Daily News for March 18, 2025

Today’s Takeaway

Federal Timber Won’t Solve the US Lumber Shortage

Tree Frog Forestry News
March 18, 2025
Category: Today's Takeaway

Canada and Europe will continue to play crucial role in meeting US wood demand—as Washington state wonders if boosting timber production can counter tariffs. In related news: tariff uncertainty keeps Canadian home buyers on the sidelines despite a rise in building construction; while US housing starts surged 11.2% last month and falling permits signal a slowdown; and here’s what building homes on federal land in the US would look like. Meanwhile, good news for India and New Zealand in timber and lumber trade; and a new global platform for recycled wood.

In Forestry/Climate news: almost half of landslides in southwestern BC have been linked to logging or wildfires as the forest fire season gets underway; Arkansas asks EU leaders to reconsider deforestation regulation; the Northwest Forest Plan revision aims to solve multiple issues; and the US Forest Service remains silent on firings. Meanwhile: dozens of wildfires burn across Missouri and Kansas; and Southwest Idaho targets high wildfire risk; and it’s time to guard against pine beetles.

Finally, an alternative to wood caskets comes from an invasive vine in Australia.

Suzi Hopkinson, Tree Frog News Editor

Read More

Special Feature

Forest Innovation & Bioeconomy Conference 2025

The Forest Innovation and Bioeconomy Conference
March 18, 2025
Category: Special Feature
Region: Canada, Canada West

VANCOUVER — The Forest Innovation & Bioeconomy Conference (FIBC 2025) returns May 6-8, 2025, at the Westin Bayshore in Vancouver, bringing together industry, researchers, policymakers, investors, and First Nations leaders to explore the future of forest sector innovation. Hosted by the B.C. Ministry of Forests, the University of British Columbia’s BioProducts Institute, and Foresight Canada, this international event will focus on forest product innovation, diversification, and the commercialization of high value bioproducts. Early Bird Registration – Save by registering early by March 31, 2025.

Key Highlights

  • Lab-to-Market: The Pathway to Commercialization
  • Horizon Europe & Canada Collaboration
  • Europe Bioeconomy Cluster Development
  • B.C.’s Forest Bioeconomy & Sector Diversification .
  • Business to Business Matchmaking

Read More

Business & Politics

B.C. Insider: Softwood lumber showdown

By Wendy Cox
The Globe and Mail
March 18, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada

Despite decades of a fractious trade relationship between softwood producers in Canada and those in the U.S., the Canadian softwood lumber industry hasn’t liked to trumpet what it considers the superiority of its product because the two markets are so intertwined. Production has increased at U.S. sawmills in the past decade, including at facilities owned by companies with head offices in Canada. That’s now changing, with Canadian producers wanting to make plain to consumers in Canada, in the U.S. and no doubt, to potential new markets around the world, that the spruce, pine and fir grown north of the 49th parallel is a superior product. That’s because the growth rings are tighter than those found in the lumber in the U.S. South. It takes from 70 to 100 years before spruce, pine and fir (SPF) trees are considered ripe for harvesting in the B.C. Interior. By comparison, southern yellow pine trees are harvested after about 35 years. [a paid subscription is required to read this story]

Read More

Forests minister in the Okanagan as industry braces for tariffs

By Colin Dacre
Castanet
March 18, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Forests minister Ravi Parmar is in the Okanagan this week meeting with an industry under siege. Longtime systemic challenges facing the forest sector have been exacerbated by escalating tariffs on softwood lumber by the Trump administration… Mill owners have been critical of BCTS for failing to get timber to market and not meeting its quotas. Parmar says he’s been tasked with getting the province back up to a harvest level of 45 million cubic metres annually. The province harvested 35 million cubic metres in 2023. “I think we can do that without a doubt,” he said, acknowledging that permitting is only half the battle… “A lot of people think it’s just permits that are holding us back from a strong and vibrant forest sector. And if that was the case, I think we could address the problem fairly quickly, to some extent. But it’s broader than that.”

Read More

North Cowichan looks to respond to U.S. tariffs

By Robert Barron
Cowichan Valley Citizen
March 17, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

The Municipality of North Cowichan is looking for ways to respond to the new U.S. tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump… Mayor Rob Douglas said North Cowichan has businesses and major employers, particularly in the forest sector, that are dependent on U.S. markets and are bracing for what the future is going to look like. He said he recently met with officials at Western Forest Products, which operates two sawmills and a remanufacturing plant in the municipality. WFP is one of North Cowichan’s biggest taxpayers and one of its largest employers. “I’m also going to meet Paper Excellence [owner of the Crofton mill] to discuss their challenges as well and what we can do to support them. I’ve reached out to the province for a meeting to discuss these issues.” said Douglas.

Read More

Domtar to return village site to Tla’amin Nation

By Nelson Bennett
Business in Vancouver
March 17, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Domtar has reached a deal with the Tla’amin Nation in Powell River to return an historical village site now occupied by the shuttered Catalyst paper mill. In a joint press release, the Tla’amin and Domtar – a subsidiary of the Paper Excellence Group – announced that a “significant portion” of the 300-acre site owned by Domtar and occupied by the now-shuttered pulp and paper mill, will be returned to the Tla’amin. …It’s not clear at this point whether the former Domtar property being deeded over to the Tla’amin would become treaty title land or remain fee simple, though there typically are provisions in modern treaties for lands acquired post-treaty implementation to become added as treaty title lands. Under the new agreement, a “large portion” of the mill site will be acquired by the Tla’amin, with the remaining land to be sold by Domtar.

Read More

Finance & Economics

Tariff Uncertainty Keeping Canadian Home Buyers on the Sidelines

The Canadian Real Estate Association
March 17, 2025
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: Canada

Canadian home sales fell sharply from January to February, as home buyers remained on the sidelines in the first full month of the ongoing trade war with the United States. Sales activity recorded over Canadian MLS® Systems dropped 9.8% month-over-month in February 2025, marking the lowest level for home sales since November 2023, and the largest month-over-month decline in activity since May 2022. “The moment tariffs were first announced on January 20, a gap opened between home sales recorded this year and last. This trend continued to widen throughout February, leading to a significant, but hardly surprising, drop in monthly activity,” said Shaun Cathcart, CREA’s Senior Economist. …There were 4.7 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of February 2025, up sharply from 4.1 months at the end of January. The long-term average is five months of inventory.

Read More

Canada’s investment in building construction rose 1.8% in January

Statistics Canada
March 17, 2025
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: Canada

Overall, investment in building construction rose 1.8% (+$393.7 million) to $22.1 billion in January. The residential sector increased 2.3% to $15.4 billion, while the non-residential sector was up 0.8% to $6.7 billion. Year over year, investment in building construction grew 5.7% in January. On a constant dollar basis (2017=100), investment in building construction increased 1.5% from the previous month to $13.2 billion in January and was up 2.5% year over year. …Investment in multi-unit construction was up $497.5 million to $8.2 billion in January. Single-family home investment declined $155.5 million to $7.2 billion in January, with declines being recorded in eight provinces and one territory. …Investment in non-residential construction increased $51.7 million to $6.7 billion in January. This marked the sixth consecutive monthly increase. 

Read More

Trump Wants to Build Homes on Federal Land. Here’s What That Would Look Like.

By Rebecca Picciotto
The Wall Street Journal
March 17, 2025
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: United States

The Trump administration is creating a task force to identify federal land that would be suitable for building affordable housing. The initiative marks the administration’s first step toward a pledge to unlock vast swaths of federal land to address America’s housing shortage by transferring or leasing the land to local governments. The task force will be run jointly by the Interior Department, which oversees the Bureau of Land Management, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the two agencies’ secretaries wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on Sunday. Developing even 512,000 acres of the Bureau of Land Management’s lots could yield between three million and four million new homes across western states such as Nevada, Utah, California and Arizona, according to a preliminary analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C., center-right think tank.

[a paid subscription is required to read this article; however, the interactive map feature is freely accessible!]

Read More

Homebuyers, remodelers set to pay more as tariffs on lumber and appliances take effect

Oregon Live
March 17, 2025
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: United States

Shopping for a new home? Ready to renovate your kitchen or install a new deck? You’ll be paying more to do so. The Trump administration’s tariffs on imported goods from Canada, Mexico and China are already driving up the cost of building materials used in new residential construction and home remodeling projects. The tariffs are projected to raise the costs that go into building a single-family home in the U.S. by $7,500 to $10,000… Such costs are typically passed along to the homebuyer in the form of higher prices, which could hurt demand at a time when the U.S. housing market remains in a slump and many builders are having to offer buyers costly incentives to drum up sales… “These prices will never come down,” Schnipper said. “Whatever is going to happen, these things will be sticky and hopefully we’re good enough as a small business, that we can absorb some of that.”

Read More

Trump Team Explored Simplified Plan for Reciprocal Tariffs

By Gavin Bade Follow, Josh Dawsey Follow & Vipal Monga
Wall Street Journal
March 18, 2025
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: United States

Trump administration officials are roiled in debate over how to implement the president’s pledge to equalize U.S. tariffs with those charged by other nations, with aides scrambling to meet the president’s self-imposed deadline of April 2 to debut a plan. Officials have recently weighed whether to simplify the complex task of devising new tariff rates for hundreds of U.S. trading partners by instead sorting nations into one of three tariff tiers, according to people close to the policy discussions, who emphasized that the situation remains fluid and could evolve in the coming weeks. The proposal was later ruled out, said an administration official close to the talks, adding that Trump’s team is still trying to sort how to implement an individualized rate for each nation. …The reciprocal tariff plan is expected to be introduced on April 2, along with additional 25% duties on a handful of industries, such as autos, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.

Read More

US Housing Starts Surge 11.2% in February, But Falling Permits Signal Future Slowdown

FX Empire
March 18, 2025
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: United States

The US housing market showed mixed signals in February, with a sharp rise in housing starts contrasting with a decline in building permits. According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, new residential construction activity picked up, but future construction intentions weakened, raising questions about the sector’s near-term strength. Privately-owned housing starts surged to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.501 million in February, marking an 11.2% increase from January’s revised figure of 1.350 million. The single-family sector led the gains, with starts rising 11.4% to 1.108 million units. However, despite this strong monthly performance, overall starts remained 2.9% below February 2024 levels, signaling ongoing challenges in year-over-year growth. …This decline extended the downward trend, with permits now 6.8% below year-ago levels. Single-family authorizations remained relatively stable at 992,000, down just 0.2% from January. 

Read More

Wood, Paper & Green Building

This startup is creating a global tech platform for recycled wood

By Diana Olick
CNBC
March 17, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US East

Each year 36 million trees fall due to decay, disease, natural disasters or clearing for new development. The vast majority of those trees are either burned, sent to a landfill or ground up for mulch, which wastes energy and causes carbon emissions. Now, new technology is being used to find, transport and recycle that wood and make it useful once again. Cambium is a startup aiming to disrupt the wood recycling space. Its Baltimore-based researchers are working on new ways to track, treat and transfer old wood into the supply chain. It bills itself as the platform “where timber meets tech.” …Every piece of Cambium’s “carbon smart” wood has a barcode. Scan it, and Cambium’s app will identify what the species is, when it was milled and what its grade is. …Cambium doubled its sales last year, and CEO Ben Christensen said the big growth was on the software side.

