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Today’s Takeaway

Forestry and climate change, Oregon policymakers seek clarity on carbon flows

July 16, 2018
Category: Today's Takeaway

Environmental groups argue for more conservation as Oregon’s policymakers seek clarity on carbon flows. Industry says the only universe in which one could conclude that the forest products sector isn’t part of the solution to climate change “is an abstract academic one”. In related news: a case is made for solving the world’s energy crisis with wooden buildings; the Prince George Wood Innovation Lab is the most airtight industrial building on the continent; and new research calculates the capacity of forests to sequester carbon.

In other news: Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park is deteriorating; Northern Pulp’s effluent plans will affect marine life; industry sews doubt on caribou recovery plans; and it’s time to rethink how we fight forest fires.

Finally, we are saddened to learn of the loss of Dr. Thomas Maness, Dean of the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, and former director/founder of the UBC Centre for Advanced Wood Processing. He will be greatly missed.

–Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor

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Consolidation of US homebuilders one reason housing starts remain low despite strong economy

July 13, 2018
Category: Today's Takeaway

Friday the 13th Frog!

The Wall Street Journal (subscription only) reports that one of the reasons US housing starts have remained low in a strong economy is because there are “fewer small-time construction companies that build like crazy during boom years”. In other Business news: JD Irving expects to pay $45 million in lumber tariffs despite its reduced rate; while US lumber producers are relieved that Canada’s retaliation against Trump’s steel tariffs leave wood products largely spared.

 

Meanwhile, Business in Vancouver has these headliners today:

Finally, modular wood stadiums and driverless logging trucks may be the next breakthroughs in technology?

–Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor

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Business & Politics

U.S. newsprint producer urges trade commission to uphold tariffs

By Brent Jang
The Globe and Mail
July 13, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, United States

A newsprint mill in Washington State is urging the U.S. International Trade Commission to uphold tariffs against Canadian producers, but critics say economic integration means both countries are suffering in the trade war. The ITC issued a preliminary ruling last September that the U.S. industry for uncoated groundwood paper, including newsprint, has been injured by Canadian shipments south of the border. The ITC will hold a hearing on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. …In a prehearing filing to the ITC, Norpac said Canadian newsprint shipments have damaged the U.S. groundwood industry. “Without relief, subject imports will continue to undercut and depress U.S. prices, disproportionately take volume and market share, and cause injury to the domestic industry.”

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Ontario Securities Commission orders Sino-Forest executives to pay more than $81-million in penalties

By Jaent McFarland
The Globe and Mail
July 11, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, International

The Ontario Securities Commission has imposed one of the largest penalties in its history in the fraud case involving failed timber company Sino-Forest Corp., ordering five former executives to make payments totalling more than $81-million. Founder and chief executive Allen Chan was ordered to pay $67-million of the total himself. …Sino-Forest, which had a market value of $6-billion at its peak, was exposed as one of the costliest corporate frauds in Canadian history after a short-seller published a report in 2011 calling the company a Ponzi scheme and alleging it did not own the timber resources it claimed in its financial statements. The OSC launched a complex and expensive international investigation as staff worked for years to collect evidence in China, where most of the accused were based.

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As forestry employment falls, revenue grows

By Albert Van Santvoort
Business in Vancouver
July 12, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Provincial employment at B.C.’s largest forestry companies has dropped 6% since 2014, according to data from Business in Vancouver’s Biggest Forestry Companies in B.C. list. In 2018, B.C.’s largest forestry companies employed 19,776 people, a decline of 1,270 workers since 2014. The median number of workers across the largest forestry companies also declined at a rate that was merely 0.3 percentage points higher than the average employment decline, suggesting that companies higher on the list were just as affected by employment declines as those lower on the list. However, over the five-year period, the average employee-count drop for the five largest companies on BIV’s list was only 0.07%, significantly lower than the average median employment decline of 5.76% for all companies on the list. Canfor Corp. (TSX:CFP), ranked No. 2 on the list, saw the largest employment decline in the top five.

