Canada is being forced to rethink its relationship with wildfire. The fires burning across the country are no longer an occasional disruption to the forest sector. They are becoming a defining economic, environmental and community challenge. …At the same time, Canada is confronting another challenge: how to secure enough fibre to keep mills operating, attract investment and sustain the rural communities that depend on forestry. These two issues are connected. And they point to one of Canada’s most underused forest-sector assets: its private working forests. When Mark Carney announced the Canadian Forest Sector Transformation Task Force in November 2025, Canadian Forest Owners (CFO) saw an opportunity to challenge the traditional boundaries of Canada’s forest policy. When we presented to the Task Force in February and submitted our recommendations in March, our message was straightforward: Canada cannot build a stronger, more competitive and more resilient forest sector while leaving privately managed forests at the margins.
When the European Union’s new anti-deforestation law threatened to expose the environmental costs of logging in North America’s forests, the American paper industry, supported by the U.S. government, mobilized an intense lobbying effort to weaken the legislation. According to lobbying disclosures, the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), have spent nearly $11 million dollars on lobbying efforts since 2023, including on the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). …At stake is relations with a major trading partner. The U.S. exported $879.7 million worth of forest products to the EU in 2025, according to the USDA. It’s not just U.S. officials pushing to weaken the regulation. Canadian industry group Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) and Canadian officials have also been outspoken against the rules. …More recently, FPAC and the AF&PA released a joint statement this year — along with the Australian Forest Products Association, the Japan Paper Association, and the New Zealand Forest Owners Association — requesting reduced oversight in low-deforestation-risk countries.
If global emissions continue unchecked, rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns could amplify tree pests and diseases across more than 80 per cent of North American forests within decades, jeopardizing critical carbon sinks, air quality and the forestry economy. This is the key finding of a new UBC-led study published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution. The researchers found that insects pose the more immediate threat, with more than 60 per cent of the areas examined projected to experience 30 per cent more insect pressure by mid-century. Species like the spongy moth, already wreaking havoc in Canadian forests, could expand significantly in eastern North America by mid-century. “The forests that exist today aren’t going to be ones existing in 2040,” said senior author Dr. Jonathan Davies. “The process is happening already. I think we’ve got to put everything on the table because the status quo is no longer tenable.”
National survey seeks input from farmers and private woodlot owners to improve forestry policy, rural economic development, and environmental stewardship across Canada. Private forests are a familiar part of many Canadian farms, providing firewood, timber, wildlife habitat, clean water, and environmental benefits that extend far beyond property lines. Yet despite their importance, very little current information exists about the people who own and manage them. Now, Canadian Forest Owners (CFO), in partnership with researchers at McGill University, has launched the first national survey of private forest owners in more than two decades, seeking input from farmers and woodlot owners across the country. The initiative is designed to create an updated picture of Canada’s private forest sector and help governments make more informed decisions on forestry, climate, biodiversity, and rural economic development. …Many Canadian farms include woodlots that generate income, supply wood products, protect watercourses, enhance biodiversity, and contribute to carbon storage.
PRINCE GEORGE – The City of Prince George will add its voice to growing calls for a provincial examination of the link between forest management practices and the severity of wildfires in British Columbia after council voted to support pursuing an independent public inquiry. The resolution, brought forward by the city’s Standing Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs, received council support despite concerns from some members about cost and effectiveness. Coun. Brian Skakun, co-author of the resolution, said the province must take a closer look at how forests are managed and whether current approaches are helping or contributing to increasingly destructive wildfire seasons. “I think the province, along with First Nations, have to look at what we’re doing wrong,” Skakun said. …Council will take the resolution to the Union of British Columbia Municipalities and send letters to the Premier, the Minister of Forests and the Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness requesting provincial action.
Nine graduate students in B.C. have been awarded scholarships through the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation (HCTF), including three students in the Okanagan. Studying at the University of B.C. Okanagan (UBCO), Madeline Frazer, Peter Baker and Kara Atkinson were each awarded $10,000 to support applied research in wildlife and habitat stewardship, management, policy and decision-making. “Their projects reflect the breadth of the challenges and opportunities in wildlife management, from species-focused research on grizzly bears, elk, mule deer, caribou, snakes and birds to broader work on the impact of climate change on species, evaluating invasive species management, the impact of silviculture and forest harvest on ungulate, and the history of land management on ecosystems,” said Dan Buffet with HCTF.
