Canada’s resource sector provides the highest paying jobs for Indigenous workers. In other news: a rail service revival is touted for Vancouver Island; US economists still expect a recession, as new home sales rose in January, GDP was up 2.7% in Q4. Elsewhere: Taiga Building Products reports lower Q4 earnings; Södra looks to expand in Sweden; and Russia’s logging falls 13.5%.
In Forestry/Climate news: Neil Young surprises at Victoria old-growth rally; Dave Elstone says BC mill closures blamed on incorrect notions; US invests in forest nursery and native seed partnerships; California detects Pine Ghost Canker fungi; Sierra Nevada sees rise in high-severity fires; and the spotted vs barred owl conundrum.
Finally, Keith Atkinson is named new chair of BC’s Forest Practices Board.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
CALGARY, Alberta — Data from Census 2021 show that the extractive resource sectors, and the oil and gas sector specifically, provide the highest paying average wages for Indigenous workers in Canada. Indigenous people in Canada make almost three times more working in the oil and gas extraction sector than the average Indigenous worker ($140,400 vs $51,120 average employment income) and almost twice as much working in mining ($93,600). Forestry also paid higher than average ($56,100). …Indigenous people are well represented in the resource sector. While they represent 3.9% of the Canadian workforce overall, they are 6.9% of the oil and gas workforce, 10.8% of the mining workforce, and 9.2% of forestry. By contrast, only 5.0% of the federal government workforce is Indigenous. …”Many Indigenous workers have become involved in the oil & gas, mining and forestry sectors to benefit from the good, high paying careers they can provide,” said Indigenous Resource network Board Chair John Desjarlais.
U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 2.7% in the Q4 2022, according to the “second” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the Q3, real GDP increased 3.2%. …In the advance estimate, the increase in real GDP was 2.9%. …The increase in real GDP… was partly offset by decreases in residential fixed investment and exports. Imports decreased. Current‑dollar GDP increased 6.7% at an annual rate, or $421.1 billion, in the Q4 to a level of $26.15 trillion, an upward revision of 0.2 percentage point, or $12.5 billion, from the previous estimate.
Russia harvested 194.6 million m3 of timber in 2022, which is 13.5% less than in the previous year. This was reported by the state news agency TASS, citing Roslesinforg. The reason for the decline in timber harvesting in the country was European sanctions and a ban on the export of logs introduced by the Russian government. EU sanctions led to a fall in exports and wood processing in the country and, accordingly, the demand for wood raw materials. In all large forest regions of Russia, logging decreased last year. In the Irkutsk region, timber harvesting amounted to 27.9 million m3 (-14.5%), in the Krasnoyarsk Territory – 19.6 million m3 (-20.6%), in the Vologda region. – 14.6 million m3 (-19.6%), in the Arkhangelsk region. – 14.1 million m3 (-12.5%), in Komi – 9.1 million m3 (-5.8%).
Homes built or remodeled in the last decade tend to have one thing in common: The floors are “luxury” vinyl plank. The material is cheap, and by scanning wood to make a print, manufacturers can somewhat convincingly mimic the real thing. But the material — now the most common type of flooring in the U.S. — is causing problems. The flooring uses PVC, plastic made from vinyl chloride, a toxic chemical. PVC products are dangerous to make, both for workers and communities nearby. They can potentially be dangerous to use because of additives. When they’re thrown out, that can lead to more pollution. And products like vinyl flooring keep growing, despite the fact that safer alternatives exist. …Perkins & Will, the architecture firm, noted in one report that some additives like plasticizers don’t bind tightly to PVC, so they can eventually end up in household dust that you breathe, or could be directly absorbed through bare feet. 
…renewable energy and the decarbonisation of building operations is a clear social imperative. In Ireland, the day-to-day running or operational carbon of our buildings currently equates to 24 per cent of our national emissions annually. …Whole life carbon is the combination of the operational and embodied carbon in a building through a 50-year period, which equates to 51 per cent and 49 per cent of a building’s whole life carbon emissions respectively. Ireland’s Climate Action Plan takes decisive action to achieve a 51 per cent reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and sets us on a path to reach net-zero emissions by no later than 2050. …Timber has the lowest embodied carbon of any mainstream building material, and acts as an ideal substitute for the more carbon-intensive traditional alternatives. …Today, 90 per cent of mass timber worldwide is manufactured in Europe. Why is it that our neighbours, with similar stringent regulations, are embracing this technology and we are not?
With forestry, I think we can have our cake and eat it, too. I think we can have thriving wildlife populations, functional forests, and we can have jobs. In other words, we can have a truly sustainable forest industry that supports our communities now and into the future. I’m optimistic this can happen because that’s what we had. Before the supermills and modern chemical plantation forestry, we had a thriving industry that employed thousands more people and consumed a fraction of the timber while leaving cutblocks full of moose. …Not all forestry investment has been beneficial. Much of the investment in the past 20 years has been aimed at eliminating jobs and maximizing corporate profits. The smaller mills have been shut down but it’s worth remembering a lot of them were profitable. Just not profitable enough. 
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that nearly $10 million is being invested in forest nursery and native seed partnerships, thanks to funding from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Of the total funding, $4.5 million is being invested in twenty-nine facilities from states, U.S. Island territories and commonwealths to modernize forest nurseries and $5.3 million will help increase native seed collection and native plant availability to restore and support resilient ecosystems on national forests and grasslands. These investments help build capacity across public and private lands to meet mounting reforestation demands and complement the recently announced $35 million investment in Forest Service nurseriesin support of the National Forest System Reforestation Strategy (PDF, 7 MB). …According to The Nature Conservancy’s Reforestation Hub, it’s estimated that up to 146 million acres of land in the U.S. could benefit from reforestation.
