BC Premier Eby announced new measures to protect old growth, increase forest landscape planning and spur innovation. In related news: BC’s plan—welcomed by ENGO’s, Green Party and Unifor—will harness financial clout of conservation groups, and downgrade import of timber supply. In other news: Oregon considers carbon sequestration plan, and the meteoric rise of mass timber.
In Business news: Canfor’s Houston mill is back on line after fire; R-Y Timber closes its fire-damaged Lavington mill; the demolition of Tolko’s mill a loss of Kelowna history; Port Hawkesburry Paper agrees to harvest less; and Russia approves IKEA factory sales. Elsewhere: the Buy American plan is called bipartisan folly; a study on post-hurricane recovery challenges; and US builder confidence is up but housing starts are down.
Finally, the folly of focusing on local GHG reductions instead of what’s smartest and best.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
The Canfor mill went back into full production Feb. 6 following repairs made to a fire which damaged a key part of the operation in the early morning hours of Jan. 22. Damage to the computer room which controls the operation of the trimmer saws kept the mill from a full re-opening on Jan. 23 following an extended five week closure. “The trimmer is important to optimize the cutting of each log,” explained Canfor official Michelle Ward of the importance of getting as much value as possible from each log that runs through the mill. Members of the Houston Volunteer Fire Department spent five hours fighting the fire. The full re-opening the mill now means Canfor can keep to its schedule of running until April and then closing down, affecting nearly 350 direct employees as well as those who cut and deliver logs and those who provide services.
WASHINGTON – U.S. single-family homebuilding fell in January, but an easing in mortgage rates and improvement in homebuilder confidence suggested the recession-hit housing market was close to finding a floor. Single-family housing starts, which account for the bulk of homebuilding, dropped 4.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 841,000 units last month. Single-family homebuilding tumbled 27.3% on a year-on-year basis in January. …The sector has been the biggest causality of the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hiking campaign. …Starts for housing projects with five units or more fell 5.4% to a rate of 457,000 units. Multi-family housing construction remains underpinned by demand for rental accommodation. With both single- and multi-family homebuilding declining, overall housing starts dropped 4.5% to a rate of 1.309 million units last month, the lowest level since June 2020.
Europe has continued to feel the impacts of Russia’s war against Ukraine. The consequence is a full cessation on the import of wood raw materials to countries like Finland. …Finnish pulpmills and sawmills have long been dependent on imported wood raw materials to meet their wood fiber needs. …Finland’s wood raw-material imports from Russia fell dramatically in 2022 following many years of active trade between the two countries. Russia decided to halt softwood log exports starting January 1, 2022. …The strong pulp market made the Finnish pulp industry search for alternative supply sources to keep operating rates high. …In Q3 2022, imports were mainly up from Sweden and the Baltic States. But there were also a few shipments of logs and wood chips from Brazil, South Africa, and Uruguay.
Timber is a natural, renewable material, easy to fabricate, and with low-carbon emissions. …Simply put, due to the complex physics involved in the perpendicular lamination, the strength of CLT board is similar to that of reinforced concrete, and has proven performance under seismic forces. …In the early 21st century, as a more sustainable and responsible reforestation-focused wood industry grew, CLT started to become the material du jour for sustainable and, indeed, circular building projects, with organizations like Circular CLT dedicated to reducing CLT production waste and finding solutions for it such as biomass-fuelled hydrogen power. But how did CLT use in construction begin? And what does it mean for the future?
Premier David Eby said the government is accelerating the protection of B.C.’s oldest and rarest forests. Funding is being allocated to develop several new regional tables where forest landscape planning will be discussed with more First Nations input. Four of those are underway. …Among the new measures was a cabinet order that downgrades the importance of recognizing timber supply as a factor in forest planning. …Forests Minister Bruce Ralston said it was outdated wording. Removing it lets decision makers consider other objectives such as water quality and wildlife. There is also $10 million… to develop alternatives to clear-cutting. Another $2.4 million is being provided to the First Nations Forestry Council to increase Indigenous participation in the B.C.-wide “co-development” of new forest policy. A new conservation financing mechanism is promised within six months. …Eby and Ralston said communities and First Nations will be able to finance old-growth protection by selling verified carbon offsets that represent emission reductions, once a renewed version of that program is finalized this year. …Indigenous forester Gary Merkel… said it is about much more than stands of trees.:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tgam/P2VXHPX4DFIKXEQ7EJ6O5WFLRU.JPG)
TIMMINS, Ontario — The Kenogami Watershed Ecological Alliance will host a town hall meeting at Kirkland Lake’s Royal Canadian Legion hall on March 29. The purpose of the meeting is raise awareness to the proposed developments of land in unincorporated townships across many parts of Northeastern Ontario by a group known as the Boreal Forest Medieval Villages. Anna McPherson said, “The purpose of this meeting is for community awareness about off-grid developments in unincorporated townships. “It is not just affecting Kenogami, it is affecting all of Northern Ontario and all areas of unincorporated communities.” She feels without the rules, regulations being followed many areas are going to be affected and it will become “the wild west.” …The town hall meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.
When we talk about climate migration, we don’t normally picture a seed blowing uphill in the wind, or landing in a cooler place. Yet, plants around the world are being forced move because of shifting climate conditions in their original habitats. The problem, according to two new studies, is they don’t always make it where they need to go. The sheer speed of temperature increases in the climate crisis era, combined with the fragmentation of landscapes by human activity, is making it harder for trees and other plants to follow their preferred climate conditions. These changes are disrupting a millenia-old process of plant migration, and it could pose a major challenge to global efforts to protect wildlife and reforest land to fight climate change. …if we want plants to survive shifts in their habitats, we’ll have to give them some help.
WorkSafeBC has just published the February edition of their Health and Safety Enews. Identifying health and safety risks together, as a team, and developing a plan to manage them creates a safer workplace for everyone. Small actions. Big results. Keep your workplace a safe place – learn more about: