Blog Archives

Special Feature

Summary Wrap-Up: 80th Annual Truck Loggers Association Convention and Trade Show

The Tree Frog News
January 23, 2025
Category: Special Feature
Region: Canada, Canada West

The Tree Frog News has been featuring the panels and speakers from the Truck Loggers Association convention over the last week. For those who missed the coverage, here are the summarized stories from the panels, presentations, and discussions – all written by the Tree Frog’s very own editors!

Day One – January 15, 2025

Day Two – January 16, 2025

Day Three – January 17, 2025

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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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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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The shape-shifting biomaterials that make buildings move

World Bio Market Insights
January 22, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

One of the amazing things about plants is their ability to change shape in response to environmental stimuli such as light and moisture, even without a brain or central nervous system. Now, a new generation of biomaterials is similarly able to respond to environmental cues… The research started off with cellulose – a material found in plants that changes size in line with humidity levels around it… In terms of borrowing from nature, this adaptive material ticks all the boxes. First, it is made from plant raw materials. Cellulose is an abundant natural material found in the cell walls of plants, fruits, leaves, and vegetables. Second, the cellulose is processed in ways that are inspired by the makeup of biological organisms. In short, it is both a biomaterial (made from biological stuff) and a bio-inspired material (designed based on biological mechanisms).

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Forestry

What Squamish learned from California’s wildfires

By Bhagyashree Chatterjee
The Squamish Chief
January 22, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

In a place surrounded by breathtaking forests and rugged mountains, wildfire preparedness is more than just a precaution—it’s a community effort.  With climate change bringing longer, drier seasons, Squamish residents are coming together to protect their homes and neighbourhoods through the FireSmart program. Squamish faces heightened wildfire vulnerability due to a combination of topography, weather, and fuel accumulation. Squamish’s growing tourism and development also impact wildfire risks. Reflecting on lessons from the current and recent wildfires in California and beyond, Emily Wood, FireSmart co-ordinator, stressed preparation. “FireSmart is the best way to protect your home, and small steps like clearing debris or removing flammable vegetation can make a huge difference.” Wood also pointed to bylaws prohibiting highly flammable plants like cedar and juniper near structures. “These regulations are critical, but enforcement can be challenging,” she acknowledged.

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Tariff threats add to Nelson business uncertainty

By Tom Thompson
Nelson Star
January 21, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Ken Kalesnikoff

What is the impact of a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian products being sold to the U.S.? Let’s look at forestry. Regionally there are local companies employing local people with good jobs, and supporting local contractors and spin- offs to dozens or hundreds of small businesses. The B.C. lumber industry is watching closely. Locally, members of the Interior Lumber Manufacturers such as Kalesnikoff, Atco Wood Products and Porcupine say it is obviously top of mind. Ken Kalesnikoff says there has not been much certainty in the forestry sector for many years, and the uncertainty of lumber tariffs is yet another challenge for the local forestry companies. As much as they don’t know the exact impact yet, it is a huge concern.

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Indigenous communities in B.C. and California promote cultural burns for disaster mitigation

By Santana Dreaver
CBC News
January 22, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada West, US West

Joey Gonzales, a Tataviam and Chumash model and actor from southern California, is one of the thousands of Indigenous people in California who watched their homeland burn.  “What’s really missing is the Indigenous perspective on these fires, knowing that they could have been prevented.” Cultural burning is a traditional fire management practice that has been used by Indigenous peoples in Canada, the U.S. and around the world to eliminate fuel build-up that contributes to the intensity of wildfires and promotes the regrowth of native species that local Indigenous communities depend on… Mata-Fragua says it’s important for those involved in disaster mitigation to acknowledge and encourage Indigenous practices because Indigenous peoples have been caring for those lands for thousands of years and understand the geography of their regions.

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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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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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With Trump’s new pro-timber order, Alaska conservationists poised to rehash Tongass Roadless Rule

By Jack Darrell and Michael Fanelli
Alaska Public Media
January 27, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

In the first two days of his new term, President Donald Trump signed more than 200 executive orders. One was aimed at accessing more natural resources in Alaska. It attempts to roll back protections on over 9 million acres of Tongass National Forest, potentially opening them up for logging… The Juneau-based Southeast Alaska Conservation Council has been fighting to keep most of the Tongass roadless for decades. Council Director Maggie Rabb said it’s hard to predict what this administration will do next… Rabb said that the conservation council is not anti-logging. There is still active logging in the Tongass. For Rabb, the Roadless Rule has been an effective tool to protect old growth without actually ending logging. “The push to roll back the Roadless Rule has very little to do with on-the-ground realities in Southeast Alaska or market demand, and it’s very much about external agendas that are disconnected from our region,” she said.

