OTTAWA — The Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs says it’s time for Ottawa to stop studying the idea of a national forest fire co-ordination agency and take action. The organization’s president wants the federal government to take inspiration from the U.S. Fire Administration to establish a similar office in Canada. The U.S. office is part of Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, but Ken McMullen says a Canadian version could be simpler and less costly. He said the proposed fire administration office, which could be staffed by one or two people, would ensure that personnel and equipment are appropriately dispersed across the country in the event of wildfires. It would also allow security and fire services to have a seat at the table when relevant policies are being discussed. …”We just have to get moving and make decisions,” said McMullen, who is also fire chief in Red Deer, Alta.
TORONTO — Canada’s 2025 wildfire season is now the second-worst on record. The latest figures posted by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre suggest the fires have torn through 72,000 square kilometres, an area roughly the size of New Brunswick.That surpasses the next worst season in 1989 and is about half the area burned during the record-setting 2023 season, according to a federal database of wildfire seasons dating back to 1972. Climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, has made Canada’s fire season longer and more intense, scientists say. The last three fire seasons are all in the 10 worst on record. “We really need to do a lot more to manage our forest, to reduce the impact of climate change and better prepare the communities that are at risk,” said Anabela Bonada, managing director of climate science at the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo.
With wildfires forcing evacuations from Vancouver Island on the Pacific Coast to Newfoundland in the North Atlantic, Canadian officials were mustering additional resources on Thursday to help provinces cope with the blazes and the disruption. Eleanor Olszewski, Canada’s emergency management minister, announced on social media Thursday morning that the armed forces and the Coast Guard would assist the island province of Newfoundland in fighting blazes. Three out-of-control fires forced the evacuation of 900 people in the province on Thursday. Some provinces have moved this week to limit activities like hiking that could spark additional blazes, with forecasts indicating it is unlikely that sufficient rain would fall in regions plagued by out-of-control fires. Canada’s national fire threat level has been at 5, the highest danger rating, since late May. About 7.1 million hectares, or 27,000 square miles, of forest have burned so far this season in the country. [to access the full story a NY Times subscription is required]
Growing up in the Greater Toronto Area, smog days were par for the course. …We’ve traded our smog days for smoke days. …Improving wildfire response should be an imperative of Prime Minister Mark Carney and his newly formed government. …Wildfires will burn no matter how many waterbombers Canada has, but there is no question there would be fewer homes destroyed, less First Nations forced to evacuate and fewer air quality alerts issued if Saskatchewan had 600 aircraft in action right now, rather than six. …Let’s turn this whole country into a waterbomber assembly line. The demand isn’t going anywhere — domestically or internationally. …In the meantime, the federal government needs to ramp up funding transfers to the provinces for wildfire fighter and pilot training programs and equipment purchases. …Getting forest fires under control is also an act of sovereignty. 
The Forest Stewardship Council Canada announces the launch of a public consultation on draft indicators related to Intact Forest Landscapes (IFLs). These indicators form part of our ongoing work to strengthen forest stewardship and protect ecologically and culturally significant forest areas across Canada. IFLs are large, unfragmented areas of natural forest that are free from significant human activity and are critical for biodiversity, carbon storage, and Indigenous cultural values. FSC Canada is committed to ensuring that management activities in IFLs are carefully assessed and responsibly planned. These indicators will guide how FSC-certified forest operations manage intact forest areas… Indigenous Cultural Landscapes (ICLs) are areas that hold significant cultural, ecological, and spiritual value to Indigenous Peoples, reflecting their deep relationships with the land. Due to the need for more in-depth consultation with Indigenous Peoples on the Draft Indicators and Guidance for ICLs, an additional consultation period will be launched shortly. 
