This excerpt is from the new Postmedia/Greystone book The Summer Canada Burned, now available online and at bookstores starting Nov. 27. A calm prevailed before the firestorm. Canada awaited the start of wildfire season. It was the end of April. The annual battle of the blazes was not expected to begin in earnest for weeks, maybe even two months in a good year. But it would soon become clear that the 2023 season would be anything but good. …Simply put, the nation experienced “catastrophic fire activity,” said Yan Boulanger, a research scientist at the Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada. “This fire season has been marked by extreme fire weather conditions driven by record high temperatures and widespread drought conditions across the nation,” Boulanger said. It was “the most devastating fire season in recent memory, by far.” By the end of September, the amount of Canadian forest lost to destructive flames sat at 18 million hectares (44.4 million acres).
It’s been an extraordinary month for nature protection in British Columbia. A slew of unprecedented funding and legislative announcements have come in almost too fast to keep up with. Taken together, they underscore a sea change in the stewardship of Canada’s most biodiverse province. This marks a historic turning point for B.C., and a potential road map for the rest of Canada — one that was unimaginable when Premier David Eby first took office under the cloud of an ugly tussle with the environmental movement just one year ago. …What’s happening before our eyes is a whole-of-society restructuring … trying to recover from the hangover of 150 years of colonial plunder. …In light of those developments, we should pause to acknowledge and celebrate the moves that B.C.’s NDP is making. Not just to be nice, but to show them — and the rest of Canada — that these kinds of deals can win elections, too. 
People in B.C. are invited to provide input to help inform the next stage of the Sunshine Coast Forest Landscape Plan (FLP). The FLP is being co-developed with First Nations, with input from communities, subject-matter experts and forest licensees. FLPs are a new approach to forest stewardship that establish clear direction for the management of old growth, biodiversity, ecosystem health, climate change, watershed health, wildfire risk and other forest-related values. The FLP area includes the Sunshine Coast Timber Supply Area and portions of the Pacific Timber Supply Area, encompassing roughly 1.25 million hectares of land from Howe Sound in the south to the summit of Mount Waddington (B.C.’s highest peak) in the north. The area features some of the most biologically diverse forests in British Columbia and overlaps the territories of 15 First Nations.
OREGON — Deep inside a forest in Oregon’s Willamette Valley stands a dead “Tree of Life.” Its foliage, normally soft and green, is tough and brown or missing altogether. Nonetheless, the tree’s reddish bark identify it as the iconic western red cedar. Christine Buhl, a forest health specialist for the Oregon Department of Forestry, extracts sample of the tree’s inner growth rings. The rings become thinner over time, indicating the tree’s growth slowed before the tree finally died, a sign that this red cedar, like thousands of others in Oregon and Washington, died from drought. …Last year, Buhl and colleagues reported that red cedars were dying throughout the tree’s growing range not because of a fungus or insect attack, but due to the region’s “climate change-induced drought.” Red cedars aren’t alone… at least 15 native Pacific Northwest tree species have experienced growth declines and die-offs.
GREENVILLE, S.C – The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities announces a Request for Proposals for a new Impact Investing Program, which is intentionally aimed at generating positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. The program will focus on two areas: Community Revitalization: Investments in forest industry-related activities that contribute to the revitalization of forest-reliant communities, particularly in disadvantaged areas; and Forest Revitalization: Forest thinning and reforestation activities that contribute to the health and resilience of America’s forest assets. The program seeks to deploy up to $5 million in 2024 through impact investments in companies, funds, or projects that advance systemic, transformative, and sustainable benefits for the health and vitality of our nation’s working forests and forest-reliant communities. “Our Impact Investing Program will allow the Endowment to do more for America’s working forests while also growing our financial resources,” said Pete Madden, the Endowment’s President, and CEO.
SAO PAULO – Brazil plans to propose a “huge” fund to pay for the conservation of tropical forests at the United Nations COP28 climate change summit that begins later this month in Dubai. That potential financing mechanism, not previously reported, would be the latest in a proliferation of multilateral environmental funds. Countries agreed in the past year to establish a giant fund dedicated to biodiversity and another to pay for the destruction caused by climate change. The funds funnel money from rich countries to poor developing nations that struggle to otherwise pay for their environmental efforts. Brazil is the world’s largest rainforest nation and contains some 60% of the Amazon jungle. It is seen as vital to curbing climate change and protecting unique plant and animal species. …The fund would not value forest conservation in terms of carbon, since protecting forests would primarily prevent further greenhouse gas emissions rather than absorbing additional CO2.
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Brazil is planning to launch a global financing framework to support tropical forests, according to government officials, as the country seeks to regain its role as an environmental leader at the upcoming UN climate summit in Dubai. Under the proposal, a fund would be created to offer compensation to residents and landowners who help preserve forested areas such as the Amazon. …“We need to have resources in volume, quantity and frequency to finance those who own forests,” Brazil’s environment minister said. “Because today the initiatives we have only encourage those who are deforesting to stop deforesting. They don’t encourage or pay those who are already preserving and keeping the forests standing.” One option being considered is an investment fund with money from institutional and other long-term investors, with a set rate of return. …The fund would be likely to be co-ordinated by a multilateral institution such as the World Bank.
The European Commission wants to introduce regulations to reduce the quantity of packaging and make it more sustainable, but environmental groups warn pressure is being put on forests to produce more paper, which some see as a more sustainable option. Across the world, three billion trees are cut down every year to meet the demand for paper packaging, according to environmental groups, and the pressure on forests keeps increasing as consumption goes up. According to the European Commission, the total mass of packaging waste generated in the EU rose by 20% in the ten years leading up to 2020, with paper and cardboard representing 41%. “Packaging production is set to increase by 19% between now and 2030 if nothing is done,” warned Hannah Mowat, campaign coordinator at Fern, a non-profit dedicated to protecting forests. But that could be about to change with the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), tabled in November last year.