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Earth’s Largest Organism Slowly Being Eaten, Scientist Says

By Richard Elton Walton
The Conversation
January 23, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

In the Wasatch Mountains of the western US on the slopes above a spring-fed lake, there dwells a single giant organism that provides an entire ecosystem on which plants and animals have relied for thousands of years. Found in my home state of Utah, “Pando” is a 106-acre stand of quaking aspen clones. Although it looks like a woodland of individual trees with striking white bark and small leaves that flutter in the slightest breeze, Pando (Latin for “I spread”) is actually 47,000 genetically identical stems that arise from an interconnected root network. This single genetic individual weighs around 6,000 metric tons. By mass, it is the largest single organism on Earth. Although Pando is protected by the US National Forest Service and is not in danger of being cut down, it is in danger of disappearing due to several other factors.

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Inclusion of indigenous voices in revised Northwest Forest Plan focus of symposium

By Ryan Bonham
KEZI News 9 Oregon
January 22, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

The Northwest Forest Plan is undergoing a once-in-a-generation amendment process and a symposium held on Wednesday afternoon on the University of Oregon campus worked to make sure that vital voices are included in the process. The symposium brought together multiple groups to make sure that the voices of indigenous communities, environmental justice advocates, and others are included in the forest plan’s amendment process. The goal is to educate the community about the critical importance of including indigenous perspectives and indigenous leadership in solving the climate and wildfire crisis affecting northwest forests… Nearly 280 people attended the symposium that was held in the Redwood Auditorium at the Erb Memorial Union. More details on the symposium can be found on the University of Oregon’s website.

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What makes a neighbourhood resilient to fires?

By Umair Irfan
Vox
January 22, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Yana Valachovic

Wildfires are a fact of life in California. As the flames die down and residents return, this moment presents an opportunity to think more holistically about reducing wildfire risk in Los Angeles and other fire-prone regions. “There’s a lot that we can do as residents and homeowners to really change that trajectory and make small, often inexpensive actions that can make a big difference in changing the outcome when our buildings are exposed to the pathways of wildfire,” said Yana Valachovic, a fire scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network… “I’m a licensed professional forester, so I will share my bias that I do like wood. We grow a lot of trees in California. It is our available natural resource, and I think it’s important to be able to use what you have in your community. The wood itself is combustible, but there are treatments that can make it fire-resistant.”

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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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New iForester application puts tree knowledge in the public’s pockets

By Emily Matchar
Purdue University
January 22, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

Imagine you’re a landowner with dozens or hundreds of mature hardwood trees — not a stretch, since the majority of forestland in the U.S. is privately owned. If you want to know the trees’ value, you’ll need to hire a professional forester. What if, before you start working with the forester, you could gain preliminary information about the trees’ value and other features with your phone? That’s the hope behind iForester, an app developed by Purdue University’s Song Zhang, a professor of mechanical engineering, and Cheryl Qian, a professor of industrial design, in collaboration with Songlin Fei, director of the Institute for Digital Forestry. The idea for the app was born over dinner at a colleague’s house about three years ago. The two began to discuss the digital divide in forestry — the way some members of society, especially rural residents, don’t have equal access to new technology.

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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

Climate and community resilience on the docket in 2025

By Jay Kosa
Salish Current
January 22, 2025
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US West

Whatcom County has embraced climate resilience as a goal and recognizes that mature forest protection is one of the best ways to preserve what we already have in these natural systems. Updating the funding mechanism to better address the near-term needs of local beneficiaries like Mount Baker School District would alleviate tensions that can arise when communities are asked to choose between better near-term revenue for schools and the myriad benefits of conserving mature forests. A $2 billion public education package is up for consideration. This funding package would move K–12 public schools toward being fully funded, taking pressure off of the Department of Natural Resources to provide timber revenues to fill gaps in school operating budgets (a use for which common school funds were never intended).

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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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The Democratic Republic of Congo to create the Earth’s largest protected tropical forest reserve

World Economic Forum
January 22, 2025
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

The Congo Basin is home to the largest expanse of intact tropical forest on Earth, covering approximately 3.7 million square kilometres. It retains vast areas of undisturbed forest – like the 108,000 square kilometres in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an area about the size of Iceland. The Amazon has steadily lost its carbon storage potential, flipping from a sink to a net emitter in 2021. But, the Congo Basin is still functioning effectively as a carbon sink, a crucial planetary buffer limiting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The Congo Basin is currently the largest and healthiest tropical forest carbon sink in the world, sequestering 1.5 billion tonnes of CO₂ annually with a peat swamp that stores 29 billion tonnes of carbon – equivalent to about three years’ worth of global greenhouse gas emissions.

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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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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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