TORONTO — WWF-Canada is empowering the next generation of leaders by awarding 62 Go Wild Grants to projects across the country at schools from preschool to post-secondary. Valued between $1,500 and $2,000, these grants will support on-the-ground student activities to protect or restore nature in schoolyards, campuses and communities. …This year’s projects include restoring wetland, forest and prairie habitats, as well as a new pilot project that will support 23 schools in growing, harvesting and sharing native plant seeds, multiplying their impact by helping others create more habitat in their communities. Go Wild Grants support young people in learning about their local ecosystems and deepening their connection to nature while developing hands-on skills like researching, planning, budgeting, leadership and teamwork that empower them to be champions for nature in their lives and careers.
Don’t miss the FSC Canada, February Update: Canada’s Taan Forest is now the first FSC Verified Impact Forest, recognizing protection of Indigenous cultural values and biodiversity. FSC Canada is inviting input via a social metrics survey open until March 16, 2026. The edition also highlights two new job opportunities, an updated trademark policy for certificate holders, newly welcomed Canadian promotional licence holders, a new guide on integrating FSC certification into impact investing, and details on where FSC will be present at events in 2026.
A forest advisory council has recommended shifting BC’s forest regime towards more local decision-making. The plan has received applause from forestry groups, the BC Greens and the head of the BC First Nations Forestry Council. But some experts warn the plan lacks teeth and risks putting fragile forest ecosystems at risk. …“I think of this like the cod fishery,” said Garry Merkel, a forester and co-chair of the advisory council, at the report’s launch event Monday. Merkel likened B.C.’s crisis to the fishery collapse on Canada’s East Coast. …BC First Nations Forestry Council’s Lennard Joe said he supports efforts to bring forest decision-making closer to people it affects. …But UBC forest management professor Peter Wood noted that the report made little mention of the province’s Old Growth Strategic Review. …Rachel Holt, a conservation ecologist worries that the council’s recommendations stop short of changes that are required to protect key ecosystems.
Forests Minister Ravi Parmer hosted the high-profile first National Wildfire Symposium in Vancouver and wildfire risk featured prominently at the 23rd B.C. Natural Resources Forum in Prince George. Dialogue at the symposium made it clear that wildfire is a coast-to-coast-to-coast challenge. It has stretched the resources of all provinces and territories. …But what if there is a way for our provincial government to more effectively spend available dollars to maintain wildfire suppression, improve prevention capabilities and support beneficial fires as an essential ecological function, while at the same time becoming better at identifying cross-government areas for new investments to improve wildfire resilience? This is the focus of a new report being published by the 
The attorney general of BC has decided to take over any potential prosecutions of those arrested for violating an injunction prohibiting people from blocking roads in an area of the Walbran Valley. Forestry company Tsawak-qin Forestry Limited Partnership, which has rights to log in the area where protesters have set up blockades, asked the attorney general to take over the proceedings, and to determine if there is enough evidence to charge those arrested with criminal contempt. Those arrested have faced civil contempt of court charges for alleged breaches of the injunction. …Lawyer Noah Ross, who represents Bill Jones, a Pacheedaht First Nation elder who opposes the logging, said, “By being willing to step in and fund the prosecution, they make it effectively cheaper for the logging company”. …The decision means it’s now up to the BC Prosecution Service to determine what charges, if any, it will approve against those arrested.
The 2026 FPBC Forestry Conference & AGM opens with a timely and thoughtful plenary session, An Update from the Provincial Forestry Advisory Council: A New Model of Land Care for Stable Ecosystems, Communities, and Economies. This opening conversation brings together Shannon Janzen, RPF of Hypha Consulting and Garry Merkel (nadi’ denezā), PhD, RPF, from UBC’s Faculty of Forestry, moderated by Christine Gelowitz, RPF, CEO of Forest Professionals British Columbia. Framed as a fireside discussion, the session previews key themes from the Provincial Forestry Advisory Council’s forthcoming final report, including land governance reform, regional stewardship models, biodiversity and wildfire resilience, and long-term supply stability for communities and mills. The plenary sets the stage for the conference by exploring how ecosystem health and a resilient forest sector are deeply interconnected — and how new partnerships, structures, and tools can translate vision into on-the-ground action.
