California’s wildfire buildup (and forced evacuations) is a decades-long phenomenon. In related news: British Columbia and Alberta battle aggressive fires; Ontario and Quebec report easy fire seasons; and 2-years post-fire Oregon’s investigations are still pending. In other Forestry news: the BC Forest Practices Board released its Annual Report; a video on what it’s like to plant trees in BC; and the electric logging truck makes its debut in Australia.
In Business news: Enviva and Alder Fuels partner on aviation fuels; Drax’s carbon capture plans get boost despite ENGO pushback; Bell Lumber & Pole completes Oeser acquisition; and an interview with 84 Lumber’s Maggie Hardy Knox. In Forest Product news: an Oregon mass timber coalition secures federal grant; and Vancouver and Nanaimo launch new timber projects.
Finally; making clothes from trees an unlikely win for food security and the environment.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
There’s a ubiquitous crop that slurps up unsustainable quantities of water, gets doused in chemicals and fertilizers to maintain its growth—and yet doesn’t provide us with any food. This crop is cotton, and it covers 34.5 million hectares of arable farmland around the world. Now, a team of Swedish researchers propose that if we replace a share of this crop with fibers made from the wood of fast-growing poplar trees, we could free up millions of hectares of cotton land for growing food instead. They also explore how a new processing method could make use of the whole tree, extracting bio-oils for fuel from the remaining wood. To boot, poplar forests could help to draw down carbon as they grow, the researchers report in the journal Joule. …Fast-growing poplar trees are a good source of cellulose—and they don’t need cotton’s artificial inputs. 
Quebec’s forests saw very little fire this summer, according to the Société de protection des forêts contre le feu (SOPFEU). The organization last week calculated 235.9 hectares burned during the 2022 season, a small fraction of the 180,820.5 hectares burned on average by Sept. 1 over the past 10 years. “We want to see a certain number of fires, but always very small fires,” noted SOPFEU spokesperson Mélanie Morin. The 356 fires was also below the average of 436. …Of the 48 fires declared in August, no less than 90 per cent were caused by human activity. …The forest fire season doesn’t end until November, and it’s still too soon to know how the fall will be, Morin warned.
On Earth Day this year, President Joe Biden signed an executive order aimed at strengthening the nation’s forests, communities and local economies. Section 2 of the executive order recognizes the value of mature and old-growth forests as natural tools against climate change and the biodiversity crisis. …The order also directs the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to inventory these forests on federal lands and develop policies that conserve them as a linchpin of U.S. climate policy. By the time all that comes to fruition, however, many of these forests could be gone. Logging continues to pose a great and immediate threat to mature and old-growth forests, according to a new report “Worth More Standing” by the Climate Forests coalition. This initiative considers older forests and trees on federal lands “one of the country’s most straightforward, impactful and cost-effective climate solutions,” according to the coalition’s website.
OREGON — Two years ago, on Labor Day evening, wildfires exploded across Oregon and brought a level of destruction never before witnessed in the state. Nine people were killed, including five in the Santiam Canyon, and thousands of homes and over a million acres burned. The causes of the wildfires have been debated ever since they ignited. Historically powerful east winds on Sept. 7 and 8 caused existing wildfires, including the Beachie Creek and Lionshead fires, to explode and quickly spread. The wind also brought down power lines in numerous locations statewide, likely igniting additional wildfires. 
Scientists are urging world leaders to act in order to protect the planet’s threatened trees — and prevent further ecological and economic damage from their extinction. Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), along with the Global Tree Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Species Survival Commission (IUCN SSC), detailed this “warning to humanity” in a paper 
OTTAWA – With the long-awaited passage last month of U.S. President Joe Biden’s climate legislation, America now has a plan environmentalists say will significantly reduce emissions, vaulting the U.S. from a laggard to a leader on climate change. But unlike Canada’s approach, Biden’s plan has no carbon tax, focusing instead on tax incentives to spur investments in renewable energy, incentives Canada may soon find itself under pressure to match to stay competitive. The Inflation Reduction Act, as the Biden administration’s bill is officially known, has a collection of measures, including efforts to lower drug prices and reduce forest fires, but it has nearly US$400 billion in spending on climate measures. Several independent forecasts agree it will reduce U.S. emissions by up to 40 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, in line with Washington’s commitments under the Paris climate agreement — and the same goal Canada has pledged to meet.
A new report from America’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on ways to deliver President Joe Biden’s goal of 100% clean electricity in the States by 2035 has highlighted the potential importance of a process known as BECCS (bioenergy for carbon capture and storage) – which Drax hopes to deploy in Yorkshire in the coming years. The company says its plans for two BECCS units in Yorkshire – which would remove greenhouse emissions from the atmosphere that are produced by burning biomass fuel – could allow it to capture eight million tonnes of CO2 per year. The would make it the largest carbon capture and storage project in power in the world. The NREL report states: “BECCs results in a net negative emissions rate because carbon from the atmosphere is captured during photosynthesis and then sequestered after combustion.
Next week the future of many of the world’s forests will be decided when members of the European parliament vote on a revised EU renewable energy directive. …
