Thank you for visiting the Tree Frog Forestry News
The Tree Frog Forestry News
June 9, 2026
Category: Today's Takeaway
Hello early bird! We just want you to know that the news team is busy adding stories to this page. Be sure to check back at 9:00 am (PST) for the full line up of articles.
Do it Best Group and The Sherwin-Williams Company announce strategic partnership
Do it Best Group
June 9, 2026
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States
Do it Best Group and The Sherwin-Williams Company have entered into a long-term strategic partnership designed to strengthen the future of paint for Do it Best members and True Value retailers. The partnership combines Do it Best Group’s brand ownership, retailer relationships, and channel expertise with Sherwin-Williams manufacturing depth, innovation capabilities, and supply chain support. …“This partnership allows us to keep control of the brands and the retailer experience while adding the scale and innovation of a global leader in the paints and coatings industry,” said Do it Best Group CEO Dan Starr. …Headquartered in Fort Wayne, IN, the Do it Best Group is the world’s largest hardware, lumber, and building materials buying cooperative in the home improvement industry.
The U.S. Lumber Coalition Applauds President Trump’s Selection of Nominees to Serve on the U.S. International Trade Commission
The US Lumber Coalition
June 8, 2026
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The US. Lumber Coalition applauds President Trump’s selection of nominees to serve on the US International Trade Commission (ITC). The ITC plays a critical role in the strong enforcement of US trade remedy laws. The current vacancies at the ITC create a risk that this vital agency may not be able to function if any of the Commissioners is not available to perform their duties. The USLC urges the Senate to move these nominations forward.
‘Tailwinds about one mile per hour’: Why the housing recovery keeps getting delayed
By Matt Sexton
The Mortgage Professional America
June 8, 2026
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: Canada, United States
There have been consistent signs that the housing market is poised for a rebound. Russ Taylor has been tracking North American lumber markets for decades. The data, he said, keeps telling a different story. …”If things are unaffordable and there’s uncertainty and consumer confidence is weak, then nothing happens. People might be saving more money if they’re not spending it, but everyone’s worried about jobs and everything else, so they’re not spending.” The number Taylor keeps coming back to is lumber consumption. In 2016, the country consumed roughly 50 billion board feet. In 2025, the number was almost exactly the same. Ten years of demographic tailwinds, rising equity, and persistent housing shortage arguments, and consumption has not budged. …Housing starts have been declining every year since their 2021 peak, and Taylor expects 2026 to continue that trend. Repair and remodeling, which accounts for roughly 40% of US lumber consumption, has been similarly stagnant since the COVID period.
Regulatory Costs Jump 40% in Five Years, Add $131,734 to New Home Prices
The National Association of Home Builders
June 9, 2026
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: United States
A new study by the NAHB finds that regulations at the federal, state and local levels add $131,734 to the cost of a new single-family home—26.4% of the average sales price of $499,500 as of January 2026. Breaking down the total regulatory costs further, the study revealed that $84,939 of the final house price is the result of costs incurred by the builder due to regulation during the construction phase of the home while $46,795 is attributable to regulation during land development. “This study illustrates how excessive regulation is deepening the nation’s housing affordability crisis and making it harder for builders to deliver the affordable, attainable housing that our nation sorely needs,” said NAHB Chairman Bill Owens, a home builder and remodeler from Worthington, Ohio. “Policymakers should remove unnecessary and costly regulations that are pricing buyers out of the market and slowing construction of new homes and apartments.”
Vancouver firm wins two international architectural awards for Squamish waterfront project
By Gagandeep Ghuman
North Shore Daily Post
June 8, 2026
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada West
SLA Inc.
A Vancouver architecture firm has taken home two international honours for its Squamish waterfront project. Stephane Laroye Architect (SLA) won both the Jury and Popular Choice prizes in the Architecture + Prefab & Modular category at the 2026 Architizer A+Awards — recognition given to what the program describes as the world’s most visionary architectural creators. The winning project, the Oceanfront Squamish Presentation Centre & Public House (PCPH), sits on the Squamish waterfront overlooking Howe Sound fjord and opened to the public in summer 2024. …The project drew on regional partners throughout. Laroye credited Castlegar-based Kalesnikoff for input on the efficient use of mass timber, and North Vancouver’s Naikoon Contracting, whose work on the project helped spur development of what Laroye called a “Flying Factory” — a mobile pre-fabrication facility designed to serve remote sites and create local employment. See image gallery here.