Read More

Coffins made from invasive vine a sustainable alternative to wood

ABC News, Australia
March 17, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

Ms Zimmi Forest, a basket weaver in northern New South Wales, has tapped into the desire to do death differently, and her workshops have been booked solid since they started 18 months ago… Ms Forest said the idea of weaving coffins came to her after she was invited to make baskets at a property where a Landcare group was working to remove invasive Cat’s Claw vine. The Brazilian vine is perfect for weaving; once it is stripped from the trees and pruned back, it forms long, flexible strands. “The great thing about a woven coffin is it’s permeable, all the microorganisms in the soil can get in and its breaks down so much quicker. “For cremation, why would you burn solid timber?” The process to make a woven coffin took about 150 hours, and Ms Forest said she had made about 15 coffins at the workshops and on her own as commissioned projects.

Read More

Future Timber And Lumber Trade With India Takes A Positive Step Forward

Wood Processors & Manufacturers Association of New Zealand
Scoop Independent News
March 17, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

NEW ZEALAND — Signing of a ‘letter of intent’ on forestry co-operation between New Zealand and India as part of the Prime Minister’s delegation visit to India this week is welcomed by the Wood Processors and Manufacturers Association of Newzeald (WPMA). The ‘letter of intent’ is between the Ministry for Primary Industries and our nearest counterpart Indian agency, the Ministry of Environment Forestry and Climate Change. The key subject areas, reflecting MOEFCC’s and MPI’s respective mandates and scope, includes sustainable forest management; research and innovation; education and capacity building; and utlilisation and certification. …India is the most populous nation in the world yet for our forestry exports India currently ranks 11th (down from 5th in 2019). …With a recent ruling from the Indian government stipulating that federal housing schemes include ‘a greater mix’ of wood, there are new opportunities opening, for example, in the Indian residential market for our sustainable wood products.

Read More

Forestry

Courtenay air quality getting better thanks to local initiatives, report says

By Madeline Dunnet
Comox Valley Record
March 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Air quality in Courtenay is improving while pollution caused by wood stove smoke has been steadily decreasing over the past five years, according to a recent report presented to the City of Courtenay council. Wood is a common fuel source that is used to heat homes in the Comox Valley because it is relatively affordable, reliable and available. But wood stove smoke has also become the most significant source of air pollution in the region. According to the CVRD, a growing body of evidence gathered since 2008 shows that air quality in the area is concerning. There are high levels of fine particulate matter — a pollutant that can cause serious health problems — in the air and much of it is due to smoke.

Read More

B.C. reminded of the bear necessities of safety as hibernation season ends

By Austin Kelly
Terrace Standard
March 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

As spring approaches flowers will bloom, leaves will come back to trees and hungry bears will be digging through your dumpsters. Angelika Langen the executive director and co-founder of Northern Lights Wildife Sanctuary says the best way to avoid bears at home is to make sure anything that might attract them, like dumpsters, are locked up because wherever they wander and wherever they roam, they’ll be looking for food. “They’re coming out of hibernation and they’re hungry, they will be looking for anything that provides them with as much calories as possible,” she said. Getting bear-proof garbage containers, avoiding leaving pet food outside and keeping gates to your property closed are ways to keep bears from being uninvited guests looking for a meal at your home.

Read More

Nearly half of B.C. landslides linked to logging, wildfires, study finds

By Stefan Labbé
Business in Vancouver
March 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Nearly half the landslides that rocked southwest British Columbia during devastating 2021 floods started in areas that were logged or burned by wildfire, researchers have found. The study, published in the journal Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, analyzed more than 1,300 debris flows and landslides across 70,000 square kilometres of mountainous area flooded when a powerful atmospheric river slammed into B.C. in November 2021. …Carie-Ann Hancock, who co-authored the study as a senior geoscientist at BGC Engineering Inc., said she began collecting data for the study four years ago when she flew in some initial helicopter surveys. …When they finally published their study, the results showed landslides occurred more frequently downstream of logging roads and areas burned by wildfire. Freed from the roots of trees, hillsides collapsed, allowing sediment to pour into rivers.

