In the March News you’ll find these stories and more:
- Meet the women driving responsible forestry forward in North America: Monika Patel, Sarah Billig and Sarah Kutulakos share a deep appreciation for preservation, stewardship and conservation – and are today’s leading voices in sustainable forest management.
- Reflections on the 2025 Indigenous Lands Symposium: hosted by Wahkohtowin Development in Bawating/Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, the symposium brought together Indigenous communities and First Nations, knowledge holders, and partners from environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), industry, and government.
- We are pleased to invite forestry professionals to the FSC Forest Management Expert Course, designed to equip you with the knowledge and mindset of an FSC auditor.
- A sneak peek into FSC Canada’s recent All Staff meeting in Toronto, Canada.
As forestry practices evolve, the intersection of conservation, Indigenous consultation, third-party certification, and workforce development is central to the future of the industry. The “Breaking New Ground” panel at the 2025 COFI Convention will explore how innovative partnerships and collaborative approaches can balance ecological stewardship with economic opportunity. Panelists will share insights on advancing reconciliation through meaningful consultation, supporting the next generation of forestry professionals, and ensuring sustainable practices through conservation financing and certification. Panelists: Lennard Joe, CEO, BC First Nations Forestry Council; Michael Reid, BC Program Director, Nature United; Kathy Abusow, President & CEO, Sustainable Forestry Initiative; and Aspen Dudzic, Director of Communications, Alberta Forest Products Association & “Forestry Together” Initiative. Moderator: Jason Fisher, Executive Director, Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC). Join us for a forward-looking discussion that brings together diverse perspectives on how BC’s working forests can thrive while meeting environmental and social responsibilities.
Simcoe County forests are growing — and not just up. Councillors got a brief update Tuesday on the county’s forest management activities last year, as well as finding out what the future holds as the county moves into its 103rd year operating the local forest system… The fact the county has been managing these forests for more than a century is “quite exceptional,” Graeme Davis, who works as a forester for the county, said during Tuesday’s committee of the whole meeting… Of particular note is that the county forests are very active and working forests, Davis added. While harvesting does play an important role, Davis said it’s also important to note that they are about much more than forest harvesting — they also provide “incredible” recreational uses.
…When the Terrace Bay pulp mill opened, an effluent canal was built to connect with Blackbird Creek — a convenient way to send its liquid waste into Lake Superior. It wasn’t until the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was signed in 1972 that researchers started to focus on the impact industry was having on the Great Lakes. Following that agreement, in 1987 Jackfish Bay and 42 other sites across the Great Lakes in Canada and the U.S. were officially listed as areas of concern. New guidelines were created for discharging effluent into the Great Lakes and their tributaries, and remedial action plans were proposed. But the use of Blackbird Creek as an effluent canal was grandfathered into the Terrace Bay mill’s operations. When it first opened, the mill owner was entitled to choose where to monitor the receiving environment for its effluent. They chose Moberly Bay, the smaller bay at the mouth of Blackbird Creek, on Jackfish Bay. .JPG;w=960)
QUÉBEC – The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change announced the signing of a Canada-Quebec agreement to advance the protection and conservation of nature throughout Quebec. The Government of Canada will invest up to $100 million between now and 2027 to support the objectives of Quebec’s 2030 Nature Plan and Canada’s 2030 Nature Strategy. This nature agreement reflects both governments’ commitment to implementing the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework and establishes a series of objectives to achieve this: Create and expand protected and conserved areas, and accelerate the conservation of natural environments on private land in southern Quebec, including through the implementation of urban park projects; Take action to address threats to biodiversity, better protect threatened or vulnerable species, and foster the recovery of at-risk species; Control invasive alien species; and Support Indigenous leadership in biodiversity conservation.
What are Musk, Trump and the congressional right really after? Anyone who works in land management knows these agencies have long gone underfunded and unsupported by Republicans, rendering them less and less effective as the demands on them grow ever more pressing. Now this bloodletting is accelerating, and soon it will be time to go for the throat. As these agencies flounder, turning their lands over to private administration — to timber, mineral and oil extraction or to private ownership and development — will begin to seem logical and even appealing. While sustainable logging can be a valuable forest management tool, research shows that when lands are managed primarily for resource extraction, they become less resilient to wildfire. This is a shortsighted, profit-driven turn toward a land-use model that is ultimately unsustainable. What will the public be left with? Will we still have places to hike, fish, hunt, dirt-bike and ski? Or will a new landlord be setting new rates?
With $2.6 billion in hurricane-recovery money on its way to the national forests of North Carolina, Jenifer Bunty, a US Forest Service disaster-recovery specialist, spent much of the week of February 10th working on a plan to start spending the money. Four months after Hurricane Helene, this meant deciding which bridges urgently needed to be rebuilt, which road repairs prioritized. …“The days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over,” Donald Trump declared in his speech to Congress last week. For the White House, the firing of tens of thousands of federal workers like Bunty is evidence of “promises made, promises kept.” But for the Forest Service the loss of at least two thousand workers will make it harder to fight ever-worsening wildfires and storms across the country. …After the Trump cuts, a spokesperson for the USDA said that they didn’t include “operational firefighters,” a term Bunty had never heard. 
