Category Archives: Forestry

Forestry

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Workshop – Inclusive Leadership

Free to Grow in Forestry
December 1, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada

Want to know how you can join the many companies and organizations in the forest sector that have taken the pledge to make a change to their workplace culture on diversity and inclusion? Whether you are in Canada, the USA, or elsewhere, you are welcome to come and listen to what we are doing to make a difference in the forest sector on this important topic. Join us for this FREE online workshop as we hear from leaders discussing diversity, equity and inclusion in the forest sector. This inclusive leadership webinar will provide practical tools on how you can make a difference to your workplace culture. We will discuss: how to create a culture of empowerment, accountability and belonging with inclusive leadership; how attract qualified immigrants and reduce “red tape” with hiring; Share perspectives on inclusive leadership; how you can help move #ForestryForward with the Free to Grow in Forestry movement.

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KelownaNow Live with Rick Maddison and Murray Wilson on wildfire solutions

By Rick Maddison
Kelowna Now in You Tube
November 23, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Murray Wilson is a retired registered forester with views on BC’s forestry management practices.

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Community Forest’s five-year operations plan open for comment

By Bronwyn Beairsto
Sunshine Coast Reporter
December 1, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Twenty-three cutblocks in the Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF) tenure area are slated or proposed for harvest from 2023 to 2028 according to SCCF’s 2023-2028 Forest Operations Plan released last week. Eleven blocks are new to the list. This is the first time in two years the SCCF has had new proposed blocks on its plan, said executive director Sara Zieleman at the plan’s launch on Nov. 20. The official comment period for the plan is open to Dec. 20 on the new provincial Forest Operations Mapping (FOM) portal – SCCF offered to be early adopters of the portal and test the system. …Manager Warren Hansen and Zielman fielded crowd questions about climate change and old-growth recommendations on maintaining preserving forests, highlighting that 41 per cent of their tenure area is outside of operational consideration. Several crowd members including Elphinstone Logging Focus spokesperson Ross Muirhead, disagreed with their assertion that SCCF is following old growth recruitment recommendations. 

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We followed an old-growth detective into the forest to fact-check B.C.’s suspicious claims about the age of trees

By Sarah Cox
The Narwhal
December 4, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Eddie Petryshen, of Wildsight, is on a detective mission in the Nagle Creek Valley, 150 kilometres north of Revelstoke, B.C., to ground-truth provincial government logging maps he obtained in May. The maps outline the government’s plans for new clearcuts in the disappearing inland temperate rainforest, in core habitat for an endangered caribou herd. According to BC Timber Sales … the cedar and hemlock trees slated for logging are between 224 and 336-years-old. Petrywhen, who’s been scrolling through forest inventory data and cross-matching maps, isn’t so sure. …Following Petryshen’s trip to the Nagle Creek Valley, the government paused plans for auctioning off the five Nagle Creek cutblocks, according to the B.C. Ministry of Forests. In an emailed response to questions, after turning down The Narwhal’s request to interview B.C. Forests Minister Bruce Ralston or another spokesperson, the ministry said one cutblock was deferred “for old-growth protection” following consultations with local First Nations. 

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Forest Enhancement Society Newsletter

Forest Enhancement Society of BC
December 1, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Bruce Ralston

Statement from Bruce Ralston, Minister of Forests: This year was the worst wildfire season on record here in B.C. There is no question that climate change is real, and we are feeling its impacts firsthand. Our approach to managing B.C.’s forests must also change. That’s why we are putting people and communities first by using the best science and data available and collaborating with First Nations, local communities and industry to develop new, long-term approaches to forest management. Funding for wildfire prevention programs has doubled, the locations of five new Forest Landscape Plans (FLPs) tables were announced last month, and we recently introduced legislative amendments that expand the use of cultural and prescribed burning. …By taking deliberate and thoughtful action, and through partnering with organizations like FESBC, we continue to ensure the safety, vitality and resilience of forests and communities across B.C.