BC Timber Sales (BCTS) is holding an open house in Spallumcheen next week regarding its controversial proposal to harvest trees on Mount Rose Swanson, a popular recreation area in the community. The open house will take place at the Township of Spallumcheen Municipal Hall Thursday, Sept. 10. …The provincial agency that manages 20% of BC’s public timber harvest is proposing a new cut block and road development in its Rose Swanson operating area, located within the Okanagan-Shuswap natural resource districts. The planned timber licence would cover 35.7 hectares, spread over 15 smaller patches ranging from one to 4.3-ha openings. About 14,500 cubic metres of timber would be harvested, with an estimated 95 per cent of the areas’ deciduous aspen and cottonwood trees left standing. …The proposed cut block and logging road has drawn criticism since it was made public several years ago. …An online petition to halt logging on the mountain received 24,000 signatures.
People embedding metal spikes in trees in the Walbran Valley area are not associated with an activist group trying to stop old-growth logging, a member of the Walbran Watchdogs says. The tree spikes were identified in a B.C. Supreme Court ruling as an example of the “irreparable harm” suffered by Tsawak-qin Forestry Limited Partnership, which has rights to log in the area. The ruling extended an injunction against blocking roads and impeding logging in the area. The injunction had been set to expire on Sept. 13, but was extended to the end of January 2028. In an August ruling, Justice H. William Veenstra found that hundreds of trees had been spiked in the area, leading to damaged logging equipment and the potential for “significant risk of injury or death” to fallers and sawmill workers. 
Back in 1979 the narrow parking spaces were there, as were the trees. And so was Bill Beese. He was 23 at the time, working as a summer student for the forestry giant MacMillan Bloedel. And while he couldn’t conduct his field work inside the provincial park, his boss said he and the other students should stop there anyway. Just to look. Or rather, look up. “We were just awestruck,” said Beese. …”The name Cathedral Grove is very apt.” Nearly 50 years later, Beese is one of the thousands of voters who helped Cathedral Grove beat 31 challengers over the CBC’s five-week competition to determine the top thing people like to get out of their cars and look, or look up at. “It is literally a roadside attraction. The highway goes right through this magnificent old-growth forest. And it’s very unique,” said Beese, who, as a forest ecologist and retired Vancouver Island University forestry professor, admits bias. 
B.C.’s deputy chief forester has determined the new allowable annual cut (AAC), the maximum amount of timber that can be harvested each year, for Tree Farm Licence (TFL) 30 in the Omineca region. The new AAC, which takes effect Friday, Sept. 4, 2026, is 340,000 cubic metres, a 17.6% reduction from the previous AAC. The deputy chief forester considered changes that have affected the amount of timber that can be sustainably harvested since the previous review. It includes the need to retain more trees for wildlife habitat, protect riparian areas and conserve rare ecosystems. TFL 30 overlaps the territory of the following First Nations: Lheidli T’enneh Nation; McLeod Lake Indian Band; West Moberly First Nations; and Tsay Keh Dene Nation. The determination considered issues raised by First Nations, including maintaining habitat for moose and protecting streams, riparian areas and fish habitat.
As B.C. recovers from another intense wildfire season, debate is growing over how much and how quickly timber from burned forests can, and should be recovered. B.C. Conservative Party MLA and forestry critic Ward Stamer says the province is moving too slowly and leaving too much valuable timber behind. …The province says that, on average, about five per cent of timber in wildfire-impacted areas is currently being salvaged. Stamer wants that rate to rise to 25 per cent and says the province should make better use of existing roads and infrastructure to improve access. …B.C. Forestry Minister Ravi Parmar says a 25 per cent salvage rate isn’t realistic, pointing to challenges including access, operability and safety. Stamer disputes that argument. …Stamer says the province could be doing more to get additional burned timber to market. A study from Université Laval found that fire-affected wood can split and is vulnerable to insects and fungal attacks.
