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.
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 
…The National Film Board–produced Incandescence is just one of several documentaries either released this year or currently in production that speak to the province’s new reality and the urgency of the climate crisis that’s fuelled it. This spring, B.C.’s Knowledge Network released a five-part docuseries called Wildfire, about BC Wildfire Service firefighters and the on-the-ground reality of their work. A third crowdfunded documentary, BC is Burning, recently finished production and had its first community screenings in the Okanagan in June. The appearance of these films feels especially timely, and speaks to deeper trends around documentary as a storytelling tool in times of social or ecological crisis. “Environmental documentaries have kind of come in waves that are often in response to policy,” says Chelsea Birks, the learning and outreach director at Vancouver’s The Cinematheque and a film studies lecturer at the University of British Columbia. She says climate change is not an easy subject to capture.
VANCOUVER, BC — West Fraser Timber and the Lake Babine Nation Forestry Limited Partnership (LBN Forestry) welcomed the 
Forming an unusual alliance, environmental and animal welfare groups have pulled together a bipartisan effort in Congress, united by universal disdain for a Biden-era plan to massacre nearly 500,000 barred owls. Killing off barred owls in an effort to save endangered spotted owls is “wasteful, inhumane and unworkable,” Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy said. Those groups hailed the introduction Wednesday of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to nullify the Biden-era barred owl management strategy. …In September 2024, the Biden administration approved a $1.3 billion plan for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) agents to shoot about 470,000 barred owls over the next 30 years in Washington, Oregon and California. The justification was to give spotted owls a better chance of recovery under the assumption that barred owls bully their smaller cousins out of vital, old-growth forest habitat. …Federal wildlife agents have killed roughly 4,500 barred owls since 2009. 
America’s public forests are under assault. We have already seen the massive timber harvests called for by President Trump’s executive order, the elimination of the Roadless Rule, and the gutting of wildlife protection efforts. Those are the broad stokes, but there are also finer maneuvers underway, such as abandoning the traditional practice whereby forest personnel paint-mark the trees selected for cutting, handing those decisions over instead to the timber companies themselves. Or the various subsections that keep popping up in the “Big Beautiful Bill” — for example, giving timber companies an option to pay for hastened environmental review and defunding endangered species recovery efforts. It also arbitrarily requires the Forest Service to increase harvests by 250 million acres annually for nine years. This is the context within which we must now view the Fix Our Forests Act, a logging-in-the-name-of-fire-prevention bill, stuffed with provisions that significantly override scientific and citizen review.
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.
The state’s top public lands official is urging lawmakers to restore the spending to previous levels after they cut it by about half this year. 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 restoration of gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park has helped revive an aspen tree population unique to the region, a new study has found. Quaking aspen, one of the few deciduous tree species in the northern Rocky Mountain ecosystem, is once again thriving, after suffering severe decline during the 20th century, according to a new study. “This is a remarkable case of ecological restoration,” lead author, Luke Painter, at Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences, said. The decline in aspen growth occurred in tandem with a surge in Rocky Mountain elk, which had lost a key predator following the elimination of wolves from the region by 1930. …At the same time… aspen recovery hasn’t been uniform across northern Yellowstone — and the growth is subject to numerous potential threats including climate change and encroachment of coniferous trees, are possible such factors. And other herbivores have increased in the region.
The state of Washington will get about $20 million for wildfire fighting efforts after a months-long delay, a Washington congresswoman confirmed Thursday. The Trump administration distributed $280 million in federal funding to forestry agencies across the country, according to the office of U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington. The money will help fund the Washington State Department of Natural Resources’ efforts to train and equip wildland firefighters across the state. “The state of Washington is in the middle of an active and dangerous wildfire season,” Cantwell said in a news release. “After questioning the Chief of the Forest Service and the Secretary of Agriculture, I am pleased that Washington — and all states — are finally receiving the funding they need to prepare for and respond to wildfires this summer and in the future.”
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.
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.
KALAVRYTA, Greece – Around the village of Kalavryta in southwestern Greece, hundreds of dying fir trees stand out among the dark green foliage, a stark reminder of how drought slowly drains the life from nature. Greek fir species Abies cephalonica are known to need cooler, moist climates. But prolonged droughts in recent years linked to a fast-changing climate in Greece are leaving them exposed to pest infestations, scientists and locals said. …Less water and moisture mean that fir trees become more vulnerable to attacks by pests that bore into their bark to lay eggs and create tunnels, disrupting the trees’ ability to transport nutrients between roots and branches and leading to their death. …In Kalavryta, authorities plan to remove dead and infested trees to limit the damage. But this might not be enough to save the forests. “We cannot stop climate change,” director of research at the National Observatory of Athens, Dr Kostas Lagouvardos said.