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Forest Enhancement Society of BC promotes safe communities, creates jobs, supports forest industry

By the Ministry of Forests
Government of British Columbia
November 30, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Forestry workers, First Nations and mills are getting to work on Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC)-supported projects that reduce wildfire risk, lower greenhouse gas emissions and provide recovered fibre to mills and bioenergy facilities. “Through a $50-million grant this year from the Province, FESBC and their project partners are making significant progress to enhance forest resiliency to wildfire and climate change,” said Bruce Ralston, Minister of Forests. FESBC-supported projects are often aimed at helping communities remove excess fibre from forests to reduce fuel for potential wildfires and provide raw materials for bio-products and bioenergy, helping B.C. reduce greenhouse gas emissions. …Fully funded by the Province, B.C. announced $50 million in January 2023 to help FESBC evaluate and fund projects. Of the 61 projects receiving grants from FESBC in 2023, nine are wildfire risk-reduction projects and 52 are fibre-recovery projects. Some serve both needs.

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Doman family donates $50K to new Forest Discovery Centre building

By Robert Barron
Cowichan Valley Citizen
December 1, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

The Cowichan Valley’s Doman family has donated $50,000 to the BC Forest Discovery Centre to go towards a new building to commemorate the family’s long history in forestry on Vancouver Island. It will highlight the many achievements of the three Doman brothers — Gordon, Herb and Ted — who founded the Doman Lumber Company in 1955, and the family over the decades since then. Chris Gale, general manager of the BC Forest Discovery Centre, said the new building dedicated to the Domans will allow the centre to tell the story of the family the way it should be told. “The Domans’ contribution to the forest industry on Vancouver Island is gigantic,” he said. “A large lumber truck donated by the family will be located in the open end of the building and the rest will be dedicated to telling the story of the family. The family has supported us in all aspects of the centre’s operations.”

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A plan is in place to combat wildfire risk

By Emily Plihal
The South Peace News
November 29, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Fraser Butt

High Praire, Alberta — The rampant fires that have burned across Canada in the last few years have left people wondering what can be done to prevent such devastation from happening again. Mercer Peace River Pulp Ltd. woodlands manager Frazer Butt says that historical data shows forests in Alberta would burn every 35 to 100 years without suppression and prevention efforts. “The forest industry understands that fires are an important part of the landscape and a natural part of the forest lifecycle, but large out of control wildfires endanger human lives, communities, and infrastructure,” he says. “As part of the Forest Management Planning process in Alberta, companies operating on public land must develop long-term Forest Management Plans that forecast 200 years into the future,” he adds. …“The forest industry harvests less than a one per cent of Alberta’s forests each year and regenerates harvest areas to ensure we continue to have strong, biodiverse, healthy forests,” he says.

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Discovery of another ancient giant cedar on Vancouver Island

By Sidney Coles
Vancouver Sun
November 30, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

American forest conservationist Josh Wright has discovered a giant Western red cedar on Vancouver Island that has since been named the Knight Tree. Wright lives on the Olympic Peninsula but grew up on southern Vancouver Island. He was involved with the Fairy Creek movement and said he “spent the past five or so years watching place after place, there, get destroyed by logging.” The Knight Tree stands on unceded Ditidaht territory in Caycuse Valley, an area known for its old growth and logging protests that began in 2020. “I’m sad to see all the logging that’s happening in our area,” said Vera Edgar-Cook, a Ditidaht elder. “I get, I guess, a sense of devastation when I see it.” The discovery last week of the tree is a kind of harbinger of hope. The cedar is 3.88 metres in diameter, but only just qualifies for protection under the Special Tree Protection Regulation.

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BC Community Forest Association November Newsletter

The BC Community Forest Association
November 30, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West
  • BCCFA meeting with Minister Ralston in Victoria
    Each fall, the BCCFA board and staff meet with elected officials and ministry leadership in Victoria for conversations on BCCFA priorities.
  • The Community Forest Agreement is 25 years old
    In 1997, then Forests Minister David Zirnhelt announced a Community Forest Pilot as part of the Jobs and Timber Accord. In 1998, under Bill 34, the Community Forest Agreement (CFA) legislation was established. It was intended that the CFA would be different, providing a tool to test new and innovative ways to manage BC’s forests and increase community involvement.
  • New Draft BC Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework Released
  • Bill 41, the Forest Statute Amendment Act, 2023 MoF has committed to engaging with the BCCFA on the development of the regulations that will bring the new provisions into force.