Canada has trees… But …Ottawa is at odds with a slew of environmental groups over what that means. [They] issued a 
Canada is home to nearly 347 million hectares of forest, which account for about 9% of the world’s forests. As I travel this week across the northern boreal to visit mill and woodlands employees and local community leaders, I’m reminded of the vastness of our forests, the 200,000 direct jobs and families that rely upon them, and how the resilience of those workers is part of both an ever-evolving story and my sense of self as a Canadian. Our connection to our forests has also informed our role in the world beyond commerce, and beyond symbols. …As we endure another devastating wildfire season across Canada, there is more discussion at the community level about turning to more active forest management as a solution. …In a world in which Canada’s exportable natural assets are being besieged by avoidable uncertainty, Canada’s forests are our most sustainable, renewable resource. …To me, being Canadian means having a privileged relationship with nature, especially with our trees and forests. 
Castlegar sawmill and mass timber producer Kalesnikoff Lumber received a mention from Prime Minister Mark Carney on Aug. 5 during a visit to Kelowna. Carney was talking about his government’s Build Canada Homes initiative when he brought up Kalesnikoff’s innovations. The Build Canada Homes program prioritizes domestic materials in construction and requires companies contracting with the federal government to source Canadian lumber. It also calls for the use of Canadian technologies and resources in off-site construction of prefabricated and modular homes. “One example of the possibilities, just a few hours drive from here in Castlegar, Kalesnikoff Mass Timber recently opened its 100,000-square-foot mass timber prefabrication and modular facility – the first of its kind in North America,” said Carney. “They’re adding new products and services, including prefabricated wall panels, mass timber modules, and trusses designed and manufactured for construction efficiency.”
One of Revelstoke’s most popular mountains for Nordic skiing and cycling has reappeared on the map for B.C.’s lumber licensee, raising questions of how recreationists’ favourite routes could be impacted. Within the last year, BC Timber Sales (BCTS) issued a Forestry Operations Map outlining plans for Mount MacPherson, home to the Revelstoke Nordic Ski Club (RNSC) and various Revelstoke Cycling Association trails. Currently, several dozen hectares in the Wetask-Mt. MacPherson area are licensed for cut blocks, while several hectares more are mapped for retention areas and roads. …Operations are indicated to run until 2027, and all six cut block licenses have a planned development date of last Jan. 15. In a statement the Ministry of Forests said one of its recent licences was auctioned last spring and will be harvested this fall or winter. Another licence currently sits in the development stage, slated for auction next summer.
Above average spending on Yukon wildfires is in the forecast due to rising costs of fuel, aircraft, vehicles, food and fire retardant, Yukon wildfire officials told reporters during a July 30 briefing. Officials indicated more spending doesn’t necessarily mean more fires; it relates to higher costs in general. “The cost of fuel is going up. The cost of aircrafts are going up. The cost of vehicles is going up. Fire retardant, which we used over a million litres of, has almost doubled in price in the past several years. Food for catering, for feeding all these crews. Obviously, the cost of food has gone up,” director of Yukon Wildland Fire Management Devin Bailey said at the mid-season briefing. “As everything gets more expensive, we’re going to see more expensive responses during fire season.”
Gibsons council is renewing its push for stronger watershed protections and clearer oversight of forestry operations, following a staff report on 
…The pressure to balance local benefits and profitability is something community forests must continuously navigate. A 
Years of drought combined with persistent wildfire, some of it burning underground over winter, are causing forests in B.C.’s north east to fall down. Having had the roots and organic soils that had held them up burned away these often green trees now form a dense ground fuel load for future fires. The fallen trees also form a jack-straw of branches and boles that will act as an abatis in the face of fire crews. This has fire specialists and ecologists in the Fort Nelson Fire Zone worried. “With this fuel type, another concern is the multi-year impacts of having this much fuel on the ground,” says Eric Kopetski BCWS Fire Behaviour Analyst. The Fort Nelson Fire Zone has been dealing with drought and fire for years with the Fort Nelson Complex now covering 4 million hectares including 25 fires and 350,000 hectares burned this year. Distance, terrain and fire tenacity already pose challenges to fire crews. 
