Arnold Reimer is among the Manitoba loggers concerned their supply is turning to ash as wildfires continue to burn through forests across the country. Last year’s wildfire season burned around 8.9 million hectares nationwide. In Manitoba, 445 wildfires and 2.38 million hectares burned, according to the government of Manitoba’s 2025 wildfire report. Canada’s forest sector supports nearly 200,000 workers and contributes more than $20 billion to the GDP, according to the government of Canada. …John Morris, executive director at the Forestry Industry Association of Manitoba, said the loss of timber means job losses, fewer economic opportunities, and impacts on rural and northern communities that depend on the industry.

Additional coverage in CTV News, by Alex Karpa: ‘Huge concern’: Manitoba loggers worried as industry continues to feel impacts of wildfires

It was December 2024, and a four-year looper moth infestation had ravaged Stanley Park. The City of Vancouver estimated that 160,000 of the park’s 600,000 trees were dead or dying… The hemlocks had faced years of drought …which made them more susceptible to the ravenous looper larvae that stripped the trees of their needles. …Bruce Blackwell has spent 38 years watching this slow-moving disaster unfold. …Blackwell says the stress on the trees and the increased forest fire risk is being exacerbated by our longer, drier summers. “Historically we would’ve had significant rains in April, May and June. And in some of these driest years, the precipitation is stopping in May,” he says. “And we’re not getting significant precipitation for months on end.” As a result, municipalities are rethinking the trees they plant… “These things take resources—and when it comes to green spaces, we’re good at planting them… but we’re not managing them to the standard we need to manage them,” says Blackwell.

People in British Columbia are invited to provide feedback on proposed improvements to the Province’s natural resource appeals process. The Province has launched public engagement on potential legislative and procedural changes affecting appeals heard by the Environmental Appeal Board and the Forest Appeals Commission, two major natural resource tribunals in B.C. If approved, changes are expected to help deliver timelier decisions, strengthen compliance and enforcement, and support more efficient permitting, while maintaining environmental protections and the Province’s obligations to First Nations. These independent tribunals hear appeals related to environmental protection, natural resource management and land-use decisions.