WASHINGTON, D.C. and OTTAWA, ON —The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) announced the launch of a new interactive online SFI Sustainability Framework Crosswalk tool to assess and interpret how the SFI Standards align with leading sustainability reporting frameworks, including the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and the European Union Taxonomy. While these frameworks have unique objectives and audiences, they are striving to provide climate, nature, and biodiversity assurances. The SFI Standards were designed to deliver exactly this- providing detailed, comprehensive and rigorous requirements that are data-driven and third-party audited. …“The Sustainability Crosswalk enables SFI-certified organizations to easily demonstrate how their SFI certification aligns with key sustainability reporting frameworks,” said Jason Metnick, President of SFI.
A national horticultural association is sounding the alarm after new data shows a “staggering gap” in Canada’s post-wildfire forest restoration efforts. The Canadian Tree Nursery Association (CTNA) says current programs are restoring only a small fraction of forests lost to recent wildfires and is calling for “immediate and substantive action” from provincial and federal governments to dramatically increase commitments to restoring wildfire-impacted forests. Speaking at the Western Forest Contractors Association Annual General Meeting and Conference in Victoria from Jan. 28-30, Rob Keen, RPF, Executive Director of the CTNA warned that more than 7.3 billion seedlings are required to restore just 15 per cent of the forests destroyed by wildfires between 2023 and 2025 – more than 10 times Canada’s current annual seedling production capacity. “The crisis is compounded by a troubling biological trend – the declining ability of forests to regenerate naturally after more frequent and higher-intensity wildfires,” said Keen.
Don’t miss the FSC Canada, February Update: Canada’s Taan Forest is now the first FSC Verified Impact Forest, recognizing protection of Indigenous cultural values and biodiversity. FSC Canada is inviting input via a social metrics survey open until March 16, 2026. The edition also highlights two new job opportunities, an updated trademark policy for certificate holders, newly welcomed Canadian promotional licence holders, a new guide on integrating FSC certification into impact investing, and details on where FSC will be present at events in 2026.
Surprised and devastated. That was West Kelowna Fire Chief Jason Brolund’s initial reaction to hearing about changes to the FireSmart program due to a lack of funding. The FireSmart Community Funding and Supports (FCFS) program closed its intake application on Jan. 30, according to the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM). “To hear that the funding is abruptly not being replenished is really concerning for us,” said Brolund. “We know our community is no stranger to wildfire. We know the devastating effects that it can have.” The FireSmart Program is a provincially-funded initiative to increase the awareness of community-based planning and acitivies to reduce the risk of wildfire. …In lieu of this, UBCM president Cori Ramsey is asking for B.C. Premier David Eby to make renewing the FireSmart funding a priority while encouraging local governments and First Nations to write about the benefits they’ve gained from the program.
BC NDP Forests Minister Ravi Parmar avoided the usual political pledges to accept recommendations from the latest in-depth analysis of the province’s troubled forest industry. The NDP government’s appointed experts, the Provincial Forest Advisory Committee, tabled their findings on February 2 after a six-month review of an industry that is moving from decline to collapse. …Parmar took the NDP’s familiar path, rather than address the sweeping recommendations to restructure the entire forest land base… he said the mill closures that are devastating communities across the province are mostly Donald Trump’s fault. …The 
Forest harvesting events will be analyzed at an upcoming event at Maple Ridge’s UBC Research Forest. The event titled “Not-So-Clear-Cut: Rethinking How We Harvest Forests” is coming up on Feb. 21, in two sessions from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Malcolm Knapp Research Forest. Participants are invited to join Dr. Suzanne Simard, a professor and the author of Finding the Mother Tree, and Hélène Marcoux, director and forester at the Malcolm Knapp Research Forest, for a two-hour guided walk along hiking trails through the forest. As part of ongoing research exploring alternatives to clear-cuts, attendees can discover how tree retention forestry supports soil carbon and ecosystem resilience – all while exploring the challenges and trade-offs of logging in a living ecosystem.
The Provincial Forest Advisory Committee’s (PFAC) 
…the IISAAK OLAM Foundation, which promotes the establishment of Indigenous protected conservation areas … hosted the Estuary to Old Growth Gathering in Parksville, bringing together representatives from Nuu-chah-nulth, Coast Salish, Kwakwaka’wakw and Haida nations. …Concurrently, the B.C. Natural Resources Forum launched its “Forestry is a Solution” campaign in Prince George on Jan. 20. This push seeks support for the logging and manufacturing sector, stressing the need to “speed up access to economic wood by expediting permits and approvals”. Many of the industry’s leading associations are backing this campaign. “The coalition is asking British Columbians to voice their support for the workers and families that depend on forestry,” stated the B.C. Council of Forest Industries. …Not surprisingly, a Feb. 2 report from the Provincial Forestry Advisory Council stated that the days of “abundant access to low-cost fibre” are over. The report was presented as “a call to fundamentally reimagine our relationship with the land.”