A recent report out of British Columbia suggests using beneficial fires to build wildfire resilience. In the Yukon, that idea is not new — but finding a way to reap the benefits of fire while preventing devastation is a delicate balancing act. …the 
Worsening dry conditions across New Brunswick — which sparked a provincewide burn ban and led this week to an uncontrolled wildfire near Miramichi — have prompted the provincial government to impose restrictions on some industrial activities in forested areas. The Department of Natural Resources said in a news release Friday that some forestry operations would be banned for the next several days given the high risk of another wildfire. …From midnight on Aug. 8 to midnight on Aug. 12, harvesting, forwarding, skidding, scarification, chipping and all pre-commercial thinning and cleaning are all banned. That restriction applies to all forestry on both Crown and private lands. Trucking, road construction and maintenance, vegetation management and tree planting are allowed to continue. …Except for the possibility of a shower Saturday afternoon in northern New Brunswick, the province could see at least six more days of dry, hot weather, according to Environment Canada forecasts.
MIRAMICHI, New Brunswick — In response to the increased wildfire risk, some forestry operations in New Brunswick will be restricted over the next couple of days. A release from the province’s Department of Natural Resources says the move is to protect both the forests and people living in the province. On Friday, the natural resources minister said in the release the restrictions will be on both Crown and private lands. “These measures will help protect our forests, animals, natural habitats and our communities, as well as our wildland fire crews,” John Herron said. As of midnight Friday, harvesting, forwarding, skidding, scarification, chipping and all pre-commercial thinning and cleaning are restricted until Tuesday. However, trucking, road construction and maintenance, vegetation management and tree planting are still getting the green light. These restrictions apply to all forested lands in the province, both private and Crown.
Fostering inclusive economic development and ensuring that local communities, including Indigenous partners, benefit from these opportunities are key priorities for the Government of Canada. Today, Claude Guay, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, concluded a two-day tour of Northern Quebec, where he highlighted the importance of Quebec’s mining and forest sectors in building Canada’s supply chains and export opportunities, creating good jobs, and strengthening reconciliation… Parliamentary Secretary Guay concluded the trip with a visit to Les Chantiers Chibougamau’s Kraft Pulp Mill in Lebel-sur-Quevillon and their head manufacturing plant in Chibougamau. These sites are key examples of Quebec’s forest sector excellence and innovation in modernizing the industry, accelerating affordable housing and promoting green construction using value-added Canadian wood-based products.
Vic Fedeli, MPP for Nipissing, announced the Ontario government is investing $2,874,898 through the Skills Development Fund Training Stream to The Canadian Institute of Forestry to support 75 workers across Northern Ontario get the skills they need to land good-paying, in-demand jobs in forestry, logging, and agriculture-related services. …“As we navigate a shifting economic landscape, disrupted by U.S. tariffs, we remain laser-focused on protecting Ontario workers and job seekers,” said MPP Fedeli. “That’s why we’re investing over $2.8 million to support a project by the Canadian Institute of Forestry, in partnership with College Boréal, to train workers for in-demand roles in the forestry and resource sector, helping grow Northern Ontario’s economy.” …”These programs are equipping the next generation of forest professionals and ensuring the continued vitality of our forestry communities,” said Ken Farr, Interim Executive Director, Canadian Institute of Forestry.
The 9th American Forest Congress has 
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced the US Forest Service is investing $106 million to support state and landowner efforts to conserve private working forestlands across the country. Funded through the Forest Legacy Program, these projects will protect forests vital to the economic and social fabric of local communities – ensuring they remain productive, working forests for Americans and tourists to use and enjoy. …In total, the Forest Service will fund 10 projects across 177,000 acres of state- and privately owned forestlands in Arkansas, Hawaii, Iowa, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Oregon and South Carolina. The investments advance President Trump’s Executive Order on 
Cole Lindsay, the Oregon Department of Forestry aviation coordinator, said firefighters would typically have to hike into the dark canyon to check for new fires — a time-consuming and potentially dangerous task on a wildfire that had already roared to 23,890 acres in Wheeler County. But technology has advanced. Instead of sending people, Lindsay sent a drone equipped with an infrared camera to sweep across the canyon. “The cameras and sensors are so good that it would have seen something way before the human eye,” Lindsay said. …The Oregon Department of Forestry has 29 pilots. In 2024, ODF and its contractors flew 482 drone missions, 364 of which were for fire purposes. Out of 136 hours of flight time, 98.5 hours were on fire missions. So far in 2025, ODF, excluding its contractors, have flown 41 missions totaling 14 hours. Out of those 14 hours, 7.9 hours were for fire purposes. 