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B.C. legislators in the hot seat to respond to a firefighting crisis, says union

By Sidney Coles
Vancouver Sun
November 28, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Members of B.C.’s General Employees Union are lobbying for transformational spending on the B.C. Wildfire Service they hope will enhance public safety and make it easier for it to recruit and retain members. The BCGEU represents roughly 1,800 firefighter professionals, including wildland firefighting crews, dispatch operators, administrative professionals and information officers that support their work. According to the B.C. government, the B.C. Wildfire Service had close to 2,000 people on staff in February of last year but only 267 of those were year-round and full-time positions. “We were trying to get across a message to both the governing and opposition parties, that the wildfire system is in crisis and that crisis is rooted in a lack of compensation,” BCGEU treasurer Paul Finch said. Their main message to MLAs? Unless there is more money and a restructuring, the B.C. Wildfire Service will not be able to meet the demands of the coming wildfire season.

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Rural Communities Want In on Wildfire Response. Is BC on Board?

By Amanda Follett Hosgood
The Tyee
November 29, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

No one in Southside (central BC) will forget 2018. It was the year the community lost eight homes, 45 other structures and almost 200,000 hectares of forest. …those who remained behind to fight the fires faced a heavy-handed police response and criticism from politicians who accused them of putting people at risk. …In the wake of that season, the community got together and formed Chinook Emergency Response Society, also known as CERS, which provides local communication, co-ordination and education for wildfire response, but does not directly fight fires. Its purpose is to build relationships, its volunteer directors say — both within the community and with government agencies. …CERS could provide a road map for other communities that want a role in wildfire response — like in the Shuswap, where many residents defied evacuation orders this summer to stay back and fight, leading to clashes with authorities.

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Stanley Park is set to lose 25 per cent of its trees due to infestation

By Mike Raptis
The Vancouver Sun
November 29, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

A hemlock looper moth infestation in Stanley Park will result in the removal of 160,000 trees, the Vancouver park board announced on Wednesday. Nearly one-quarter of all trees in Stanley Park have been damaged by the outbreak, which has also affected parts of North and West Vancouver. Stanley Park has roughly half a million trees in total. …The park board says the tree removal is an effort to support public safety and mitigate risks to key infrastructure in and around Stanley Park. …The removal will take place over a number of years. However, traffic in the area will be affected over the coming months, including as soon as this weekend. …Impacted areas will be replanted with tens of thousands of native species, including Douglas fir, western red cedar, grand fir, big Maple Leaf and red alder trees.

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Community Forests advance local wildfire governance and proactive management in British Columbia, Canada

By Canadian Journal of Forest Research
Canadian Science Publishing
November 13, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

As wildfires increasingly cause negative impacts to communities, many are demanding more proactive and locally driven approaches to address wildfire risk. A shift away from centralized governance models where decision-making is concentrated in government agencies that prioritize reactive wildfire suppression. In British Columbia, Community Forests are emerging as local leaders facilitating proactive wildfire management. To explore the factors that are enabling local governance approaches to managing wildfire risk, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 26 Community Forest managers across BC. Managers highlighted financial and social capacity, especially trust and relationships with both community members and government agencies, as crucial factors influencing their ability to undertake proactive management. …Despite ongoing challenges, Community Forests emphasized the importance of scaling up their efforts to address wildfire risk and are a critical form of local wildfire governance that can help advance proactive wildfire management across BC.

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Woodlots on the Front Lines

By Federation of British Columbia Woodlot Associations
You Tube
November 9, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

British Columbia — Woodlots play a critical role in wildfire risk reduction because of their close proximity to communities. Of the 840 woodlot licences in BC, 80 percent are located in the wildland urban interface. By managing stand density and fuel loading in these forests, licensees can address wildfire risk issues in this province, one woodlot at a time.

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Parks Canada starts work to build Fireguard near Alberta and B.C. border

By Hiren Mansukhani
The Calgary Herald
November 28, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Parks Canada has started building a 49-hectare fireguard in Yoho National Park intended to reduce the risk of wildfire in the communities of Lake Louise, Field, B.C., and surrounding areas. The Ross Lake Fire Guard will be adjacent to the Trans-Canada Highway, north of Ross Lake, near the boundary separating Banff and Yoho National Park. Fireguards are generally wide gaps in a forest, created by removing trees that could fuel a wildfire. The gaps are intended to prevent the blaze from spreading into communities and allow trucks to travel along the path to fight the flames. The news comes as 69 wildfires continue to rage across the province, with 19 new conflagrations since Oct. 30. Parks Canada said the project will initially focus on building temporary access roads. Tree removal will only begin once “specific conditions” are met to limit its effect, including frozen soil and snowpack.

