2025 was a landmark year for FSC Canada, one defined by transition, renewed clarity, and a deepening of the values that anchor our mission. I am proud to reflect on a year in which FSC Canada strengthened its role as a trusted leader in responsible forest stewardship. This year marked an important moment in our organization’s history with the retirement of François Dufresne, who served as President and CEO for more than a decade. François guided FSC Canada through periods of significant change in the forest sector, always with integrity, steadiness, and a commitment to collaboration. …We also welcomed Monika Patel as FSC Canada’s new President and CEO. Monika brings a clear strategic vision, a deep understanding of the FSC system, and a values driven approach that aligns strongly with our mission. Her leadership has already brought renewed focus to our priorities and strengthened our engagement with partners across the country.
Canada’s forest disturbance costs have been rising quickly. We propose that silviculture must be reframed as a risk mitigation tool under an ‘avoided costs’ framework as proactive investments become essential to prevent far greater damage to society and ecosystems. Increasing forest disturbances…are profoundly disrupting forest ecosystems and the viability of the forest sector across the globe. Unprecedented disturbance levels in the past decades have caused immense losses … causing a surge in economic costs for disturbance control and significant infrastructure damage. Critically, some disturbances like wildfires incur devastating, irreparable consequences, from irreversible biodiversity loss to severe impacts on human health and life. …We argue that existing adaptive silviculture knowledge and technologies can stabilize forest resources and reduce the risk of catastrophic losses. Leveraging Canadian silvicultural investment data, we illustrate the need to move beyond the traditional cost-benefit paradigm—generally analyzed from the perspective of the forest products industry—to one that explicitly incorporates avoided costs for society.
The first eight wolves arrived through the Roosevelt Arch on the morning of 12 January 1995, in a horse trailer escorted by two park service patrol cars. The wolves had been live-trapped in three different packs in Jasper National Park and the surrounding wilderness of Alberta, Canada, weighed, fitted with radio collars, and flown south. Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation lawyers had obtained a stay from a federal appeals court before the plane landed, and the wolves spent the next several hours confined in their transport crates while the legal status of the project was resolved. The stay was lifted just after midnight. …What happened in the thirty years after 1995 has become one of the most-cited and most-contested case studies in contemporary ecology.
People and communities in B.C. will be safer and better informed about flood hazards as the first phase of new floodplain maps is completed. The Province, in partnership with Natural Resources Canada and the Fraser Basin Council, has released new floodplain maps, covering five waterways and 58 communities, under the Government of Canada’s Flood Hazard Identification Mapping Program. …“Floodplain maps do more than chart where water may go, they reveal where risk lives, reflect how our world is changing and shape how we prepare for the future,” said Randene Neill, B.C.’s Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship. “Updating these maps through the mapping program is one more step in implementing the B.C. Flood Strategy. They help turn insight into action and can go a long way in helping communities make informed choices, plan ahead and act quickly if the time comes.”
Kim Haakstad is stepping into a familiar debate with renewed urgency. As president and CEO of the Council of Forest Industries (COFI), she is helping lead a province-wide campaign to rebuild public support for forestry. COFI represents British Columbia’s forest industry, advocating for policy, sustainability and economic growth across the sector. Haakstad says their new campaign is about reframing forestry’s role in a changing province. “
The Government of Saskatchewan announced immediate actions to strengthen the province’s wildfire strategy in response to MNP’s independent review of the 2025 wildfire season. In October 2025, the Government of Saskatchewan commissioned MNP to conduct an independent review of the 2025 wildfire season. MNP was responsible for evaluating the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency’s (SPSA) wildfire and emergency prevention, preparedness, response, evacuation, and recovery strategy. Participants in the review included members of affected communities, emergency responders, Indigenous organizations, representatives from the SPSA, provincial ministries, municipal and regional partners. …The Government of Saskatchewan’s response to the recommendations includes 11 actions the SPSA has been directed to implement immediately. The Future Preparedness and Implementation Unit has been established within the SPSA to advance and monitor the implementation of the 11 actions directed by the Government of Saskatchewan.
