In Canada, third party certifications of logging operations differ greatly in their requirements around sustainability and human rights. While the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is well-respected, its competitors – particularly the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI)— are roundly condemned for their lax safeguards around harmful logging practices. Canada, however, is taking a page out of industry’s playbook by characterizing all of its voluntary certifications as being strong indicators of sustainable forestry. This is harmful messaging, which both gives the appearance of legitimacy to weak certification schemes, and undermines FSC. …FSC, which was collaboratively established by environmental and social organizations and companies in the 1990s, is widely acknowledged by experts as being the only certification with rigorous requirements for logging companies in Canada. …Unsurprisingly many of Canada’s logging companies, as well as wood and pulp purchasers, frame SFI and FSC as both having strong standards.
Thomas Symons is flying to Vienna in May on his first trip to Europe. The Port McNeill man is not going to the Austrian city for the music of Mozart and Strauss. The 23-year-old, who helps build logging roads for a living, will be in a more familiar space, where the roar of chainsaws and the smell of fresh sawdust fills the air. …Symons is heading to the Stihl World Timbersports championships after being named in February as the Canadian representative in the Rookie World Championship, set for May 27. Rookies are 25 years and younger. He’s thrilled to represent Canada. …The rookie competition is followed by the World Championship, where Marcel Dupuis of Memramcook, New Brunswick, will represent Canada.
My letter is prompted by the letter from Tony Greenfield (SC Community Forest) in response to Sara Lowis (Living Forest Institute). I am the president of SC Streamkeepers Society. Clearcutting forests destroys stable ecosystems, seriously affecting the natural hydrology of a watershed. The atmospheric river this past November had catastrophic consequences; the unprecedented weather event due to climate change wiped out most of the salmon Redds (nests) in the creeks on the Sunshine Coast. The severe flooding took out numerous creek culverts and roads. We are not living in normal times, and we must transition to new ways of doing things, that includes logging sustainably and in appropriate locations. The argument that we must continue to decimate forests directly above our communities, destabilizing the ground for more wood products is frankly, ludicrous!
Trees are important as we plan our communities. But they can also be a costly nuisance if some thought isn’t put into where they are planted and what varieties are used. The City of Duncan is currently finding this out first-hand as they look to take out American sweet gum trees that were planted in 2005… this tree variety has a number of characteristics that make it entirely unsuitable for where they’ve been planted. They don’t like pollution. They have a shallow root system, and are prone to large branch failure. So the middle of a city… isn’t a great match. The shallow root systems mean the trees are buckling roads, sidewalks and planters, and have even cut off a sprinkler system. …It all begs the question, did the folks who chose these trees for planting in Duncan do any research at all? 
A prominent ecologist is raising alarms current old-growth forest management strategies won’t impose the paradigm shift needed to preserve B.C.’s timber harvesting industry while protecting the area ecosystems where the logs are removed from. Rachel Holt said… “There is denial about the fact we have a problem on B.C.’s forestry land base which is pushed by industry, who are lobbying to try to make this issue go away,” Holt said. …Cam Brown, a professional forester consultant, said 21 per cent of B.C.’s forests fall under the old-growth category, which is about 11 million hectares, and about 75 per cent of that is unlikely to ever be logged. He said the old-growth is not relegated much to big tree growth, that most old-growth forest now falls under medium or small tree categories. “We have gone from harvest equals growth from the ’40s to the ’90s… to now where we look more to integrated land use planning,” Brown said.
This is to emphasize the importance of trees. …Trees don’t have nervous systems, but they can still feel what’s going on and experience something analogous to pain. When a tree is cut, it sends electrical signals like wounded human tissue. There are many disadvantages to the removal of trees. It will affect the water cycle, destroy the flora and fauna and lead to an increase in carbon dioxide, thereby increasing global warming. Why trees must be saved? As the biggest plants on the planet, they give us oxygen, store carbon, stabilize the soil and give life to the world’s wildlife. They also provide us with the materials for tools and shelter. …We know that trees have senses, just like we do but they have many more than ours. Plants can see, smell, taste, hear, feel touch, and much more. Their sensory abilities often exceed ours.
VANCOUVER, BC — A Vancouver man on a hunger strike says he’s now into his 13th day without food as he awaits a response from the province on holding a public meeting about old-growth forests in B.C. On Wednesday, an organization called Save Old Growth — which wants B.C. to pass legislation to immediately end all old-growth logging within the province — temporarily disrupted traffic in Vancouver and Revelstoke. In Vancouver, anti-logging protesters blocked the Lions Gate Bridge during the morning commute. In Revelstoke, two protesters blocked the Columbia River Bridge on the Trans-Canada Highway. Save Old Growth said two people were arrested in Revelstoke, while three people were detained in Vancouver.
Vancouver Island, BC—British Columbia’s largest private landowner, Mosaic Forest Management, is halting logging in nearly 100,000 acres of old-growth forest for the next 25 years. The forestry company… said it’s transitioning to a carbon credit program, which is expected to generate several hundred million dollars in revenue. Hailed the BigCoast Forest Climate Initiative, Mosaic said it’s the largest project of its kind and is aiming to capture and store more than 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. It’ll be “equivalent to, or exceed what [Mosaic’s] logging revenues would’ve been from logging these stands,” read a release from the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance. …Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council President Judith Sayers said “there is value in what Mosaic is doing,” but questioned the long-term plan. “What are they going to do after 25 years?” Sayers asked. “There’s still work to be done to make sure they’re not cutting down the old-growth.”
