Daily News for June 23, 2025

Today’s Takeaway

Judge signals that New Brunswick private forest land is off the table

Tree Frog Forestry News
June 23, 2025
Category: Today's Takeaway

A New Brunswick judge signaled that private forest land is off the table in Wolastoqey Nation title claim. In related news: Premier Eby says BC’s economic fast-track plan won’t trample indigenous interests; and Idaho Senators came out against US public land-sale provision. Meanwhile: a new study says private reforestation in the US South is profitable; Weyerhaeuser invests in Arkansas’ small-tree forests; how robots are talking Canada’s prefab-housing to the next level; and Phoenix authorizes 18-storey mass timber buildings. 

In Forestry/Wildfire news: why Canada’s wildfire smoke is tormenting Minnesotans; Ontario has a water bomber pilot shortage; Coulson Aviation brings night-vision technology to firefighting; the hidden impact of clear-cut logging in BC; gutting the US Forest Service will cause irreparable damage; and the EU biomass satellite reveals its striking first images of forests and more.

Finally, the dangerous bully doing the most harm to our ecosystem and wildlife.

Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News Editor

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Business & Politics

Indigenous interests won’t be trampled under B.C.’s economic fast-track plan: Eby

By Jessica Durling
Campbell River Mirror
June 20, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

David Eby

Premier David Eby is aware that legislation fast-tracking energy and infrastructure projects has caused a “significant amount of anxiety” among B.C.’s Indigenous communities, but promises projects will not go through on Crown land without First Nations consent. The premier gave a keynote address on Thursday, June 19, during the Indigenous Resource Opportunities Conference at Nanaimo’s Vancouver Island Conference Centre. “I don’t believe practically in British Columbia in the year 2025 that we can fast-track without full Indigenous co-operation and support on the project, because we made commitments under the Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People that we passed,” Eby said. …Also during his address, the premier applauded Nak’azdli Development Corporation’s Deadwood Innovations, which turns traditionally low-value timber into premium high-quality lumber products, and credited project partners on B.C. Hydro’s “call for power” procurement process for clean and renewable energy.

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Judge signals that New Brunswick private property is off the table in big title claim

By John Chilibeck
The Telegraph-Journal
June 19, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

NEW BRUNSWICK — Justice Ernest Drapeau is one of three judges hearing an appeal launched by three timber firms that fear the Wolastoqey will get a toehold on their vast woodlands where they do business. The case before New Brunswick’s Court of Appeal centres around a lower-court ruling in which the judge agreed to remove the big private owners from the claim but left their land in the lawsuit, opening the door, they fear, to future expropriation by the provincial government. …Drapeau wanted to know how a court could direct a provincial government to take away property from private owners, who both sides agree are “innocents” in the claim because they had nothing to do with awarding land grants. …The justice said he couldn’t imagine a court would order what the provincial government should do with its land because it is not allowed to do so per the Crown Lands and Forests Act.

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America’s Top Logger Bets It Can Make Money Off Small, Crooked Trees

By Ryan Dezember
The Wall Street Journal
June 23, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States

Weyerhaeuser has broken ground on a $500 million plant in Arkansas to produce engineered lumber from the small trees that have piled up across the pine belt after the closure of many pulp and paper mills. It is a big bet on one of the most depressed commodities in America: pine trees that are too small, crooked or otherwise unfit for making lumber. The decline of pulp and paper mills has left some timberland owners with wood they can’t sell. Several ventures have sought to capitalize on the pulpwood glut, including burning it to generate electricity and manufacturing oriented strand board. Weyerhaeuser’s plant will be largely heated and powered by burning bark, branches and sawdust, but its gambit is more like making OSB. …Chief Executive Devin Stockfish expects the Arkansas plant to sell out its 10 million cubic feet of annual production once it opens in 2027. [to access the full story a WSJ subscription is required]

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Idaho Sens. Risch and Crapo come out against public land-sale provision

By Rose Evans
Idaho Statesman
June 21, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US West

Idaho Sens. Jim Risch and Mike Crapo made statements Friday opposing the sale of more than 3 million acres of public land as part of the federal budget reconciliation bill. The Republican senators had not previously spoken out on the controversial provision, proposed by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, that would fold the land-sale into the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” …If passed, Lee’s provision would require BLM and Forest Service officials to publish a list of tracts of land nominated or considered for sale every 60 days. It would cap the amount of land that could be sold at 0.75% of each agency’s land — up to 3.2 million acres, the Statesman previously reported. …Lee said the legislation — which requires land sold be used for housing or “associated community needs” — would make “housing more affordable for hardworking American families,” according to a news release announcing the draft language.

