland-urban interface – the zone where houses and other structures intermingle with flammable vegetation. This zone now includes many urban areas where wildfire risk was not considered when their cities were developed.

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Forest Service adopts law enforcement rule amid state jurisdictional concerns

By Dennis Webb
The Daily Sentinel
January 16, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States

The Forest Service has adopted a new law enforcement rule designed to enhance its ability to address issues such as substance abuse and wildfire prevention on national forests. While intended to improve consistency with state law enforcement, the rule has raised some state sovereignty and jurisdictional concerns, including for Mesa County commissioners and Mesa Sheriff Todd Rowell, who contended in a letter to the Forest Service that the rule isn’t authorized by federal law. The Forest Service said in a Federal Register notice in 2023 that agency law enforcement personnel “continue to encounter a significant volume of violations for simple possession of controlled substances and drug paraphernalia,” and routinely deal with underage alcohol possession in national forests. Such violations threaten the safety of forest visitors and personnel, it says.

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Weyerhaeuser’s Longview lumber mill gets another big fine for stormwater pollution

By Andre Strepankowsky
Lower Columbia Currents
January 20, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

For the second time this decade, Weyerhaeuser Co.’s Longview lumber mill has been hit with a serious state fine for violating state stormwater control regulations. On Monday, the state Department of Ecology announced it has fined the company $145,000 for 36 stormwater discharge violations, 15 monitoring requirements violations, and 16 reporting requirement violations, all of which occurred between July 2022 and May 2024… “We believe strongly in permit compliance and invest significant time and resources to ensure we are meeting all environmental standards,” Weyerhaeuser Co. spokeswoman Mary Catherine McAleer said in an e-mailed statement Thursday. The latest penalty follows another related to stormwater that Ecology issued to Weyerhaeuser‘s Longview lumber mill in 2022, when the agency fined the facility $40,000 for repeated water quality violations.

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Oregon lawmakers scramble to fund devastating wildfire season

By Linda Lee Country Media
The Lincoln County News
January 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Oregon is grappling with the aftermath of a record-breaking wildfire season that has left the state facing a staggering $218 million bill. The unprecedented costs have ignited a fierce debate among lawmakers over who should foot the bill and how to prevent future financial crises. The state’s current funding model for wildfire response has come under intense scrutiny. Private landowners contribute to a fund that is capped at ten million, while the state’s general fund covers the remaining costs. This year, however, the general fund will bear the brunt of the expenses, paying more than fourteen times the amount contributed by private landowners. Representative Paul Holvey, D-Eugene, has long been a critic of the state’s reliance on the general fund for wildfire costs. He argues that large-forest landowners should be held responsible for the fires on their land.

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More than 30 whitebark pines up to 5,900 years old discovered in Wyoming

By River Stingray
Buckrail
January 16, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

On Dec. 20, 2024, new research was published that reveals scientists discovered more than 30 dead whitebark pine trees that were entombed in ice for millennia on the Beartooth Plateau in northwest Wyoming. The groundbreaking discovery was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and can be found here. According to the research, the whitebark pines were lying down with “extraordinary quality of wood preservation.” The authors of the peer-reviewed paper write that recent warming has decreased snow and ice cover of most subalpine treelines around the world, so that the whitebark pine trees have become visible after up to 5,900 years. This discovery provides insights into past climate change and ecosystem dynamics in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE).

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New Washington lands commissioner orders pause on logging sales for some older forests

By Bill Lucia
Washington State Standard
January 16, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

On his first day in office, Dave Upthegrove, the state’s new public lands commissioner, said he would pause logging sales in some older state-managed forests for about six months. In doing so, he’s taking a step toward fulfilling a campaign promise to set aside nearly 80,000 acres of older, but not necessarily old-growth, trees. How much acreage the pause would cover was not immediately clear, but a Department of Natural Resources spokesperson said Wednesday it would involve slightly more than 20 timber sales… The state’s previous lands commissioner, Hilary Franz, during an interview last fall, pointed to hundreds of thousands of acres the department has already set aside for conservation and highlighted the environmental benefits of using wood from trees grown in-state, rather than importing it from other places that might have less stringent logging regulations.

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One Way to See the Future of Alaska’s Unparalleled Forests: Look at Their Past

By Ben Gaglioti
Park Science Magazine
January 15, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska would seem as temperate as coastal Washington is now. Glaciers would retreat, fires may become common, and new wildlife would arrive. How would long-lived, stationary organisms like trees cope with these shifts? Scientists try to answer that question in a number of ways. Most of them have logistical drawbacks, like the high maintenance costs for lengthy experiments… results show that when faced with large temperature swings, forests stayed unexpectedly stable. This suggests that vegetation replacement, forest dieback, or changes in tree composition are less likely to occur in response to radical climate change than most land managers might predict… About 27 percent of Glacier Bay National Park is covered by more than 1,000 glaciers. Many of these are alongside old-growth, temperate rainforests. This type of rainforest also clings to the damp, coastal mountains of Canada, Chile, and New Zealand. It’s considered critical for global diversity and carbon storage.