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Forestry sector seeks to mend supply chain links

By Tyler Nyquvest
Business in Vancouver
July 12, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

After several years of unrest in the industry, logging contractors are hoping recent steps taken toward supply chain equilibrium will help buoy their end of the forestry sector. The Logging Contractor Sustainability Review, conducted by former politician George Abbott and B.C.-based Circle Square Solutions, makes 13 recommendations aimed at improving the relationship between logging contractors and forest licensees. The recommendations include calls for better use of technology, improved communication and ensuring best practices for setting contractors’ rates of pay and dispute-resolution mechanisms. While the recommendations have been praised as a step in the right direction, many industry professionals say the report is far from a cure-all. “We have been waiting with high anticipation but, individually, I wouldn’t call any of these [recommendations] a silver bullet,” said David Elstone, president of the Truck Loggers Association. “They’re not going to change things for contractors overnight.

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B.C. forest companies reach across the Pacific

By Chuck Chiang
Business in Vancouver
July 12, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Despite the housing boom in the United States in the last few years driving exports of B.C. wood products below the 49th parallel, Asia remains a crucial market for a local industry constantly seeking to diversify its global market presence.  That’s the view of several industry officials who have highlighted continued potential in expanding large existing markets like China and Japan, as well as new regions that may develop an appetite for B.C. lumber, such as South Korea, Southeast Asia and India. “We’ve spent a ton of our time and energy looking at diversifying our market,” said Susan Yurkovich, president and CEO of the BC Council of Forest Industries (COFI). …The latest COFI statistics put 53% of B.C. wood product exports going to the United States, followed by China at 24% and Japan at 9%.

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Effluent plan will affect marine life: prof

By Aaron Beswick
The Chronicle Herald
July 14, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

If Northern Pulp is allowed to build its proposed effluent treatment facility, it will affect the marine life immediately surrounding the discharge point, says a UPEI professor. “Is there potential for very localized effects to the fishery?” said Michael van den Heuvel, the Canada Research Chair in watershed ecological integrity, based at the University of Prince Edward Island. “Yes, there is. But it will be a very small area. The question is, are the level of the effects acceptable to society?” That, and whether taxpayers are willing to pay for another effluent treatment facility for the 51-year-old mill are proving to be more of a debate than a discussion as Northern Pulp prepares to register its environmental assessment. 

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Higher softwood lumber tariffs cost Irving $30M since last year

By Joran Gill
CBC News
July 12, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

Higher U.S. tariffs introduced on softwood lumber have cost J.D. Irving Ltd. $30 million since the dispute first started in May of 2017. J.D. Irving, which is the largest lumber producer in New Brunswick, expects that number to jump to $45 million by the end of the year. Forest NB said that by the end of 2017, all of its members, including JDI, had paid a combined $31 million in tariffs. That was for the first eight months of tariffs. …New Brunswick was the only Atlantic Canadian province not exempt from the tariffs the U.S. imposed earlier this year. While JDI was able to negotiate a lower combined countervailing and anti-dumping duty rate of 9.92 per cent, all other sawmills in the province must pay a rate of 20.83 per cent.

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EACOM Commits to Building Stronger Communities

EACOM Timber Corporation
July 12, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

Sault Ste. Marie– EACOM Timber Corporation is joined today by Habitat for Humanity Canada and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative at its Sault Ste. Marie plant to unveil an important partnership. Building on its support of Habitat’s 2017 Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project, EACOM will donate $100,000 in lumber and engineered wood products, certified to the SFI standard, to support 2018 …“Our work transforms lives…,” said Mark Rodgers, President and CEO of Habitat for Humanity Canada and Chair of SFI’s Board of Directors. “And it’s because of generous donors and industry partners like EACOM Timber Corporation and SFI that we’re able to continue changing lives through decent and affordable housing.” …Kevin Edgson, President and CEO of EACOM Timber Corporation said, “our quality Canadian wood products will be put to good use in Habitat homes; that is something our employees can be proud of.”