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Wood, Paper & Green Building

How robots are taking prefabricated housing construction to a new level for this Vancouver company

By Derrick Penner
The Vancouver Sun
June 23, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

Behind the three-storey rolling doors of its prototype factory in Delta, a Metro Vancouver company is fine-tuning an approach to prefabricated construction that it believes could be key to solving Canada’s housing crisis. Intelligent City is using massive industrial robots and advanced techniques in mass-timber construction to produce complete floor and exterior wall sections for a nine-storey apartment building that will be assembled in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke. In the middle of the factory, a pair of automated machines on parallel tracks engage in a precisely choreographed dance to the tune of detailed digitized plans, laying down layers of glue and nailing elements together to assemble floor panels. …The time saved by Intelligent City’s method — which is about four to six months over traditional concrete construction — can help governments meet the ambitious targets they are setting for home building.

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Phoenix ushers in sustainable future with new 2024 building construction code

By Aisha Khan
Hoodline Phoenix
June 19, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US West

In a significant leap forward for urban development, Phoenix has officially updated its building construction standards. Starting August 1, 2025, developers and contractors in the region will be guided by the new 2024 Phoenix Building Construction Code (PBCC). The City Council’s decision ensures that all new construction aligns with contemporary building practices and taps into the increasing demand for smarter, sustainable living. The details of the code were meticulously laid out in a recent city press release. …Pioneering changes include the authorization to use mass timber in buildings up to 18 stories, proof that modern construction is to definitely embrace sustainable materials. …The grace period for projects already under review and those subject to special exemptions as per the Planning and Development Department’s discretion will mitigate any friction during the code transition. 

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Mass timber company picks Portland for manufacturing facility

By Kyra Buckley
Oregon Public Broadcasting
June 21, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US West

A mass timber company from Switzerland has chosen Portland for one of its North American facilities. Zaugg Timber Solutions is entering into a long-term lease with the Port of Portland to develop a manufacturing site at Terminal 2. Port commissioners approved the transaction this month. The company is expected to be the anchor tenant for the port’s efforts to create what it describes as a mass timber housing and innovation campus at the terminal. “Having Zaugg as this incredibly trusted international leader within mass timber really adds a lot of credibility to the vision,” Kimberly Branam, chief trade and economic development officer at the port, told commissioners. “It will bring the vision to life.” That vision, Branam said, is to have manufacturing facilities alongside research and development sites. …Zaugg is a manufacturer of engineered wood products and uses its own materials to build structures.

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Forestry

Speĺkúmtn Community Forest launches carbonizer pilot project

By Luke Faulks
The Pique News Magazine
June 20, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada West

The Spel’kúmtn Community Forest is piloting a new technology with the potential to change how post-harvest forest waste is managed in the Pemberton Valley. The community forest has brought in a mobile carbonizer from SkyTech Yarding to process woody debris left over from timber harvests, known as slash piles, in the Miller Creek area. The machine converts biomass into biochar—a valuable soil product—and is touted as a cleaner, more climate-conscious alternative to conventional open-pile burning. …The Tigercat Carbonizer 6040 being used in Miller Creek burns biomass in a low-oxygen environment, producing significantly less smoke and yielding biochar—a charcoal-like, carbon-rich material that can enhance soil health and sequester carbon long-term.

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BC prepares to clearcut old growth in the Walker Valley

By James Steidle
The Prince George Citizen
June 20, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada West

James Steidle

One of the great mysteries in the local forest industry has got to be why BC Timber Sales would start auctioning off the Walker wilderness for clearcut logging while obstructing a shift to plantation thinning. I went to a Conservation North event on May 23 to watch their film The Walker Valley. …What really struck me about the presentation was the importance of the Walker for threatened bull trout and endangered chinook salmon. …Despite that, BC Timber Sales is in the process of auctioning off cutblocks of old-growth in the lower Walker to start moving the industrial clearcut plantation machine into the headwaters. If the history of logging around Prince George is any indicator, where the clearcuts happen, the helicopter glyphosate herbicides follow and we usually end up with lifeless even-aged monocrop plantations with next to no wildlife, nothing like the old growth mixtures we had before.