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Oregon nonprofit addresses fire risk at the forest’s edge

By Ian McCluskey
Oregon Public Broadcasting
January 15, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Last year, wildfires burned 1.9 million acres in Oregon, setting a new record. Since 2020, major river drainages of the Cascades, including the McKenzie, Santiam, and Clackamas rivers, have been devastated by fires. Many fear that it could be a matter of time before a catastrophic wildfire burns along the Highway 26 corridor on the west slope of Mount Hood. Bracing for this potential, a small nonprofit organization based in Sandy, Oregon, is cutting trees and clearing brush. Launched with funding from state and federal sources, AntFarm’s Community Wildfire Defense Program aims to address the growing threat of wildfires in rural Oregon communities, especially on Mount Hood, where the pockets of neighborhoods and businesses are hemmed along the edge of the 1.1 million acre Mt. Hood National Forest. The program helps at-risk communities along the Highway 26 corridor create plans for wildfire defense, offers fire-risk assessments to property owners, and performs “boots on the ground” mitigation, such as fuel reduction.

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Four-legged influencers in Alaska take the Internet by storm

By Riley Stadt
USDA Forest Service
January 14, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

The Tongass National Forest’s annual Anan Bear Awards showcased the now viral black and brown bears’ range of talents from a brown bear’s expert fishing skills winning “Fishing in Style,” to a black bear’s lack thereof being awarded “Slippery Paws.” One of the four-legged influencers, a cub that was not quite ready to claim expert hunting abilities, received 2.1 million views after winning the “Nope” award! The idea for the Anan Bear Awards originated on a whiteboard in 2022, after staff at the observatory were inspired by the National Park Service’s Fat Bear Week. Enter Forest Service Forestry Technician Jennifer Kardiak, who wanted to celebrate all aspects of the Anan bears, not just their figures.

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Study examines how climate change has shaped coastal forests over the last decade

By Joey Pitchford
Phys.Org
January 16, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

A new study finds that climate change may have a range of contrasting effects on coastal forests, both slowing and enabling growth in areas where sea levels are rising and storms are more common. Researchers compared a decade of forest growth data from two types of environments across the mid-Atlantic, southeastern, and Gulf coasts of the United States: coastal areas less than five meters (20 feet) above sea level and inland areas between 30 and 50 meters (more than 100 feet) in elevation. They found that while forests have expanded in both environments in the last 10 years, some coastal areas have seen significantly lower tree growth and higher mortality than areas of higher elevation… Researchers were also surprised to find a positive correlation between forest growth and increased coastal storms… The work is published in the journal PLOS Climate.

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Warming climate driving fundamental shifts in Boreal forests: Study

By Himanshu Nitnaware
Down to Earth.org
January 21, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: International

Nearly half of the global boreal forests — spanning Canada, Alaska and Siberia — are undergoing major transitions due to climate change, making them increasingly vulnerable to forest fires and altering their role as a key carbon sink, a new study has revealed.  These forests are vast and found in the cold, northern regions. However, they are warming four times faster than the global average and are expected to shift into a new ecological regime. This transformation could impact global climate regulation by triggering biome shifts and changes in tree cover dynamics, according to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)… It suggested that the boreal biome shifting to an open state indicates that its current distribution is unstable and temporary.

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National Trust project to plant almost half a million trees this winter

By Steven Morris
The Guardian
January 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: International

Almost half a million trees are being planted in England this winter in a partnership between the National Trust and a UK-government funded project, creating woodlands, wood pasture, hedgerows and orchards. Some of the schemes are relatively modest, such as orchards planted with heritage varieties of fruit and nut trees, while others are much grander, thousands of trees linking up existing patches of woodland to create nature-rich forests. One of the most eye-catching schemes is at Buckland Abbey near Plymouth in Devon, where more than 30,000 trees are being planted. Broadleaved trees such as sessile oak, elm, blackthorn, birch, rowan and wild cherry are being planted close to ancient woodlands across the estate, and the hope is that as well as benefiting insects, mammals and birds, it will improve conditions for rare lichens, liverworts and mosses to flourish.

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Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Forest owner wants to put burned acreage back into carbon offset market, but critics skeptical

By Alex Baumhardt
Oregon Capital Chronicle
January 21, 2025
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US West

A large Oregon forest meant to offset planet warming emissions was burned three years ago in a wildfire, and the project had to be pulled from a carbon credit market that aims to fight against climate change. Now, its owners want to re-enter some of those burned acres into California’s carbon market, which generates credits based on the amount of emissions stored by trees. When trees are burned, they release some of those stored emissions, but the owners, Green Diamond Resource Company, maintain that the scorched land still offers some climate benefits. The move would mark a first, and it worries critics… “Do you want to count on those arid, ponderosa pine forests in southern Oregon for carbon offsetting? For making good on 100-year climate commitments?” said Grayson Badgley.