WASHINGTON STATE — Washington’s rural counties and school districts are preparing to start the school year without millions of dollars from a program meant to offset reduced revenue from logging on federal lands. The Secure Rural Schools program expired at the end of 2023 after Congress failed to renew it. Democratic and Republican lawmakers, along with local officials, are pushing US House leadership to bring a bill renewing the program to the floor. The lapsed program helps pay for roads and schools, providing $7 billion in payments to more than 700 counties and 4,400 school districts across 40 states since it was enacted in 2000. …Counties and schools have received logging revenue from the federal government for roads and schools since 1906. Federal law currently mandates that all counties annually receive 25% of the seven-year average of revenue generated by that county’s forests. 
In May, the White House Office of Budget and Management sent Congress President Trump’s proposed budget for discretionary spending for upcoming fiscal year 2026. Among the budget’s many cuts is a proposal to eliminate all funding for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program, designed to make timber projects run more smoothly. The Collaborative is a decades-long experiment to get conservationists, the timber industry and U.S. Forest Service back to the proverbial table after the timber wars of years past. Collaboratives have been widely credited with incorporating conservationist’s environmental concerns in the design of timber harvests and, consequently, reducing environmental litigation known to slow down harvests. The CFLRP has been lauded by some for helping implement forest thinning and restoration projects meant to both reduce wildfire risk and increase timber production and jobs in rural communities.
The Trump administration has announced plans to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule, changing the political and timber industry landscape in the Tongass National Forest for the third time in five years. The Roadless Rule prevents logging, road building and mining on national forest lands. It was last repealed in 2020 and restored in 2023, and has been subject to decades of debate. Timber operators say the rescission could help a dying industry – if it passes through Congress. The U.S. Forest Service owns approximately 78% of the land in Southeast Alaska, meaning timber operators are dependent on the federal agency for a majority of their supply. Kirk Dahlstrom, co-owner of Viking Lumber Co. in Klawock, said the agency is nine years behind on offering timber supply for the Southeast industry. He said his business will not survive if land management remains under Forest Service control. “We got starved to almost nothing.”
The Trump administration has proposed drastically limiting the public’s say in how federal lands are used at a time when the president is pushing to fast-track logging, mining and oil extraction. That’s raising concerns amongst conservationists and environmental advocates, who worry that the changes could have a profound impact on Oregonians’ relationship with the lands around them. More than half the land in Oregon is federally owned, as is about 29% of land in Washington. …Under President Donald Trump, 16 federal agencies are now considering rule changes that could curtail or drastically limit this public input, which is required under the National Environmental Policy Act, known as NEPA. Those proposed changes were announced in early July. The public has until Monday to provide input on the changes for the U.S Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. …Data shows that public comments can make a difference.
The Washington Forest Practices Board is proposing new legislation pushed by the Washington Department of Ecology that will affect all of us financially. The Washington Forest Practices Board (FPB) is supposedly an “independent” state agency responsible for establishing rules that govern forest practices in Washington state. It’s chaired by the Commissioner of Public Lands Dave Upthegrove. …The FPB is proposing streams that are perennial with no fish should have the existing no-harvest buffers changed from 50 feet each side of the stream to 75 feet (or more). The proposal affects not only the stream buffer width, but the length of stream buffer and volume of restricted trees. Why does it affect you? All timber harvests are taxed by the state of Washington — 4% of the net log value goes back to the county the trees were harvested in. …You are affected by this proposed change in law that does nothing for fish.
