Pacheedaht First Nation asserts sovereignty, calls for blockaders to leave BC’s Walbran Valley. In related news: Elder Bill Jones takes his own Nation to court; and the Walbran echoes BC’s attempt to saw the Carmanah Valley in half. In Forestry/Wildfire news: New Brunswick says there’s no evidence timber practices worsen wildfires; the US Forest Service Chief defends logging in hearing; the US Interior plans to rescind the Public Lands Rule; Colorado says past wildfires are reshaping forest regeneration; Ontario invests in invasive species projects; and a study says Canadian wildfire smoke caused 82,000 premature deaths.
In Business & Finance: Newfoundland extends its power-purchase agreement with Corner Brook Pulp & Paper; Georgia-Pacific plans to modernize its Alabama River Cellulose mill; Georgia leaders explore options after mill closures; US residential building material prices rise for the 4th straight month; and Canada’s first mixed-use tall mass timber Passive House building rises in Vancouver. Meanwhile: Trump lobbies the EU for 100% tariffs on China and India; and lumber’s steep price drop chills Trump’s timber ambitions.
Finally, BC’s 14th Chief Forester Larry Pedersen reflects on lessons from his tenure.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News Editor
The provincial government, through Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, is extending its agreement with Corner Brook Pulp and Paper to buy electricity. The initial agreement was made in March, 2024 for Hydro to buy electricity from Deer Lake Power, which energizes the paper-making machines at the Corner Brook mill for 27.5 cents per kilowatt hour. The deal has now been extended until March 31, 2026. Hydro will continue to purchase excess green energy from Deer Lake Power, while the mill continues work to identify new revenue sources through viable wood-based projects “to unlock Newfoundland and Labrador’s high forest potential while further stabilizing the mill’s sustainability and future,” wrote the province’s Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture in a news release on Wednesday. The department said the agreement will not impact rate payers. The announcement comes after the mill was forced to pause operations due to a number of wildfires.
Donald Trump has called on the European Union to hit China and India with tariffs of up to 100% to force Russian president Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. The US president made the demand during a meeting between US and EU officials discussing options to increase economic pressure on Russia. …Last month, the US imposed a 50% tariff on goods from India, which included a 25% penalty for its transactions with Russia. Although the EU has said it would end its dependency on Russian energy, around 19% of its natural gas imports still come from there. If the EU does impose the tariffs on China and India it would mark a change to its approach of attempting to isolate Russia with sanctions rather than levies.
EUGENE, Oregon — President Trump’s demand that the US increase timber output by a quarter is running into a math problem: Lumber companies may not make as much money on wood in the coming months. A steep drop in lumber futures prices nationally is jolting the wood products business just as the Trump administration is prodding the industry — including the government’s own forest managers — to ramp up production so the US doesn’t have to rely on imports. Futures prices on lumber at the end of last week dipped to $527 per MFBM, the lowest point in a year. For Weyerhaeuser, which operates a mill in Cottage Grove, Oregon, the pricing signal isn’t sounding alarms just yet. The mill’s in the middle of a multiyear modernization said representatives who figure the market is doing one of its usual seesaws. [to access the full story an E&E News subscription is required]
Zoom Presentation, September 16th, 7:00 pm. The BC Forest History Association is honoured to host Larry Pedersen as the first speaker for the 2025 Speaker Series. Larry Pedersen was BC Provincial Chief Forester from 1994 to 2004. A graduate from UBC with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry in 1975, he became a registered Professional Forester in 1977. During his career, he advanced through a number of positions in the Forest Service and he also worked in the private sector. In his presentation titled Reflections from British Columbia’s 14th Chief Forester, Larry will discuss some important historical events that helped shape forestry in the province, explain how he ended up in the job, discuss some of the challenges that he faced, and will tell some stories about things that were said and done during his tenure. The presentation is intended to highlight just a few of the many important events that have shaped forestry in the province. To register for this Zoom presentation use this 
…Paul George, co-founder of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee …hit on popularizing the fight to protect old growth with a poster depicting a young woman gazing up the towering trunk of a massive, moss-covered Sitka spruce tree [in the] Carmanah Valley. The poster’s tag line — “Big Trees Not Big Stumps” — was a model of economy. …like five wasp stings to the hide of MacMillan Bloedel, the company that wanted to cut that tree and every other one like it down. Today we’d say it went viral. But not in the sense of a social media post that explodes with millions of views today only to be forgotten tomorrow … it would prove to have the lasting power of long COVID. …The poster came to mind [when a] small group of protesters planted themselves on a logging road leading into… the upper Walbran Valley, which borders the Carmanah on Vancouver Island’s southwest coast.
The existing Category 1 campfire prohibition for the Cariboo Fire Centre and Tsilhqot’in (Xeni Gwet’in) Declared Title area will be extended. It will go in effect at noon tomorrow (September 11) and will remain in effect until September 30 or until the order is rescinded. A Category 1 campfire is defined as any fire smaller than 0.5 metres high by 0.5 metres wide. The Cariboo Fire Centre said this prohibition applies to all areas in the Fire Centre that are outside of municipal boundaries. In addition, it also applies to these land types within municipal boundaries: Parks, conservancies and recreation areas; Recreation sites, recreation trails, interpretive forest sites and trail-based recreation areas; Ecological reserves; and Wildlife management areas and private managed forest land.
Michelle Conroy says she appreciates all the work the province’s firefighters have put into protecting Miramichi, as wildfires raged out of control. But the Progressive Conservative MLA for Miramichi East also wonders if their employer, the Department of Natural Resources, might have unintentionally made conditions in the forests worse by encouraging herbicide spraying so that New Brunswick’s powerful timber industry could have softwood plantations. …The idea that the ecosystem could had been thrown “out of balance,” was addressed by Deputy Minister Cade Libby. “Your comment is one we’ve heard quite a few times,” Libby said. “Yes, herbicides target broad-leafed plants. …But a working forest is a great way to mitigate forest fire risk.” The deputy minister said timber cutters use forestry roads that act as fire breaks and that they work on forests of various types and age classes that have less fuel load than virgin, old-growth forests do.
The increase in wildfires over the past few decades is changing the Colorado landscape in more ways than one. Not only do fires temporarily decimate the impacted areas but according to research out of Colorado State University, they are actually changing how, and if, forests regenerate post fire. “There are definitely some places where they’re coming back really well; it just takes a long time for trees to grow back,” said Camille Stevens-Rumann, CSU associate professor of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship. “But there are definitely other places that are not recovering and are not turning back into the forests that we expect them to be. …Reseeding efforts in these locations have shown mixed results, forcing researchers and forestry officials to look at alternative species. …“I think we do have to adapt and think about the fact that those forests are going to look differently.”
Planet-warming emissions from a group of the world’s largest fossil fuel producers have significantly ramped up the intensity of heat waves, a new study suggests, one of the first peer-reviewed papers to link dozens of climate-fuelled weather events to specific companies. The study led by a group of Swiss-based climate scientists says about one-quarter of the 213 recent heat waves they studied, including the 2021 B.C. heat dome, would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change. It says emissions from some individual companies, including relatively smaller ones and some of Canada’s oil-and-gas producers, would have been enough to make otherwise impossible heat waves statistically possible. …The researchers linked emissions from the group of cement and fossil-fuel producers to about half the increase in heat wave intensity connected to human-caused climate change.
Smoke from record-breaking Canadian wildfires in 2023 caused an estimated 5,400 acute deaths and about 82,100 premature deaths worldwide, a new study shows. The study