A pilot international exchange program between Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia has been developed to offer participants an opportunity to gain diverse perspectives as well as foster personal and professional growth. Forestry Australia CEO, Jacquie Martin, said Australia is delighted to be part of a pilot international exchange program with the Canadian Institute of Forestry, the Institute of Chartered Foresters, United Kingdom and the New Zealand Institute of Forestry. “The pilot international exchange program offers a unique opportunity for emerging leaders in forestry and forest management to participate in a 3-month paid international work placement,” Ms Martin said. “It allows participants to build global networks, exchange knowledge and gain hands on experience. “Participants will be able to immerse themselves in a new environment, assisting them develop adaptability, broadening expertise, and collaborating on shared opportunities and challenges.”
On April 12-16, more than 700 firefighting professionals, FireSmart experts and Indigenous, municipal and community leaders will gather in Penticton for the 2025 Wildfire Resiliency and Training Summit. There, they’ll share lessons learned from 2024, along with the latest research, technologies, best practices and other information to help regions and communities prepare for the upcoming wildfire season. You’ll want to register fast before this conference sells out! The theme for this year’s Summit is Living with Fire: Building resilience by bringing fire back to the land, strengthening relationships, and investing in collective well-being. The Summit will kick off with two days of training for firefighting professionals, followed by a three-day conference featuring keynote addresses, expert panels, and networking opportunities. Whether you’re a firefighter, community leader, or industry professional, this event is your chance to connect with like-minded individuals, learn from experts, and contribute to a safer, more resilient future for British Columbia. 
The provincial government expects to plant nearly 50 million fewer trees this year — a 17 per cent drop from last year’s planting season at a time when the province has seen a major spike in wildfire activity. The projections come from presentation slides shown to the industry in September. …the government expects the number of trees planted to sink to 233 million in 2025, 47 million fewer than were planted in 2024. …About half of the anticipated drop in 2025 is due to declines in trees planted by logging companies. Drops are also expected in government programs designed to combat climate change, restore forest carbon stocks, and plant trees in the wake of wildfires, data show. The 2023 wildfires also prevented many replanting projects from occurring that year, and delays due to the time it takes to grow enough seedlings mean replanting won’t take place until 2026 and 2027, according to the ministry spokesperson. 
The Kaska Dena people, who for thousands of years have lived on a vast swath of intact wilderness in northern B.C. on the Yukon border… They want to ensure it remains undeveloped… So the Kaska have come up with a plan for the province to protect an area, called the Dene K’éh Kusān — 40,000 square kilometres, an area larger than Vancouver Island, of land and water. …It would also boost B.C.’s pledge to protect 30 per cent of land and 30 per cent of water by 2030, say conservation experts. …With only five years to go, and just about 16 per cent of land protected in B.C. so far, the province must double its efforts if it intends to reach those ambitious targets…Randene Neill, B.C.’s minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship said that she’s aware that some areas reported as conservation measures aren’t meeting their originally intended objectives. 
The Biden administration is dropping its efforts to issue a policy to protect old-growth forests — though the president previously touted protecting such forests as an important component of his climate agenda. Late Tuesday, Forest Service Chief Randy Moore announced that the agency did not plan to move forward with proposed protections for old trees. The Forest Service also published a letter Moore wrote to regional officials. That letter cited “place-based differences that we will need to understand in order to conserve old growth forests.” …However, with the transition to the second Trump administration looming, even some environmental advocates say halting the effort may have been a savvy move. Alex Craven, for the Sierra Club, noted that a congressional repeal could prevent future Democratic administrations from pursuing a substantially similar rule in the future. …Biden’s proposal to protect the forests had garnered pushback from Republicans and the timber industry.
As wildfires continue to burn out of control across Los Angeles, questions have turned to why and how California authorities allowed the perfect conditions — extremely dry, uncleared forests, hillsides and brush — to proliferate during an already dangerous fire season made worse by a Santa Ana wind event that hits the area with relative frequency. Well before those dangerous conditions sparked the massive blazes… this week, the region was already a tinderbox due, in part, to a lack of prescribed fires. …The reason California hasn’t conducted more controlled burnings comes down to existing environmental laws in the U.S. that have posed bureaucratic obstacles to prescribed fires. It often takes years for proposals to go through reviews before any controlled burning can take place. …Lawmakers have introduced legislation that would allow for more controlled burning, but because no laws have been passed, environmental red tape has continued to present challenges to proactive fire management.
PORT ANGELES — The committee of commissioners representing five encumbered counties, including Clallam and Jefferson, have arrived at a recommendation for how timber revenue from replacement lands should be distributed between the counties. The ratio agreed upon by the committee, known as the impact share method, will distribute funds based on how many encumbered acres each county has when compared to the total number of acres encumbered between the five counties. The Washington State Association of Counties (WSAC) will vote on the recommendation at its Feb. 5 meeting, Clallam County Commissioner Mark Ozias said. Encumbered counties are those which have substantial portions of their state trust land set aside for protection of endangered species such as marbled murrelets and northern spotted owls.
AUSTRALIA — A war of words – and glossy brochures – has flared up in the scientific world over whether Western Australia’s major prescribed-burning program across the forests of its south-west is doing more harm than good. The South-West Forests Defence Foundation launched its publication Prescribed Burning Fact Sheets – August 2024 outlining scientific research arguing current prescribed burning practices in the south-west forest regions does not give effective protection from wildfires, is hazardous to people’s health and is causing irreversible loss of biodiversity. The foundation favours a rapid detection and suppression response to bushfires. …In response, the Bushfire Front advocacy group has released its own pamphlet critiquing the foundation’s “flawed” proposal, saying it’s not based on sound science and would have disastrous outcomes in the event of a major bushfire. It states… that the response-only method was trialled and failed in the early 1900s.