Victoria, B.C. – A new independent report from the Provincial Forestry Advisory Council (PFAC) finds that British Columbia’s current forest management system is failing to meet a range needs, including communities, First Nations, businesses and the environment. The report concludes that small, incremental reforms are not enough to address the scale of challenges facing the sector. Titled 
VANCOUVER — A government-commissioned review of forestry in British Columbia is calling for the system to be razed and rebuilt with a focus on trust and transparency about the state of the province’s forests, shifting away “from managing harvest volumes to managing lands.” …The authors of the report, including industry representatives and academics, pitch a model that would change who makes decisions about lumber allotment, taking that power away from the provincial government and shifting it to regional bodies that manage defined areas. …Shannon Janzen a co-chair of the advisory council, and former chief forester, said the use of area-based land management is not a new idea and is already in use in places like Ontario and Alberta. …Forest Minister Ravi Parmar would not commit to implementing the report’s recommendations, telling reporters that he has to consult with other ministries. …A statement from the BC Council of Forest Industries said it would be reviewing the recommendations with its members. …Brian Menzies, the executive director of the Independent Wood Processors Association of B.C., said there’s little detail in the report about how its members would access more fibre.
A First Nations-owned company west of Williams Lake says continued funding is essential for projects that use fire-killed wood instead of burning it in slash piles or leaving it to decay. Percy Guichon and Daniel Persson with Central Chilcotin Rehabilitation Ltd. (CCR) attended a Jan. 27 regular city council meeting in Williams Lake to provide an update on the Palmer Project, a multi-year Indigenous-led stewardship initiative which aims to reduce wildfire risk and improve public safety and forest health through spacing treatments that remove hazardous fuels. To date, the project located along Palmer Lake Road, about one and a half hour west of Williams Lake, has treated more than 1,500 hectares with recovered fibre utilized by Atlantic Power for biomass and Cariboo Pulp & Paper for pulp. Fibre was also previously utilized by Drax, which closed in Williams Lake by the end of 2025, into fibre pellets for bioenergy.
Residents of a Bonnington, 18 km west of Nelson, hope they can rely on B.C. Timber Sales’ assurances that logging in their watershed will reduce wildfire risk and won’t threaten their water supply. For nearly a year, BCTS has engaged in an elaborate communication process with the residents of Bonnington about its plans for the Falls Creek watershed. The agency has a timber license on Crown land in the watershed, which provides drinking water to the rural community of about 600 people. …BCTS plans and designs logging operations, builds logging roads, then sells the timber to the highest bidder. The B.C. government added wildfire mitigation to the BCTS mandate last year. In the spring of 2025, the province hired Cathy Scott-May, a communications consultant, to steer a communication process along with BCTS professional forester Mark Tallman of Nelson. …Tallman said this consultation process is different from anything BCTS has done in the past…
NEW BRUNSWICK — J.D. Irving approached a number of municipalities last fall, asking them to support its request to be able to log 32,000 hectares of protected areas on its Crown timber licence in exchange for conserving forest near those communities. At least nine municipalities signed a letter asking that Natural Resources Minister John Herron “give equal weight to the social and economic interests of local governments when seeking to balance the interests of multiple stakeholders across New Brunswick.” …Conservation groups, including the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, said the proposal is extremely concerning. Roberta Clowater questioned why protected areas would be treated as “a wood bank for industry.” …The proposal is in response to the government’s promise to increase conservation lands from 10% to 15% of the province’s landmass. That would mean protecting an additional 360,000 hectares, which the province hopes to source from a mixture of Crown and private land.
Lawmakers from both parties agreed at a congressional hearing Tuesday that the federal government must act to address the growing threat of catastrophic wildfires, but they were sharply divided over how, and whether pending legislation known as the Fix Our Forests Act offers the right path forward. The House of Representatives passed the FOFA legislation in January 2025, and its companion bill is pending in the Senate. …Republican supporters of the bill championed its focus on fast-tracking the thinning and clearing of forests on large tracks of land by making exceptions to requirements in bedrock environmental laws. They argue that those steps are a fix for intensifying fires. …Democrats on the House Committee sharply criticized parts of the wildfire bill, arguing that it unnecessarily erodes environmental safeguards and expands logging, despite limited evidence that either makes communities safer. …Outside of the hearing, scientists and environmental advocates also criticized parts of FOFA.
OLYMPIA — The House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee showed a lively interest in repealing a rule that will lock up 200,000 acres of timber in Western Washington. The committee held a hearing Feb. 3 on House Bill 2620, sponsored by a mix of conservative Republicans and progressive Democrats. The bill targets the Forest Practices Board’s decision in November to widen and lengthen riparian buffers along streams without fish. The bigger buffers will eliminate $2.8 billion worth of timber, a University of Washington analysis estimates. The rule barely passed, 7-5. …The buffers, which go into effect Aug. 31, are needed to keep logging from raising water temperatures in most cases, according to Ecology. Timber groups say Ecology’s no-increase-in-water-temperature standard is humanly impossible to meet. What matters is that water temperatures stay cool enough for fish downstream, they argue. Forest landowners and the Washington State Association of Counties suggested buffers that would take 44,500 acres out of production. 
