The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Canada, together with the FSC Canada Indigenous Chamber, the FSC Indigenous Foundation, and Indigenous communities across the country, is proud to announce the launch of the Indigenous Knowledge Networks, a new Indigenous led initiative designed to strengthen community-driven forest stewardship, knowledge sharing, and rights-based governance. The Indigenous Knowledge Networks will serve as a collaborative platform where Indigenous communities can connect, share wise practices, and advance their own stewardship priorities in ways that reflect local governance systems, cultural protocols, and community-defined goals. As part of the launch, Wahkohtowin Development GP has been named the first regional Network, supporting sister Nations across the Northeast Superior Region. Wahkohtowin will lead in-person gatherings, virtual learning opportunities, and community-driven activities that strengthen relationships and build capacity across the region. …The first phase of the Indigenous Knowledge Network will include a visioning process…
Urban bears in Prince George are dropping clues, and the CNC Research Forest team needs your help scooping them up! Bear poop holds a wealth of information about the bear’s health, diet, and hormones. By analyzing feces samples from across the city, CNC researchers hope to gain insight into the health and behaviour of urban bear populations versus their counterparts that live outside of Prince George. CNC Research Assistant Vanessa Uschenko is co-leading this unique study with Dr. Laura Graham from the CNC Biology department. The research project is done in partnership with the Northern Bear Awareness Society and with support from the B.C. Conservation Officer Service. “Our goal is to better understand what drives bears to enter the city. We can use that data to help inform wildlife management and conservation strategies that mitigate human-bear conflict,” shares Vanessa.
Recently, the phrase “active forest management” has come into usage by the forest industry in numerous countries. In Australia, the equivalent terms are “forest gardening” and “cultural thinning.” …The concept is convenient for the forest industry because it allows companies to continue doing what they have done since the onset of industrial logging. Better yet, the industry is promoting the idea that logging is a solution to the wildfire problem we now face. Actually, the massive cutting down of forests in B.C. and elsewhere has created the problem that the industry wants to solve by more cutting down of what is left of our primary or unlogged forests. Clear cutting forests creates several problems. First, it dries out the land. Without the shade that trees create to cool the land, and without tree roots holding back the water from snow melt and precipitation, the land becomes highly susceptible to fire. 
It didn’t take long for the smoke to clear following 2017’s horrendous wildfires for the BC government to respond with a plan to log more forests and plant more trees. The scale of what had just happened exceeded anything on record. Fires burned more than 12,000 square kilometres of the province’s forests and grasslands. No wildfire season over the previous half century had come remotely close. Yet, it would take just one more year for a new record to be set. In its 2017 post-fire response plan, BC’s Ministry of Forests promised to replant the forests that had burned. …But a look at what actually burned in the worst fires of 2017 suggests that aggressive logging and “reforestation” — essentially just tree-planting — sets the stage for even more frequent wildfires to come. …Science shows that young stands of trees, with their branches lower to the ground, are more vulnerable to burning in catastrophic fires. 
Mosaic Forest Management wants a more informed discussion on wood-fibre security and log exports with North Cowichan’s council before the municipality decides if it wants to move forward with a motion on the issue. Coun. Christopher Justice had made a notice-of-motion that, if adopted, would encourage senior levels of government to review and strengthen their policies, including those governing raw log exports from private managed forest lands on Vancouver Island. … Karen Brandt, at Mosaic, said the motion does not accurately reflect how the coastal-fibre system operates, and risks unintended consequences for the local mills, workers and communities that council is seeking to support. Brandt said… “The motion suggests international log sales from private-managed forest lands reduce fibre available for domestic manufacturing when, in fact, the opposite is true.” …Brandt said that if the objective is to improve fibre availability, the primary issue is the decline in Crown harvest levels.