Read More

Forest fire season underway

By Forests, Fish and Wildlife Division
Government of Prince Edward Island
March 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

The provincial Forests, Fish and Wildlife division is reminding Islanders that PEI’s wildfire season runs from March 15 to November 15 each year. Anyone planning on burning brush outdoors must check for burning restrictions by calling 1-800-237-5053 or visiting the province’s wildfire information page. Restrictions are updated daily at 2 p.m.  “Please don’t feed the wildfires. PEI had a few forest fires last year, and thankfully the damage was minimal,” said Environment, Energy and Climate Action Minister Gilles Arsenault. “I hope all Islanders will recommit to taking the important steps to prevent forest fires.”

Read More

New agroforestry maps plot benefits of trees

By Lauren Quinn
Agupdate.com
March 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States

There’s a longstanding attitude in many farming communities that trees and agriculture don’t mix. But agroforestry — the intentional integration of trees and shrubs in agricultural systems, such as planting trees as windbreaks, integrating trees on pastures, or growing tree crops intercropped with annual crops — can provide a multitude of benefits to both farmers and landscapes. So far, in the U.S. Midwest, those benefits have gone unrealized, with vanishingly small adoption rates. Researchers say strategic plans that integrate environmental, social and economic considerations are needed to expand agroforestry throughout the Midwest. Ultimately, the team developed a map identifying areas where agroforestry could deliver the biggest impacts in terms of soil erosion, water quality, climate and profitability for lands that are not viable for other crops.

Read More

Arkansas’ federal lawmakers ask European Union leaders to reconsider deforestation regulation

By Alex Thomas
Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette
March 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States

Dear Commissioners – We write to you today to share our significant concerns with the EU deforestation-free supply chains regulation (Regulation (EU) No 2023/1115) and to share our perspective on the impact this will have on the more than 900,000 forest products workers throughout the US. This regulation is unworkable for the forest products industry in the US and would jeopardize more than $3.5 billion worth of paper and wood products shipping into the EU. …We are asking you and the European Commission to ensure the US is recognized as the lowest possible risk for deforestation and to ensure the geolocation traceability requirements are proportional to the level of risk for a particular country. …We also believe the EUDR fits within President Trump’s “America First Trade Policy” executive order that was signed on January 20th, 2025, and …Mr. Howard Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce, has identified the EUDR as a potential technical barrier to trade.

Read More

Can Washington boost timber production to counter tariff costs?

By Drew Andre
KING5 News
March 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States

WASHINGTON STATE is one of the most productive parts of the country for growing timber. Most of the timber is west of the Cascades and its annual production in the United States is only second to Oregon. However, harvesting faces significant constraints according to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). DNR manages about two million acres of timberlands, but only half can be harvested due to challenging terrain or environmental protections, such as endangered species habitats. …Federal lands in Washington state currently produce minimal timber, and changing protected land status would require congressional action, not just presidential directives. Upthegrove, a Democrat, anticipates any attempts to increase federal timber harvesting would face lengthy legal challenges. In Washington state, over 70% of the timber harvested comes from privately owned forestland. …For these reasons, state officials believe Washington cannot realistically offset the costs associated with Canadian lumber tariffs.

Read More

White House Executive Orders vs. Reality: Why Federal Timber Won’t Solve the US Lumber Shortage

By Global Wood
The American Journal of Transportation
March 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States

The US president recently suggested that domestic lumber production could be significantly increased by opening federal lands to logging. This move, he argued, would reduce US dependence on lumber imports from Canada and Europe. …At first glance, tapping into federal timber resources might seem like a logical solution. However, the reality is far more complicated. A combination of declining forestry expertise, legal challenges, labor shortages, infrastructure limitations, and lack of private investment incentives makes this an unrealistic path to reduce lumber imports to the US. …While the US president suggests that opening federal lands for logging could boost domestic lumber production, this is an unrealistic expectation. …Despite claims that the US no longer needs Canadian lumber, the reality is that imports from Canada and Europe will continue to play a crucial role in meeting US domestic wood demand in the future.