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Trade settlement allows Port Hawkesbury Paper to focus on future

By Nancy King
The Cape Breton Post
July 11, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

POINT TUPPER, N.S. — A member of the local management team at Port Hawkesbury Paper says it’s a relief to have a costly cross-border trade battle officially behind the mill. …“The Department of Commerce went through the process in what they call a changed circumstance review, which is completely separate from any NAFTA review panel or World Trade Organization processes,” Lock said. “This revocation comes directly from Verso’s non-interest letter.” … under the agreement Verso will not raise a similar complaint in the future. Verso produces 85 per cent of the supercalendered paper manufactured in the U.S. …The mill’s orders have been strong and it only recently completed a capital shutdown that allowed for upgrades to take place in some area.

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Big Builders Are Remodeling the Housing Market (access to full story requires subscription)

By Justin Lahart
The Wall Street Journal
July 13, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States

One of the big mysteries of the housing market since the financial crisis is why sales of new homes have remained so low despite a strong economy and real-estate market. One explanation is a major consolidation among homebuilders, which has given surprising power to some of the big publicly traded companies. That is a big change in what has long been a heavily fragmented industry driven at the margins by small-time construction companies that built like crazy during boom years. …The housing bust and the financial crisis destroyed many home builders. In the tally of U.S. businesses it conducts every five years, the Census Bureau found that there were 48,261 home builders operating in the U.S. in 2012, about half as many as the 98,067 it counted in 2007. In the consolidation, publicly traded home builders fared much better…. even as the economy has recovered and demand for homes has risen. 

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Weyerhaeuser workers prepare to vote on ‘final’ contract offer next week

By Zack Hale
The Daily News
July 13, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US West

After two days of labor talks, a regional woodworkers union received a “last, best and final” contract offer from Weyerhaeuser Co. negotiators Wednesday night, according to the union’s president. About 1,200 union woodworkers with the International Aerospace and Machinist/Woodworkers Local District W24 in Washington and Oregon will vote on the proposal next week. The intended day of the final vote tally is Saturday, IAM Local W24 President Noel Willet said.The outcome of the vote could determine whether about 400 employees at the company’s log dock and sawmill in Longview go on strike.“Until such time as our crews have had a chance to review the company’s offer and vote on it, the union reserves comment,” Willet said in a brief phone interview Thursday.

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No Import Tariffs on U.S. Lumber

Southern Forest Products Association
July 12, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US East

With much relief, U.S. lumber is not among the products facing increased import tariffs in the wake of escalating trade tensions between the U.S. and many of our trading partners. China, Mexico, Canada and the European Union are collectively raising tariffs on billions of dollars of products they import from the U.S. in response to Washington’s efforts to curb imports. Fortunately, wood products are largely spared, with the exception of a 10% tariff on plywood exports to Canada. “Each country’s list of targeted products is largely similar”, says Jerry Hingle, SPC’s international program consultant. “Tariffs on steel and aluminum are heavily targeted, but so is a long list of agriculture products strategically chosen to harm certain congressional districts in the U.S. Thankfully, our industry dodged this one”, he adds. [END]

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Forestry industry welcomes new company Reliance Forest Fibre’s purchase of woodchip exporter SmartFibre

ABC News, Australia
July 15, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: International

The company that purchased 29,000 hectares of state-owned plantation forests has further invested in Tasmania’s forestry industry, buying former Neville Smith Forest Products subsidiary SmartFibre. Reliance Forest Fibre was established two months before the plantation sale in September last year and has a parent company in the Cayman Islands. It is owned by Global Forest Partners, one of the world’s largest timber investment firms. According to James Neville Smith, the former owner of SmartFibre and proponent of the Southwood Fibre woodchip export facility near Dover, SmartFibre was sold to Reliance in March. SmartFibre exports woodchips from Bell Bay in the state’s north. Right to information documents released last week raised questions about links between Reliance and SmartFibre after the documents revealed Reliance general manager Danny Peet emailed Sustainable Timber Tasmania (formerly Forestry Tasmania) on behalf of the Neville Smith Forest Products Southwood Fibre proposal in late May. 