Hundreds of trees have been found embedded with metal spikes in Vancouver Island’s upper Walbran Valley, according to a court ruling that extends an injunction against a logging blockade there until early 2028. The BC Supreme Court court ruling says the blockade activity has included vandalism of logging equipment and tree-spiking incidents, in which two fallers had their chainsaws damaged beyond repair when they struck spikes on Aug. 18. Last Friday’s ruling says the loggers weren’t injured, but tree spikes carry “significant risk of injury or death”. Investigations found several hundred trees in Tsawak‑Qin Forestry’s cutblocks had been embedded with spikes, many with their heads cut off and bark placed over the top. …Tsawak‑Qin Forestry’s activities in the upper Walbran Valley have been disrupted by protesters opposed to old-growth logging since August 2025. Justice H. William Veenstra’s ruling says “the new evidence establishes that there continues to be irreparable harm suffered by Tsawak-Qin”.
Campfire prohibitions will be lifted across the Coastal Fire Centre starting Thursday (Sept. 3), as wildfire danger continues to decline following recent rainfall and cooler temperatures. Effective at noon, Category 1 open-fire prohibitions, which include campfires, will be rescinded throughout the Coastal Fire Centre – which encompasses the Island and B.C.’s South Coast. Fire no larger than 0.5 metres high by 0.5 metres wide, used for recreational or ceremonial purposes, will be allowed. At the same time, Category 2 and Category 3 open-fire prohibitions will also be lifted in the Haida Gwaii Forest District. Category 2 fires include backyard burning, while Category 3 fires include larger industrial burning activities. However, Category 2 and Category 3 fires will remain prohibited throughout the rest of the Coastal Fire Centre. Some activities and equipment also remain prohibited, including binary exploding targets, fireworks, burn barrels or burn cages, controlled air incinerators, air curtain burners, and carbonizers.
Patrick Tom has been helping a crew plant trees in his community of Wekweètì, N.W.T., since late August. His job is to ferry personnel and supplies to an area on the south shore of Snare Lake, which is being replanted after a wildfire. A crew of roughly 45 people flew into the Tłįchǫ community — approximately 300 kilometres northeast of Behchokǫ̀ — to plant 425,000 black and white spruce trees over the span of two weeks. It’s part of the Tlicho government’s plan to plant 13 million trees across its lands by 2030, with the help of federal funding. The initiative aims to restore ecosystems and boreal caribou habitat, while also creating local jobs. Tom worked for the Ekati diamond mine for the last 27 years. When it went into receivership in July, Tom said he was able to retire and he now has a pension.
Canada’s last wild spotted owl was known as Skalula. …No official announcement was made when Skalula disappeared in 2023, the year after her mate died. …To this day, neither the provincial nor the federal government has publicly acknowledged the disheartening truth: the northern spotted owl, which nests only in old-growth forests, has gone extinct in Canada’s wild. …How did we so miserably fail the spotted owl? …B.C. is Canada’s most biodiverse province, meaning that it has the greatest variety of life. But the number of species at risk of extinction in the province — a key measure of biodiversity loss — is steadily climbing. …Chris Johnson, the chair-elect of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, says that the only way to help many struggling wildlife species is for the B.C. government to enact endangered species legislation. …Today, almost 500 species in B.C. are endangered, meaning they could soon be lost if nothing is done.
