Lumber and housing prices slump with rising interest rates, and analysts see more declines on the horizon. In related news: US consumer sentiment falls 10%; and UK housing slows. In other Business news: a US Judge issues a permanent injunction on Brazilian plywood; Hancock Forest Management rebrands: and the Softwood Lumber Board ROI reaches $40 for every 1$ invested.
In Forestry/Climate news: BC wants First Nations to reach consensus before logging is deferred in old-growth forests; once sidelined Huu-ay-aht First Nations plan to expand; a US review traces massive New Mexico fire to planned burns; and critical fire conditions persist across the US Southwest.
Finally, a 5,484 year old Chilean alerce tree beats a 4,853 year old Californian bristlecone pine as the world’s oldest tree.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
Tolko Industries says damage and repairs are still being investigated after a fire May 20 at the plant west of High Prairie. “It’s a difficult situation for Tolko’s employees and the community,” said Fred Chin, Tolko’s vice president, Strand Board Business, on the company’s website May 27. “Work has started on how we can minimize the impact of lost time on people and their families,” he adds. “We want to assure everyone that we will soon put a recovery plan in place that will also us to get the High Prairie plant back up and operational.” Alberta Occupational Health and Safety has approved a phased approach to accessing the site following the fire. Tradespeople were allowed on site to start restoring power to areas that are unrestricted, and on May 30, operations teams started clean-up in restricted areas. The company update stated it is expected it will take several weeks to determine the detailed repair plans and the timing for a restart.
The name has changed, but the forestry plans are pretty much the same. At a recent council meeting in Cumberland, Matt Merritt, the area manager for Manulife Investment Management, updated the Village of Cumberland on the company. “A lot of you probably know us as Hancock Forest Management, but now, we’ve rebranded,” Merritt said. “Essentially, nothing’s changed with the structure of the company.” Hancock had already been part of Manulife, he said, but undertook the name change last fall. The forest management division of the company manages local lands rather than own them. The actual owners are long-time investors such as retirement funds. “We’re a little bit different than some of the forest management companies around,” he said.
Lumber prices have come crashing down in a new sign of how rising interest rates are deflating markets that boomed during the pandemic. …Lumber futures for July delivery ended Friday at $695.10 per thousand board feet, down 52% from a high in early March. On-the-spot wood prices have plunged, too… falling about 12% last week to end at $794. That is down from $1,334 in March, just before the Fed raised interest rates for the first time since 2018. The Fed raised rates again this month and is expected to continue to lift borrowing costs. …Besides home construction, lumber traders and analysts are eyeing the aisles of Home Depot and Lowe’s
Lumber prices and OSB prices remain under pressure – According to Random Lengths, the Framing Lumber Composite decreased $107 w/w to $794, making for a two-week drop of $167 (-17.4%), while in OSB markets, the OSB Composite decreased by $67 w/w to $753 (-13.0% over two weeks). The Framing Lumber Composite and OSB Composite are now down 40.5% and 47.4%, respectively, since March 11. For next week, RBC Elements forecasts that the RL Framing Lumber Composite will decrease $95 w/w to $699 and that the RL OSB Composite will decrease $28 w/w to $725.
The University of Michigan released its final Consumer Sentiment Index for May. The Index dropped to a reading of 58.4, down from April’s reading of 65.2. This is a month-over-month decrease of -10.4% and down -29.6% year-over-year. The Current Economic Conditions fell to a reading of 63.3 May, down from 69.4 in April. This is a month-over-month decrease of -8.8% and down -29.2% year-over-year. Finally, the Index of Consumer Expectations declined to a reading of 55.2 in May, down from 62.5 in April. This is a month-over-month decrease of -11.7% and down -29.9% year-over-year. …This recent drop was largely driven by continued negative views on current buying conditions for houses and durables, as well as consumers’ future outlook for the economy, primarily due to concerns over inflation. At the same time, consumers expressed less pessimism over future prospects for their personal finances.