District of Squamish staff are asking Council to endorse a new wildfire strategy with 53 specific actions to protect residents, homes and critical infrastructure. According to staff, the 2026 Community Wildfire Resiliency Plan, prepared by Blackwell Consulting Ltd., must be adopted by April 30 for the District to remain eligible for up to $400,000 in provincial FireSmart grant funding over the next two years. The plan is Squamish’s first major wildfire strategy update since 2017. In the years since, rapid population growth, increased tourism pressure, and new development pushing into forested terrain have changed the risk picture considerably. It was developed in collaboration with Squamish Nation, Squamish Community Forest, BC Wildfire Service, BC Parks, the Ministry of Forests, and the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District. …The plan identifies hiring a full-time FireSmart Coordinator as a high-priority step with a three-month timeline. …The plan also calls on the District to review Squamish Fire Rescue staffing levels…
Local residents are invited to share their input on the development of the Cariboo-Chilcotin forest landscape plan (FLP) to guide long-term forest management decisions in the area. People can share their thoughts through a survey, which will run from Monday, April 13 to May 30, 2026. The Ministry of Forests will also hold two open houses (April 29 and May 2) so the community can learn more about forest landscape planning and ask questions. …FLPs are developed in partnership with First Nations to ensure meaningful participation in forestry planning and long-term decision-making. …Engagement with forest licensees, subject-matter experts and the public is a key part of every FLP. …Through early collaboration with First Nations partners and initial engagement with forest licence holders, key themes have emerged that will be integrated into the survey for public feedback to reflect community priorities. Developing FLPs is a new approach to forest stewardship that establishes clear direction for the management of forest-related values…
Alberta’s environment minister has expanded the province’s definition of “protected lands” in a bid to reject Ottawa’s nature strategy. This comes after Canada, along with 195 other countries, announced plans to protect 30 per cent of its land by 2030, an objective known as 30×30. But Grant Hunter, Alberta’s minister of environment and protected areas, said that the province already protects 60 per cent of its land based on its own definition. “Federal reporting measures do not capture the full picture, focusing on narrow definitions of protected land,” he said. “Alberta takes a different approach. Our province includes all publicly owned and regulated lands, including those protected from development.” …Alberta rejects Ottawa’s one-size-fits-all approach to conservation and expects recognition and provincial jurisdiction of all national conservation targets, Hunter said. Alberta’s claim to have already achieved the 30×30 commitment is “concerning” and “disingenuous,” said Kecia Kerr, of Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) Northern Alberta.
Peachland residents are once again fighting against logging in their watershed. Following the proposal of three new BC Timber Services (BCTS) cutblocks overlapping with Old Growth Deferral zones in the Peachland Community Watershed, the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance (PWPA) have started a petition to halt old growth logging entirely. The petition, created in late March, calls to stop commercial and partial clear-cut logging in the Peachland watershed’s old growth and primary growth forests. …Taryn Skalbania, one of the founders of the PWPA, has ran the organization for over a decade to fight against logging in her community. She said this isn’t the first time the PWPA has opposed logging in their community, but that this is the “line in the sand.” …ecologist and former member of the old growth TAP Rachel Holt said there is only two per cent of old forest the IDFdk2 forestry zone – which covers the Okanagan area – remaining.
New life is sprouting in Rose Valley Regional Park, where crews and volunteers have begun restoring areas damaged by the devastating McDougall Creek wildfire back in 2023. At a community tree planting event held Saturday, hundreds of new trees were planted to help the park recover. The effort is part of a larger plan led by the Regional District of Central Okanagan to bring the forest back to life. Wayne Darlington, RDCO’s manager of parks capital planning, said the work marks an important turning point. “After 2023 McDougall Creek wildfires, we’re now at a point now where we’re actually putting some more trees back and plants back in the ground,” Darlington said. Volunteers spent the day planting hundreds of trees in some of the hardest-hit areas.
Provincial and municipal officials say they’re focusing on leveraging new resources and applying lessons learned from last year, now that Ontario’s wildfire season is officially underway. A total of 643 wildfires were reported last year in the province, burning nearly 600,000 hectares of land. Northwestern Ontario bore the brunt of wildfire activity in the province, with 11 communities facing restrictions or evacuations related to wildfire activity. “I think the biggest lessons learned obviously was how do we stretch as many resources as we can across the province,” said Mike Harris, Ontario’s Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry. Harris was new to the MNR portfolio last year, and he said he spent a lot of time through the summer meeting with fire crews, supervisors and meteorologists to gain a better understanding of the operations that happen on the ground throughout the season.
Bayer CEO Bill Anderson says the German crop science and drug company is hoping to move past the long-running controversy over its Roundup weedkiller in 2026. Bayer — which acquired Roundup when it bought Monsanto in 2018 — recently announced a $7.25 billion settlement deal and is awaiting a Supreme Court ruling that could decide the product’s fate in the U.S. Anderson said that the settlement and the legal fight — which experts believe the company will win — are “major milestones” in Bayer’s turnaround. …Anderson said “This is a very important product for agriculture. It’s been demonstrated to be safe over and over again and cleared by regulators in every nation, and we’re ready to put this chapter behind us.” The Supreme Court is poised to rule on whether states have the authority to govern Roundup, or whether federal environmental regulators should control its fate.
MONTANA — After the US Forest Service unveiled a proposal last month to give Montana’s lumber industry a “predictable” timber supply from three national forests, questions about the agency’s plan to incorporate an 82-year-old law into a modern forest-management framework abounded. Broadly speaking, the Tri-Forest Federal Sustained Yield Unit would direct the Helena-Lewis and Clark, Beaverhead-Deerlodge and Custer Gallatin national forests to supply local businesses with at least 35 million board feet of timber per year. The Forest Service is pitching the proposal as a tool to sustain local economies and encourage investment in the lumber industry for the 22-county region included in the unit. It’s necessary, the agency says, because the closure of the Pyramid Mountain Lumber sawmill and the Roseburg Wood Products facility have demonstrated the industry’s vulnerability. But at a recent hearing the Forest Service hosted in Helena, the proposal drew a mixed reception.
ARIZONA — Rim Country and the White Mountains are not alone in bracing for the 2026 fire season, which is approaching. A national April-to-July forecast shows nearly the entire Western United States faces an above-normal risk of wildfires over the next four months. Fire officials said two weeks of cloudy weather with scattered rain showers have given Northern Arizona some breathing room, but the lack of snowpack and above-normal temperatures will still result in an early start to the fire season. The National Interagency Coordination Center predicted above-normal fire threat in every Western state at some point between now and summer. Much of the Southwest faced high-risk conditions during an unusually warm March, and those hazardous conditions are expected to expand into other Western states this month. Forecasters point to record-low snowpack across much of the West. 
Impacts to Alaska of the announced U.S. Forest Service “restructuring” that would close regional offices and most of the agency’s research facilities remain unclear. … Among the facilities on the closure list were two that are important to Alaska: the Anchorage Forestry Sciences Laboratory and the Oregon-based Pacific Northwest Research Station in Portland. But other impacts on the 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest and the 5.4-million-acre Chugach National Forest were not disclosed. …Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and her staff are in a “fact-finding” mode and preparing to mount a “defense of the Forest Service in Alaska and make sure the employees are able to continue the good work that they’re currently doing,” said Murkowski spokesperson Joe Plesha. …The Anchorage lab that is scheduled for closure is located in downtown Anchorage. It supports research in the Tongass National Forest, which is the nation’s largest, and the Chugach National Forest, the second largest. 
Flathead National Forest officials have authorized an emergency logging and thinning project in the Salish Mountains near Lakeside, three miles west of Blacktail Mountain, with the aim of reducing wildland fire risk and improving forest health. The decision authorizes 2,823 acres of commercial vegetation treatment and construction of approximately 5.6 miles of temporary roads. Crews will use more than 67 miles of existing roads and haul routes. First proposed last October, the West Truman Project advanced quickly through the U.S. Forest Service’s environmental compliance process under a categorical exclusion, receiving final approval on April 14. Implementation of the project could begin “as early as fall 2027,” according to the decision and finding of applicability and no extraordinary circumstances (FANEC) signed by Swan Lake District Ranger Sarah Canepa. …The project would commercially thin 736 acres while using improvement cuts on 939 acres. It would treat 346 acres for shelterwood and 802 acres for seed tree.
A reorganization of the U.S. Forest Service signals that the agency is planning to lean heavily on states to help manage millions of acres of federal land. State officials and timber industry leaders say they’ve been given scant details about the plan to move the agency’s headquarters to Salt Lake City and close scores of research stations in dozens of states. While they wait for the dust to settle, they’re preparing for the Forest Service … to ask more of its partners under the new model. “The Forest Service itself is unable to uphold its mission and cannot alone manage the many challenges on these landscapes,” said Nick Smith, with the American Forest Resource Council. “The transition … is a recognition that partnerships are the future for the Forest Service.” But many forestry veterans fear the shake-up will cause more attrition… [Seeing the move to] Utah — a state whose leaders are often hostile to federal land ownership — as designed to undermine the Forest Service’s management of its lands.
With extreme drought gripping most of Utah and spring heat melting reserves of mountain snow to an all-time low, the state is staring down a tinder dry wildfire season that could come with big changes to its federal funding. Maps of the national wildfire forecast show Utah covered in red by July — and with southern Utah getting there by June. “It has the potential to be a real season,” said State Forester Jamie Barnes, “but we’re going to make it through it, and we’re going to make sure that we do all we can to keep Utah safe.” The Division of Fire, Forestry and State Lands have more money for prevention efforts thanks to a state law passed last year. But they’re also keeping an eye on Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump is proposing budget cuts to forestry programs, along with research and development…
Placerville, Calif., bears all the markers of a community at risk of a wildfire. The city’s rolling hillsides are dense with brush, which dries out during the hot summers. Older homes made of wood, which are more prone to igniting, are dotted throughout. …Local officials are trying to do something about it. The community is one of a handful 
Most European consumers care about forests – they don’t want to eat, wear and wash with products that contribute to forest loss. This is the root of the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which takes aim at the links between EU imports and global deforestation, estimated to affect an area almost the size of Rome each year. Yet the EUDR has faced pushback, resulting in dilution and delays, with implementation postponed to the end of 2026. This is a critical moment for the law. The Commission has been tasked with a simplification review, which it must report on by the end of April. …EU lawmakers would do well to consider new evidence from Forest 500, showing that companies have already responded tangibly to the prospect of legislation. The EUDR has succeeded in steering business expectations, galvanising investments and driving supply chain action by some of the most influential companies in the deforestation economy.