The end of wildfire season is beginning to fizzle as the B.C. Wildfire Service is nudging open the gates a little bit and allowing category one fires today. The combination of current and future forecasts, recent precipitation and improved overnight recoveries has reduced the need to prohibit campfires in the Southeast Fire Centre region. “The B.C. Wildfire Service takes several factors into account before rescinding prohibitions,” noted the BCWS in a statement. “This includes balancing the needs of the public with the need to mitigate the risk of human-caused wildfires.” As of noon, category one campfires will be permitted throughout the Southeast Fire Centre — which includes the Rocky Mountain Natural Resource District and the Selkirk Natural Resource District — and all non-municipal land across the Regional District of Central Kootenay. However, there are rules involved. A category one campfire must be set in accordance with section 20 of the Wildfire Regulation…
Forestry critic and B.C. Conservative MLA for Kamloops-North Thompson Ward Stamer wants to see the province salvage more wildfire-burned wood faster. He said that only about 5% of burned wood is logged on average in B.C. following a wildfire — a number he’s prefer to see rise to 25%. The former logger said he also wants to see cutting license issued faster, noting most burned trees are useless if not harvested within two years. …Stamer said once a trees dies, it begins deteriorating and each species does so at different rates. He said most burned trees that aren’t harvested within two years may only be good for low value chips, as opposed to other products such as plywood, veneer and saw logs. …Forestry Minister Ravi Parmar said the salvage rate is closer to eight to 10%. Parmar said the province is always trying to increase its salvage rate.
The province has ended its state of provincial emergency. The state of emergency was first declared Aug. 8 following a night of fast-moving fires, including the Bald Range wildfire that led to the evacuation of the District of Summerland. At the time, more than 20,000 people were evacuated from their homes. It was then extended Aug. 21 through to Aug. 29, but the province says the decision to end it early follows advice from emergency management officials. However, the province says the wildfire risk in B.C. remains high. The ending of the state of emergency has no effect on the current evacuation orders, evacuation alerts or local states of emergencies put in place by local governments or First Nations.
Prince George city council is being asked to support a call for an independent public inquiry into BC forest and wildfire management. A report, drafted by Coun. Garth Frizzell in his capacity as chair of the Standing Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs, goes before council on Monday, Aug. 31. It recommends the city submit a resolution to the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) asking the provincial government to establish an inquiry under the Public Inquiry Act. The UBCM holds its annual convention Sept. 14-18 in Vancouver. The proposed inquiry would examine the relationship between forest management practices and wildfire risk and severity, as well as the effectiveness of fuel management, prescribed burning, wildfire prevention and landscape-resilience strategies.
THUNDER BAY — The City of Thunder Bay is benefiting from an infusion of government cash as it continues to plant thousands of trees, largely to mitigate the destruction of the urban forest canopy caused by the invasive emerald ash borer. The federal government and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities have announced details of a recent round of funding under the Growing Canada’s 
After a long journey towards implementation, the controversial European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) will become law on December 30, 2026, for large operators in the EU, and on June 30, 2027, for smaller operators. When it finally does, the likes of White Oak, Red Oak, Ash, and Walnut from the US will continue flowing into the European market without major hold-ups, thanks largely to the latest tweaks made to the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC)’s free compliance platform. “I’m very confident in saying that we are 100 percent EUDR compliant,” AHEC’s Tripp Pryor told HMR/Fastmarkets about the American Hardwood Assured (AHA) platform. …Last year saw AHEC make additional changes to ensure full compliance with the European Commission’s specifications around geo-coordinates and harvest sourcing. …Recent tweaks have incorporated preparatory AI to upload US Forest Service data and identify individual harvest sites within counties. “This is a natural fit for using an AI system,” Pryor said.
A sweeping bipartisan bill that seeks to prevent catastrophic wildfires and restore fire-ravaged forests has revealed a schism in the nation’s environmental movement as some conservation advocates find themselves allied with a longtime foe: loggers. The Fix Our Forests Act, which Congress is close to passing, aims to speed up forest management projects on public and tribal lands by reducing regulatory and legal hurdles. The proposed legislation comes at a time of increasingly devastating wildfires and has garnered wide support among Republicans and the timber industry. However, the traditional Democratic coalition of environmental groups is split over the role humanity has to play in forest management. …Among the major environmental groups that oppose the legislation are the Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity. …But the Nature Conservancy and other groups have voiced support for the bill, citing the constant and imminent threat that increasingly severe wildfires pose to communities and ecosystems.