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The unlikely love story of an endangered tree and the little bird who eats its seeds

By Matt Simmons
The Narwhal
November 28, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

When a little gray bird with black wings flies into a bushy tree on the edge of a steep mountain slope, ecologist Alana Clason scrambles to find her binoculars. …Clason studies mountain ecosystems and leads an extensive, complex restoration project in northwest B.C. focused on protecting whitebark pine, an endangered tree species. Between climate change, deforestation, competition from other tree species and an invasive fungus called blister rust, whitebark has been in decline for over a century. It’s the only tree in Western Canada on the federal list of endangered species. …But scientists working to save the species from extinction are far from defeated. Studying the bird — a member of the corvid family called Clark’s nutcracker — is one part of figuring out how to keep the tree around for generations to come. “The nutcracker is the only dispersal agent for whitebark,” Clason explains.

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First Nation’s ‘salmon parks’ on Vancouver Island aim to spare old-growth forests for the future

By Justine Hunter
The Globe and Mail
November 29, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Backed by a $15.2-million commitment from the federal government, a First Nations community on the west coast of Vancouver Island intends to buy out forestry tenures to stop old-growth logging in selected watersheds around Nootka Sound. The Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation has declared a string of “salmon parks” in its traditional territories that includes more than 66,000 hectares of watersheds. The parks are designed to protect critical salmon habitat by maintaining and restoring the land where it intersects with marine ecosystems. Logging can damage the rivers where salmon spawn, and deforestation has been tied to warmer rivers that reduce survival rates for young fish. The salmon parks of Nootka Sound offer an example of a shift that is coming across the province as a result of the new $1-billion Nature Agreement signed on Nov. 3 between Canada, B.C. and the First Nations Leadership Council. Significantly more land will be designated for conservation, which in turn will change how and where the province exploits its natural resources.

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Hard data: looking deep into Indigenous forests

By Nicola Jones
Nature
December 4, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

Louis De Grandpré

QUEBEC — Louis De Grandpré is a forest ecologist with the Canadian Forest Service, currently on an exchange programme with the Pessamit people. …I work with the Pessamit band of the Innu First Nation in Nitassinan, the traditional land of the Innu Indigenous people. This is a vast boreal forest region in Canada, covering some 130,000 square kilometres northeast of Quebec City. …I study the southern portion of these forests, an area of roughly 30,000 square kilometres, to see how their structure and diversity change over time and respond to disturbance. …I’m not against logging, but I’m against the speed with which it’s done here. …Sustainable forest management means maintaining the species that are associated with these forests. And that’s not what is happening. Many groups are pushing for an Indigenous-led conservation area. The Innu are also interested in the possibility of carbon credits. They want to find ways to manage the forest, while continuing their cultural practices. 

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Essipit First Nation in Quebec wants to double its protected area by 2030 in line with UN targets

By Rachel Watts
CBC News
November 30, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

Growing up in the Innu First Nation of Essipit east of Saguenay, Quebec, Michael Ross, the community’s director of development and territory, says caring for the land nestled along the St. Lawrence River was instilled in members of the community by their elders and parents. But on Thursday, the council of the First Nation took it a step further, making public Essipiunnu-meshkanau, a proposal that would more than double their protected area over the next seven years. By 2030, Essipit aims to have protected 30 per cent of its territory, in line with international targets set at COP 15 in Montreal last year. …The protected area, which would cut across the Côte-Nord and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean regions. …He says several industries, especially logging, have a role to play and that Essipit will have discussions with forestry operators, who they hope will keep an “open mind.” “It’s going to be tough discussions,” said Ross.