The Trump administration’s tumultuous relationship with China is proving to be a major issue for some companies in Alaska’s forest products industry. That includes in Haines, where a timber sale that was supposed to kick off this spring has stalled amid China’s ban on US log imports. China announced the ban in March, citing concerns over pests like bark and longhorn beetles in US shipments. The move came the same day that China imposed retaliatory tariffs on certain US agricultural products amid President Donald Trump’s global trade war. The decision has had sweeping effects on companies that harvest logs in Alaska and ship them overseas. …The trade disputes have also hit Canadian lumber company Transpac Group. The company in March largely shut down its site on Afognak Island, just north of Kodiak, citing the ban and failed efforts to divert its product to other markets.
MISSOULA — in the Blue Mountain area in Missoula, trees with a blue ring painted around them are slated for removal as part of a larger plan to restore the forest to its pre-colonial state — a state that was more fire-resistant. The plan involves several agencies collaborating to achieve this goal. …The Blue Mountain Area consists of land owned by the U.S. Forest Service, Missoula County, the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) and private land owners. They will implement forest treatments to change the forest, as the current state of it is extremely fire-prone. …The ultimate goal of all the agencies is to create open areas with ponderosa pine scattered about. To achieve this, agencies are looking at a combination of mechanized and non-mechanized vegetation management; clearing the forest floor, often through prescribed burning, and removing species like Douglas fir.
Throughout her two decades working on forestry issues, Jasmine Minbashian has often found herself at odds with the US Forest Service and the timber industry. Her environmental activism started during the second wave of Pacific Northwest “Timber Wars”. …She joined the North Central Washington Forest Health Collaborative in 2019. …The group is one of 19 forest collaboratives focused on public lands in Washington and Oregon that emerged in the wake of the “Timber Wars” in an attempt to find agreement around contentious forestry issues. …These forest collaboratives, touted as a model of consensus-driven conservation, have quietly become influential engines for federal forest management decisions across the West. But critics worry the groups are too aligned with timber interests that prioritize commercial logging, and that they helped pave the way for the Trump administration’s latest effort to expand logging on public lands throughout the country by skirting environmental protection laws.
There are obvious benefits to logging, grazing, prescribed burns, and mechanical thinning of California’s forests. When you suppress wildfires for what is now over a century, then overregulate and suppress any other means to thin the forest, you get overcrowded and unhealthy forests. California’s trees now have 5 to 10 times more than a historically normal density. They’re competing for an insufficient share of light, water and nutrients, leading to disease, infestations, dehydration and death. Up through the 1980s, California harvested 6 billion board feet per year of timber; the annual harvest is now 25% of that. We have turned our forests into tinderboxes. …For the sake of California’s water supply, its energy security, the safety of people living in the forests, and the health of our trees and wildlife, Californian needs to revive its logging industry. …It will also enable something counterintuitive: precious and endangered wildlife can thrive in a responsibly managed forest.
Wildfires are getting more catastrophic and expensive. For the last decade, Oregon policymakers haven’t been able to agree on how to pay for them. And while lawmakers emerged from this year’s legislative session with a plan to fund wildfire prevention, there’s still no dedicated funding to fight large fires like the Cram Fire, which has burned nearly 100,000 acres in Central Oregon. The total wildfire budget for the next two years is less than the state spent last year alone. And in some cases, costs that used to be borne by insurance plans and private landowners are now the responsibility of all Oregonians. A similar phrase cropped up during multiple interviews with policymakers: The consensus lawmakers reached this year is a good “first step.” What’s less clear is if it’s enough. ….“Oregonians writ large, are going to be the ones to pay for it,” said Casey Kulla, with Oregon Wild.