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Tasmanian timber stalwart Terry Edwards reflects on his years in the industry

By Ellen Coulter
ABC News, Australia
July 12, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: International

Terry Edwards

Terry Edwards has received love mail, hate mail and everything in between, and after 16 years at the helm of Tasmania’s forestry industry he’s ready for a rest. Mr Edwards is retiring from the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania (FIAT), a job that placed him in the middle of the most turbulent and violent times in the state’s forests. When he took on the job in 2002, Mr Edwards thought he knew what he was getting into. A no-nonsense straight-talker, he quickly became the public face of a contentious industry. “In retrospect, I didn’t really fully understand or appreciate how strong the passions were on both sides of the debate in the forest industry,” he said. The 1997 Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) Act was still going through federal parliament and environment groups had made it clear they didn’t accept the outcome of the process.

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Timber shortage irks local builders

By Charlotte Varcoe
The Naracoorte Herald
July 12, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: International

Local builders and timber suppliers want to use local products but are finding that demand is exceeding supply. Naracoorte-based builder Paul Russell said there is a shortage of local timber in the region, believing it is caused by excessive exporting of logs from Portland. Builders and carpenters have had no choice but to use imported laminated timber from Europe, and despite it being the same quality, Mr Russell is disappointed it isn’t local.  “We went down to get some from one of our suppliers and all we wanted was 30 lengths of timber and we couldn’t get it,” Mr Russell explained.  “They just didn’t have the 30 lengths of timber and they are all back ordered.” An anonymous local supplier said it was an unusual situation, with local mills exporting logs, but businesses then importing timber back into the country due to a lack of availability. 

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Wood, Paper & Green Building

Industrial building in Prince George, B.C., holds record for most airtight

By Terri Theodore
The Canadian Press in The Globe and Mail
July 15, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

The Wood Innovation Research Lab in Prince George, B.C. [is an] engineering feat that has earned it the recognition as the most airtight industrial building on the continent. The University of Northern British Columbia building has received Passive House certification, making it the first of its type in North America to meet the internationally recognized standards for energy efficiency. Guido Wimmers, chairman of the Integrated Wood Design Program at UNBC, said the building is very efficient and cuts heating and cooling bills by up to 90 per cent in a central B.C. climate where temperatures range from -30 C in winter to 30 C in summer. “To get to Passive House standards in this climate, with this geometry, that was a big challenge and hasn’t been done, to the best of my knowledge. There are three or four industrial buildings worldwide,” he said.

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Passive House, Active Research

University of Northern British Columbia
July 10, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

The Wood Innovation Research Lab acheived the prestigious Passive House certification for energy efficiency. Building an ultra-energy efficient industrial-style building in a northern climate is no easy task, but the Wood Innovation Research Laboratory stands as proof it can be done. Home to researchers seeking to discover novel materials and techniques for the next generation of tall wood buildings, the laboratory is itself an engineering marvel. It is a certified Passive House, the first building of its type in North America to exceed the exacting international standard. “We pulled off something really amazing here,” says UNBC Associate Professor of Engineering Dr. Guido Wimmers. “This building has caught the attention of Passive House researchers around the world because it demonstrates how an industrial structure, constructed with wood, in Northern British Columbia’s cold climate can be a global leader in energy efficiency.”

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Solving the World’s Energy Crisis with Wooden Buildings

By Maverick Baker
Interesting Engineering
July 15, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States

Urbanization and the rapid growth in population are driving the global energy demand higher. Keeping up with the demand for energy remains as one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Buildings are constantly being erected to maintain enough space for population growth, but the life cycle of a building is one of the most energy-intensive processes in the world. Buildings, building materials, and subsequent construction components consume nearly 40 percent of the global energy demand.  While there are many reasons for the substantial amount of energy used to build and maintain buildings, one of the major environmental concerns arises from the fabrication of cement, one of the basic ingredients in concrete. …However, civil engineers and architects of today are reverting modern building practices to re-incorporate timber as a primary structure and construction material.

