North American housing starts fell in July with US starts down 12.4%—including a 9.9% decline in single-family; while US builder confidence remained low; and Canadian starts fell 5%. In other Business news: Canada and the US continue tariff negotiations; while a BC plywood producer, and a Michigan furniture maker say US tariffs threaten their businesses. Meanwhile: Jock Finlayson says tariffs aren’t BC’s biggest problem; Prince George wants a bridging to retirement program for Canfor workers; Northwest Ontario mayors lobby for forest competitiveness; and Louisiana’s timber industry is looking for a new path.
In Forestry/Wildfire news: Canada and Quebec invest $22M in wildfire resilience; the David Suzuki Foundation says forest management in Canada makes wildfires worse; Parks Canada released captive-bred caribou into Jasper’s wild herd; researchers say deer overabundance has changed BC’s Gulf Islands; Australia delays a key vote on its native forest carbon credits; concerns grow over biomass power in Japan; and researchers find small species remain missing from restored forests for decades. Meanwhile: major wildfire updates from Summerland and Revelstoke, BC, California, and Utah.
Finally, Vaagen Bros. Lumber tells the story of its Small Log Revolution.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News Editor
A Richmond plywood manufacturer is concerned about what Wednesday is going to bring for his business. Canada-US Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc met with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as officials race against the clock to secure a new trade deal before new 50% tariffs take effect Wednesday. …“A 50 per cent tariff is not a margin we can absorb, nor is it something US customers will be willing to pay,” Bhavjit Thandi, CFO of Richmond Plywood, said. …So far, the BC premier is reluctant to make any concessions such as returning US alcohol to BC shelves without tariff relief for key industries such as forestry. But the Americans have not been interested in discussing softwood lumber. “The softwood lumber sector is bigger than auto parts and steel combined in terms of the Canadian economy and it needs to be front and centre at the table,” Eby said on Friday.
It was recently reported that Interfor Corp., a B.C.-founded forest products company and one of North America’s largest lumber producers, is planning to relocate its head office operations from Metro Vancouver to Georgia. A couple of weeks earlier, Canfor Corp. announced the permanent closure of its Northwood Pulp Mill in Prince George. These are only the latest in a long list of forestry operations that have closed or left British Columbia. According to the Council of Forest Industries (COFI), 23 mills have permanently closed since 2023. The latest reports suggest the count may now be approaching 30. Premier David Eby’s government has been quick to blame the shrinking B.C. forest industry on U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. …But the deeper causes of the crisis in B.C. forestry lie closer to home. B.C. lumber production has been in steep decline for a decade or more. …That conclusion is reinforced by the Canadian Forest Sector Transformation Task Force…
Prince George city council voted in favour of sending a letter to provincial Labour Minister Jennifer Whiteside at its Monday, Aug. 17 meeting to reinstate a program helping workers near retirement in the wake of the impending closure of the Northwood Pulp Mill. At the Monday, Aug. 10 meeting of the city’s Standing Committee, members discussed the imminent closure of the mill. During that committee meeting, the city’s manager of economic development, Deklan Corstanje, said that the last time a mill closed, workers were able to access a provincial program called Bridging to Retirement. Before the program stopped accepting applications on Feb. 26, 2025, it provided forestry worked aged 55 and older with funding to help facilitate an early retirement. …The committee ultimately passed a motion recommending that council approve Mayor Simon Yu sending a letter to Whiteside asking for the program’s restoration.
From the Arkansas line, in all directions down through much of Louisiana, dipping even into Cajun country, you see trees. Everywhere. The depth and breadth of our pine and hardwood stands and forests are almost indiscernible. …For as long as most can remember, this industry was the heartbeat of rural Louisiana and stood as the backbone of our economy in Louisiana, producing lumber, paper, and dozens of other wood products that generated living wages and pockets of prosperity through nearly every parish. …Total industry output still registers in the billions, yet the practical reality on the ground is stagnation. Major paper mills that once absorbed millions of tons of fiber have closed. …Meanwhile, pulpwood prices sit near multi-decade lows. Our loggers wrestle with rising insurance and operating costs propelled by our judicial and litigious climate while landowners see returns on investment shrink. The giant that was our timber industry is still standing, but it is staggering.