Thousands of lightning strikes have been recorded in California recently as portions of the state gear up for more storms, bringing with them potential wildfires. The state’s northern half saw 1,681 lightning strikes between Sunday, July 27, and Monday, July 28, Cal Fire reported, sparking 23 wildfires. Cal Fire units Lassen-Modoc, Shasta-Trinity, and Siskiyou responded to 14 new fires, none of which grew significantly, Cal Fire said as of July 28. Yet, this month, more lightning strikes in short periods have occurred in the state. The U.S. Forest Service Shasta-Trinity National Forest reported on July 26 that Northern California experienced 18,863 lightning strikes due to storms in the area the evening before. …The National Interagency Fire Center has tracked the number of fires in Northern California and Southern California caused by lightning in recent years, showing that thousands of fires in the state and nationwide are caused by nature.
The U.S. Forest Service will abandon its nine regional offices as its parent Department of Agriculture consolidates out of Washington, D.C., according to a memo released on Thursday by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. “President Trump was elected to make real change in Washington, and we are doing just that by moving our key services outside the beltway and into great American cities across the country,” Rollins said in a statement announcing the reorganization. “We will do so through a transparent and common-sense process that preserves USDA’s critical health and public safety services the American public relies on. We will do right by the great American people who we serve and with respect to the thousands of hardworking USDA employees who so nobly serve their country.” The reorganization plan left many Forest Service experts wondering what the benefit would be, including former Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, who served during the George W. Bush administration.
Since the mid-1990s, so-called blooms of bark beetles have affected nearly 80% of Colorado’s 4.2 million acres of pine forest, reducing decades-old trees into firewood. In the process, they’ve literally laid the groundwork for some of the state’s most devastating forest fires, from the 2016 Beaver Creek Fire in Walden to the 2020 East Troublesome Fire in Grand County. Despite rendering postcard views into wildfire fodder, West does not call these beetles a pest. Like fire, they’re just a part of nature here, filling a vital biological niche in their native habitat. In the long term, experts say they even make forests healthier. “Bark beetles serve as the ecological sanitizers of the forest,” said West, who helps manage Colorado’s 24 million acres of state forestland. One paper, 
If state funding for forest health and wildfire prevention isn’t ramped back up in the next legislative session, it could hinder efforts to prevent severe fires in the coming years, Washington’s top public lands official and others warned this week. The state Legislature approved House Bill 1168 in 2021, which committed $500 million over eight years to the state Department of Natural Resources for wildfire preparedness and response. State spending had largely kept up with that target until this year, with the department receiving $115 million in the last two-year budget and $130 million in the one before that. Then this year, as lawmakers confronted a budget shortfall, they slashed the wildfire preparedness funding to just $60 million for the next two years. The Department of Natural Resources says it’s prepared for this fire season and has money left over from past years. But the funding rollback has sparked concerns.
Near the bottom of a shady hillside in Jericho, a lone beech tree stretches high into the canopy, a relic of a bygone forest. Through luck or (hopefully) genetics, this mighty tree has avoided contracting beech bark disease—a fatal fungal pathogen that has proven deadly to mature beech trees. And it stands just outside a hotspot where a new pathogen called beech leaf disease (BLD) is spreading across Vermont forests. “Beech is here a lot as a sapling … but if you look out into the forest it’s not really common in the overstory,” said Jess Wikle Ph.D. ’24, lecturer in forestry and manager of the University of Vermont’s Research Forests. The beech trees that do succumb often send out a series of root sprouts before they die, turning a forest of big trees into a thicket of saplings. Beech leaf disease is different. It seems to be spreading faster and young beech trees tend to die first.
The Nature Conservancy announced it planted 2.5 million trees in northern Minnesota this year in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and three county land departments. This is a record number for the organization, and the second consecutive year the program has planted more than 2 million tree seedlings The tree seedlings were planted on public lands—across 5,810 acres of national forest, state forest, state park and county-managed forest lands—and covered six counties, including Cook, Lake, Saint Louis, Itasca, Cass and Carlton County. The planting areas included 1.8 miles along scenic Highway 61 and 41 miles of stream, river and lakeshore that connect to Lake Superior. It also included 1,740 acres of moose habitat enhancement, completed in partnership with the Ruffed Grouse Society and Minnesota Moose Habitat Collaborative—whose tribal representation is critical in maintaining habitat for this species of cultural importance to Indigenous communities.