LAKE COWICHAN, BC — Pumps will likely be required to sustain the river if dry conditions continue through the summer, according to Brian Houle, environment manager for Domtar Crofton Mill. Though the mill has shut down, Domtar remains the licenced operator. As of a June 4 report issued by Houle, Cowichan Lake has dropped to 80% capacity and the below-average snowpack has already fully melted. Updated modelling for the remainder of the year was analysed at a meeting of regulators and Cowichan Tribes on June 3. Domtar was guided to begin to reduce the flow to below 7.08 cubic meters per second (cms). …With no relief in sight, there’s been a push for a larger replacement weir to store more water in the lake to reduce the need for emergency pumping. …Domtar has been authorized to have qualified professional biologists monitor the river conditions. 
Through the Forest Enhancement Society of BC, the Province is committing $20 million per year over three years. …This investment funds projects that reduce wildfire risk, restore forest ecosystems and improve the long-term health and resilience of B.C.’s forests. “The best wildfire is the one that never starts. The best way to protect communities is to work together to prevent them,” said Ravi Parmar, Minister of Forests. …This year, 60 forest enhancement projects are receiving funding. These projects not only reduce wildfire risk, they also support forest-sector jobs in rural and remote communities. The projects include creating landscape-level fuel breaks, removing residual fuels, carrying out prescribed burns, and making improvements to egress routes that are important in the event of an emergency or evacuation. …“These projects reflect the innovation and commitment we continue to see from proponents throughout BC,” said Jason Fisher, executive director, FESBC.
A forestry group that was granted an interlocutory injunction halting a blockade by a family from Matachewan First Nation (MFN) so it could complete tree-harvesting work in northern Ontario will sit down in a listening circle with them later this month in a case that may see further court action. The Timiskaming Forest Alliance Inc. (TFAI) is a consortium of forestry companies and First Nations, including MFN. It has a licence from Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) to harvest 101 hectares, referred to as Cairo 173… The family involved includes Dorothy Larkman, who said she decided to take action after seeing machines tearing out blueberry bushes on Cairo 173, which is about 60 kilometres west of Kirkland Lake and south of the Ojibway First Nation. …Listening circles are rooted in Indigenous traditions. …Michael Swinwood, Larkman’s lawyer, said the MNR will also have representation at the listening circle. 
Way back in 1995 Bob Brown, the Republican president of the Montana Senate, called me into his office. He had co-sponsored a bill with a pro-logging Missoula Democrat to establish a “sustained yield” level of logging on Montana’s state trust lands – and he was worried it wasn’t working out the way he hoped. Bob was right to be worried then and Montanans are right to be worried now because Trump’s Forest Service Chief and former timber industry lobbyist Tom Schultz, has just unleashed the “sustained yield” scam on Montana’s National Forests. …My advice to Bob was to let the bill die because he didn’t have the votes to remove the amendments the timber industry lobbyists stuck on the bill. But he didn’t take that advice. …Two years later, Tom Schultz went to work for Montana’s Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, earning the sobriquet “Chainsaw Tom” for his pro-logging zeal.
More than 4.2 million miles of public roads crisscross the lower 48 states… This vast network of roads leaves only about 5% as an inventoried roadless area or wilderness. Now, some of those last remaining lands free of roads are under threat from the Trump administration’s proposed rollback of the 2001 Roadless Rule. That includes southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, where eagles, bears, salmon and many other species thrive in old-growth coastal forest along the Inside Passage. …The Trump administration’s proposed rollback, expected to be formalized in 2026, would open these last wild places to development, fragmenting habitats that can never be restored. …The American public spoke loudly in 2001 when they supported the Roadless Rule. Two decades later, the public comments submitted on the recission notice overwhelming opposed rolling back the rules, a Center for Western Priorities review found, reaffirming that U.S. roadless forests remain as vital and valued as ever.
A photosynthesizing tree is not necessarily growing — a new study of oak trees, published in the journal 
The Agriculture Department is making an ultimatum to thousands of its employees as part of its sweeping relocation plans — move to keep their jobs or quit. USDA is embarking on a multi-part reorganization plan that involves relocating more than half of its D.C.-area workforce to hubs across the country by the end of this summer. Employees impacted by these relocation plans work at the Food Safety and Inspection Service, Forest Service, Economic Research Service, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and Food and Nutrition Service. …The memo also states that NASS and all components under USDA’s research, education and economic mission area will offer buyouts and early retirement to employees who received relocation notices. The Forest Service told employees earlier this month that it will offer Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments (VSIP) to staff impacted by its relocation plans.
