BROMONT, QC – Today, the Honourable Nathalie Provost, Secretary of State (Nature), highlighted the Government of Canada’s recent launch of A Force of Nature: Canada’s Strategy to Protect Nature. …On March 31, 2026, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the federal government’s new strategy for nature, with an investment of $3.8 billion. A Force of Nature: Canada’s Strategy to Protect Nature is based on three pillars for action to harmonize nature protection and economic growth: Protecting Nature in Canada, Building Canada Well, and Valuing Nature and Mobilizing Capital. …Indigenous leadership is at the heart of protecting nature, anchored in traditional knowledge and stewardship, and is critical to achieving our national and international commitments on nature. This new strategy will accelerate Canada’s progress toward protecting 30% of our lands and waters by 2030, restore critical habitats, strengthen ocean resilience, and mobilize new investments in nature while ensuring that conservation and economic development go hand in hand.
A panel at the 2026 SFI Annual Conference — Leveraging SFI Certification for Global Reporting Frameworks and Market Assurances — took on one of the more pressing questions facing the forest sector: as global disclosure frameworks multiply and investors demand quantifiable outcomes, does forest certification still do the job? Shenandoah Johns, Chief Environment and Sustainability Officer at West Fraser, walked through five major disclosure frameworks that have arrived in the last five years and identified the gap between what certification was designed to demonstrate and what regulators are now asking for. Paige Goff, VP Sustainability at Domtar, made the case for not overcomplicating what is already working. Kirsten Vice, Senior VP Sustainability and Canadian Operations at NCASI, framed 2026 as a year of influence — with key nature-related frameworks being finalized — and called on the sector to shape its own targets before others do it for them. Jason Metnick, President of SFI, moderated.
In a public alert, the Village of Sayward — located just over 300 kilometres north of Victoria, B.C. — issued a warning to its residents after the grizzly was spotted within the village on May 4. Residents had been seeing the bear in the area around the village in the days leading up to it officially entering the village’s boundary. …While it’s the first sighting of a grizzly on the Island for the year, sightings are becoming more common. …Historically, the Island has not been considered a year-round habitat for grizzlies, says Nick Scapillati, executive director with the Grizzly Bear Foundation. But sightings of the mom and her cubs goes back to 2024 and Scapillati says that due to the small size of the cubs, they wouldn’t have been able to swim over. He believes it could be evidence of the first ever grizzly cubs to be born on Vancouver Island — a sign that grizzlies could be wintering on the Island. 
Parks Canada is scrambling to overhaul its wildfire prevention strategy after internal and federal records tied massive fuel loads of dead timber to the devastation that tore through Jasper in 2024. Appearing before the Senate national finance committee, interim CEO Andrew Campbell said the agency is now shifting toward more aggressive fire mitigation, including controlled burns and clearing dead trees near vulnerable communities. Blacklock’s Reporter said the move comes after widespread criticism that previous management allowed dangerous conditions to persist inside Jasper National Park. …The Canadian Forest Service report, titled Jasper Wildfire Complex 2024 Fire Behaviour Documentation, Reconstruction And Analysis, linked the conditions to a severe mountain pine beetle infestation that peaked years before the blaze. Researchers found the widespread deadwood significantly altered forest conditions, increasing sunlight and wind exposure at ground level, which accelerated drying and made fuels more combustible.
A new UBC study has found that lands managed by Indigenous Peoples consistently protect forests, biodiversity and carbon stores at levels equal to or greater than government-designated protected areas—yet most of these lands remain inadequately recognized or resourced. The paper analyzed 111 peer-reviewed papers… Three-quarters of those studies found a positive relationship between Indigenous lands and conservation. …The study also highlights a major gap in the research itself: only seven per cent of the 111 papers included Indigenous authors. “This is a significant disconnect,” said Garry Merkel, co-author and director of UBC’s Centre of Indigenous Land Stewardship and a member of Tahltan Nation. “Scientists often find it difficult to accept Indigenous science as legitimate, resulting in academic research that does not fully reflect Indigenous knowledge systems or perspectives. This work will help future research to be more inclusive and respectful in its acknowledgement of Indigenous communities.”
Dear North Cowichan mayor and council, and Premier David Eby: It’s not surprising a four-councillor cluster voted against a cogent April 15 motion urging our province to review and strengthen our forest policies, including those governing raw-log exports. The difference this time is right-wing councillors Findlay, Manhas, Caljouw Jr., and Hogg seemingly disregarded valley forest workers, and backed corporate timber firms’ desires for less, not more, public land-harvesting rules and regulations. Coun. Chris Justice’s logical, timely motion aimed to boost wood-fibre supplies for Canadian processing and value-added manufacturing — supporting local and Island forestry jobs — partly through a long-sought raw-log export ban. …Admit the current industry’s end is near. Instead, let’s finally explore making alternative, job-rich building materials in North Cowichan and elsewhere.