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Calls to defer Elphinstone Highlands cutblock auction supported

By Connie Jordison
The Sunshine Coast Reporter
June 19, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada West

Elphinstone and West Howe Sound community associations’ efforts to have B.C. Timber Sales (BCTS) defer the 35.2 hectare Elphinstone Highlands cutblock (TA0519) from its current Q1 sales schedule received support from the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) board. Provision of a letter of support for the deferral requests was endorsed at the board’s June 12 meeting. According to the BCTS Chinook area sales schedule released April 17, TA0519 was slated to go to auction by June 30. In a June 18 email response to Coast Reporter, the Ministry of Forests stated that “Sales schedules are issued to notify of upcoming proposed timber sales auctions. BC Timber Sales starts accepting bids when a licence is placed on BC Bid for auction… TA0519 is a partial harvest/commercial thin sale and was pulled from BC Bid due to an administrative error. It is anticipated that TA0519 will be reposted this fiscal year.”

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Scotch broom is a dangerous bully

By Joanne Sales, Executive Director, Broombusters
The Parkville Qualicum Beach News
June 21, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

QUALICUM BEACH, BC — Alien invasive species like Scotch broom do not move into a void. They displace something that was originally present. Broom displaces grasses and native plants – but while grass is food, broom is toxic to grazing animals, wild and domestic. Broom provides flowers for bees in May – but wipes out the native flowers that bees rely on for the rest of the season. Farmers call broom the Scourge of Pastureland – and it affects our food security. Broom competing with young trees on forest land creates millions of dollars in losses to forest companies – and the loss to the future of our forests is beyond measure. Biodiversity? Researchers designate Scotch broom as THE invasive species doing the greatest harm to species at risk in all of B.C. Broom is the top offender of biodiversity. Wildfire? Broom’s high oil content, naturally occurring dry branches, and dense growth patterns make broom extremely flammable. FireSmart classifies broom in the highest risk category.

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Trouble in the Headwaters: the hidden impacts of clear-cut logging in B.C.

By Jacqueline Ronson
The Narwhal
June 19, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Trouble in the Headwaters, a 25-minute documentary by filmmaker Daniel J. Pierce, explores the root causes behind the devastating 2018 floods in Grand Forks, B.C. More than 100 families were displaced and millions of dollars were spent on flood infrastructure — yet floods continue to threaten the region. The film follows Dr. Younes Alila, a professor of forest hydrology at the University of BC, as he investigates the upstream impacts of clear-cut logging in the Kettle River watershed. …Climate change is responsible for some of the increase in flooding. But decades of research by Alila and his peers suggests the role of industrial forestry is significant, and has long been underestimated. He spent years investigating… the cumulative effects of clearcutting. …Alila sees hope in ongoing class-action lawsuits: people impacted by floods in Grand Forks, Chemainus and elsewhere are suing governments and forestry companies.

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Kamloops councillor says community forest would provide FireSmart, revenue generation opportunities

By Kristen Holliday
Castanet
June 20, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

A Kamloops city councillor is pitching the idea of a community forest as a way to generate revenue for local amenities and projects while reducing wildfire risk for the region. During Wednesday’s livability and sustainability select committee meeting, Coun. Stephen Karpuk said he’d like to see the City of Kamloops strike a working group to get more information about pursuing a provincial community forest agreement. “There’s an opportunity for all parties to gain some economic value, some certainty on the land base, and some safety and security and some benefits economically that we can bring back to our communities,” Karpuk said. He said surrounding communities of Barriere, Clearwater, Valemount, Clinton and Logan Lake all have community forests — a tract of land set aside for the municipality to manage.

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Coulson Aviation to do first night-vision aerial firefighting in B.C.