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Oregon State University gets grant for cross-laminated timber research

KTVZ.COM
July 12, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US West

WASHINGTON – Senators Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Agriculture subcommittee, and Ron Wyden announced Thursday that a nearly half-million dollar U.S. Department of Agriculture grant was awarded to Oregon State University for research on the durability of cross-laminated timber, an innovative product that is helping to advance wood as a construction material for tall buildings. “We have been working to establish Oregon as a hub for mass timber products, using local timber and bolstering our forest products economy,” said Merkley, who each year on the Appropriations Committee has fought to fund this important grants program. “This research at OSU supports the innovative manufacturing that helps to create jobs in the rural part of the state, and lays the groundwork for tall wood building construction in urban parts of the state. “

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Could Modular Wood Stadium Construction Be a Game Changer?

By Zach Mortice
Redshift
June 19, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

Imagine a sports stadium that could expand and contract with its fan base and team’s fortunes, one that could pick up and move to greener (and more lucrative) pastures. …the concept is an incredible breakthrough for building technology. Endlessly modular and made of ultralow-impact mass timber, this vision of low-carbon construction, conceived by engineered-wood manufacturer Rubner Holzbau and prefabricated stadium designer Bear Stadiums, could soon materialize at a soccer pitch near you. Bear Stadiums and Rubner Holzbau’s arenas are to be made of Nordic spruce fitted into glulam (or “glue-laminated wood”) mass timber, shipped to the location, and assembled on-site. These stadiums are small- to medium-size, 1,500 to 20,000 seats, with a full set of templates between these capacities.

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Timber buildings set to reach new heights

By Carley Rosengreen
Griffith University News
July 12, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

Griffith University researchers are putting timber to the test to see if tall wooden buildings are the way forward for our cities.  Associate Professor Benoit Gilbert from Griffith’s School of Engineering and Built Environment is part of the team testing engineered solid wood products, such as Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL), Glue laminated timber (Glulam) and Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) and their capabilities in collapse resistance. Reaching timber building heights of five to six storeys has been made possible thanks to products such as these. …Associate Professor Gilbert said recent changes in legislation has prompted the rise in popularity for mid-rise buildings internationally. …The project will examine the progressive collapse behaviour of mass timber buildings with CLT floors.  

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Forestry

Almost every part of Canada’s largest national park is deteriorating, a federal study says

By Bob Weber
Canadian Press in National Post
July 15, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

An exhaustive federal study of Canada’s largest national park concludes almost every aspect of its environment is deteriorating. The 561-page report on Wood Buffalo National Park says industry, dams, climate change and natural cycles are sucking the watery lifeblood from the vast delta of northeastern Alberta’s Peace and Athabasca rivers. It was prepared after concerns were raised over the park’s UNESCO World Heritage status and backs most of them up. “The (Peace-Athabasca Delta) depends on recharge of its lakes and basins in order to retain its world heritage value,” concludes the study released to The Canadian Press. “Currently, hydrologic recharge … is decreasing. Without immediate intervention, this trend will likely continue and the world heritage values of the (delta) will be lost.”

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Northumberland County forest selected to study sap beetles to fight invasive fungus

By Greg Davis
Global News
July 12, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry is sampling sap beetles in Northumberland County Forest in an effort to fight an invasive fungus that attacks oak trees. The fungus causes Oak wilt disease, a vascular disease that is currently prevalent in the United States, but that has not yet impacted Canadian forests, according to County Forest management. The disease is often spread by sap beetles, which transfer the fungus from infected trees to healthy ones. The forest north of Cobourg, Ont., is one of three locations to sample the Nitidulid beetles and their interaction with oak trees. Sampling is also being conducted in Sault Ste. Marie and Essex. The study aims to develop pre-cautionary management guidelines for Oak Wilt Disease in Canada.