Wildfire investigators found a small cabin, a barbecue, a metal campfire ring and shooting targets near where one of the most destructive wildfires in the Okanagan originated. But while the McDougall Creek wildfire was determined to be human caused, the exact cause of the fire remains “undetermined.” The McDougall Creek was first reported to the BC Wildfire Service on Aug. 15, 2023, putting up a small puff of smoke in the hills above West Kelowna. Two days later, the fire had spread rapidly through a number of Central Okanagan neighbourhoods, destroying nearly 200 homes. This past December, the Ministry of Forests completed its Wildfire Origin and Cause Investigation Report… But despite more than two years of investigation by three wildfire investigators, the cause of the massive fire remains “undetermined.” This is largely due to the fire burning back over the area of origin, destroying any evidence of its ignition.
…I recently wrote about how the Trump administration’s efforts to reorganize the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service and shutter 57 of its 77 research and development (R&D) facilities isn’t really about efficiency—it’s about hollowing out another science agency whose mission is to protect people, places, and livelihoods. The Forest Service has since updated its website to qualify that these R&D closures are “possible” but not a foregone conclusion. Yet, as details emerge, one thing is painfully clear: this plan would dismantle the world’s premier—and largest—wildfire research agency when wildfire risk, climate impacts, and economic losses are accelerating. Given increasing severity of wildfires, losing this research would diminish our understanding of managing forests under climate change. Trump’s plans to end climate studies, allowing forest fuel loads to build and diseases to spread, leaves our hands tied as we try to prevent wildfires without the benefit of evidence-based science.
A new effort to force states to affirm the Trump administration’s views on DEI, transgender athletes and immigration when signing contracts with the U.S. Forest Service is threatening millions of dollars in wildfire grant funding and fire reduction projects on federal lands. Some liberal states can’t sign the documents because the policies clash with state law, forestry experts say. Already, at least one state is reporting that the new rules have stalled work to reduce wildfire risk and assist with projects on national forest lands. Other states say the requirements are so vague that they don’t know how to follow them. And some timber industry leaders believe the standoff could cut into their revenues. …The update to the requirements governing federal partnerships comes even as many Western states brace for a brutal wildfire season, following a winter that brought record high temperatures and a paltry snowpack.
LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – An annual aerial survey that monitors forest health was significantly reduced in 2025 due to a lack of funding, resulting in many portions of California forests, including the Tahoe area, not being included. Since 2006, the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region’s Aerial Survey Program has flown over California forests every year to observe and document tree mortality, defoliation, and other damage. These annual estimates capture tree mortality patterns and trends, which researchers and foresters use to monitor ecosystem disturbances often caused by insects and disease. The information is also important for fire behavior forecasting. Typically covering large swaths of California landscape and a majority of national forests in California, including the Tahoe National Forest and the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, 2025’s survey was limited to Southern California forests and the far southern Sierra Nevada. The report states surveys were conducted in areas where 2025 drought conditions were most severe.
SALEM, Ore. — 
PORTLAND, Ore. — 
Colorado wildfire leaders are bracing for what could be an especially busy and dangerous summer for wildfires across the West. The Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control presented its wildfire preparedness plan to Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday, April 30, during a news conference where state and federal partners affirmed their readiness to respond and called on the public to prepare. “We are facing a very challenging fire year, where our resources will be tested across not only Colorado, but across the West,” said Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control Michael Morgan during the briefing at the division’s hangar in Broomfield. Colorado — and most of the West — is heading into summer after some of the worst winter snowpack conditions on record and persisting widespread drought. The latest U.S. Drought Monitor Report shows that 100% of Colorado and roughly 70% of the West are facing some level of drought.
Russian timber and cellulose exports have collapsed by 50% between 2021 and 2025, the steepest fall of any sector tracked by NATO-frontline intelligence across four years of Western sanctions, with the same Latvian assessment revealing that sanctions have cost Moscow more than US$130 billion as it scrambled to source banned goods between 2022 and 2025. That is according to a new analysis published in April by the Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB), one of Latvia’s three security intelligence services, drawing on internal Russian institutional forecasts obtained through intelligence collection alongside SAB’s own assessment. Russia was the world’s largest softwood lumber exporter in 2021, ahead of its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. …According to the analysis, Russia paid an additional US$32.5 billion each year to acquire sanctioned Western goods through intermediaries at inflated prices, excluding cases where no substitute was available. 
Commission attempts to retrospectively curb “rampant bureaucracy” in the EUDR are “inadequate”, according to the German Sawmill and Timber Industry Association (DeSH). DeSH says the new simplification package for the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) falls far short of the goal of genuine simplification and continues to create uncertainty rather than clarity in practice. Instead of solving structural problems, DeSH says the Commission is attempting to retrospectively curb the rampant bureaucracy with ever-new guidelines, FAQs, and exemptions. …Ms Möbus says the goal of the EUDR – to combat global deforestation – is correct and important. “However, the EU has taken a wrong turn on the way there. The regulation has developed into a bureaucratic behemoth that poses enormous challenges for the companies affected.” …“The association call for a significant reduction in bureaucratic requirements, practical solutions for implementation in the supply chain, and genuine risk-based approaches that adequately consider regions without deforestation risk.”