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Nature group wants Crown land in Kings County protected from potential logging

By Josh Hoffman
CBC News
November 28, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

A Nova Scotia environmental group is calling on the province to protect a section of Crown land in Kings County from potential logging and development. The Blomidon Naturalists Society wants the Nova Scotia government to conserve a portion of land in the southwest corner of the county next to the Cloud Lake Wilderness Area that includes vulnerable and endangered species and old-growth forest. …The Nova Scotia government has a goal of protecting 20 per cent of the province’s land and water by 2030. Approximately 14 per cent is currently protected, according to the province. …The society has asked the Municipality of King’s County to support its request, but the county has one condition — wind turbines need to be allowed in the protected land. …The Nova Scotia government has released the locations where clear cutting may be allowed. Some of the locations are near the area the society wants protected.

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Old growth forests: How much is enough?

By Kathryn Fernholz and Ed Pepke
Dovetail Partners Inc.
November 28, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: United States

The question of “What is old growth?” holds many definitions depending upon the scientific, cultural, and policy lenses that are applied. …There are forests that previous generations chose to protect, which current generations will also say deserve protection, and that future generations will wrestle with in their own debates. With proper management, creation of secondary old growth forests is possible, and can eventually provide the attributes and benefits of old growth forests. The emerging practice of managing maturing forests to provide old growth characteristics is a strategy deserving of increased attention. Intact old growth forests provide multiple benefits, but the type of wood provided from these forests is no longer essential to meeting our raw material needs. Today’s engineered wood products can produce dimensionally stable beams that are structurally superior to equally large beams from large-diameter trees. Consequently, the value of old growth timber has fundamentally changed, and new approaches for management need to be considered.

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Setting the record straight on Kootenai National Forest timber sales

Letter by Thomas Maffei
The Western News
December 1, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

MONTANA — Re: Jim Petersen’s Op-Ed in the the Western News. …As a professional forester [retired], I agree with much of what he has to say. I do, however, take issue with his “revisionist history” concerning the closure of the Stimson Mill in Libby. I continue to hear that the lack of Forest Service timber sales was responsible and that the Forest Service was unwilling to provide Stimson with more timber to keep the mill in operation. …I believe it is time that people understand the role of the timber industry itself in the demise of logging and saw milling in Libby and Lincoln County as a whole. Why do I say that? Let’s start in the 1980s with Champion International Corporation’s acquisition of the St. Regis Paper Company and its mill complex and timberlands in Libby.

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C.C. Cragin watershed thinning project just creeping along

By Peter Aleshire
The Payson Roundup
November 28, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

PAYSON, ARIZONA—The effort to save the C.C. Cragin Reservoir by thinning its overgrown watershed continues to inch forward. The 64,000-acre watershed feeding one of the most productive reservoirs in the state is clogged with thickets of small trees – many of them struggling to survive after years of drought. Tree densities of 1,000 per acre or more could explode into a high-intensity crown fire, killing almost every tree and searing the soil. Such fires can make the soil hydrophobic and unable to absorb water normally. If that happens, a monsoon rain after a fire could generate debris flow that could fill the 15,000-acre-foot reservoir with silt and debris. Such a fire could also destroy the pipeline that delivers 3,000 acre-feet of water to Payson each year. …The goal is to restore the pre-settlement forest with 30 to 100 trees per acre – dominated by old growth ponderosa pines that could withstand frequent, low-intensity ground fires.

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Idaho wolf-killing proposals prompt petition for feds to ban ‘barbaric’ aerial hunts

By Nicole Blanchard
Idaho Statesman
November 28, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

A group of environmental organizations has submitted a petition to the federal government to ban wolf killing by shooting from helicopters, calling the practice “barbaric.” The Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project and International Wildlife Coexistence Network in Tuesday news releases said they were prompted by Idaho’s Wolf Depredation Control Board’s October decision to approve the scope of proposed lethal wolf control plans at two Wood River Valley ranches. The proposals, which included plans for aerial gunning, were submitted by Trevor Walch, the owner of a predator control corporation, without the knowledge of the ranches involved. The petition, which cited the Idaho Statesman’s reporting on the decision, asks the U.S. Forest Service to prohibit aerial gunning on national forest land. The petition noted that five proposals submitted to the wolf board included control efforts in Idaho Fish and Game management units that overlap five of the seven national forests in Idaho.

