Starting on a sad note; John Allan, one of Canada most influential forest sector professionals, died February 23, 2024.
In Forestry and Climate news: BC and Ontario leaders express worry as fire season nears; a National Bank of Canada report says Canada could offset all its GHGs; the Wood Pellet Association of Canada’s upcoming trade mission to Taiwan; the pros and cons of California’s pellet mills; ENGOs pan changes to Ontario’s Endangered Species Act; and how European ecolabels promote sustainable forestry.
In other news: Mosaic and We Wai Kai First Nation sign logging agreement; US Forest Service Chief talks with Oregon loggers; Oregon officials are grilled over mill closures; Taiga Building Products reports positive Q4, 2023 earnings; US Homebuilders’ labour shortages ease; and EU’s pulp & paper demand is down.
Finally, a new category in the Tree Frog Forestry News — Forest History & Archives:
- Restoring an 1895 schooner used to carry Puget Sound lumber as far as Australia
- The legacy of timber: A historical journey through Truckee, California
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
John Allan, December 23, 1945 – February 23, 2024. On the morning of February 23rd, 2024, John Allan of Victoria, BC ended his brave battle with progressive supranuclear palsy and passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, and on his own terms, by receiving Medical Assistance in Dying at the age of 78. …John entered the BC Public Service in 1971 and worked his way up the corporate ladder until he became a Deputy Minister in 1990. John retired from the Public Service in 1999 and went on to become the President of the BC Lumber Trade Council and CEO of the Council of Forest Industries, positions he held until 2013 in Vancouver, BC. During that time, he assisted in the negotiations for the Softwood Lumber Agreement. In 2013, John semi-retired again but still worked part-time as a consultant until he was asked to return to the BC Public Service to serve once again as the Deputy Minister of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations.
The Global Wood Summit – to be held in Vancouver BC on October 29-30, 2024 – has released various price options for its international wood and trade conference. The conference partners announced that they have adopted 2016 conference prices to offer better value to participants and to attract a wider audience. The Global Wood Summit will feature key speakers that offer independent views and come from the log and processing industries, domestic and international trade, and other experts in their fields, along with selected strategic consultants and analysts. The objective to is discuss current issues and trends across the key exporting and importing countries to arrive at some consensus about what to expect in terms of business and trade over the next few years. Registration for the two-day conference will open in April along with the programme and the initial list of confirmed speakers.
EUROPE — Suffering from an adverse macro-economic context, production of pulp and paper in Europe has experienced a decline in 2023. It was due to several compounding external factors: a poor economic environment, destocking and still high energy costs, as shown by the Cepi preliminary 
The state’s forests are much too dense and wildly overgrown. …Rural county officials see an additional reason to cut trees and clear forests: bringing back jobs lost in the long decline of logging. The accumulated biomass can be ground into pellets and sold for fuel in Japan and Europe. …Advocates contend the industry will be climate friendly and carbon neutral, but opponents say pellet plants already operating in the southeastern United States are neither. The U.S., they say, is paying the price of green energy in Europe. …Enviva claims it uses only treetops and branches in its plants, the kind of material the California plants also plan to use. But a whistleblower called that a joke. “We use 100% whole trees,” he said. The rural representatives in California claim their operation will be nothing like Enviva’s. “Our mission is to increase forest health,” said Blacklock.
SAN FRANCISCO — When it came time to restore a late-19th century schooner at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, the National Park Service placed a call to the U.S. Forest Service. The ship is the C.A. Thayer, a vessel that first launched in 1895… was used to carry lumber from the Puget Sound into San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Australia. The wooden-hulled, three-mast schooner is routinely restored as part of preventive maintenance, but finding the right size and dimensions for lumber can prove challenging and costly. …Through a Federal Free to Use request the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest was able to donate the trees for the ship’s restoration. …The Cedar and Douglas Fir were felled after it was concluded that the trees were a hazard in the campground due to root rot. Their time on the forest might have been coming to an end, but a second life was waiting.