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Climate change to lower timber prices in Oregon, Washington and California

By John Ross Ferrara
KOIN 6 News
January 16, 2025
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US West

The increased threat of wildfires and potential damages to timberlands from drought, fire and smoke are expected to reduce timber prices in Oregon, Washington and California in the coming decades, according to Oregon’s 2025 climate assessment. Wildfires and drought have caused $11.2 billion in damages to privately owned timberland in Oregon, Washington and California in the last 20 years, a 2023 Oregon State University study showed. The damages resulted in a 10% reduction in the value of private timberland in the three states…“When the risk of wildfire increases, then future timber harvest revenues become less certain for buyers and owners of forest land, and that’s why they’re willing to pay less and what explains the negative effect we find of wildfires on timberland prices.”

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As world grapples with wood pellets’ climate impacts, North Carolina communities contend with dust and noise

By Elizabeth Ouzts
Energy News Network
January 15, 2025
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US East

Jane Thornton tried and failed to stop the wood pellet plant from being built within earshot of her home in Faison, a tiny farming town in eastern North Carolina where she’s lived for over 60 years. Now, some eight years later, she and her neighbors have a smaller but critical aim: getting the facility to better control its dust and the nuisance it creates. A host of advocates, scientists, and data backs up Thornton. Producing pellets, shipping them to Europe and Asia, and burning them in power plants all creates carbon pollution greater than that of burning coal. Too often, pellets are made from whole, hardwood trees that were absorbing carbon dioxide while they were alive. Their replacements, often pines, can’t regrow in time to make up for it.

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Finnish forests were a source of emissions in 2023, show preliminary data

By Aleksi Teivainen
Helsinki Times
January 17, 2025
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

Forests in Finland were a source of emissions in 2023 because trees did not sequester enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to offset emissions from the soil, indicate preliminary data from the greenhouse gas inventory released on Wednesday by Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke). The data suggest that forests added 1.12 megatonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalents to the atmosphere in 2023, accounting for roughly 10 per cent of net emissions from the land-use sector. Luke estimates based on the latest data that forests became a source of emissions in 2021. The entire land-use sector, meanwhile, turned from a sink into an emitter in 2018 as a result of increasing logging, growing emissions from forested peatlands and contraction of the sink of mineral soil. The carbon sink of the sector had begun to contract in 2010.

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Logged tropical rainforests can still be valuable for biodiversity

University of Oxford
January 10, 2025
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

A research team led by the University of Oxford has carried out the most comprehensive assessment to date of how logging and conversion to oil palm plantations affect tropical forest ecosystems. The results demonstrate that these have significantly different and cumulative environmental impacts – and that logged forests should not be immediately ‘written off’ for conversion to oil palm plantations. The findings have been published in Science… In general, logging mostly impacted factors associated with forest structure and environment. Since logging in the tropics is generally selective – focusing on trees with particular commercial qualities – even low levels of logging alter the system. Converting these logged forests to oil palm plantations, however, has greater impacts on biodiversity that go beyond those of logging alone.

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Forest Fires

‘Water’s away’: How Canadian helicopters and waterbombers are helping tame L.A. fires

By Breanna Charlebois and Joe Bongiorno
The Chronicle Journal
January 15, 2025
Category: Forest Fires
Region: Canada, United States

Credit: KRWeiss

Coulson Aviation — based in Port Alberni, B.C. — operates three Boeing CH-47 Chinook helitankers with tanks that hold more than 11,000 litres, as well as an “over-watch helicopter that runs intelligence,” including thermal imaging when deployed at night. The “aerial firefight” has been essential as blistering winds have prevented groundcrews from accessing the flames, said Wayne Coulson, CEO of Coulson Aviation. Coulson said the company has dropped more than a million gallons — or 4.5 million litres — of water over the fires in the last week, 70 per cent of which was released at night… Quebec’s contribution is expanding with two more water bombers heading to California on Wednesday. Quebec’s two extra CL-415 aircraft bring the province’s total California aid package to four water bombers, 12 pilots and six technicians.

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B.C. Wildfire Service learning from response in California, information officer says

CBC News
January 20, 2025
Category: Forest Fires
Region: Canada, Canada West

Members of the B.C. Wildfire Service helping out in California as the fires in Los Angeles continue to burn say they’re learning a lot about fire response and how to apply what they’re seeing to British Columbia.  Earlier this month, B.C. sent more than two dozen personnel, including firefighters and a management team, to California to provide support as the state battles multiple fires.  “We are treating it as an incredible opportunity. It’s an unprecedented situation. We’re learning lots,” B.C. Wildfire Service strategic adviser Carol Loski told CBC News. “We really are just happy to be here to help the people of Los Angeles and the state of California.” At least 27 people have died as a result of the wildfires in L.A., and more than 14,000 structures have been destroyed.

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