A North Okanagan timber company won’t have to pay B.C. Wildfire Service $156,000 to cover the cost of putting out a 30-hectare wildfire it started after a provincial appeal board ruled the company hadn’t intentionally started the fire. The B.C. Forest Appeals Commission found that while North Enderby Timber was responsible for the fire, the company hadn’t “willfully” ignited it, so therefore it didn’t have to pay a $156,602 bill the B.C. Wildfire Service had sent it. The fire dates back to 2017 and took place six kilometres east of Clearwater. According to a Forest Appeals Commission decision, North Enderby Timber burnt several piles of debris in the fall of 2016. …the following spring, the debris piles caused a wildfire as they hadn’t fully extinguished over the winter. …North Enderby Timber, along with its sister company Canadian Cedar Oil Technologies …appealed the fines and won a partial reprieve from the costs from the Forest Appeals Commission.
It may seem that the dust has settled on the old-growth protests for now. And one might think that government’s announcement to defer 2.6 million hectares of old-growth forest from logging for two years is behind us. However, nothing could be further from the truth. …The reality is that BC has a growing population and demand for public services. At the same time, government is reducing, via old-growth deferrals, a key source of revenue for this province. …This is in stark contrast to Saskatchewan’s government recently announced $2 billion historical investments in forestry with increased harvesting rights to support the re-opening of a pulp mill and a new OSB plant. …No one who supports the reduction in the use of BC’s natural resources should ever again complain about a lack of teachers, long hospital waits, a lack of doctors, the closure of community clinics or shortages of police in this province.
In what it calls the most accurate inventory ever taken a new report commissioned by a First Nation-owned forest company says nearly a third of its tree farm licence is old growth and that the percentage of old-growth will actually increase in the decades to come. 
April marks the official beginning of the forest fire season in Ontario, and while experts in the field are hoping for a quieter season than last, they’re already preparing for the worst. Last year, more hectares of land in the province in 2021 than in any other year in history. “What is quite different about our situation in 2022 thus far is that in most places are starting the season with a lot more snow on the ground,” said Marchand. …”Although the amount of snow depth plays a role in regulating the moisture content of the vegetation, the amount of rain that we saw last fall and weather conditions once an area becomes snow free, those are also important factors when determining how susceptible an area will be to wildland fire,” Marchand explained.
Much of California is already in wildfire season after an extremely dry winter left vegetation brittle and water levels low. With winds and hot temperatures in the forecast starting this week, and no rain or snow expected in the near future, conditions aren’t likely to improve, fire experts said. Statewide, firefighters battled 925 fires from Jan. 1 to April 1 — about the same as those dates in 2021, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. However, the acreage destroyed this year is almost double what burned during those months last year. “Most of the state is already in moderate to extreme drought,” said Cheryl Buliavac, fire prevention specialist at Cal Fire’s Shasta-Trinity Unit. This year’s fire season could be worse than last year’s. …What’s making 2022 worse is having two very dry years back-to-back, well below normal, Karl Swanberg at the weather service in Sacramento said. 
New Mexico Highlands University has received $1 million from the federal government to support the New Mexico Reforestation Center’s seed bank and seed collection efforts. The New Mexico Reforestation Center is a partnership between New Mexico Highlands University, New Mexico State University, University of New Mexico, and the New Mexico Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department’s Forestry Division to meet New Mexico’s current and future reforestation needs. …“It’s one-of-a-kind in the country, and part of the plan behind it is to integrate the forest restoration research with forestry education, and then implement all of that into applied research to achieve desired environmental objectives,” said Joshua Sloan, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs for Forestry and the Reforestation Center at Highlands University. “At the same time, it’s meeting research and academic objectives.” Sloan said the primary species of research interest so far include ponderosa pine, quaking aspen, and Douglas-fir. 
The Georgia Forestry Commission has combined forces with the Florida Forest Service to create a wildfire prevention team. Their purpose is to educate property owners on the dangers of down fuels when outdoor burning. The commission’s slogan stands as “Before wildfires start, be Georgia smart,” their goal is to campaign that across Southwest, Georgia and any other areas in the state that could be subjected to wildfire’s. The issue is that they have begun to see more fire problems due to the result of debris accumulation from Hurricane Michael over three years ago. Andy Nesmith, the Fire Prevention Coordinator for Florida Forest Service said that due to the recent wildfires in their area, they thought it would be beneficial to come work with the Georgia prevention team before they face the same issues.
Illegal logging and associated trade has been ranked as the third-largest global transnational crime… generating between US$52–157 billion per year. Illegal logging threatens some of the world’s most biologically diverse and vulnerable forests, contributes to climate change, harms Indigenous peoples and local communities, and undermines the legal forest products trade by significantly depressing world timber prices. In many tropical countries, over half of deforestation is illegal. …Left unaddressed, persistent illegality and impunity undermine all conservation and climate efforts. …In 2008, the US, the world’s largest consumer of forest products, became the first country to ban trafficking of products containing illegally sourced wood. The Lacey Act Amendments of 2008 were adopted with bipartisan support and have contributed to reduced imports of illegally sourced wood products by 32%–44%. The amendments have demonstrated its potential for impact, yet significant delays in full implementation and sporadic enforcement continue to limit their effectiveness. 
In March, the International Board of FSC International decided to suspend all Russian FSC trade certificates indefinitely. The decision comes into effect on April 8, 2022 and means that timber from Russia cannot be used in FSC-certified products or sold as FSC-certified. …The staff of the office and the FSC Russia Coordinating Council decided… to break off relations, as well as to close the FSC Russia office. …FSC Russia appealed to all those involved in the certification to continue to adhere to high standards of forest management, but without market incentives, the forestry business will not be interested in continuing a responsible approach. …FSC Russia announced the launch of a temporary Russian scheme of voluntary forest certification “Forest Standard” – not replacing, but complementing FSC in Russia. The Forest Standard system will… ensure a relatively quick and easy return to the FSC system.