A Thurston County, Washington, judge stayed a rule requiring larger riparian buffers on Western Washington timberland, putting on hold a regulation that would take 200,000 acres out of production. Superior Court Judge Christine Schaller on Sept. 3 granted a motion by two timber groups to stay the rule while they challenged the bigger buffers in the Court of Appeals Division II. The timber groups argue the expanded buffers will have negligible environmental benefits, while causing financial hardship to timberland owners and rural economies. …Schaller in August upheld the bigger buffers, saying she found no grounds to overrule the Forest Practices Board. The judge, however, acknowledged that the larger buffers will cause financial hardship and that the appeals court will review her decision. …The board adopted the bigger buffers in a 7-5 vote last year. The Washington Forest Protection Association and Washington Farm Forestry Association are challenging the buffers.
Don’t let the rain fool you. Summer wildfires burning through Washington just broke another record. They’ve scorched more than 886,000 acres. Of those, 93,000 acres are on state trust land, marking the record for the largest amount of state-managed land burned by fires in a season since recordkeeping began in 2000. Two-thirds of that state land was forests, meaning a hit to revenue from timber sales. Money from logging on Washington’s public land helps pay for schools and other parts of state and local government. Officials are now racing to sell the charred timber before it molds or becomes even less valuable. The state’s Board of Natural Resources this week voted to allow the Department of Natural Resources to sell more burned forestland without board approval. Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove touted it as a strategy to “maximize value to the trust.”
Satellite measurements detected declining photosynthetic activity in Western U.S. forests two years before bark-beetle mortality appeared in aerial detection surveys, according to new University of Utah-led research. The first-of-its-kind study suggests that satellite-observed chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), a measure of plant photosynthesis, could provide an early warning of forest stress. As drought, wildfire and insect outbreaks occur with increasing frequency across the American West, the technology could also help scientists understand how these disturbances affect forests’ ability to absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere. …“The ultimate goal is to identify areas of concern early enough for land managers to investigate, mobilize crews, allocate funding or otherwise prepare before mortality becomes widespread,” said lead author Lewis Kunik. …In forests that would later experience bark-beetle mortality, the researchers detected a significant SIF decline roughly two years before mortality was seen in aerial surveys conducted by the USDA Forest Service. 
In Oregon’s Tillamook State Forest, a group of incarcerated men gathered around an instructor warning them about the dangers of an over-pressurized firefighting hose. …Such were the risks that these men were willing to take to avoid sleeping in a prison cell. “It’s dangerous, but that’s why we train, and we train hard,” said Jason Russell, a 41-year-old from Salem incarcerated at the South Fork Forest Camp, a state prison. In a few weeks, many of them would be on fire lines alongside thousands of other firefighters battling what would become a record-breaking fire season in Oregon. …But while most firefighters make $25 an hour on the fire line, Oregon’s incarcerated firefighters earn $25 a day. …Inmates earn wildland firefighting certifications and gain experience, which can help with employment opportunities after their prison term ends. Oregon is one of seven states that use prison labor to fight wildfires.
OREGON — The 2021 floods in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley caused upwards of $14 billion in damages. Since then, communities have brought lawsuits against logging companies and the provincial government, blaming them for logging practices that made flooding worse. Over the past 50 years throughout B.C., clear-cut logging has been the primary method of timber extraction across watersheds of all sizes. Floods are happening more often and are becoming more expensive, and unlike the storms that help trigger them, clear cutting and the associated cumulative impacts are something we can manage. When watersheds are assessed for flood risk, the question often asked is a simple one: How much of the watershed has been logged? …
Two environmental conservation groups and a Southeast Alaska tribe have filed suit against the U.S. Forest Service, challenging a logging project just east of Ketchikan. The Forest Service announced in July that it would move forward with the South Revilla Integrated Resource Project, a plan that includes harvesting over 5,000 acres of trees, mostly old growth, in the Tongass National Forest. …The complaint alleges that the project’s logging of old-growth trees will harm subsistence and recreation resources. It also highlights potential impacts to wildlife, the ecosystem and the economy. The suit lists several defendants, including the Forest Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It also lists Forest Service Region 10 Acting Regional Forester Jeremiah Ingersoll and the Tongass National Forest Acting Forest Service Supervisor Janelle Crocker. The Forest Service could not immediately be reached for comment.