The UK’s red hot housing market is beginning to cool, with a growing number of sellers cutting asking prices and the average time to sell a home lengthening. More than one in 20 homes for sale had their asking prices slashed last month, by an average of 9 per cent, Zoopla said, the highest level of discounting in 18 months. “We’re seeing the start of signals that things are softening,” said Gráinne Gilmore, the portal’s head of research. Nationally, the company forecasts average prices will rise 3 per cent this year, but in parts of the country “it feels we’re nudging a natural ceiling [for house prices]”, she said. House prices in the UK have increased by an average of 18 per cent since May 2020.
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A process is underway in British Columbia to temporarily defer logging in priority old-growth forests, allowing time for the government to work with First Nations to decide how they should be managed in the long term. The province … identified 2.6 million hectares of unprotected old-growth forests at risk of permanent biodiversity loss… At the same time, it asked more than 200 First Nations across B.C. to decide whether they supported the deferral of logging in those areas for two years. Forests Minister Katrine Conroy has said that overall, about 80 per cent of the total 4 million hectares of at-risk old growth identified by the panel is not currently threatened, either because it was already set aside from logging, it’s been deferred, or it’s not financially viable to harvest in the current market. …for the deferrals to be meaningful, Karen Price, an independent member of the expert panel said they must be within the timber harvesting land base
The British Columbia government wants First Nations to reach consensus before logging is deferred in old-growth forests on shared Indigenous territories. Tara Marsden, sustainability director for the Gitanyow Nation’s hereditary chiefs’ office in northwestern B.C., said consensus represents a “high bar” in a complex process, which was not made clear when Forests Ministry staff introduced the province’s deferral plan last November. “I think the public who are concerned about old growth need to know that high bar, that it’s very challenging to work in this landscape with multiple nations,” said Marsden, the main point contact for her nation on deferrals. Marsden said she had initially understood from the ministry’s messaging that “if you support these (deferral areas), they’re going to be protected.” Instead, there was an “unspoken expectation” from the province that consensus among nations with overlapping territories was needed, she said. Forests Minister Katrine Conroy told The Canadian Press that if consensus on deferrals could not be reached among First Nations with overlapping or shared territories, the province would assess the strengths of their claims.
Paul Renaud is only too aware of what the power of wind can do to trees. After violent windstorms recently swept through southern Ontario and Quebec, uprooting trees and leaving a trail of damage across a vast territory, Renaud’s thoughts went right to his sugar maples in Lanark Highlands, Ont., where storms once considered rogue now seem more frequent. “We’ve had two in six months,” he said in an interview. “Each one has taken out maple trees.” Worsening storms aren’t the only changes Renaud sees. As chair of the climate change working group for the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Association, he says dramatic weather is having a serious effect on his industry. Syrup producers are recording declining yields due to increasing global temperatures, which are leading to more invasive pests, sap that is less sugary and shorter harvesting periods than the normal four-to-six-week season.
Warnings of critical fire conditions blanketed much of the U.S. Southwest on Saturday, as crews in northern New Mexico worked to stop the growth of the nation’s largest active wildfire. The 7-week-old fire, the largest in New Mexico history, has burned 491 square miles (1,272 square kilometers) of forest in rugged terrain east of Santa Fe since being started in April by two 
For conservationists working to save the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, a key challenge has been maintaining recovered areas that lie inside private properties. Yet for recovery efforts to be successful, it’s necessary to investigate how long naturally regenerated forests (those recovering without human interference) are surviving. Scientists now have an answer to that question: less than eight years on average, according to a recent study by a team of Brazilian researchers. A total of 4.47 million hectares (11.05 million acres) of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest has regenerated naturally since 1985, but nearly a third of this area has been cleared again. These “ephemeral” forest patches last less than eight years on average…raising concerns about the durability of efforts to recover deforested swaths of the Atlantic Forest. Most of the regenerated forests that get cleared lie inside private properties, raising questions about how landowners can be persuaded not to cut this vegetation.
B.C.’s climate crisis-related disasters last year such as the deadly heat dome, wildfires, flooding and landslides highlight the need for new safety measures, according to a new report by B.C.’s safety authority this week. Other top concerns outlined in 