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
In 2023, Expander Energy Inc., and Rocky Mountain Clean Fuels Inc., announced a project to produce low carbon bio-synthetic diesel fuel by combining pieces of waste wood and synthetic gas using a patented gasification process. Expander Energy CEO Gord Crawford said his company is working on a feasibility study funded by the federal government’s Clean Fuels Fund to determine new locations for future gasification plants that turn forest products into fuel. Northern BC is being considered as a potential plant site. “These plants won’t be located in Vancouver, they’ll be in Prince George, Fort St.. John, places like Fort St. James, rural and remote.”… Northern BC has all the elements needed to support a carbon-neutral project, including fibre supply, renewable energy from the electrical grid and an existing track record of industrial development.
The impact of a changing climate is evident in the bigger picture for the state. California has experienced a decades-long drought that ended just two years ago. The resulting wet conditions since then have seen the rapid growth of shrubs and trees, the perfect fuel for fires. However last summer was very hot and was followed by dry autumn and winter season – downtown Los Angeles has only received 0.16 inches of rain since October, more than 4 inches below average. Researchers believe that a warming world is increasing the conditions that are conducive to wildland fire, including low relative humidity. These “fire weather” days are increasing in many parts of the world, with climate change making these conditions more severe and the fire season lasting longer in many parts of the world, scientists have shown.
USA BioEnergy (USABE) announced it has closed on the acquisition of 1,600+ acres of land in East Texas for its new $2.8-B advanced biorefinery, designed to convert wood waste into sustainable, net-zero aviation fuel (SAF). The landmark SAF facility already secured a 20-year offtake agreement with Southwest Airlines and is at the forefront of advancing ultra-low-carbon fuel, which is much needed in the future of aviation… Once blended with conventional jet fuel, the SAF could produce the equivalent of 2.59 billion gallons of net-zero fuel and avoid 30 million metric tons of CO2 over the offtake agreement term. According to USABE calculations this will enable approximately 112,000 short (less than three hours) or 7,000 long haul (more than 10 hours) net-zero airline flights per year.
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 
Here is some of the latest climate research:
A division of a forestry and construction company with an office in Prince George lost a review of an arbitrator’s decision that awarded fallers $4,000 each for breach of privacy. At issue was the installation of dash cameras in the company’s four-wheel drive pickups in Campbell River… They began installing the dash cameras in February 2023, prompting the United Steelworkers, Local 1-1937 (USW) to file a grievance. They stated the purpose for the rear-facing dash camera included “road conditions not seen by the forward-facing camera” and monitoring “distractions in cab – eating, texting, smoking, horseplay.” USW did not take issue with collection of GPS information or video from the forward-facing cameras while the crew bus was in motion. Its grievance was about the audio and video collected by the rear-facing camera and video by the forward-facing camera while the vehicle was idle.
Fires burning homes and businesses in Los Angeles for a week have killed at least 24 people, displaced thousands of others and destroyed more than 12,000 buildings in what might be the most expensive conflagrations in the nation’s history. The blazes started Jan. 7, fueled by fierce Santa Ana winds that have posed problems for the large forces of firefighters deployed across several areas of the sprawling city. Cal Fire reported that the Palisades, Eaton, Kenneth and Hurst fires have consumed about 63 square miles (163 square kilometers). Investigators are still trying to determine what sparked the fires. They could be the nation’s costliest ever.