Read More

From coal to community forest: how one Ohio organization is reclaiming former mine land

By Erin Gottsacker
The Ohio Newsroom
March 18, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Lombard and Stanley are two co-founders of Rising Appalachia. The nonprofit is revitalizing 45 acres of former mine land, once owned by the Sugar Creek Coal Company… But the space won’t exist solely for recreation and education; they want to make it economically productive for the community again. The Sugar Creek Coal Company still owns 900 acres surrounding Rising Appalachia’s project. Lombard, Stanley and other community members are trying to raise approximately $4 million to purchase the rest of it and establish a community forest. “People can hunt on the land, they can gather food on the land, they can be involved in submitting public comments for projects and management proposals,” Stanley said. “But it’s not exactly managed by the community. A community forest in contrast, is designed by and managed by the people who live here and depend on the forest.”

Read More

Don’t wait to battle beetles Forest experts warn, now is the time to guard against pine beetles

By Sierra Ferguson
Black Hills Pioneer
March 18, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

It might be time to treat your trees to prevent pine beetle infestations in the Black Hills. That’s according to US Forest Service Entomologist Kurt Allen, and Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources Forest Health Specialist John Ball. The pair have been hosting talks and information sessions on mountain pine beetle outbreaks since 1999. Last week, they stopped in Spearfish with a handful of clear messages. For one thing, the Black Hills is not necessarily on the verge of a mountain pine beetle epidemic — at least not on the scale last seen a decade ago… “Between the larvae feeding and a blue stain fungus they introduce, they kill trees very quickly,” Ball said.

Read More

Federal forestry changes leave state officials in the lurch

By Libby Denkmann and Alec Cowan
KUOW News and Information
March 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Washington’s Department of Natural Resources says it’s coming up with backup plans to address the growing threat of serious wildfires in the state. The typically close working relationship with federal forest managers has frayed under the Trump Administration. It started in mid-February, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut thousands of probationary employees at the U.S. Forest Service. The USDA is in charge of stewarding places like the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest and the Gifford-Pinchot National Forest. Altogether, about 2,000 employees across the country were fired. The USDA emphasized that no “operational firefighters” had been let go, and argued the critical work of responding to wildfires would not be interrupted. …Grassroots Wildland Firefighters estimated that three-quarters of the employees laid off had secondary wildland firefighting duties, meaning firefighting wasn’t their primary job, but they were pulled in to fight fires as needed.

Read More

‘One of the riskiest places in the US’: Southwest Idaho All-Lands Partnership targets high wildfire risk in the Gem State

By Abby Wilt
KTVB 7
March 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

IDAHO, USA — The U.S. Forest Service has identified Southwest Idaho as one of the nation’s most at-risk regions for wildfires as organizations prepare for the upcoming wildfire season. The Southwest Idaho All-Lands Partnership is working on wildfire mitigation across public and private lands to reduce damage from wildfires. “Southwest Idaho is, for lack of jargon, one of the riskiest places in the U.S. for wildfire,” said Ford Van Fossan, who is the Conservation Connect program manager at the National Forest Foundation and oversees the partnership. “We have a lot of folks that are in harm’s way potentially when fires come through our landscape.” Wildfires scorched over 800,000 acres of Idaho’s land in 2024… The National Forest Foundation said it aims to use a mix of “public funding, including federal grants and private funding,” to support these efforts amid federal funding cuts.

Read More

Northwest Forest Plan revision should fix 2 errors

Letter by Timothy Ingalsbee, ED, Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology and Tom Wheeler, ED, Environmental Protection Information Center
The Oregonian
March 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

…For millennia, Indigenous peoples nurtured the land with stewardship practices that sustained their communities and promoted resilient ecosystems based on a rich diversity of habitats and species. The forced removal of Indigenous peoples and the criminalization of their fire stewardship practices – replaced by industrial forestry practices that centered on commodity timber extraction and aggressive fire suppression – has caused a decline in landscape and biological diversity along with a loss of resilience to wildfires and climate change. Proposed amendments to the plan would work to better incorporate tribal co-stewardship and facilitate a more beneficial role for fire. …The inclusion of tribal co-stewardship and Indigenous knowledge represents a profound change that goes beyond undoing past wrongs to Indigenous peoples—it will help restore species, habitats and landscape diversity. …The Trump administration now threatens to subvert the progressive prospects of the Northwest Forest amendment by its effort to banish the words “diversity” and “inclusion.”