For 11 straight years, the National Arbor Day Foundation has recognized UAB as a Tree Campus USA. The recognition is for UAB’s work to plant and care for the more than 4,400 healthy trees on campus, while engaging students and employees in learning about and preserving them. UAB has been honored for the past six years with the National Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree Campus Healthcare designation. The national recognition program celebrates health institutions that make a mission-aligned impact on community wellness through tree education, investment and community engagement. The university’s urban forest is managed by the UAB Facilities Division, which maintains data on its trees: An ongoing project includes collecting details on the more than 17 genus and 24 tree species currently across campus. Students played an important part in helping identify and maintain data on the trees.
The First Minister has today opened a new £26 million facility to help grow more trees for Scotland’s forests and woodlands. Newton Tree Nursery, near Elgin, will support Forestry and Land Scotland to almost treble their tree production – from seven million to nearly 20 million trees per year by 2029. It will help support the sustainable management of Scotland’s national forests and land and help tackle the climate emergency, while also supporting the rural economy. Seedling operations at the redeveloped tree nursery began in March 2025 and 12 million trees have already been established within the glasshouse. The new nursery is the UK’s largest and most advanced tree-growing glasshouse and sets a new standard for bio secure, sustainable, and high-volume forest nursery production. The facility ensures that an adequate supply of high-quality trees is available to supply the publicly managed forests of Scotland with those forests supporting rural economies, providing flood mitigation, improving biodiversity and sequestering carbon.
Recent research
In its report “
New research highlights concern from across Scotland about the role of industrial forestry corporations and asset management organisations who increasingly dominate the ownership and management of Scotland’s forests. The research concludes that more community ownership and management of woodlands, and more diverse ownership of forests across Scotland would increase community wealth and lead to greater environmental benefits, as well as producing more actively managed forests in Scotland. Three new discussion papers … analyse the effectiveness and impact of industrial forestry on local areas as well as for meeting national carbon and timber targets. Industrial forestry refers to predominantly single species, mostly unmanaged, Sitka Spruce forest, contrasting with more climatically resilient, sustainable, mixed species forestry. The papers recognise that, while mixed productive forestry has an important part to play in reaching Net Zero and delivering economic and social opportunities, basic assumptions about the benefits of industrial forestry can be questionable.
The forest products industry is an important part of the European economy and a crucial pillar for the transition to a low-carbon economy in the future. At the same time, this sector is not immune to trade uncertainty and geopolitical risks. As Europe looks to rely more on its own resources, there is an opportunity to better utilise the continent’s forests through investment and active management. …Although the EU has just 5% of the world’s forests, it produces approximately 20% of the world’s roundwood each year. Over the past decade, the EU has gone from being a net importer of roundwood and fuelwood to a net exporter – with the EU’s net trade surplus reaching 15.4m sqm in 2023. …Despite unpredictable trade flows… Research indicates that total demand for wood fibre in the EU will grow by 25% between now and 2050. 
Proposed changes to the EU deforestation law supported by a majority of member states will boost the potential for illegal trade of Russian and Belarusian timber, according to an NGO. In May 18 EU member states sent a letter to the European Commission proposing to simplify the EU Deforestation Regulation, the bloc’s legislation that aims to reduce the EU’s impact on global deforestation. …The European Commission decided to postpone its implementation to 30 December 2025. …The regulation boosts controls over illegal imports of timber by introducing more mandatory border checks and compulsory geolocation of timber. …“For so-called ‘no-risk’ countries, they would be exempt from geolocation requirements, and there would also be no obligation for authorities to carry out a minimum number of checks on those countries,” Ganesh said. …“NGOs have shown that wood, not just from Russia, but also from other high-risk tropical countries and deforestation hotspots, is regularly laundered through countries like China.