Several programs have been suspended at North Island College, but before the decision came down, students and alumni made their displeasure known outside Koumox Hall in two different rallies. …The Ministry of Post Secondary Education sent out a provincial mandate for schools to review all programs last June after federal policy changes regarding the reduction of international student visas issued. The ministry projected it could lead to a province-wide negative annual revenue impact of a $300 million deficit. 15 programs are being considered for suspension including Coastal Forestry Certificate, Coastal Forestry Diploma, and Furniture Design and Joinery Certificate.
Reducing wolves to protect endangered caribou doesn’t always deliver the expected results—and the shape of the land may be the deciding factor. That’s according to 
A forest advisory council has recommended shifting BC’s forest regime towards more local decision-making. The plan has received applause from forestry groups, the BC Greens and the head of the BC First Nations Forestry Council. But some experts warn the plan lacks teeth and risks putting fragile forest ecosystems at risk. …“I think of this like the cod fishery,” said Garry Merkel, a forester and co-chair of the advisory council, at the report’s launch event Monday. Merkel likened B.C.’s crisis to the fishery collapse on Canada’s East Coast. …BC First Nations Forestry Council’s Lennard Joe said he supports efforts to bring forest decision-making closer to people it affects. …But UBC forest management professor Peter Wood noted that the report made little mention of the province’s Old Growth Strategic Review. …Rachel Holt, a conservation ecologist worries that the council’s recommendations stop short of changes that are required to protect key ecosystems.
For the first time, researchers have been able to confirm that our planet’s boreal forests are on the move. Using nearly a quarter million Landsat satellite images spanning 36 years, scientists have confirmed for the first time that Earth’s boreal forest—the planet’s largest forested biome—is shifting northward, revealing unprecedented changes in this critical ecosystem that stores more than a third of the world’s forests and helps regulate our global climate. [5 min. video]
The Interior Department is blazing ahead with a reorganization plan that will bring all of its wildland firefighting operations into a single agency. Starting next week, all the department’s wildland fire employees and programs will be moved into a new Wildland Fire Service. Congress did not approve funds for this consolidation of federal firefighting programs into one agency. The Wildland Fire Service also stops short of merging wildland fire personnel or programs from the USDA’s Forest Service with those same resources at the Interior Department. An internal memo sent to staff on Monday states the Wildland Fire Service “will unify wildland fire management within DOI only.” According to the memo, obtained by Federal News Network, the Wildland Fire Service will “align operations” with USDA through shared procurement, predictive services, research, and policy reforms.
Lawmakers from both parties agreed at a congressional hearing Tuesday that the federal government must act to address the growing threat of catastrophic wildfires, but they were sharply divided over how, and whether pending legislation known as the Fix Our Forests Act offers the right path forward. The House of Representatives passed the FOFA legislation in January 2025, and its companion bill is pending in the Senate. …Republican supporters of the bill championed its focus on fast-tracking the thinning and clearing of forests on large tracks of land by making exceptions to requirements in bedrock environmental laws. They argue that those steps are a fix for intensifying fires. …Democrats on the House Committee sharply criticized parts of the wildfire bill, arguing that it unnecessarily erodes environmental safeguards and expands logging, despite limited evidence that either makes communities safer. …Outside of the hearing, scientists and environmental advocates also criticized parts of FOFA.
University of Oregon Assistant Research Professor James Johnston said he was taught that when a large fire burned a moist, Western Cascade forest to the ground, and the area didn’t burn for hundreds of years afterward, that’s what created a complex, old-growth landscape. Instead, his study found that ancient tree stumps in the Mount Hood and Willamette National Forests had burn scars from multiple fires over their long lives. It’s the first time tree-ring scars have been used to document fire records in the region. Johnston said forests are complex because of—not in spite of—lower-severity wildfires which don’t kill many of the trees. …Johnston said to figure out the best ways to foster healthy forests, relatively recent upheavals also need to be considered. Those include clearcuts, human infrastructure at the margins of forests, and hotter and drier weather patterns.
