It’s National Forest Week in Canada and the sector is celebrating: FPAC’s press release highlights jobs, sustainable forest management and fighting climate change; the CIF awarded Ken Day (recently retired from the UBC Alex Fraser Research Forest) with their Canadian Forestry Achievement Award; BC Timber Sales salutes forests as Canada’s Living Laboratory; the Forest Enhancement Society of BC awarded a grant to aide fire management at Baldy Mountain Resort, and FPInnovations is working with New Zealand to expand steep slope harvesting.

The good news from Northern BC is that Skeena Sawmills is adding value to the area’s forests by opening a pellet plant fed by waste from their other sawmills. The bad news is that talks between 13 northern sawmills and the union have gone to mediation. 

There’s a new face at the helm of the World Forestry Center in Portland – warm welcome to Joseph Furia; increased pressure on the clothing sector is driving more research into fibres made from sustainably managed forests; and lastly, zooming in on wildfire pollution – a close up look at what’s going into your lungs.

—Sandy McKellar, Tree Frog Editor