Read More

‘Stonewalling’: Forest Service mum on firings during wildfire briefing for congressional staff

By Patrick Lohmann
Tucson Sentinel
March 17, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

An annual wildfire briefing between staffers for Southwestern members of Congress and Forest Service officials was unusual for two reasons, according to a congressional aide in attendance. First, the private briefing was a month earlier than is typical, a sign of the acute risk of wildfires this season in New Mexico and Arizona amid years of climate change-caused drought and especially low snowpack this spring. Second, Forest Service officials … refused more than 10 times in the meeting to say how many Forest Service employees had been fired, how many resigned and what might come of wildfire dispatch centers if the Trump administration terminates their leases. “We’ll have to send this to Washington and they will get back to you,” was the standard response, according to a Congressional aide… The meeting embodied how fraught the relationship has become between Forest Service and congressional staff amid President Donald Trump’s blunt efforts to slash federal spending.

Read More

Drone tree-seeding trial could ‘revolutionise’ the expansion of rainforests say exponents

By Angela Garwood
Positive News
March 18, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: International

A pioneering drone seeding initiative in south-west England – one of the largest of its kind using native tree seeds to date – has the potential to transform rainforest restoration, say those involved. The project, by the Woodland Trust, has seen high-tech drones scatter 75,000 seeds across the Bodmin landscape in Cornwall. The drones, which weigh 110kg and can carry up to 58kg of seeds each, hover a few metres above the ground and can access areas where the planting of trees by hand isn’t feasible. Joining forces with the South West Rainforest Alliance, the Woodland Trust aims to use the technique to triple the land area of temperate rainforest across Cornwall and Devon from 8% to 24% by 2050… Scattering tree seeds that are native to these rainforests, including common oak, alder, wild cherry, downy birch and hazel, the drones seeded 11 hectares of land in eight hours.

Read More

Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Canadians want next government to prioritize climate change, poll finds

By Stefan Labbe
Business in Vancouver
March 18, 2025
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada

Two-thirds of Canadians agree the next federal government should prioritize action on climate change and protecting nature, a new poll has found. Sixty-two per cent of those surveyed said Canada should maintain its commitments on climate change despite the U.S. government’s recent decision to pull out of the United Nations Paris agreement to lower greenhouse gas emissions. A similar share of respondents supported Ottawa investing in renewable energy over fossil fuels. The poll questioned a panel of 1,548 Canadian adults in an online survey from March 7-10. Michael Polanyi, a policy and campaign manager at Nature Canada, said his group is concerned the $6.5 billion promised to industry last week does not come with guidelines that would prioritize workers and limit harms to nature. “It’s in Canada’s economic interest in terms of accessing global markets that we’re not further degrading forests,” Polanyi added, pointing to tightening EU regulations. “There’s a risk of closing market off to Canadian forest products.”

Read More

Forest Fires

Dozens of wildfires burn across Missouri, Kansas as fire danger continues this week

By Delaney Eyermann
Fox News 4
March 17, 2025
Category: Forest Fires
Region: United States, US East

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An extreme fire danger continues to affect all counties across Kansas this week, and Missouri is also under a high fire danger this week. In Missouri, there were more than 40 wildfires burning across the state as of Monday morning. In Kansas, there were four — one burning across 1,500 acres east of Winfield and another spanning 1,200 acres west of Dover. “This week brings continued high fire danger across the state,” the Forest Service said. “Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of fire season.” In preparation for the fire danger this week, the Forest Service said it’s coordinated with the Great Plains Interstate Fire Compact to bring in reinforcements from out of state — including Wyoming and Utah.

Read More