By Darron Kloster
Victoria Times Colonist
June 21, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Coulson Aviation is joining the firefight in B.C.’s forests, bringing its night-vision technology to battle wildfires. The Port Alberni-based company, whose pilots use night-vision goggles to battle fires in Australia and the United States, has signed a 70-day contract with the B.C. Wildfire Service to provide one of its Sikorsky S-61 Type 1 helitankers that are equipped for night-time operations. The deal marks the first time Coulson will conduct night-vision aerial firefighting missions on Canadian soil. …Coulson Aviation Canada has logged thousands of night-vision flight hours and dropped tens of millions of gallons at night on urban wildfires in California and through parts of Australia. The company earned the world’s first night-vision firefighting certification from Transport Canada in 2011, followed by the first approvals in Australia and the United States. …Coulson Aviation employs a two-aircraft team, including a Sikorsky S-61 firefighting helicopter and a Sikorsky S-76 supervision helicopter.

Read the Coulson Aviation Press Release

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Water bomber pilot shortage grounds some aircraft in Ontario

CBC News
June 20, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada East

Several aircraft used to fight forest fires in Ontario are sitting in airport hangars and on tarmacs due to a pilot shortage. JP Hornick, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), said the province is now short three water bomber pilots and six helicopter pilots due to low pay and poor working conditions. “The Ontario pilots are the lowest paid in the country, and what the government has put on the table would bring them up to a whopping second lowest paid position across the country,” Hornick said. That pilot shortage has meant one of Ontario’s nine Canadair CL-415 water bombers has been grounded. Three of the province’s eight helicopters used for firefighting have also been grounded. Hornick said two of the five bush planes used by the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) have also been grounded because only three pilots are available to fly them.

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Union warns Trump’s rapid changes for wildland firefighters will be ‘disastrous’

By Drew Friedman
The Federal News Network
June 20, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States

A union is warning about the risks of moving too fast on the Trump administration’s plans to consolidate federal programs for wildland firefighters, as the U.S. heads into an intense wildfire season. The National Federation of Federal Employees, which represents federal wildland firefighters, said some of the administration’s end goals for wildfire management are “broadly positive,” but warned that a lack of detail and planning — coupled with an expedited timeline — could lead to serious consequences. “Making major changes during fire season, without congressional authorization or full planning, could be disastrous,” NFFE wrote. NFFE’s memo comes after Trump signed an executive order last week calling for the consolidation of wildland fire programs between the Interior Department and the Agriculture Department’s Forest Service. …Steve Lenkart, NFFE’s executive director, said the administration’s changes would immediately impact federal wildland firefighters, who have struggled for years with major recruitment and retention issues.

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Gutting the Forest Service will cause irreparable damage

By Suzanne Cable, retired forester, Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest
The Daily Inter Lake
June 22, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: US West

The U.S. Forest Service is headed for obsolescence due to recent personnel reductions, proposed budget cuts and re-organization plans. The ability of the Forest Service to meet its legislatively mandated multiple-use mission to the American public is being systematically dismantled. …over the last several months we’ve seen an agency deliberately dismantled by indiscriminate firings, forced retirements and coerced resignations. …The gutting of the Forest Service is a national crisis that will take years or decades to recover from once we, as a society, choose to stop the damage to our federal system of governance. We must individually and collectively speak out to all our elected officials and demand a stop to the out-of-control damage being done. We need to begin to rebuild a federal government that we can rely on to deliver critical services to the American public, including the Forest Service, and protect our wild landscapes from destruction.

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Forest Service tanker base operating earlier than normal to combat wildfires

By Madelyn Heath
KTVH Helena Montana
June 20, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: US West

HELENA — Aerial resources have been critical in reaching the Jericho Mountain Fire, and Helena has … a tanker base that can support the largest firefighting planes. …The around three thousand gallons of retardant the average plane holds is just one of the reasons it is so effective. Another factor is the team on the ground who get it refueled and refilled and back in the air in just minutes. …The tanker base typically opens for operations on July 7th but kicked off their wildfire season on June 15th nearly a month early this year due to the Jericho Mountain Fire. Once they got the call, the team had the base operational in two hours. So far the tanker base has already helped planes drop more than 32-thousand gallons of retardant this year compared to zero at this time last year.

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Oregon wildfires have already burned 20,000 acres and destroyed 56 homes. What’s next?