Oregon environmental groups are worried that dropping the so-called Roadless Rule, recently proposed by the Trump Administration, will increase fire risk and harm wildlife, drinking water and the recreation economy. The proof, they say, is in the documents produced by the U.S. Forest Service. Other groups say those concerns are overblown and that removing the rule will result in better forest management. …The draft environmental impact analysis — produced by the Forest Service — laid out several risks of removing the Roadless Rule. It acknowledges that road density is linked to human-caused wildfires. …Removing the rule could also trigger a loss of $9 million a year in visitor spending for nearby communities, the environmental analysis said, due to changes in landscape or loss of recreation opportunities caused by future construction. …The American Forest Resource Council, a timber advocacy group, said many of the concerns are overstated because rescinding the Roadless Rule won’t automatically result in new roads or logging.
The Wrangell Ranger District has recently wrapped up a large goshawk survey to prepare for potential timber sales. There is a push to increase logging on federally managed lands in Alaska following the 2025 presidential order to “unleash Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential.” Ahead of any logging operation, there are a variety of wildlife surveys required before anything can be cut, including these goshawk surveys. …Cooper Freeman, the Alaska director for the Center for Biological Diversity said that, with renewed push for logging in the second Trump administration, there has been an increase of surveys, but that he did not think the survey methods were very effective at locating the hawks. “So it’s quite likely that many goshawks, if they’re there, would go undetected, and logging would harm the birds.”
ARIZONA — US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said that misguided forest management policies played a role in the recent deadly flash floods at the Grand Canyon. Burgum said that a failure to properly manage protected forest areas contributed to the potency of last year’s Dragon Bravo Fire on the North Rim, which in turn increased the risk of flash flooding on the canyon’s floor. “When the forest has been burned through, you get a lot of runoff,” Burgum said. …The Dragon Bravo Fire burned nearly 150,000 acres last summer. …A Dept. of the Interior Burned Area Emergency Response Team conducted a postfire assessment in August 2025. The assessment found that the burn scar would increase the water runoff and debris flow in Bright Angel Creek, but “they are unlikely to significantly impact values-at-risk under normal storm conditions.” Burgum, however, said the Dragon Bravo Fire and Saturday’s Bright Angel Creek flooding are connected.
Giant sequoias only grow naturally in California today. But they once ranged as far east as Colorado, Wyoming and Nevada, before the climate turned drier and pushed them into their current, narrower range. Now, even that shrunken sequoia forest is under threat. Wildfires have killed off nearly one-fifth of all large sequoias across their native range over the last decade; a steep loss for a species that can live for thousands of years. A new study … finds those losses aren’t inevitable. Researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno studied Mountain Home Demonstration State Forest, home to the world’s largest old-growth sequoia grove, after the 2020 Castle Fire. Some parts of the forest had been thinned or deliberately burned in the 15 years before the fire, while others hadn’t. The difference was stark. Sequoias in untreated forest died at more than double the rate of those in treated areas, said Bryant Nagelson, the study’s lead author.
TWISP, Wash. — A trio of conservation groups sued the Trump administration Monday, asking a federal judge to halt a sweeping logging project set to clear-cut mature and old-growth forests in north-central Washington state. “This lawsuit challenges the false narrative that we have to choose between healthy forests or safe communities,” Kristine Akland, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. The Center for Biological Diversity, joined by Kettle Range Conservation Group and Methow Forest Forum, accuse the U.S. Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service of violating multiple federal environmental laws through the approval of the Midnight Restoration Project.
A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Forest Service to suspend a commercial logging project in southern Illinois’ Shawnee National Forest, finding the agency’s approval of the project under President Joe Biden violated the Endangered Species Act. Despite the agency’s own preliminary assessment showing an endangered bat species lived in the roughly 70-acre area targeted for the tree thinning project, the Forest Service did not wait for an official opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to approve the project. Environmental groups sued, but by the time the judge issued a temporary restraining order halting the project last summer, a logging company had already cut down trees in 40 of the 67 acres. Separately, the Trump administration this summer has moved to change two federal rules, including one weakening the Endangered Species Act, making it easier to approve projects like logging, mining, oil and gas drilling and other development in federal lands and forests.