New York Extended Producer Responsibility bill fails to advance after third try
By Stefanie Valentic
Resource Recycling
June 8, 2026
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: US East
New York’s Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (PRRIA) has not reached the finish line. The state legislature adjourned without voting on SB 1464A / A1749A, sponsored by Sen. Pete Harckham and Assemblymember Deborah Glick. The outcome marks the third session in which the bill cleared the Senate only to stall in the Assembly. Previous versions of the legislation passed the Senate in both 2024 and 2025 but met the same fate. …The bill would require producers to cover the cost of managing post-consumer packaging waste, a cost currently absorbed by local governments and taxpayers, establishing a statewide EPR program for producers with more than $5 million in annual net revenue responsible for more than 2 tons of annual packaging waste. …The American Forest and Paper Association cited a study estimating that PRRIA could increase the cost of everyday essentials by up to $732 per year for a family of four…
From waste-wood to load-bearing feature, a simple calculation could change the way we use misfit wood
Aalto University
June 5, 2026
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International
Jaakko Torvinen
In his mission to normalise the use of ‘misfit wood’, Aalto University architect and researcher Jaakko Torvinen has shown how standard calculation methods can predict load-bearing capacity for organically shaped logs. …What’s surprising is that nobody has done this earlier. According to Torvinen, the timber and construction industries have for centuries been tied to the assumption that the best material is used for saw logs. ‘This explains why nobody has ever looked at a tree trunk and come up with an algorithm to gauge its strength,’ he says. … ‘If it’s not suitable as saw logs, it goes to pulpwood or energy wood,’ he explains. ‘But our assumption that ‘generic is best’ is old-school thinking –– and we’re wasting way too much good wood.’ Torvinen’s research could cut the millions of tonnes of imperfect wood that goes to the scrap heap… Torvinen [created] Helsinki’s temporary Pikku Finlandia building and his Puusauna earned a 2026 Wallpaper Design Award.
In Pursuit of a Tiny Owl Nicknamed Brad Pitt Western screech owls are disappearing from BC
By Sarah Cox
The Tyee
June 9, 2026
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West
Megan Buers is dodging potholes on a labyrinth of logging roads on northern Vancouver Island, hoping for a late-night rendezvous with a western screech owl. “He’s the Brad Pitt of the screech owl world,” says Buers, a wildlife biologist. …So far, Buers has seen the owl — but not yet managed to fit him with a transmitter for tracking. …Western screech owls are disappearing from BC’s coast — and nobody is quite sure why. …We know they like to nest in big trees,” Buers says. “Outside of that, we don’t really know what they need.” Her research, for a PhD at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, aims to find out if western screech owls require old trees and mature forests for other reasons, including to find prey. Are screech owls more abundant in old-growth forests? And how does that compare to managed landscapes like replanted woods?
New Forest Act Roadshow stops off in Nelson, calls for new forestry framework
By Bill Metcalfe
The Nelson Star
June 8, 2026
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada West
Jennifer Houghton says only a new Forest Act, radically different from the current one, will fix B.C.’s declining timber supply and the faltering forest economy in rural communities. That decline, she says, includes not only dwindling timber supply and mill closures but altered landscapes, growing fire danger, increased flooding, worsening drought impacts, shrinking employment, and increasing pressure on communities that historically depended on forestry. “These problems,” she says, but those outcomes are connected by the way the industry and the regulation of it are structured. …Houghton was the main speaker at the Nelson 2026 New Forest Act Roadshow, traveling to 12 communities throughout June. …The group is promoting a new Forest Act for the province in which ecological balance would replace timber flow as the central driver of all forestry activity. She said the new act is not a protest or a slogan but a practical roadmap to more economically healthy forest communities.
BC invests in community projects, strengthening wildfire prevention, creating local jobs
By Ministry of Forests
Government of BC
June 8, 2026
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West
Through the Forest Enhancement Society of BC, the Province is committing $20 million per year over three years. …This investment funds projects that reduce wildfire risk, restore forest ecosystems and improve the long-term health and resilience of B.C.’s forests. “The best wildfire is the one that never starts. The best way to protect communities is to work together to prevent them,” said Ravi Parmar, Minister of Forests. …This year, 60 forest enhancement projects are receiving funding. These projects not only reduce wildfire risk, they also support forest-sector jobs in rural and remote communities. The projects include creating landscape-level fuel breaks, removing residual fuels, carrying out prescribed burns, and making improvements to egress routes that are important in the event of an emergency or evacuation. …“These projects reflect the innovation and commitment we continue to see from proponents throughout BC,” said Jason Fisher, executive director, FESBC.
US Drought Tests Trump Strategy of Logging to Fight Wildfire
By Bobby Magill
Bloomberg Law
June 8, 2026
Category: Forestry
Region: United States
Extreme drought and rising temperatures in the US are poised to overwhelm the Trump administration’s plans to control wildfire by logging federal forests, scientists say. …The drought is expected to lead to catastrophic wildfires that stand to become the new normal amid climate change, the researchers say. “The type of drought we’re seeing this year across the West is a glimpse into the future,” said Erica Fleishman, at Oregon State University. …The US is on track in 2026 for more wildfires than 2025, a much wetter year. More than 5 million acres burned last year. As of April, 1.8 million acres had burned so far across the US—double the acres burned in the same period last year. Trump administration officials say wildfire risk makes it imperative to log forests and help the timber industry. The administration is taking an aggressive approach to quickly suppress wildfires as it increases logging by 25% this year.