It’s now clear that some moves President Trump has authorized his pal Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to make will thwart at least a few of Trump’s own often-repeated priorities. …Then there are two moves that figure to make the next fire season, coming up in late spring or early summer, as bad as or worse than recent ones. Trump legitimately repeats the conviction that cleaning forest floors can reduce the intensity and frequency of wildfires. He consistently and falsely blames California’s government for not doing this. …With Musk’s aid, though, he fired 3,400 Forest Service workers in mid-February who were still on probation in their first year of employment, many of whom had been hired to do the job Trump calls critical to stopping fires. …If he knew these firings completely contradict priorities he has trumpeted, why would he have approved them?
Businesses, communities, and wildlife across a vast portion of western Washington, western Oregon, and northwestern California rely on healthy national forests. Since 1994, the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) has guided conservation, recreation, timber production, and other uses of these 19.2 million acres of species-rich and economically important lands and rivers, and now, as it does periodically, the U.S. Forest Service is updating the NWFP… The scientists and land managers who authored the original NWFP recognized the importance of drawing on the best available science. They also had the foresight to incorporate ways to monitor the forests and adjust management if their assumptions—for example, about the plan’s impact on nature and communities—proved wrong… The Forest Service is 
Oregon lawmakers are considering a legislative package that would provide some protection to utility companies whose equipment sparks wildfires. House Bill 3917, introduced Tuesday by Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, would create a fund to help people who lose homes or businesses to utility-caused wildfires — as long as they agree not to sue utility companies for that damage. Marsh is also sponsoring a complementary bill, House Bill 3666, which would allow the Oregon Public Utility Commission to grant a safety certificate to utilities it deems are “acting reasonably with regard to wildfire safety practices.” The wildfire assistance fund created by HB 3917 would be seeded by utility companies that are regulated by the state’s Public Utility Commission, including Pacific Power and Portland General Electric. Half of their their seed contribution could come from ratepayer dollars, and the other half would come from the share of rates designated for profits.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Monday urged the Trump administration to scrap plans to kill more than 450,000 invasive barred owls in West Coast forests as part of efforts to stop the birds from crowding out a smaller type of owl that’s facing potential extinction. The 19 lawmakers claimed the killings would be “grossly expensive” and cost $3,000 per bird. They questioned if the shootings would help native populations of northern spotted owls, which have long been controversial because of logging restrictions in the birds’ forest habitat beginning in the 1990s, and the closely related California spotted owl. Barred owls are native to eastern North America and started appearing in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s. They’ve quickly displaced many spotted owls, which are smaller birds that need larger territories to breed.
HORRY COUNTY, S.C. — The 
HORRY COUNTY, S.C. — As the Covington Drive fire in Carolina Forest reaches Day 11, the South Carolina Forestry Commission told News13 the agency will cover all its costs associated with fighting the blaze but that it’s “too early to know” what the actual price will be. “We will cover all our costs associated with the fire — personnel, food, lodging, equipment, etc,” the agency said. “Since the Southeast Compact was activated, we will reimburse the Florida IMT for their costs — personnel, food, lodging, equipment. As with all large incidents of this type, there will be expenses we don’t even know about yet that we will have to pay for.” The forestry commission said since the fire management assistance grant was approved, FEMA will reimburse agencies and fire departments for 75% of approved costs. 
Large, undisturbed forests are better for harboring biodiversity than fragmented landscapes, according to University of Michigan research. Ecologists agree that habitat loss and the fragmentation of forests reduces biodiversity in the remaining fragments. But ecologists don’t agree whether it’s better to focus on preserving many smaller, fragmented tracts of land or larger, continuous landscapes. The 
In wild Tasmania there are trees whose direct ancestors lived with dinosaurs. Many of those alive today are thousands of years old, and some have been growing for ten millennia or more. They are mostly hard to reach, hidden in forest valleys or on remote mountains, survivors of human greed and fire.
In 2006, Brazilian President Lula da Silva’s government passed the Public Forest Management Law, implementing a forest concession scheme designed to regulate and legalize logging activities in Brazil’s forest — in particular, the Amazon. Forest management consists of removing a small number of trees whose species are valued in the market. After that, the area can only be explored again in 30 to 40 years, following its regeneration cycle. Behind on its concessions targets, the current government wants to almost quadruple the current area of federal concessions by 2026. Even though it is different from deforestation, timber management has never been seen as a way to conserve the forest by traditional peoples.
The European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) aims to prevent deforestation-linked products from entering the EU market. This study assesses the potential impacts of the EUDR on global forest product markets using the FOrest Resource Outlook Model (FOROM). We simulate two scenarios: the baseline EUDR, focused on commodity-driven deforestation and urbanization, and an extended EUDR+ scenario, which includes shifting agriculture. The results indicate that high-deforestation countries, such as Brazil, Indonesia, and Malaysia, are expected to face significant reductions in roundwood production and exports, with downstream effects on sawnwood and panel prices. In contrast, low-deforestation countries like Canada and the United States may experience slight increases in production to meet EU demand, but their impact is limited by moderate deforestation rates. The study also highlights the potential for market leakage, where deforestation-linked products may shift to non-EU markets, potentially undermining global environmental goals.