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Bat-Killing Fungus Spreads to 2 New Species and 2 New States

By John R. Platt
Scientific American
July 11, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States

For North America’s imperiled bats, bad news comes in threes. On May 29, the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism announced that the fungus that has killed millions of bats over the past 12 years has been found on a new species, the cave myotis bat (Myotis velifer). Biologists collected dead and dying bats in three Kansas counties and confirmed that they were suffering from white-nose syndrome, the disease caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd). The next day, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the fungus had been found in South Dakota for the first time. There, the fungus was detected on a western small-footed bat (M. ciliolabrum)—another species newly affected by Pd—and four big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) at Badlands National Park. None of the bats in South Dakota had yet contracted white-nose syndrome. Finally, on June 1, the Service announced that the fungus had reached another new state, this time Wyoming.

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It’s time to rethink how we fight forest fires

By Stephen Pyne
The Pacific Standard
July 12, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

So far, the 2018 fire season has produced a handful of big fires in California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado; conflagrations in Oklahoma and Kansas; and a fire bust in Alaska, along with garden-variety wildfires from Florida to Oregon. …But no one can predict what may happen in the coming months. …Research repeatedly shows that the critical component in the WUI fire environment is the structure itself. Once a fire strikes the urban fringe it may morph into an urban conflagration, spreading from structure to structure, as happened in Santa Rosa, California, last fall. Clearly, the wildland fire community has to improve fire resilience in its lands, which should reduce the intensity of the threat. But the real action is in the built environment.

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Study forecasts growth rates of loblolly pine trees

By Virginia Tech
Phys.org
July 12, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

The ability to predict weather patterns has helped us make clothing choices and travel plans, and even saved lives. Now, researchers in Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment are using similar predictive methods to forecast the growth of trees.In a study published in Ecological Applications, researchers used ecological forecasting to predict how changes in temperature, water, and concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere in the Southeastern United States may affect the future growth rates of trees.The paper brings together efforts from two projects funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In the first, known as PINEMAP, hundreds of researchers collected growth data from the past 35 years and developed mathematical models to quantify how pine forests may respond to climate change.

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Pollution controls help red spruce rebound from acid rain

The Canadian Press in the Telegram
July 11, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

Stowe, Vermont — The grey trunks of red spruce trees killed by acid rain once heavily scarred the mountain forests of the Northeast. Now those forests are mostly green… A main reason, scientists say, is a government-enforced reduction in the kind of air pollution that triggers acid rain. …In the 1960s through the 1980s, pollution — mostly from coal-powered plants in the Midwest and car emissions carried by the wind and deposited as acidic rain, snow and fog — devastated Northeast forests and lakes, leaching nutrients from soil and killing aquatic life. Red spruce are particularly sensitive to acid rain and, at the height of the die-off, some forests lost 50 per cent of them.

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Africa’s iconic baobab trees dying off at alarming rate

Associated Press in the Idaho Statesman
July 12, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: International

CROOKS CORNER, South Africa-Africa’s ancient baobab, with its distinctive swollen trunk and known as the “tree of life,” is under a new and mysterious threat, with some of the largest and oldest dying abruptly in recent years. Nine of the 13 oldest baobabs, aged between 1,000 and 2,500 years, have died over the past dozen years, according to a study published in the scientific journal Nature Plants. The sudden collapse is “an event of unprecedented magnitude,” the study says. Climate change, with its rising temperatures and increasing drought conditions, is a suspected factor but no definite cause is known. The deaths occurred in the southern African countries of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. “The trees that are falling over are at the southern range of the distribution of baobabs,” said Stephan Woodborne with South Africa’s National Research Foundation, an author of the study. 

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This electric driverless logging truck can carry up to 16 tons of timber

By Andrew J. Hawkins
The Verge
July 12, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: International

Swedish self-driving truck startup Einride is out with another eye-catching prototype. …the new T-Log is all-electric and completely driverless, and it completely lacks a front cab for human drivers. …the T-Log comes equipped with off-roading capabilities and is designed for hauling tons of gigantic logs. Unveiled on Thursday at the UK’s Goodwood Festival, the T-Log is … designed to carry up to 16 tons of cargo. It can also navigate dense, uneven forest roads, the startup claims, making it ideally suited for logging purposes. …Most experts believe that the first industry to be affected by autonomous driving will be the trucking sector. What better use case for driverless technology than long-haul trucking where most of the driving is confined to the highway? But Einride has a bolder vision that includes off-roading and heavy-duty cargo.