Oregon’s new state forester gets to work, says ‘zero tolerance’ for issues that led to predecessor’s ouster
By Alex Baumhardt
Oregon Capital Chronicle
June 8, 2026
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West
Kacey KC
Oregon’s new state forester Kacey KC’s… will be the first woman to permanently lead the agency in its history, and comes to the job after 24 years at Nevada’s forestry and natural resource agencies, including eight years as Nevada’s first female State Forester Firewarden. KC said she brings with her from Nevada a “zero tolerance policy for a lot of different issues, both financially and treating people poorly.” As she embarks on her third month on the job, she said she is still in learning mode and ensuring “everyone understands my expectations and that we are moving forward together in the right direction.” …In her first few weeks she said she met with environmental organizations, timber operators, tribes, rural and rangeland fire protection associations, and said she meets at least twice a month with the directors of Oregon’s other natural resource agencies.
A disease of deforestation: how Ebola is linked to the smartphone in your pocket
By Sonia Shah
The Guardian
June 5, 2026
Category: Forestry
Region: International
As demand for cobalt, gold and other minerals grows, mining is accelerating deforestation in the Congo basin – and increasing the risk of deadly Ebola outbreaks. For decades after the discovery of Ebolavirus in 1976, outbreaks of the disease were relatively small and contained, affecting a few hundred people at most. In recent years, outbreaks of Ebola have been much larger, affecting thousands and even tens of thousands of people across multiple countries. The 2014 outbreak of Ebola in west Africa infected more than 28,000 people in 10 countries on three continents. The current eruption, which began in early May and shows no signs of abating… The conventional explanation has to do with the larger and more interconnected human populations that pathogens can access. But there’s a more fundamental driver: the transformation of the underlying ecology of Ebola, which is being remade, in part, by the rising global hunger for minerals to power the hi-tech economy.
Hello early bird! We just want you to know that the news team is busy adding stories to this page. Be sure to check back at 9:00 am (PST) for the full line up of articles.
There have been consistent signs that the housing market is poised for a rebound. Russ Taylor has been tracking North American lumber markets for decades. The data, he said, keeps telling a different story. …”If things are unaffordable and there’s uncertainty and consumer confidence is weak, then nothing happens. People might be saving more money if they’re not spending it, but everyone’s worried about jobs and everything else, so they’re not spending.” The number Taylor keeps coming back to is lumber consumption. In 2016, the country consumed roughly 50 billion board feet. In 2025, the number was almost exactly the same. Ten years of demographic tailwinds, rising equity, and persistent housing shortage arguments, and consumption has not budged. …Housing starts have been declining every year since their 2021 peak, and Taylor expects 2026 to continue that trend. Repair and remodeling, which accounts for roughly 40% of US lumber consumption, has been similarly stagnant since the COVID period.
New York’s Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (PRRIA) has not reached the finish line. The state legislature adjourned without voting on
Through the Forest Enhancement Society of BC, the Province is committing $20 million per year over three years. …This investment funds projects that reduce wildfire risk, restore forest ecosystems and improve the long-term health and resilience of B.C.’s forests. “The best wildfire is the one that never starts. The best way to protect communities is to work together to prevent them,” said Ravi Parmar, Minister of Forests. …This year, 60 forest enhancement projects are receiving funding. These projects not only reduce wildfire risk, they also support forest-sector jobs in rural and remote communities. The projects include creating landscape-level fuel breaks, removing residual fuels, carrying out prescribed burns, and making improvements to egress routes that are important in the event of an emergency or evacuation. …“These projects reflect the innovation and commitment we continue to see from proponents throughout BC,” said Jason Fisher, executive director, FESBC.
Extreme drought and rising temperatures in the US are poised to overwhelm the Trump administration’s plans to control wildfire by logging federal forests, scientists say. …The drought is expected to lead to catastrophic wildfires that stand to become the new normal amid climate change, the researchers say. “The type of drought we’re seeing this year across the West is a glimpse into the future,” said Erica Fleishman, at Oregon State University. …The US is on track in 2026 for more wildfires than 2025, a much wetter year. More than 5 million acres burned last year. As of April, 1.8 million acres had burned so far across the US—double the acres burned in the same period last year. Trump administration officials say wildfire risk makes it imperative to log forests and help the timber industry. The administration is taking an aggressive approach to quickly suppress wildfires as it increases logging by 25% this year.