TAIWAN — The Taiwan Forestry Research Institute said it is promoting full utilization of Taiwan’s incense cedar to develop a high-value circular economy for forest resources. Incense cedar is an endemic species of Taiwan and is one of Taiwan’s five major coniferous tree species, the institute said. …While Taiwan incense cedar wood is popular with consumers thanks to its distinctive aroma, surplus materials generated during the process of forest tending, pruning and wood processing are usually used as fuel or disposed of, it said. The institute’s Chiayi Research Center promoted research on the reutilization of Taiwan incense cedar surplus materials at the Yunshui Experiment Station from last year to this year, the institute said. Water distillation was applied to extract Taiwan incense cedar oil from surplus materials, while the remaining materials would be ground into scented powder or made into incense cones, it said.
When Donald Trump says Canada is mismanaging its forests, many Canadians instinctively dismiss the comment. …But that would be too easy — not because clearing dead trees and brush never makes sense, but because Trump’s call to “rake the forest” turns a complex problem into a simplistic slogan… Managing a forest that stretches across nearly a third of the country is far more complex than the soundbite would suggest. The real question Canadians should be asking is, “Are we managing our forests in ways that can make catastrophic wildfires more likely and more intense?” The uncomfortable answer is yes. Canada’s wildfire crisis is being fuelled by two converging forces: a changing climate and decades of decisions about how we manage forests and fire. …Trump speaks in soundbites not science, so it can be hard to take him seriously. But that doesn’t mean Canada shouldn’t seize the opportunity to have a serious conversation about forest management…
Forest fires are ravaging the country again this summer. My heart goes out to those who have lost family members, homes, their way of life, and pets. The dangers first responders face and the health issues caused by smoke are scary. …The areas hardest hit by the forest fires are pristine areas where environmentalists stand fast on protecting the area in its natural state. Tall conifer trees with dry needles and dead branches on the ground provide fuel and allow fire to jump from treetop to treetop. If lumber companies were allowed to clear-cut for miles around towns and fast-growing deciduous trees were allowed to grow and be supported, a forest would return in 5-10 years with trees that greatly reduce the chance of fire spread.
The Babylon Fire left parts of the burned landscape more vulnerable to flooding, erosion and debris flows, with increased runoff and erosion likely to recur intermittently for five to 10 years as the landscape recovers. The Forest Service’s newly released Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) report recommends emergency work to reduce those risks, including road-drainage improvements, debris racks at culverts, warning signs, closures and stabilization at old mine sites. Although the most severe soil damage covered only 5% of the area assessed, the report identified five drainages with the highest potential for debris flows. The lightning-caused Babylon Fire started June 26 in the Abajo Mountains about 25 miles southwest of Monticello and burned across parts of Elk Ridge, Dark Canyon Wilderness and Bears Ears National Monument within the Manti-La Sal National Forest. …The report says ground cover typically takes three to five years to re-establish and can take up to 10 years, particularly if drought persists.
For the past decade, Japan has been expanding the use of woody biomass for power generation to replace or be mixed and burned with coal. The country is now the second-largest wood pellet consumer in the world after the U.K. But there are concerns that burning wood pellets or palm kernel shells to generate electricity might not be safe. In the past few years, there have been at least 14 fires, explosions and accidents at biomass power plants across Japan. These incidents, combined with rising prices, pollution concerns and growing opposition are leading some to question the future of Japan’s large-scale biomass plants, an estimated 34 of which produce 3.5 gigawatts of power. …in the rush to expand plants, corners may have been cut, including improper construction and substandard storage and processing of wood pellets, says Roger Smith, Japan director at nonprofit Mighty Earth. 