Indigenous leaders from three First Nations on Vancouver Island politely request protesters clean up their mess and leave. In other Business news: NAHB chair pans Biden over lumber tariffs; CMHC says Canada has a glaring undersupply of homes; and construction costs continue to rise in Canada and the US – despite lumber price drop.
In Forestry/Climate news: Canada launches renewable energy discussions; Alberta seeks bioindustrial innovation; wood waste initiatives announced in Victoria and Vancouver; USDA Secretary directs Forest Service to improve forest resilience; Senator Daines wants wilderness areas managed; six winners announced for the Softwood Lumber Board/USDA mass timber competition, and South Carolina to expand forestry education.
Finally, tree ring history shows Colorado’s drought only half as bad as 1800 years ago.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
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VICTORIA, BC — Victoria has introduced a new bylaw designed to salvage valuable wood and other construction materials from homes being demolished in Victoria. The new rules are expected to divert up to 3,000 tonnes from landfill each year. Victoria is the first community on Vancouver Island, and one of only three in Canada, to implement such a bylaw. Construction waste makes up more than one-third of all waste generated in the city. Each demolition under the new bylaw will recover more than five tonnes of old-growth lumber that would otherwise be sent to the landfill, in addition to 50 tonnes of recyclable building materials. City staff will work closely with industry to guide them through meeting the established salvage targets. The new regulations were developed in consultation with industry in order to create a bylaw that works for Victoria and the construction and demolition sector.
Indigenous people looking to work in B.C.’s forest sector will have more opportunities to learn, train and develop in-demand skills through two new provincial grants. Supported by the StrongerBC Economic Plan, the Province is providing funding to the First Nations Forestry Council (FNFC) for the Indigenous Forestry Scholarship Program (IFSP) and an online forestry careers-matching tool to help increase the number of Indigenous students and community members studying and working in the forest sector. Provincial funding of $437,000 will support the FNFC in developing a new online forestry careers matching tool, part of the implementation of the B.C. First Nations Workforce Strategy, branded as Forestry Connect. The online tool helps students and community members find jobs, education and training opportunities within the sector. The tool is expected to launch by March 2023, with the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council as the first host community.
SALEM — Oregon forestry officials are bracing for controversy after approving statewide hazard ratings that encompass up to 300,000 properties with elevated risk of wildfires. Many of those tracts are expected to face new defensible space and building code requirements under “wildland-urban interface” criteria recently enacted by the Oregon Board of Forestry. Critics anticipate the two regulatory actions will result in sweeping and unworkable restrictions for rural communities when a map of affected areas is released later this month. Blowback from rural residents against the new requirements is expected by the state forestry officials due to objections they’ve encountered during the rule-making process. …The Oregon Department of Forestry received roughly twice as many comments opposed to the mapping regime than in favor of it, mostly because people thought the wildland-urban interface was too expansive, said Tim Holschbach.
Most people know … when it comes to fighting global warming, an obvious (if only partial) solution is to plant more trees — a lot more trees. But a new study suggests preserving older trees may be more important. “We found that the forests in the Midwestern U.S. were expanding and getting bigger over the last 10,000 years,” said Ann Raiho, a postdoctoral associate at the University of Maryland’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center. “This tells us that the prehistoric baseline for understanding forests was wrong and that it’s important from a carbon sequestration perspective to preserve trees that grow larger and live longer.” …The historical study also looked at the amount of carbon stored over time. It found that the population expansion of high biomass tree species, like the Eastern Hemlock and the American Birch, were correlated with the increase in the amount of carbon being sequestered in the forest.
The Canadian government has launched a three-year-long round of discussions with each of the country’s provinces and territories. The goal: planning a new economy driven by renewable energy. Dubbed the 
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In a paper recently published in the open-access journal Materials, researchers studied the possibility of utilizing the pyrolysis of wood pellets to generate high-energy fuels. The study also established enhanced energy parameters of previously pelletized biomass pyrolysis, while concluding that there was no increase in the danger of dust explosion from the processing of solid biofuels. …Overall, the findings show that the pyrolysis of the tested biochars can considerably increase the calorific value without decreasing the processing safety. …The study pointed out that pyrolysis can be effective in producing biocarbons characteristic of a high calorific value along with safe production and usage. According to the authors, the pyrolysis of wood pellets to produce high-energy biocarbons can be a beneficial solution attractive enough in energy utility as a low-carbon source, with further research needed in this direction.