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‘Groundbreaking’ bill introduces tribal partnership in Mt. Hood National Forest

By Michaela Bourgeois
KOIN 6 News
November 27, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

PORTLAND, Ore. – Oregon lawmakers reintroduced a bill that would create a partnership between the United States Forest Service and the Confederated Tribes of The Warm Springs to co-manage designated areas in the Mt. Hood National Forest. The Wy’east Tribal Resources Restoration Act would direct the United States Forest Service to work with the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs to create Treaty Resource Emphasis Zones that would be co-managed by the federal agency and the tribes. The bill would establish one of the first place-based co-management models in the nation. The legislation would create a co-management plan in the Mt. Hood National Forest that aims to “enhance Tribal Treaty resources and protect the Reservation from wildfire,” including a wildfire risk assessment and retaining large trees for historic forest structure and fire resiliency.

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3 Benefits of Genetically-Improved Christmas Trees

By Andrew Moore
North Carolina State University
December 1, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

The NC State Christmas Tree Genetics Program has spent more than four decades working to develop “elite” Fraser fir trees. Fraser firs are native to North Carolina’s Appalachian mountains and represent more than 98% of all the Christmas tree species grown and sold in the state.  In the late 1990s, the Christmas Tree Genetics Program evaluated and tested tens of thousands of Fraser firs in an effort to identify those with the best genetic characteristics. …“Our trees will make the lives of both growers and consumers easier,” said Justin Whitehill, director of the Christmas Tree Genetics Program.  The trees will not only have a superior growth rate and appearance, but they will also retain their needles longer after harvest.

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Bill seeks to relax forest management practices

By Bella Levavi
Athol Daily News
November 30, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

BOSTON — Multiple Franklin County and North Quabbin residents testified Wednesday in favor of a bill that aims to change forest management and conservation efforts in the state. H.4150, “An act relative to forest protection” filed by state Rep. Carmine Lawrence Gentile, D-Sudbury, takes a stance in favor of keeping forests in their natural state and allowing them to progress without intervention. Supporters of the bill are against management practices that include logging to keep forests in a desired biological state, which is currently done by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). …The bill aims to change forest management and conservation efforts by introducing a series of amendments across multiple chapters of Massachusetts General Laws. The key provisions include establishing a “Forest Reserves Scientific Advisory Council” to oversee forest designations and management. The bill also creates a “Forest Trust” for advancing the state’s interests in forest preservation.

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Wildland fire training benefits Fermilab’s natural areas

By Maxwell Bernstein
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
November 30, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

Although firefighters in the Chicagoland region train extensively to fight fires in buildings, they don’t often train for fires erupting in natural areas, especially with live fires. In early November, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory hosted the three-day training on combating wildland fires. With more than 50 people attending this training, eight different municipalities and four conservation forestry groups were represented. Run by the Illinois Fire Service Institute, the Statutory Fire Academy for Illinois trains more than 60,000 first responders across the state. …firefighters learned about the basics of wildland fires and fire safety. The training covered the types of topography that can influence wildfires and how different plants can fuel the fires. They learned how weather and especially unpredictable winds can pose challenges for wildland firefighting. As live fires were used in Fermilab’s wildland areas for this training, preparation was essential and involved careful coordination with Fermilab’s ecology team.

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Forest Service Chief Announces New Regional Forester for Eastern Region

By the Forest Service
US Department of Agriculture
November 30, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

Tony Dixon

Milwaukee—USDA Forest Service Chief Randy Moore announced the appointment of Tony Dixon as Regional Forester for the Forest Service’s Eastern Region. Dixon will oversee management of more than 12 million acres of the National Forest System lands in the Northeast and Midwest. Dixon will also continue to foster and maintain strong ties with tribal nations, 20 states and the District of Columbia, state and private landowners, and our many partners throughout the Northeast and Midwest. Dixon currently serves as the Deputy Chief for Business Operations. He has served in a variety of positions and geographical locations, including the Chief Financial Officer, National Director of Strategic Planning, Budget, and Accountability; National Director of the Forest Service Job Corps Program; Deputy Regional Forester of the Rocky Mountain Region; and Forest Supervisor of the National Forests in Mississippi. …Dixon will begin the position in January 2024 and will succeed Gina Owens, who retires on December 29, 2023. 