OLYMPIA, WA – Two Washington tribal leaders could soon sit on the state’s Board of Natural Resources, which guides logging sales and other management decisions on public land. Sen. Claudia Kauffman, a Democrat and first Native American woman to serve in the state Senate, proposed Senate Bill 5838. On Monday, it was voted out of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources. The bill originally called for only one tribal representative, but it was changed to two members as it moved through the committee process. The proposal is backed by Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove, who chairs the board and leads the Department of Natural Resources. The department requested the legislation. If enacted, the governor would appoint a tribal representative from each side of the Cascades… Eligible tribal members must hold an elected position in a federally recognized tribe whose reservation or treaty-ceded lands are in Washington.
Anytime someone talks about shifting management of federal lands to Idaho, know that they have a bigger goal in mind. In a recent interview on The Ranch Podcast, Rep. Jordan Redman, R-Coeur d’Alene, was frank about his goals for public lands in Idaho. He said his father, former Rep. Eric Redman, dreamed of Idaho taking ownership of federal lands, and his goal is the same. The first step is for Idaho to manage public lands for a bit, then the state takes ownership of them. “How do we get that federal land back in ownership for the state?” Rep. Jordan Redman said. Back? It should be said that Idaho has never owned federal land. Redman should try reading the Constitution he swore to uphold: “… the people of the state of Idaho do agree and declare that we forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries thereof … .” You can’t get back what you never owned; you can only take it. In service of the goal of taking federal land, Redman made a familiar argument.
Baker City, Oregon — Baker County Commissioner Christina Witham lauded the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest for cutting and piling trees southwest of Baker City, the start of a project that will continue for several years with a goal of reducing the risk of a wildfire in the city’s watershed. “It’s looking really nice,” Witham said during commissioners’ meeting Wednesday morning, Feb. 4. Witham, whose focus areas as a commissioner include natural resources, said she recently toured some of the work areas with Forest Service officials. …According to the Wallowa-Whitman, the project, which totals about 23,000 acres, is designed not only to reduce the fire risk within the watershed, but also to curb the threat of a fire spreading into the watershed, particularly from the south, a path that summer lightning storms often follow.
STARKVILLE, Miss. — Carbon dioxide is the most commonly produced greenhouse gas, the substances that trap heat in the atmosphere keeping the planet warm enough for life. Carbon is stored in high amounts in timber, of which Mississippi has an abundance. The state ranks in the top 10 nationally in timber production, with close to 20 million acres of timberland. The U.S. Geological Survey says that carbon sequestration is the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere reduces the potential for global climate change. Since timber stores carbon efficiently, a tremendous amount of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is stored in Mississippi’s forests. This makes timber a valuable resource in efforts to limit the amount of carbon available as a greenhouse gas. Carbon credits and the carbon offset market have made an impact on Mississippi’s economy to a degree for about 20 years.
Environmental activists have forced the shutdown of a timber mill in north-west Tasmania. Two women were arrested on trespass charges at the Ta Ann veneer mill in Smithton on Tuesday, as a week-long campaign against native forest logging escalates. …The Bob Brown Foundation said 20 “forest defenders” had occupied the site, with at least one person locking themselves to infrastructure. …The foundation said the protest marked day two of a planned week of action, with participants travelling from across Australia to take part. …In response, Ta Ann Tasmania’s General Manager Robert Yong described the actions as a disruption to a “fully complying lawful business that adds value to sustainable supplies of hardwood logs”. “Their attack on Ta Ann puts the employment and health and safety of employees going about their business at risk,” Yong said.
Forests around the world are quietly transforming, and not for the better. A massive global analysis of more than 31,000 tree species reveals that forests are becoming more uniform, increasingly dominated by fast-growing “sprinter” trees, while slow-growing, long-lived species are disappearing. These slower species act as the backbone of forest ecosystems, storing carbon, stabilizing environments, and supporting rich webs of life—especially in tropical regions where biodiversity is highest. …The research also highlights the growing role of naturalized tree species, meaning trees that originated elsewhere but now grow wild in new regions. Nearly 41 percent of these species share traits like rapid growth and small leaves, which help them survive in disturbed environments. …The study shows that tropical and subtropical regions are likely to experience the most severe impacts from forest homogenization. …According to the researchers, human actions are the main force behind these changes in forest composition. …This makes protecting slow-growing tree species increasingly urgent.
In a controversial study published in April last year, researchers described an astonishing phenomenon: a forest of Norway spruce trees (Picea abies) appeared to ‘sync’ their electrical signaling ahead of a partial solar eclipse. Now there’s a new theory about what was actually going on. Having examined the data, ecologists Ariel Novoplansky and Hezi Yizhaq from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel propose an explanation that’s not quite as sensational. Novoplansky and Yizhaq suggest that the electrical activity seen in the trees was caused by a temperature drop, a passing thunderstorm, and several local lightning strikes; factors that previous research has shown can trigger similar signaling responses in plants.