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Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Forest policy looms over Oregon’s climate change debate

By Ted Sickinger
The Oregonian
July 14, 2018
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US West

For as long as climate change legislation has been debated in Oregon, the forestry sector has been the ghost in the room. If policymakers bothered to discuss it at all, they assumed the sector was carbon neutral, with the greenhouse gas emissions from logging offset by replanting and forest growth each year. But no one really knew; the data didn’t exist for Oregon. And in a state where big timber exercises outsize political clout relative to its economic importance, the politics of including it in any potential regulation or strategy to increase carbon stocks was simply a nonstarter. Until now.  As lawmakers gear up to make another attempt to pass a climate change bill in 2019, new data suggests that the forest sector is not only a factor in Oregon’s carbon picture, it is THE factor and one of national and even international importance as lawmakers look to

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Northeast Kingdom forestland conserved as Vermont goes into the carbon storage business

By Elizabeth Gribkoff
vtdigger.org
July 12, 2018
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US East

Burnt Mountain, a 2,800-foot-high point on a forested ridge in the Northeast Kingdom, will be conserved as a wild area by The Nature Conservancy. It will be the state’s first carbon storage project to enroll in California’s cap and trade program, the conservancy announced Thursday. The nearly 5,500-acre parcel of forestland — encompassing the towns of Montgomery, Eden, Westfield, Lowell and Belvidere near Jay Peak — can no longer be developed, but will remain open for public access. Burnt Mountain will be the largest of the 56 parcels of land The Nature Conservancy owns in Vermont, the organization’s state director Heather Furman said in an interview Wednesday. Because Burnt Mountain adjoins state forest, state parks and privately held conserved lands, the total parcel of conserved forestland covers 11,000 acres, she said.

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Health & Safety

Canfor Receives Safety Award

Southern Forest Products Association
July 12, 2018
Category: Health & Safety
Region: United States, US East

For the second time, the Canfor Southern Pine sawmill at Urbana, Arkansas, is being recognized for its outstanding safety record.  The mill operated accident-free for all of 2017, earning top honors for Division II that includes mills producing between 51 and 150 million board feet annually. This week, SFPA’s Deputy Director Eric Gee visited Urbana and presented this well-deserved award to the plant’s Safety Committee. “This facility’s success starts with a commitment to safety in everything they do,” Eric remarked. “A safe workplace is no accident and Canfor has created safety solutions that work for our industry,” he added. The Canfor mill at Graham, North Carolina, has also earned SFPA’s 2017 Sawmill Safety Award, likewise posting a perfect safety record for 2017.  

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Forest Fires

Crews battling rash of forest fires in northern Ontario, B.C.

CTV News
July 16, 2018
Category: Forest Fires
Region: Canada

An intense heat wave, windy conditions and a number of lightning-filled thunderstorms have led to the outbreak of forest fires in northern Ontario and parts of British Columbia, with officials warning that there could be more to come. There are more than 90 active forest fires burning in northern Ontario, according to an interactive map from the province’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. Of them, 23 are under control, 18 are not under control, six are contained and the rest are being observed. Twenty-four new forest fires were started this weekend alone. …Meanwhile in British Columbia, where communities are still trying to rebuild a year after the province’s worst-ever wildfire season, 14 new wildfires were ignited across the province last week.

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Crews work tirelessly to save eagles caught in Kamloops wildfire

By Ashley Wadhwani
Parksville Qualicum Beach News
July 14, 2018
Category: Forest Fires
Region: Canada, Canada West

As fire crews work ‘round the clock to contain a rapid wildfire that caught east of Kamloops this week, it isn’t just the homes and people they are working to protect. Nestled in a tall-standing tree nearby East Shuswap Road, two eagles and their young have played witness to approaching flames since the fire brokeout Thursday. On Friday, the fire managed to catch near the base of the tree, with the young eaglets unable to fly from danger. Captured on video by Dave Somerton, fire crews worked tirelessly to quickly to keep the tree from burning down. “It has been burning but the fire team has finally put it out and now a team of people are bringing in cages and blankets for a worse case scenario,” Somerton said in a 5 a.m. update posted online.

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Fire crews making headway against forest fires

Northern News
July 12, 2018
Category: Forest Fires
Region: Canada, Canada East

Thunderstorms have continued to keep things tense for Ministry of Natural Resources fire fighting crews in the Northeast, with 32 forest fires still not under control as of Thursday morning. There were 18 new starts in the northeast Wednesday, only two of which are already out. “Thunderstorms once again swept through Northeastern Ontario on July 9th and we expect to continue to find several new starts as a result,” said information officer Shayne McCool in a news release. “There was no rain at all recorded overnight last night, and since June 29th which was the Friday before the Canada Day long weekend, we have recorded over 165,000 lightning strikes across the Ontario.” Reports of smoke have been noted from areas across the central portion of the northeast.

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Firefighter killed in wildfire near Yosemite National Park

Associated Press in the Montreal Gazette
July 14, 2018
Category: Forest Fires
Region: United States, US West

LOS ANGELES — A second-generation California firefighter who was using a bulldozer to prevent a wildfire from spreading was killed Saturday near Yosemite National Park, state fire officials said. Heavy Fire Equipment Operator Braden Varney, 36, died in the morning hours, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said. The blaze broke out Friday night in Mariposa County, near the west end of Yosemite National Park and Sierra National Forest. Fire officials said it had burned about 150 acres (61 hectares). Varney worked through the night and was driving the bulldozer to cut a firebreak to keep the fire from extending into a nearby community, according to fire chief Nancy Koerperich. Investigators were working to determine further circumstances surrounding Varney’s death, but they believe he was working his way out of the fire area when he was killed, Koerperich said. 

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Prescribed burn near Crouch now declared a wildfire, recruiting additional resources

By Natasha Williams and Karen Lehr
6 On Your Side
July 15, 2018
Category: Forest Fires
Region: United States, US West

CROUCH, Idaho – With fire danger high across the west, fire crews near Crouch are hoping to make progress on the Lodgepole Fire that started as a prescribed burn. The fire is roughly 1,600 acres and 25% contained. Officials are worried about smoldering heat expanding to dry brush and expanding the size of the fire beyond the project boundary. Emmet District Ranger, Richard Newton, says the hot weather isn’t helping firefighters on the ground.  “We have been actively engaged in fighting this fire for about two weeks now with all of the resources at our disposal, but with the anticipated future weather, difficult terrain, and challenges obtaining additional fire-fighting resources, I have decided to declare this prescribed burn a wildfire,” said Newton. There are several red flag warnings in place across southeastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho, which could make things more difficult for the 113 firefighters on the ground fighting flames.

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Colorado wildfire update: Firefighters armed with pine tree shredder, aided by monsoonal rains, keep wildfires in check

By Kirk Mitchell
The Denver Post
July 11, 2018
Category: Forest Fires
Region: United States, US West

Fire incident commanders already rejoicing in Mother Nature’s contribution to wildfire emasculation — monsoonal rains — have armed fire crews with a pine tree-shredding machine called the “Masticator.” These industrial-sized mulchers that can shred a tall pine in 30 seconds are ideal for creating fire lines even in thick forests, said Jessica Borden, spokeswoman for the Spring Creek fire. The forest-menacing machines are the closest the U.S. Forest Service comes to Paul Bunyon. Still, the biggest foe to Colorado wildfires has been monsoonal rains, which are expected to take a heavy toll if not deliver a knockout punch Wednesday and Thursday to wildfires across the state in this year’s devastating fire season, one of the biggest in history. The following are updates on the largest and most active of Colorado’s 15 wildfires…

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