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Texas A&M Forest Service today launched the Texas Prescribed Burn Manager Insurance Program to provide liability protection for qualified certified and insured prescribed burn managers. The program was established in response to House Bill 2563 in an effort to increase the use of prescribed fire as a wildfire mitigation tool by reducing liability barriers faced by prescribed burn managers. “Prescribed burning is one of the most effective tools we have to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires,” said Texas State Representative Trent Ashby. “Last session, I was proud to work with Texas A&M Forest Service to establish the Texas Prescribed Burn Manager Insurance Program, which will remove one of the primary barriers facing certified professionals who perform this important work. The launch of this program represents a proactive effort to reduce wildfire risk and protect our land, livestock, homes, and communities across Texas.”
Europe’s forest-based industries are entering a critical phase as policymakers seek to accelerate the bioeconomy while forests face growing pressures from climate change, natural disturbances and rising demand for wood-based resources. Against this backdrop, CEI-Bois and the European Organisation of the Sawmill Industry (EOS) held discussions with Sweden’s largest forest owner (Sveaskog), on the future of Europe’s woodworking, sawmilling and forest-based bioeconomy. The meeting focused on the current position and future prospects of Europe’s woodworking and sawmill industries. Discussions covered the opportunities presented by the upcoming EU Bioeconomy Strategy, competitiveness challenges and the growing influence of EU sustainability and product-related legislation on forest-based businesses. A central message was that Europe’s bioeconomy ambitions will require a policy environment that recognises the diversity of regional forest resources and forest-based value chains. At the same time, Europe needs healthy, productive forests capable of providing raw materials while allowing industries to remain competitive.
CLARENCE TOWN, Australia — Australian firefighters say they are on alert as temperatures in the southern hemisphere begin to pick up, following a devastating fire season in Europe. Australia is already experiencing a strong El Nino weather event that typically brings with it hotter, drier weather, and an increased risk of wildfires. “We’re concerned this year that we’ll see increased fire risk (versus) prior years,” said Trent Curtin, head of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, the world’s largest volunteer firefighting force. Large parts of Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent, endured sweltering summers, leaving vegetation tinder-dry and fuelling severe wildfires. …Australia has a long history of fighting wildfires, including the 2019 to 2020 Black Summer blazes that destroyed an area the size of Turkey and killed 33 people. …“For this year we’re alert but not alarmed,” said Alex Capararo, a sector commander for the Forestry Corporation of New South Wales.
A new chapter for FSC in New Zealand is taking shape, with New Zealand-based members unanimously voting to join Australia under a shared Australia and New Zealand’s (FSC ANZ) governance model. This decision marks an important milestone for FSC across the region, solidifying a formal role for New Zealand-based members in FSC Australia and New Zealand’s governance and laying a stronger foundation for expanding FSC’s work, engagement, and impact in New Zealand. …New Zealand-based directors will be added to the FSC ANZ Board at the next Annual General Meeting to strengthen New Zealand’s representation and voice across the organisation’s Environmental, Social and Economic chambers. …FSC ANZ is planning to establish a dedicated presence in New Zealand, adding a new team member based in the country to work closely with members, certificate holders and stakeholders on the ground. …For FSC, New Zealand is a crucial part of the organisation’s future.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has said he wants to reinstate the death penalty for arsonists, following a wave of deadly forest fires. The official death toll stands at 12, but independent news outlets believe the figure is much higher. The president ordered the justice ministry to introduce changes to the criminal law introducing capital punishment for arsonists. Capital punishment remains in the country’s penal code for some offences, but no execution has been carried out since 1993. More than 100 wildfires have been recorded in recent days in the north-east of the country, most of which have been extinguished. …Under the current law, deliberately starting forest fires is punishable by up to 30 years in prison, or life imprisonment in certain cases. …While Algeria regularly experiences forest fires around the summer months, climate change has exacerbated the intensity and severity of recent wildfires in the country.