By Zach Urness
The Register-Guard
June 20, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

It’s been a busy and destructive start to Oregon’s wildfire season. Two state parks have already been evacuated by fast-moving wildfires, 56 homes have been destroyed, and 20,300 acres have burned in more than 400 fires — mostly east of the Cascades. Rafters on the popular John Day River have twice found themselves floating through the middle of an active blaze. …At one point, Interstate 84 was closed due to wildfire activity. …“What’s striking is the size of the fires we’ve seen this early in the season,” Oregon Department of Forestry wildfire spokeswoman Jessica Neujahr said. …High fire danger is expected to persist across the entire summer and into fall. …A combination of factors has led to the large wildfires seen so far this year. A wet winter led to the rapid growth of fuels like grasses in eastern Oregon, which then dried out rapidly under hot and dry spring conditions.

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Study reveals US timber supply inelastic and South-Central reforestation profitable

The Lesprom Network
June 21, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

A new analysis quantifies US timber harvest and supply dynamics and finds that, although national timber supply is largely price inelastic, rapid growth in South-Central forests now makes private reforestation clearly profitable, according to David Wear at Resources for the Future institute, and John W. Coulston at the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station. …In their modeling of owner behavior, Wear and Coulston find that price signals drive increased cutting in every region and ownership class except public lands on the Pacific Coast. …Supply responds more strongly to sawtimber than to pulpwood prices, underscoring the influence of higher-value markets on harvest intensity. Tree-planting choice models further show that private landowners in high-production regions (South, Northeast, Pacific Northwest, Northern Rockies) boost reforestation probability by roughly 0.5 % for every 1 % rise in sawtimber price. …This integrated, plot-level research positions the eastern US as the primary locus for future timber supply expansion.

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Why Canada’s wildfire smoke is now a fixture for Minnesotans when the weather warms

By Patrick Hamilton, Science Museum of Minnesota
The Star Tribune
June 21, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, United States, US East

It has only been in the past few years that wildfire smoke from Canada has become a persistent risk to the air we all breathe. Why is this? …A vast swath across northern Canada has a subarctic climate. The types of vegetation best adapted to these conditions are conifer forests dominated by black and white spruce with some pine, balsam fir, larch, aspen and birch. Fire has always been an element of this biome. Historically, about 7.3 million acres have burned annually but in 2023, an astonishing 67 million acres burned. This year’s acreage is on pace to meet or exceed the record-breaking year of 2023. …The fire season is changing in Canada because the climate of Canada is changing. …What this means is that large, long-duration wildfires in Canada’s boreal forest and the smoke plumes they produce are likely to be a new and persistent phenomenon going forward. 

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Start seeing Minnesota’s trees for the forest values they are

By Brian Buhr, Dean of Natural Resource Science, University of Minnesota
The Duluth News Tribune
June 21, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: US East

Brian Buhr

…However, few people consider how Minnesota’s nearly 18 million acres of forests can drive bioinnovation, supporting both a healthy environment and economy. For those who do, they’d likely underestimate the growing diversity of products that can use components of wood sustainably harvested from our state’s forests. Research at the University of Minnesota is leading the way to further develop those innovations… One such emerging opportunity is using woody biomass to produce climate-smart, low-carbon biofuels. …Clearly, forest loss also brings economic costs. Each acre burned or left unproductive loses $234 in carbon value, not to mention all the other products that could be created from that acre. Bottom line: Managing forest health and timber harvesting creates jobs, strengthens the economy, and reduces carbon emissions and wildfire risks. The University of Minnesota leads this effort through partnerships with industry, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Minnesota DNR, supported by public investment. 

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Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

A forest the size of North America would be needed to offset Big Oil’s reserves, study finds

By Hayley Smith
Los Angeles Times
June 19, 2025
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US West

The world would need to plant a forest the size of North America in order to offset planet-warming emissions from the 200 largest oil and gas companies, new research has found. A study published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment analyzed the economic and ecological benefits of planting trees as a means of balancing potential carbon dioxide emissions from the projected burning of oil reserves held by the fossil fuel industry. …The burning of fossil fuels represents about 90% of planet-warming emissions. …But, as the paper notes, “fossil-fuel companies currently face little incentive to reduce the extraction and use of fossil fuels, and regulatory measures to limit these activities have been slow to materialise.” …Indeed, the researchers acknowledged that the study has limitations as it relies on broad assumptions, including that all existing fossil fuel reserves will be sold and burned.