ALASKA — The US Forest Service is moving forward with a plan to harvest over 5,000 acres of trees in the Tongass National Forest, just east of Ketchikan. A majority of that will be old-growth trees, which some people worry will be devastating to the forest. The Forest Service released the 
STARKVILLE, Miss. — Carbon dioxide is the most commonly produced greenhouse gas, the substances that trap heat in the atmosphere keeping the planet warm enough for life. Carbon is stored in high amounts in timber, of which Mississippi has an abundance. The state ranks in the top 10 nationally in timber production, with close to 20 million acres of timberland. The U.S. Geological Survey says that carbon sequestration is the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere reduces the potential for global climate change. Since timber stores carbon efficiently, a tremendous amount of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is stored in Mississippi’s forests. This makes timber a valuable resource in efforts to limit the amount of carbon available as a greenhouse gas. Carbon credits and the carbon offset market have made an impact on Mississippi’s economy to a degree for about 20 years.
PITTSBURG, New Hampshire — The state has reached a deal on the management of the Connecticut Lakes Headwaters Working Forest, a 146,000 acre property constituting 3% of New Hampshire’s forests, according to Gov. Kelly Ayotte. The forest is privately owned but is under a conservation easement, which means the state has oversight regarding how the land is managed and can ensure it remains a working timberland. Since the land was purchased in 2022 by an out-of-state carbon offset company, Aurora Sustainable Lands, local loggers have raised concerns about reduced timber harvesting on the property. As a carbon-offset company, Aurora curbed logging in order to sell the carbon they stored. …In the plan agreed upon last month, Aurora will increase the average annual timber harvest. …“The Connecticut Lakes Headwaters Working Forest is critical to recreation, tourism and the timber industry in our North Country,” Ayotte said.
Ingka Investments, the investment arm of Ingka Group (IKEA’s largest retailer), has completed the acquisition of forestland from Södra in Latvia and Estonia, following the signing of the agreement announced in October 2025. The transaction is part of Ingka Investments’ strategy to invest in long‑term assets that combine financial resilience with positive impact for the Ingka Group and IKEA business, building a strong foundation for many generations to come. With the acquisition now completed, Ingka Investments will take on the role of long‑term forest owner, with the ambition to manage the forest in a responsible way, while contributing to local economic activity. …Total area included in the acquisition is 135,232 ha in Latvia, and 17,742 ha in Estonia. The purchase price of the asset was EUR 720 million. …With IKEA retail operations in 32 markets, Ingka Group is the largest IKEA retailer and represents 87% of IKEA retail sales.
HCM CITY — Proactive compliance with legal timber sourcing and sustainability standards is essential not only for business survival, but also for repositioning Việt Nam’s wood industry towards greater transparency, responsibility, and higher value creation in global supply chains, speakers said at a seminar in HCM City on January 29. Speaking at the Forest Talk & Link seminar themed “Wood Consumption, Climate Change and Deforestation-Free Requirements”, Võ Quang Hà, Chairman of the HCM City Structure Architecture Wood Association (SAWA), said Việt Nam exported more than US$17 billion worth of wood and wood products in 2025, ranking among the world’s leading furniture exporters. However, an estimated $4–5 billion in export revenue still derives from low-value wood chips and pellets, underscoring the sector’s significant untapped potential for value-added growth. Developing large-timber plantations was identified as a key solution.
Observed annually on February 2, World Wetlands Day marks the adoption of the Ramsar Convention in 1971 and provides an international framework for recognizing the role of wetlands in environmental protection and sustainable development. The 2026 edition is held under the theme “Wetlands and traditional knowledge: Celebrating cultural heritage,” drawing attention to the long-standing relationships between wetland ecosystems and the cultural practices, knowledge systems, and governance structures developed by communities over centuries. The theme highlights how inherited ecological knowledge, often embedded in rituals, seasonal calendars, land-use practices, and spatial organization, has shaped resilient interactions between human settlements and water-based landscapes. …World Wetlands Day 2026 emphasizes the need to reconsider prevailing development models by integrating traditional knowledge with scientific research and planning strategies in efforts toward conservation, restoration, and long-term environmental stewardship.