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Milling or burning? Two experts offer differing views on managing eastern red cedar

By Ryan Herzog
The North Platte Telegraph
November 27, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

NEBRASKA — The most cost-effective way to manage eastern red cedar is fire management, says Andy Moore, Loess Canyons coordinating wildlife biologist with Pheasants Forever. Not so, according to saw mill operator John Peterson. When he sees a controlled burn, he says, “There goes a couple hundred thousand dollars down the drain, or more, you know.” …Moore’s job as a wildlife biologist involves working with ranchers, mainly in the Loess Canyons south of Brady, to manage stands of eastern red cedar. …Peterson owns Peterson Sawmill Services. He and his wife, Rebecca, operate a sawmill and wood barn east of Stapleton. They have been in the lumber business since the 1960s. Both men’s jobs involve removing eastern red cedar off the land, but take very different approaches to how the trees are removed.

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How Mounting Demand for Rubber Is Driving Tropical Forest Loss

By Fred Pearce
Yale Environment 360
December 4, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: International

The growing market for rubber is a major, but largely overlooked, cause of tropical deforestation, new analysis shows. …But even as the true environmental cost of the ubiquitous rubber tire is being exposed, the damage could be about to escalate sharply. The new culprit is electric vehicles. Being substantially heavier than conventional vehicles, they reduce the life of a tire by up to 30 percent. …Yet there has been little outrage. While growers and processors of other tropical commodity crops, such as soy, beef, palm oil, cocoa, and coffee, are under ever greater pressure from both regulators and consumers to show their products are not grown on land deforested to accommodate them, rubber has escaped public attention. …A new international analysis published in October… found that between 10 and 15 million acres of tropical forests has been razed in Southeast Asia alone since the 1990s to feed our hunger for rubber. 

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Can we sustainably harvest trees from tropical forests? Yes – here are 5 ways to do it better

By Francis Putz and Claudia Romero, University of the Sunshine Coast
The Conversation
November 30, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: International

Logging typically degrades tropical forests. But what if logging is carefully planned and carried out by well-trained workers While public campaigns to end logging dominate both the popular press and high-profile science journals, a transition from “timber mining” to evidence-based “managed forestry” is underway. Given poor logging practices are likely to continue in about 500 million hectares of tropical forest, efforts to promote responsible forestry deserve more attention. In our new report we recommend five ways to improve tropical forest management. This work was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Forest Service International Program. Fortunately, these practices are compatible with management for non-timber forest products such as fruits, fibres, resins and medicinal plants, as well as biodiversity conservation. They would also reduce carbon emissions and increase carbon removal in cost-effective ways.

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It is time for the Western Australian Government to let go of our pine plantations

By Gavin Butcher
The West Australian
November 29, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: International

AUSTRALIA — South Australia did it in 2012. Victoria managed it back in 1998, Queensland in 2010, Tasmania in 2017. Only WA and NSW have held on to their pine plantations as commercial businesses. Why have most States decided to relinquish these massive estates…and realised significant financial windfalls through privatisation? More than 50 years ago across Australia governments took the lead in expanding plantations with financial assistance form the Commonwealth. Softwood was a new industry and the scale of the investment was large. ….Fast forward 50 years, and despite the industry having fully matured, the WA Government continues to take responsibility for supplying the wood. …It’s time for the State Government to change its methods for encouraging plantation forestry and follow eastern Australia — pass the pine plantation baton on to the private sector and, with government support, let it take control of its own destiny.

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Logging, road construction continue to fuel forest loss in Papua New Guinea

By Spoorthy Raman
Mongabay
November 30, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: International

© Tørrissen

Papua New Guinea boasts the third largest rainforest in the world and houses about 7% of the planet’s biodiversity, including threatened species found nowhere else in the world. In recent years, fraudulent practices in the logging and agriculture industry have resulted in massive forest loss across the country while road network expansion plans threaten to further fragment forests and open them up for resource exploitation. Satellite data and imagery show logging activity on the rise in PNG, particularly in the province of Oro. Conservationists and officials say forest laws must be tightened in PNG and local communities included in decision-making to reduce forest loss, while incentivizing communities to conserve the remaining forests.

