RICHMOND, BC – Catalyst Paper announced today that it has completed the C$20 million term loan maturing July 31, 2017 it announced earlier in March. The proceeds of the Term Loan are being used to redeem the remaining US$19.4 million of Catalyst’s outstanding Floating Rate Senior Secured Notes due 2016… By replacing the Floating Rate Notes with the Term Loan, Catalyst reduced its outstanding secured debt by approximately US$1.4 million and will reduce its annual interest costs by approximately US$1.4 million.
Tree Frog Forestry News
Apprentices hoping to be considered for positions at Corner Brook Pulp and Paper need only apply, provided there are positions available. That’s the message from the mill’s human resources manager Peter Waugh, who sent a prepared release Thursday in response to several millwright students from the?College of the North Atlantic.The students recently told the media they wanted to start their careers at Corner Brook Pulp and Paper, but were told there were no apprenticeship positions. …The students were asking about apprenticeship wage subsidies with provincial or federal training programs, but Waugh said the mill is ineligible for those subsidies because of the size of its operation.
Georgia’s largest lumber production company has announced plans to open a Southeast headquarters in Peachtree City in early May. International Forest Products Limited, known as Interfor, will be coming to the 700 Westpark Drive office building. Much of the expected staff of 65 people will be relocating to the office, but the company expects to hire for vacancies that occur. Interfor’s local employees will range from management and sales to accounting, administration and information technology, company officials said.
A visit to Asia Pulp & Paper’s Chinese operations puts in context the company’s comprehensive sustainability commitments from plantation to pulp to paper. In June 2012, Asia’s largest paper company, Asia Pulp & Paper Group, published its sustainability strategy and goals for the next decade in the Sustainability Roadmap Vision 2020. Addressing environmental performance, biodiversity conservation, and the protection of community rights, the landmark roadmap represents AP&P’s attempt to develop its own certification standards for responsible forestry based on international best practices.
The Canadian wood industry is marking the 2nd annual World Wood Day with a significant initiative aimed at ensuring Canadians, from builders, contractors and architects to environmentalists and policymakers, have the information they need to make informed decisions about building 5- and 6-storey mid-rise buildings with wood. The Canadian Wood Council and its partners have developed the new online resource WoodFacts, aimed at providing relevant, easily understandable and timely information related to safety, building codes, environmental impact and the economic benefits of building with Canadian wood products. The website provides easy to use fact sheets, case studies and relevant reports at the click of a mouse.
The Canadian Wood Council (CWC) and Wood WORKS! Ontario are pleased with the Government of Ontario’s announcement today that it will move ahead with proposed changes to the Ontario Building Code to allow the use of wood-frame construction in buildings of up to six-storeys. The changes will allow Ontario builders to access safe, strong and sophisticated building solutions. “We welcome Ontario’s announcement that it will undertake a Regulatory Review of the implications of adopting wood-frame construction in five- and six-storey applications,” said Michael Giroux, President and CEO of CWC. 
Whitecourt and Woodlands County will remain the Forest Capital of Canada for another year, the announcement was made Thursday morning. Despite communities out east looking for the distinction, Whitecourt and Woodlands County have the honor for a second year in a row. John Pinot, Chief Executive Officer with the Canadian Institute of Forestry, talks about setting a rare precedent… Cornerbrook, Newfoundland and Quebec City, Quebec were two other cities in the running for the award. 
Reduction of gov’t inspectors raises questions about stewardship of BC’s natural resources. …A report released yesterday by the Professional Employees Association (PEA), which represents government-licensed science officers such as foresters, reveals a trend of cutbacks to professionals in the public service. …”The provincial government has chipped away, downsized, and reduced licensed science officers to a point where they’re simply not able to manage our natural resources,” says Scott McCannell, executive director of PEA….The auditor concluded that the ministry, with all its efforts, could not possibly have the full picture of timber resources needed to make informed decisions on resource management.
The province has cut back the ranks of professional foresters by more than a quarter in the past five years, which is reducing its ability to monitor logging and enforce forest practices, the union that represents them says. At the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Forests employed 525 Registered Professional Foresters, down from 722 in 2009, according to the count of the Professional Employees Association. The ones that are left are overworked and unable to conduct the “boots-on-the-ground” field work that they used to do to make sure forest companies are in compliance with the forest resource plans they are required to file, says association executive director Scott McCannell.
VICTORIA — After years of negotiation, collapsed deals and local fundraising campaigns, the B.C. government has signed an agreement to save waterfront land on Quadra Island from logging and turn it into a provincial park. Environment Minister Mary Polak announced the deal on Wednesday. The government and a group of partners will buy 395 hectares of ecologically-sensitive land on Quadra Island from Portland-based forest company Merrill & Ring, in exchange for $5.85 million and Crown land on nearby East Thurlow Island.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Dirk Adams said this week he supports a regional wilderness bill that would designate an additional 6.4 million acres of wilderness in Montana. …if he’s elected, he’d introduce the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act… It would protect 24 million acres of wilderness on roadless forest land in five states. …“(It) acts to protect an entire ecosystem which extends into portions of five states, including Montana.” Adams is the only U.S. Senate candidate in Montana to oppose construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would transport crude oil from Canada through Montana to refineries near the Gulf of Mexico.
Tasmania’s timber industry has accepted the state’s historic forest peace deal is now dead. After decades of conflict and four years of negotiations, it has taken less than a week for the newly-elected Tasmanian government to start unravelling the deal. Premier-elect Will Hodgman took the first step towards his election pledge to tear it up, meeting industry stakeholders, including farmers. The forestry union and green groups were not invited to the talks. 
National Take a Walk in the Park Day is just around the corner (March 30), and a new Leger survey shows that 88 per cent of Ontarians believe that tree planting and better forest management practices are key in reducing the risks of climate change. “These results prove that Ontarians are educated about the importance of forests to our health and well-being and that they are concerned about the loss of trees,” says Rob Keen, CEO of Forests Ontario, which commissioned the survey of 1,000 Ontarians. “At Forests Ontario, we offer people the chance to take a proactive approach to sustaining healthy forests through the help of subsidies for landowners, educational workshops and youth programs.”
UK — Have you wondered why your site hoarding, wall sheathing and floor decking materials have rocketed in price over the past few years? Why, it’s global warming, of course. Measures introduced to combat the effects of climate change inevitably add to the cost of a building project. Part L of the Building Regulations, governing the conservation of fuel and power, has been through numerous revisions over the past decade, each one tightening up the requirements and piling on the cost every time. The Part L revisions are tied into government policy with its strict carbon reduction targets enshrined in law and enforced by regulation. And so conditioned are we by the climate change orthodoxy that we accept these added costs as the price we must pay to save the planet for future generations.
