HALIFAX — It was the year unprecedented wildfires disrupted the lives of thousands from coast to coast, shattering records for the total area burned. Canadian wildfires — which consumed an area roughly one-quarter the land mass of Manitoba — were by far the first choice for The Canadian Press news story of the year, as voted by editors in newsrooms across the country. An unusually warm and dry winter in much of Canada set the stage for a wildfire season that led to 200,000 people fleeing their homes. …On June 8, during debate in the House of Commons, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “Canada is burning.” And the impact was not confined within our borders. Quebec’s lightning-sparked wildfires made international news as the smoke travelled south, giving Toronto among the worst air quality in the world and forcing the cancellation of Major League Baseball games as far away as Washington, D.C.
…Forests, wildlife and waterways are core to what makes [BC] so special. And with biodiversity declining worldwide at an alarming rate, including here in B.C., action to protect nature has reached a critical turning point. 2023 was a transformative year for commitments to protect nature. Not only are these promises answering the urgent call for change, they recognize the leadership of First Nations as equal partners and decision-makers. We have much to celebrate, and to do to make a difference on the ground. …Next year is a leap year. We urge the B.C. government to take a leap for nature — to bring the words on paper to life and make progress on important conservation targets. Only then can we ensure that nature in all its diversity — the big trees and the straggly ones, the caribou and the salmon, the bugs and the birds — is preserved for generations to come.
After the Atikamekw council of Wemotaci signed a forestry framework agreement with the government of Quebec, a blockade was erected in protest because some community members say they were not consulted. Dave Petiquay, who represents the Petiquay family, says some traditional families were not consulted in the on-going negotiations between the Wemotaci council and provincial government. “We don’t support this agreement. We maintain that the band council has no authority over ancestral territories other than reserve land. And I’ve told the other nations, the people, that they should take note of the Indian Act,” Petiquay said in a recent interview. This is not the first time members from Wemotaci’s traditional families have mobilized. Last spring, Petiquay and a few others set up another blockade. At the time, he told APTN News that the government was not respecting a harmonization agreement on forestry activities on their land.
The United States Department of Agriculture is proposing to amend all land management plans for units of the National Forest System (128 plans in total) to include consistent direction to conserve and steward existing and recruit future old-growth forest conditions and to monitor their condition across planning areas of the National Forest System. The intent is to foster the long-term resilience of old-growth forest conditions and their contributions to ecological integrity across the National Forest System. This notice initiates a scoping period on a preliminary proposed action and advises the public that the Department is preparing an environmental impact statement to evaluate the effects of amending the 128 land management plans. Comments may be submitted through February 2, 2024 
The number of homes destroyed by wildfires has doubled over the past 30 years, and most of them were in grasslands and shrublands, not near forests. Wildfire risks to homes are increasing, especially in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), where wildland vegetation and houses are in close proximity. Notably, we found that more houses are exposed to and destroyed by grassland and shrubland fires than by forest fires in the United States. Destruction was more likely in forest fires, but they burned less WUI. The number of houses within wildfire perimeters has doubled since the 1990s because of both housing growth (47% of additionally exposed houses) and more burned area (53%). Most exposed houses were in the WUI, which grew substantially during the 2010s (2.6 million new WUI houses), albeit not as rapidly as before. Any WUI growth increases wildfire risk to houses though, and more fires increase the risk to existing WUI houses.
Some have recently questioned whether forests really are the climate solution they have long been held to be. This is because some emit great quantities of carbon, while the markets set up to finance them have stumbled. But there is no pathway to a livable climate without saving our intact forests, regrowing some, and finding a more straightforward way to pay for them than carbon offset projects. A 2021 study led by Brazilian scientists established that the Amazon was emitting more carbon dioxide than it was absorbing. The paper mirrored a 2019 analysis of Canadian forests, which showed they had been net emitters since 2001. …Globally, however, forests continue adding vastly more carbon than they are losing. The other challenge to forests’ reputation is the carbon-offset markets set up to finance tree protection and planting. …As a second priority, we need to bring forests back. About half of the globe’s woods have been cleared