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Biomass satellite returns striking first images of forests and more

The European Space Agency
June 23, 2025
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

Today, at the Living Planet Symposium, ESA revealed the first stunning images from its groundbreaking Biomass satellite mission – marking a major leap forward in our ability to understand how Earth’s forests are changing and exactly how they contribute to the global carbon cycle. But these inaugural glimpses go beyond forests. Remarkably, the satellite is already showing potential to unlock new insights into some of Earth’s most extreme environments. Biomass – an Earth Explorer research mission developed within ESA’s FutureEO programme – was launch less than two months ago. This new mission is, therefore, still in the process of being commissioned, but its first set of images are stunning none the less. …Biomass is the first satellite to carry a P-band synthetic aperture radar, its signal capable of penetrating forest canopies to measure woody biomass – trunks, branches and stems. These measurements serve as a proxy for carbon storage, the assessment of which is the mission’s primary objective.

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Ancient trees are shipped to the UK, then burned – using billions in ‘green’ subsidies. Stop this madness now

By Dale Vince, owner of Ecotricity
The Guardian
June 21, 2025
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

Dale Vince

[Opinion by Dale Vince] How green is this? We pay billions of pounds to cut down ancient forests in the US and Canada, ship the wood across the Atlantic in diesel tankers, then burn it in a Yorkshire-based power station. Welcome to the scandal of Drax, where Britain’s biggest polluter gets to play climate hero. The reality is that billions in public subsidies has enabled Drax to generate electricity by burning 300m trees. Now the government is trying to force through an extension that would grant Drax an estimated £1.8bn in public subsidies on top of the £11bn it has already pocketed, keeping this circus going until at least 2031. This isn’t green energy. The mathematics alone should horrify anyone who cares about value for money or the environment. Burning wood creates 18% more CO2 emissions than coal. Even if you replant every tree Drax destroys, it takes up to a century for new growth to reabsorb the carbon released.

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Health & Safety

Preventing heat stress | Rate information sessions

WorkSafeBC
June 20, 2025
Category: Health & Safety
Region: Canada West

In the recent WorkSafeBC Health and Safety News, you’ll find these stories and more:

  • Prevent heat stress at work: Take action to protect your workers from heat stress. Find resources, including our heat stress screening tool.
  • Making it easier for workers to report an injury online: Recent improvements to our injury reporting form make it more convenient to report injuries online, anytime and on any device.
  • Finding strength in inspiring others: Darcy was only 20 years old when he sustained a life-altering injury at his job at a sawmill. Years later, he uses his experience to teach young workers about the importance of following safety procedures and taking the time to do work safely.
  • Rate information sessions: Learn about WorkSafeBC’s preliminary assessment (insurance) rates for 2026. In-person and virtual sessions are free to attend.

 

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Forest Fires

Some residents allowed to return after forest fire in Halifax area prompts evacuation

The Canadian Press in City News
June 22, 2025
Category: Forest Fires
Region: Canada, Canada East

MUSQUODOBOIT HARBOUR — Halifax officials say some people who had to flee a forest fire on Sunday afternoon were being allowed back home, with provincial officials noting rain was falling and the blaze was being held. RCMP began helping evacuate people earlier in the day after issuing a statement about a forest fire in Musquodoboit Harbour, about 45 kilometres east of downtown Halifax, and police also asked other residents to avoid the area. Later, the Halifax Regional Municipality said some of the evacuees would be permitted to return home, while an evacuation centre would be opening for those not being allowed back. Nova Scotia’s Natural Resources department posted to social media late Sunday that the fire was being held at about 30 hectares in size and that rain was falling.

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Forest fires in Southwest New Mexico force evacuations, emergency orders

By Roz Brown
Kiowa County Press
June 21, 2025
Category: Forest Fires
Region: US West

Forest fires have broken out in parts of New Mexico that state forecasters had already warned would see an elevated wildfire risk this summer due to high temperatures, low snowpack and ongoing drought. At least 25 New Mexico jurisdictions imposed some level of fire restriction this spring. State Forester Laura McCarthy said the peak of fire season is still a week away, beginning June 26. …On Tuesday, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a state of emergency in response to the Trout Fire, which is burning in the Gila National Forest, forcing residents to evacuate. The Buck Fire also has burned more than 57,000 acres in the same area of Southwest New Mexico. The governor has urged localities to ban fireworks and restrict water usage. …”If you look at every single big fire we’ve had, there was either a lightning strike or a person behind it,” she added.

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