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Forest agency ‘massacre’ up to 2,000 baby red squirrels

By Rob Edwards
The Ferret
December 1, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: International

©Peter Trimming

The Scottish Government’s forestry agency has been accused of “indiscriminate massacre” after it admitted it could have killed nearly 2,000 baby red squirrels over five years. Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) estimated that 1,976 red squirrel babies – known as kits – were killed when their nests were destroyed during tree felling between 2017 and 2022. FLS has a duty to protect wildlife and is a partner in a major multi-agency effort called Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels. It took the protection of endangered species such as red squirrels “very seriously”, it said. But one former FLS wildlife expert claimed that the real number being killed could be much higher because the bodies were never found. The slaughter was a “disgrace” and a “travesty”, he said. …Red squirrels are one of Scotland’s most beloved and most threatened woodland animals. Killing, injuring or capturing the animals, or damaging their dreys, are offences under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act.

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Drax Foundation donates nearly £1m to support STEM education and community initiatives in the UK and North America

Drax Group Inc.
November 22, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: International

The Drax Foundation, the charitable entity of renewable energy company Drax Group (Drax), has donated £862,000 to 19 non-profit organisations across the regions where it operates in the UK and North AmericaThis new funding means that in 2023 the total Drax has committed to philanthropic funding is over £4.6million. The Drax Foundation is focused on funding initiatives that support education and skills development in Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM), those that improve green spaces and enhance biodiversity within local communities and improve access to renewable energy and energy efficiency in areas of low social mobility. The projects funded in this round will mean over 32,000 young people can benefit from STEM training, 1,229 hectares of land will be restored or protected and over 20,000 people will receive improved access to green spaces in their communities. 

 

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Brazil’s focus on farms and forests to cut emissions risks setback from oil

By Michael Stott
The Financial Times
November 29, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: International

The Amazon rainforest is often portrayed as a giant carbon sink for the world, soaking up emissions generated elsewhere. So it may come as a surprise that Brazil, home to 60% of the rainforest, is the world’s fifth-biggest emitter of CO₂ — with more than two-thirds of those emissions coming from agriculture, forestry and other land use. Those numbers highlight how the country’s path to reaching its target of net zero emissions by 2050 has little in common with that of most other countries. …Arthur Ramos says… “While power generation is 90% renewable, deforestation and agriculture are the biggest issues. Deforestation alone accounts for 50 per cent.” …Almost all deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is unlawful, the result of illegal logging, mining and ranching. …With Brazil set to host COP30 in 2025, there is optimism that the country can build on its strengths in renewables, halt deforestation and improve agricultural technology.

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Native forest logging ban in Tasmania could save state $72m, pro-market thinktank says

By Adam Morton
The Guardian
November 29, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: International

Ending native forest logging in Tasmania and valuing the state’s centuries-old trees as carbon storage could save the state at least $72m, according to a report by a pro-market thinktank. The analysis by the Blueprint Institute, to be launched on Wednesday, recommends the state government immediately stop subsidising its forestry arm, Sustainable Timber Tasmania, and announce logging will end in mid-2025. The institute said the Tasmanian government and opposition should work with the federal government to introduce a “robust carbon methodology” that allowed the state to generate carbon credits by stopping logging and introducing conservation measures. It estimated CO2 sequestration in Tasmania’s forests could be worth $345m and provide a net benefit to the state of $72m after the cost of a transitional package for the timber industry was factored in.

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Forest restoration to boost biomass doesn’t have to sacrifice tree diversity

By Carolyn Cowan
Mongabay
November 28, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: International

Tropical forests the world over are in trouble. Vast swaths have been razed to the ground, lost forever, and studies indicate that at least 10% of those that remain standing are severely degraded. As humanity tries to backpedal on the destruction we’ve wrought, restoring degraded areas to their former glory through tree planting and forestry techniques has become a major endeavor. But scientists still know surprisingly little about the long-term effects of different restoration methods on forests. …Now, a new study that investigates the long-term effects of forest restoration at sites in Malaysian Borneo indicates that planting trees for biomass accumulation can in some cases boost measures of biodiversity in the long run compared to natural regeneration. The researchers found enhanced adult tree diversity, including the recovery of rare species, in forest plots planted with timber species and subject to basic forestry maintenance, such as cutting climbers, compared to areas where forest regenerated naturally.

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