NGOs announced legal action to block EU Parliament vote on forest bioenergy, say America’s hardwood forests are being stripped bare. In related news: forestry by-products may help decarbonize Canada’s airlines; and Fort Nelson First Nation pursues new pellet plant. Meanwhile: the inconvenient truth about France’s forest fires; and the shortfall of the Norway-Indonesia deal on deforestation.
In Product news: how mass timber can improve health and wellbeing; the TimberFever design competition returns to Ontario; UBC Engineers feature wood in aircraft model competition; and nine impressive parametric wood structures.
In Business news: Stella-Jones purchases Texas Electric Cooperatives; Canadian housing starts decline in August; and no progress yet on the Weyerhaeuser strike.
Finally, Montana entrepreneur invents value-added wood product for the auto-sector.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
Montreal, Quebec — Stella-Jones Inc. today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase substantially all of the assets employed in the wood utility pole manufacturing business of Texas Electric Cooperatives (TEC), Inc. for a total purchase price of US$28M plus inventories of approximately US$4M. TEC produces southern yellow pine utility poles using Creosote and CCA preservatives at its wood treating facility in Jasper, Texas. Wood pole sales for the year ended December 31, 2021, totaled US$28 million. “This acquisition, which adds a 43rd manufacturing facility to our network, will enhance Stella-Jones’ offerings and expand our capacity to supply the growing needs of North America’s utility pole industry, while optimizing the overall efficiency of our continental network”, said Eric Vachon, President and CEO of Stella-Jones. “We look forward to welcoming the Jasper facility employees to our team of over 2,400 employees across North America.”
Next month’s municipal election could determine the future of North Cowichan’s forests, according to local forest activist and film maker Icel Dobell. Dobell has just released Voice of the Unexpected, her third video about the community forests, to remind citizens to get out to vote and to protect the local forest ecosystems. …Dobell said what’s unexpected is the story of the past four years of North Cowichan’s ongoing review of its 5,000-hectare municipal forest reserve. …Dobell is one of the founders of Where Do We Stand, a public platform advocating for the protection of the Six Mountain Forest, as her group calls North Cowichan’s MFR. …Dobell said her fourth video, New Old Growth: Voice of Promise, which will be released soon.
When it’s time to build a birdhouse, design your deck or replace your rocking chair, your wood purchasing choices can make a difference for the planet. By purchasing sustainable wood products, American consumers can encourage companies to implement policies that will protect the forests in their supply chains. …Considering the state of the world’s forests, it’s time for consumers to flex their power and shift demand towards forest-friendly products. …Recycled products are the most sustainable wood derived option because they reduce pressure on forests and prevent older wood-derived products from entering the waste stream. …There is a promising alternative to wood: bamboo. …Greenwashing in the marketplace makes it difficult. The only way to ensure that a product is produced sustainably and ethically is to confirm that it has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
Environmentalists warn that hundreds of thousands of acres of forest are being torn down each year in the U.S. southeast to make wood pellets to fuel European power plants in a deluded bid to fight climate change. The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) and other groups say logging in woodlands stretching from Texas to Virginia is ravaging a biodiversity hotspot, including century-old hardwood trees that will take decades to replace. More than two dozen pellet mills operate across the so-called North American Coastal Plain, which has already lost some 70 percent of its historic vegetation thanks in part to a $11 billion global industry that is set to grow to $20.5 billion by 2030. The European Union this week voted to phase out the multibillion dollar subsidies that make wood pellet fuels economically viable, but environmentalists say it is too little, too late.
Last month the Prime Minister of France, Elisabeth Borne, visited the south-west of the country to offer her support to firefighters tackling a series of large forest fires. It was also a good opportunity to broach a subject close to her heart. ‘More than ever,’ she 
JAKARTA – A new deal between Indonesia and Norway to combat deforestation does not go far enough, activists say. The agreement comes a year after Indonesia backed out of the decade-long REDD+ US$1-billion agreement, which was part of a United Nations-backed global initiative criticized for its ineffectiveness. While few substantive details have been announced, Norway has said it is prepared to grant monetary rewards for Indonesia’s efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation from 2016 onward to support the country’s ambitious goal of becoming a net carbon sink – storing more carbon than it releases into the atmosphere – by 2030. …Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Iqbal Damanik said the “reduce deforestation” terminology used by both parties showed the government’s lack of commitment, as it appeared content with slowing deforestation instead of halting it entirely.:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tgam/IJHOL6KI7JCVLERDZ4HKWJAD5E.JPG)
The Fort Nelson First Nation says it is “on the doorstep” of a new forest economy in the Northern Rockies region after securing what it calls a “major forestry tenures commitment” from the provincial government. In a news release Wednesday, the First Nation said the provincial forests ministry has offered a number of forest licenses amounting to 1.26 million cubic metres of timber a year, “making it one of the largest forest tenures commitments ever made to a First Nation in history.” The First Nation says the licenses, committed to in a July 2022 letter from government, are to enable to the construction and operations of a new pellet plant in partnership with Peak Renewables. “This is the opportunity of a lifetime for our people,” Fort Nelson First Nation Chief Sharleen Gale said in a statement.
European NGOs have today announced legal action seeking to block forest bioenergy and other forestry projects from the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy, calling their inclusion ‘unlawful’. The Taxonomy, which has been criticised for including nuclear and natural gas as sustainable investments, also includes projects that accelerate logging and burning forest wood despite their substantial impact on ecosystems and the climate, the groups said. As a result, seven NGOs, along with legal support, have filed an annulment action arguing that the qualifying criteria for forestry and bioenergy projects violate basic legal obligations under primary EU law as well as key obligations under the Taxonomy Regulation because they are not based in scientific evidence, they fail to mitigate climate change, and they cause significant harm to the environment. …“The European Commission has failed to provide any scientific basis for the forest and bioenergy criteria,” said Elsie Blackshaw-Crosby.:format(webp)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/gta/2022/09/15/bc-wildfire-smoke-may-have-turned-the-sun-red-in-ontario/red_sun.jpg)
POWELL COUNTY, Montana — The No Grass Creek fire east of Deer Lodge is estimated to be 1,145 acres, U.S. forest officials said Thursday. The fire, reported on Sunday, is in Powell County on the west end of the Helena Ranger District and the far east end of the Pintler Ranger District. It is being managed by the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest and Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, in close coordination with Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. The fire is in an area that has had large amounts of tree mortality, officials with the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest said. It is dense and continuous throughout the Electric Peak roadless area and recommended wilderness area. Because of the current state of the dead timber, it’s neither safe nor effective to put fire personnel into the area, officials said.