SEATTLE — Few public universities get more federal research funding than the University of Washington. So as President Trump has already cancelled or suspended about a quarter of all funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes for Health, the atmosphere on this leafy Seattle campus is tense. The anxiety is even trickling down to lower profile places once considered safe from White House politics, like UW’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. Here, newly proposed U.S. Forest Service funding cuts and a larger reorganization of the agency would have immediate consequences as the West looks poised for an epic summer of wildfires and smoke. “We have a wildfire crisis in the West [and] in the United States,” says Ernesto Alvarado, a fire ecologist and associate professor at the school. …But the Seattle smoke lab is now on a list of 56 out of 90 research stations identified for closure.
The U.S. Forest Service has faced budget and staffing cuts under the Trump administration, and a new analysis shows those cuts are impacting how much land the agency is able to treat to prevent wildfires. The Forest Service treated 35 percent fewer acres for wildfire mitigation in 2025, compared with the previous year. Mitigation efforts include tree thinning, brush clearing, and prescribed burning. That’s according to Forest Service data assessed by the public lands advocacy group, Center for Western Priorities. That means nearly one and a half million fewer acres were treated overall. These treatments lower wildfire risks, and make fires easier to fight, which better protects communities and keeps firefighters safe. In a state-by-state breakdown, the Center’s analysis found 63% less acres of Forest Service land in Montana were treated for wildfire risk. The Trump administration has proposed further cuts to the U.S. Forest Service’s budget, staff, and local support – including closing regional offices nationwide.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee and fellow Republicans added a repeal of the controversial roadless rule to a previously bipartisan wildfire bill on Wednesday. The amended Wildfire Prevention Act passed out of the US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on an 11-9 vote split along party lines and now heads to the full Senate. The act would nullify the 2001 roadless rule. …This move comes nearly a year after the USDA began an effort to rescind the roadless rule through an administrative process. The environmental review is currently underway and a decision is expected later this year. …Democratic senators introduced a second amendment early in the meeting on Wednesday in an attempt to strike the repeal of the roadless rule from the bill. …Senators in both parties initially supported the Wildfire Prevention Act, which instructs federal land agencies to set targets and report on prescribed fire and forest thinning to reduce wildfire risk.
Extreme drought and rising temperatures in the US are poised to overwhelm the Trump administration’s plans to control wildfire by logging federal forests, scientists say. …The drought is expected to lead to catastrophic wildfires that stand to become the new normal amid climate change, the researchers say. “The type of drought we’re seeing this year across the West is a glimpse into the future,” said Erica Fleishman, at Oregon State University. …The US is on track in 2026 for more wildfires than 2025, a much wetter year. More than 5 million acres burned last year. As of April, 1.8 million acres had burned so far across the US—double the acres burned in the same period last year. Trump administration officials say wildfire risk makes it imperative to log forests and help the timber industry. The administration is taking an aggressive approach to quickly suppress wildfires as it increases logging by 25% this year.
RONALD, Wash. — The sound of wildfire prevention isn’t a fire engine siren. It’s chainsaws, wood chippers and heavy machinery chewing through brush. Across Kittitas County, crews are removing smaller trees, trimming limbs and clearing brush in an effort to reshape forests before the next wildfire season arrives. But the work underway here is also challenging one of the most deeply held ideas many people have about forests: That more trees always means a healthier forest. “Green is good,” said Katie Zander, the North Service Forestry coordinator for the Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Southeast Region. “But out here historically we did not have this dense of forest stands.” According to Zander, eastern Washington forests evolved with regular low-intensity fires that naturally cleared out brush and smaller trees. But decades of aggressive wildfire suppression changed that pattern.
The Trump administration is about to propose an overhaul of how it manages nearly 5 million acres in northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington. Logging could triple in the Umatilla, Malheur and Wallowa-Whitman national forests, which comprise the U.S. Forest Service’s Blue Mountains region. The agency’s proposal would eliminate regulations that protect large trees and sensitive habitats. It would also boost timber sale goals from 106 million board feet to 364 million over a decade. That’s raising hopes in a region where timber jobs have declined and lumber mills have closed. But others doubt the timber goals. And environmental groups have called the plan a raid on one of the wildest places in the United States. …Mark Webb, executive director of Blue Mountains Forest Partners — which coordinates between environmental and timber interests to find common ground — doubts whether the forest service can reach the ambitious logging goals it sets forth in its draft proposal.
Fire season has begun in Oregon. Hot and dry conditions have forest managers across the state on edge as the season officially started June 15, bringing with it restrictions meant to prevent wildfires. The main restriction is a prohibition on debris and backyard burning on state, county and private lands, although official rules are set by local fire districts. Debris burning is the most frequent human cause of wildfires that spread in populated areas. “With it being this hot and dry, one little bit of wind could spread an ember and start a fire. It’s the perfect time to cover your pile and wait until fall,” Oregon Department of Forestry spokeswoman Jessica Neujahr said.
…After decades of biologists going out into the woods and physically counting animals, the agency is now turning to sound recorders and AI because they’re cheaper and can gather a lot more information. “Autonomous recording units with rechargeable batteries, memory cards, and the software costs are coming in the $600-$700 range per device,” said Oregon Department of Forestry biologist Corey Grinnell. The agency is currently spending millions to send biologists into the forests to conduct callback surveys, where they mimic a bird call and count responses. …The agency now has 23 devices and plans to deploy more as it moves away from callback surveys. …There is some concern that using recorders might put biologists out of work. But lead ODF biologist Vanessa Petro isn’t so sure. She said that once the AI counts birds in a recording, the tally will need to be checked by an actual biologist.
…Decades of fire suppression have left many dry pine forests overcrowded with small trees and dense brush. …Foresters largely agree on the solution: restore forests through thinning and prescribed fire. The problem is that restoration work is expensive, especially when it involves removing small-diameter trees that have little commercial value. …Taxpayers shoulder most of the burden while hazardous fuels continue accumulating across millions of acres. …Oregon is well positioned to tackle this problem. New wood products such as mass timber can create markets for the very material that restoration projects remove. Instead of treating small trees as waste, we can turn them into building materials… The goal is to keep large fire-resistant trees while removing smaller fuels that make forests more vulnerable to extreme fires. …Oregon already has the tools and workforce to address this problem. The question is whether we are willing to act before the next historic fire season arrives.
Deming, Washington — Leroy Sande was pioneering a road with his excavator in Southeast Alaska when stumps, rocks, everything else — including his rig — started to pitch down the hillside. As if reaching out with his own arm, the logger instinctively grabbed at the slick sandstone beneath 10 feet of soil with the excavator’s bucket. “Well, you ain’t grabbing sandstone,” Sande, now 83, recalled. “…There was nothing to grab onto that wasn’t going down the hill.” About 400 yards down slope, the excavator tipped over and came to a stop. It was the only time in his 50-plus-year career in the woods that Sande put an excavator on its side, and even then, he emerged from the machine unscathed. Logging is the most deadly occupation in the nation… Injuries that aren’t fatal can put someone out of work for weeks, months, years or the rest of their life. The annual 
Wildfires are reversing decades of air quality improvements across much of the US. Expanded use of prescribed fire is a primary proposed solution, but air quality trade-offs—more initial smoke for less smoke later—remain poorly quantified. Using two decades of satellite-derived measurements of fire severity and smoke particulate matter across California, we assessed the causal effect of low-severity wildfire, a proxy for prescribed burning, on subsequent wildfire activity and air quality. We found that low-severity fire reduced the probability of very-high-severity wildfire by 92%, with reductions lasting a decade and extending 5 kilometers from treated locations. Reduced future smoke far outweighed the smoke produced during treatment, with benefit-cost ratios exceeding five after a decade. Sustained treatment of 500,000 acres annually would reduce cumulative smoke fine particulate matter (PM2.5) by about 10% after a decade.
OREGON — A proposed new management strategy for the three national forests in Northeastern Oregon could more than triple the amount of commercial logging over the next two decades. The Forest Service hasn’t officially released a draft environmental impact statement for the revised management plans for the Wallowa-Whitman, Umatilla and Malheur national forests, which will start a 90-day public comment period. …Shaun McKinney, Wallowa-Whitman supervisor, said on Wednesday that he expects the Forest Service will publish the draft in the Federal Register “any time.” …Typically, national forests update their plans every 15 years or so. But the current plans for the three forests in the Blue Mountains date to 1990. The three forests encompass about 5.5 million acres, including about 311,000 acres in Washington that are part of the Umatilla National Forest. 
