Last spring, cedar and Douglas fir trees were disappearing at an alarming rate from forests on Vancouver Island and the lush rainforests of British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast. The trees… were being poached, one by one, cut down and sold illegally. …Warnings about tree poaching made headlines in 2021, but these thefts have been steadily increasing since at least 2018. …Timber poaching is not unique to B.C.; it has also been on the rise in the US, particularly in the forests of Washington State and Oregon. …But these statistics are dwarfed by the international scale of timber poaching and illegal logging, which is a US$152-billion global trade. …In North America, though, the market for this wood is split between everyday utility and high-end artisanal production. …Law enforcement, forest managers and local citizens interested in quelling timber poaching argue that the financial penalties are just too low, making the risk worthwhile.
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Tanya Ball began her career as a social worker for the Kaska Dene First Nation. Now she runs a land guardian program, working to monitor and protect a vast stretch of the band’s northern British Columbia wilderness. …“Land guardians can help the land heal,” she said. “And the land can help the guardians heal.” Ball is at the forefront of the new way Canada protects its remaining healthy rivers, lakes, forests, mountains and plains. Crown governments would once rope off an area deemed particularly scenic or good for outdoor recreation and call it a park. No longer. “There’s no future when it comes to conservation where the federal government is involved (and) Indigenous people aren’t involved from the get-go,” said federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. “This traditional model is a thing of the past.” Conservation is now something Indigenous people lead instead of something done to them.
Indigenous people looking to work in B.C.’s forest sector will have more opportunities to learn, train and develop in-demand skills through two new provincial grants. Supported by the StrongerBC Economic Plan, the Province is providing funding to the First Nations Forestry Council (FNFC) for the Indigenous Forestry Scholarship Program (IFSP) and an online forestry careers-matching tool to help increase the number of Indigenous students and community members studying and working in the forest sector. Provincial funding of $437,000 will support the FNFC in developing a new online forestry careers matching tool, part of the implementation of the B.C. First Nations Workforce Strategy, branded as Forestry Connect. The online tool helps students and community members find jobs, education and training opportunities within the sector. The tool is expected to launch by March 2023, with the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council as the first host community.
Prince Albert, SK – Calling all teachers and educators in the Prince Albert area! If you are looking for a unique opportunity to bring forestry into your classroom, the Canadian Institute of Forestry/Institut forestier du Canada (CIF-IFC) is organizing a Teachers’ Forestry Tour and you are invited to register! Hosted in collaboration with the CIF-IFC Saskatchewan Section, the Teachers’ Forestry Tour will take place from July 27-28, 2022 in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. With funding in part from the Government of Canada, the CIF-IFC will be hosting and coordinating Teachers’ Forestry Tours across Canada over a two-year period (2021-2023). …The tour will inform teachers about basic forestry concepts, including sustainable forest management, Indigenous participation in forestry/traditional ecological knowledge and the links between forests and climate change.
Ecosystem Marketplace recently signed a three-year agreement with Forest Stewardship Council to collaborate and develop shared insights regarding carbon markets and non-carbon benefits as they pertain to FSC certified forests. …Through this collaboration FSC seeks to connect FSC-certified forest managers with new markets, help project managers market FSC benefits and enable carbon markets to drive value to FSC certified forests. Ecosystem Marketplace has tracked global carbon market transactions and associated benefits “beyond carbon” for more than 16 years. …The shared workplan includes publishing a brief discussion paper focusing on non-carbon benefits of forest carbon projects and the overlap with FSC certified forests. …The work will begin by cross mapping FSC certified forests with carbon market data that EM has compiled for forestry projects.
CORVALLIS, Ore. — For decades, researchers have known that fallen trees, logs and branches in water help fish survive. It turns out these things also benefit land-based creatures, from birds to bobcats, according to a recent study out of Oregon State University. …Ezmie Trevarrow worked on the project as an undergraduate researcher. She said 13 unmanned cameras set up along Rock Creek west of Corvallis showed just how active wildlife were around downed trees along the creek. …Altogether, 40 species were observed during the year in nearly 2000 videos. The most common activity observed was wildlife crossing the creek. “We have videos of cougars, a lot of bobcats. I have a black bear crossing a few times. I have a lot of videos of kingfishers smacking crayfish on logs,” said Trevarrow. …river restoration efforts …have included adding wood to the water… Now we know it’s good for land critters, too. 
SALEM — Oregon forestry officials are bracing for controversy after approving statewide hazard ratings that encompass up to 300,000 properties with elevated risk of wildfires. Many of those tracts are expected to face new defensible space and building code requirements under “wildland-urban interface” criteria recently enacted by the Oregon Board of Forestry. Critics anticipate the two regulatory actions will result in sweeping and unworkable restrictions for rural communities when a map of affected areas is released later this month. Blowback from rural residents against the new requirements is expected by the state forestry officials due to objections they’ve encountered during the rule-making process. …The Oregon Department of Forestry received roughly twice as many comments opposed to the mapping regime than in favor of it, mostly because people thought the wildland-urban interface was too expansive, said Tim Holschbach.
Most people know … when it comes to fighting global warming, an obvious (if only partial) solution is to plant more trees — a lot more trees. But a new study suggests preserving older trees may be more important. “We found that the forests in the Midwestern U.S. were expanding and getting bigger over the last 10,000 years,” said Ann Raiho, a postdoctoral associate at the University of Maryland’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center. “This tells us that the prehistoric baseline for understanding forests was wrong and that it’s important from a carbon sequestration perspective to preserve trees that grow larger and live longer.” …The historical study also looked at the amount of carbon stored over time. It found that the population expansion of high biomass tree species, like the Eastern Hemlock and the American Birch, were correlated with the increase in the amount of carbon being sequestered in the forest.