ORANGE COUNTY, California — Environmentalists are trying to raise public awareness about a plan within the Trump administration to allow roads, and potentially long-term business development, in much of the nation’s federal forest system, including the biggest undeveloped stretch of Orange County. Recently, the effort has included rallies in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties. More rallies are planned in coming weeks in central and northern California. At issue is the fate of the “Roadless Area Conservation Rule,” an administrative regulation that has been in place since 2001 as a way to preserve 60 million acres of federal land for recreation and habitat protection. The rule, which is not a law, has survived every presidential administration of this century, and environmentalists say it has helped protect everything from the Pacific Crest Trail to the California Condor. …Environmentalists say ending the roadless rule would be bad for the environment and for local property values. 
On the B.C. government website, you can read the following: “B.C. is a world leader in sustainable forest management”. …However, if you talk to BC forest ecologist Rachel Holt… or former B.C. Liberal MLA Mike Morris, you get a very different perspective. …The Council of Forest Industries says, “in BC. three to four tree seedlings are planted for every tree that is cut”. That does not solve the problem. In the last 40 years, the rate of cutting has sped up. That means there are many very young forests, not suitable for wildlife habitat and not suitable for logging. …Several groups in BC are pushing for less logging, protection of our remaining primary forests and more ecologically sound forestry practices. The down side? Large forestry companies make less profit. The upside? More jobs, healthy forests… fewer wild fires and fewer greenhouse gases.
GEORGIA — Amid drought conditions and larger fires, Georgia Forestry Commission Director Johnny Sabo told lawmakers the cost to put out the blazes in south Georgia cost more than half of his annual department budget. “We’re looking about $35 million between these two fires,” Sabo said about the cost of putting out the Pineland Road and Highway 82 fires in south Georgia. “To put that in perspective, my annual budget is $52 million.” Those figures don’t include the costs of helping communities recover from the damage and losses afterward. …Sabo said Georgia has experienced a more active fire season than in previous years, with the number of fires up 88%. It was made more dangerous by drier conditions. …The data from Sabo showed the yearly average acreage of fires was 5.6 acres in previous years. The size of the fires made it so smoke was even visible to residents in the metro Atlanta area.
In fall, hoards of winter ticks latch on to New Hampshire’s moose — sometimes upward of 50,000 per adult animal. Over the course of the winter, the ticks drink their fill of blood, weakening adult moose and sometimes killing calves. …a team of New Hampshire researchers has a new hypothesis: Could the way forests are logged make moose more or less likely to encounter parasites? …Winter ticks are the driving force behind years of decline in Northeastern moose populations. …In recent decades, parasitism of moose by winter ticks has boomed… major driver was a boom in the local moose population… The sheer abundance of hosts helped tick populations in the region reach the high levels they remain at today. …One option is raising hunting quotas to reduce the number of moose… Another line of attack is the use of pesticides. …But there’s another idea … that has not been extensively studied: managing their habitat.
OFUNATO, Iwate — An industry organization aimed at promoting the use of fire-damaged timber has been launched in this northeastern Japan city, in response to a forest fire that broke out here in February 2025 burning approximately 3,370 hectares. The organization, named “TEAM Shinrin Saisei Ofunato” … aims to address challenges surrounding the harvesting of damaged trees and expand distribution channels for related wood products. Trees can still be utilized for parts that were not burned or if the damage was limited to the bark, but they must be cut down promptly before moisture loss makes them difficult to use. By strengthening cooperation among the logging, lumber processing, and construction sectors, which are currently divided into separate segments of the wood industry, the organization hopes to make better use of the damaged timber and encourage forest owners to proceed with logging and reforestation.
From the rainforests of French Guiana to ancient woodlands in eastern France, thousands of hectares of forest are gaining new protections. On 9 June, France said it has created seven new biological reserves and expanded two existing ones. Together, they safeguard an additional 157,000 hectares of forest as it works toward placing 10 per cent of its land under ‘strong protection’ by 2030. “This translates into less pressure on natural environments and stronger protection for species and habitats,” says Monique Barbut, France’s minister for ecological transition, biodiversity and international climate and nature negotiations. However, the vast majority of that land – around 99.5 per cent – lies in a single reserve in French Guiana, France’s overseas territory in South America. The new reserves in metropolitan France collectively cover under 1,000 hectares. …The remaining eight reserves, spread across metropolitan France, range from the mountain forests of Bannes-Ravines in the Vosges to the Mediterranean woodlands of Pas de la Lauze in Hérault.