Daily Archives: January 23, 2018

Today’s Takeaway

New Brunswick is open to changing forestry deal that contributed to US duties

January 23, 2018
Category: Today's Takeaway

New Brunswick is open to changing the forestry deal that created problems for woodlot owners and contributed to the US case for imposing duties. In related news: Canada rejects angry American NAFTA criticism, says it intends to be constructive and innovative as renegotiations resume; and lumber prices have Montana home builders frustrated but timber mills cheering.

In other news: does the BC Forest Industry need a change? CKNW’s Jon McComb interviews former Forest Minister Bob Williams in response to William’s report “Restoring Forestry in BC – the story of the industry’s decline and the case for regional management”.

Finally,  forestry is impacting people’s mental health in Ireland and wood chips have replaced salt in one Quebec town – as an environmentally-friendly way of keeping winter roads safe

— Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor

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Business & Politics

Canada rejects angry American NAFTA criticism, says it has tabled extensive text

By Mike Blanchfield
Canadian Press in CTV News
January 22, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada

Canada is shooting back at American criticism that it is being inflexible and unconstructive at the North American Free Trade renegotiation that has resumed this week in Montreal. Canadian officials are taking direct aim at the narrative that its negotiators are being inflexible — or even obstinate — when it comes to discussing the controversial U.S. proposals to raise continental content on automobiles, scrap the dispute resolution mechanism, and institute a five-year sunset clause. …As for the WTO complaint overshadowing discussions, Champagne brushed off its impact and said Canadians expect their government to be firm in its response to punitive U.S. trade sanctions. “Canadians want us to be constructive … Canadians expect us to be creative, but at the same time, Canadians expect us to be firm when it is about key sectors like supply management,” he said.

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Canada will be ‘creative’ but ‘firm’ at NAFTA talks: International trade minister

The Canadian Press in Global News
January 22, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, United States

Canada intends to be constructive and innovative as the North American Free Trade Agreement renegotiations resume in Montreal, the country’s international trade minister said Monday. The talks take place amid the U.S. administration’s grumbling about Canada’s recent sweeping complaint with the World Trade Organization about U.S. trade practices, as well as Canada’s insistence on a progressive trade agenda that includes Indigenous and labour provisions. …“Canadians expect us to be creative, but at the same time, Canadians expect us to be firm when it is about key sectors like supply management,” he said. …Quebec Economy Minister Dominque Anglade echoed that it was important to stand firm in the face of U.S. punitive duties on products such as softwood lumber and Bombardier jets.

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Northern Pulp reports improvements in quality of stack emissions

The News
January 22, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

ABERCROMBIE POINT — There’s a little more being burned and a little less floating out of the smokestacks now that Northern Pulp has implemented a number of fixes improving the quality of emissions. Fourth quarter regulatory testing of particulate matter levels from the power boiler at the pulp mill revealed a boiler particulate matter level of 50mg/Rm3. The improvements made to equipment at the mill came after boiler experts were brought to the site in August to identify areas that could be improved upon or had been overlooked. Northern Pulp reports that it implemented the recommendations.

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Blaine Higgs open to changing PC-negotiated forestry deal

By Jacques Poitras
CBC News
January 23, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

Blaine Higgs

Progressive Conservative Leader Blaine Higgs has opened the door to changing the 2014 forestry deal that his own party negotiated and signed. Higgs says if the initiative has created problems for woodlot owners and has prompted the United States to punish New Brunswick, maybe it should be revisited. …Higgs was responding to comments by fellow PC MLA Bruce Northrup, who told CBC News recently that he was removed as minister of natural resources because he opposed shrinking conservation areas in public forests as much as J.D. Irving Ltd. wanted. In that interview, Northrup said he is “disappointed to this day” that more logging on public land took market share away from private woodlot owners and may have contributed to the U.S. government conclusion that New Brunswick wood is unfairly subsidized.

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Lumber prices have timber mills cheering, but home builders passing costs to buyers

By David Erickson
The Missoulian
January 22, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US West

Caleb Lockyer

…relatively high and stable prices for lumber over the past year have the Montana wood products industry happy — but home builders are frustrated because they have to pass on those costs to consumers in the midst of already lofty housing prices. Todd Morgan, the director of Forest Industry Research at the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research, said lumber production fell in Montana from 506 million board-feet in 2016 to 481 million board-feet in 2017. But tight supply coupled with high demand kept prices up. …At least one Missoula builder said those high prices for raw materials to construct houses contribute to the ever-soaring home prices here. …[Wade Hoyt of Hoyt Homes in Missoula] said the price for OSB (oriented strand board), a widely used building product similar to particle board, has quadrupled since the beginning of 2016.

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China’s new construction rules to allow use of Japanese timber

Nikkei Asian Review
January 23, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: International

TOKYO — With China opening itself up to Japanese construction styles, players here are looking to boost exports by tapping the strong demand for housing among China’s growing and increasingly wealthier population. China has updated its building codes so that traditional Japanese wood-frame construction can be used for houses. It will also allow the use of sugicedar, hinoki cypress and karamatsu larch — three types of wood that are commonly grown in Japan — as beams, pillars and other structural components in housing, starting in August. The Japan Wood-Products Export Association has been lobbying for the change since 2010. …”What’s most important is consumption of plywood and other materials, not log exports,” said Atushiro Inoue, head of the Japan Plywood Manufacturers’ Association.

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Wood, Paper & Green Building

Faith-based group seeks funding for new 41-unit apartment building near former Kellogg plant

By Hank Daniszewski
The London Free Press
January 23, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada East

A struggling stretch of Dundas Street in east London is poised to get a boost from a new affordable housing project. A five-storey, 41-unit building called Nightingale Place has been proposed for a vacant lot at 1039-1047 Dundas St. …Giustizia said the housing corporation eventually may start developing projects on its own and also assist the London and Middlesex Housing Corp., which provides rent-geared- to-income social housing. …Another six-storey building at 356 Dundas St, is nearing completion by private developer, Yossi Lavie. It will have 50 affordable and 19 market-rent units. The building itself will be the first in the city approved under revised building-code rules that allow wood-frame buildings to rise six storeys.

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Quebec town swaps out salt for eco-friendly wood chips on icy roads

CBC News
January 22, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada East

The town of Rosemère, Que., is opting for a more environmentally-friendly way of keeping roads from becoming slippery due to ice, snow and freezing rain — it’s using wood chips. The town, located just northwest of Laval, is testing out wood chips as a replacement for salt or gravel on the roads. Rosemère Mayor Eric Westram said they are ditching the “old, conventional way” in favour or something more eco-friendly and more efficient. “All this salt and all those materials end up in the river,” said Westram. “So if you want to be conscientious of the environment, you have to look at other alternatives.” …​”Wood is as natural as it comes,” he told CBC. “This is definitely the thing of the future.”

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Architects turn to wood for greener, healthier work spaces

Think Wood
Global Newswire
January 23, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States

Washington, DC — With research showing the average North American spends 90 percent of their time indoors, Think Wood advocates for the design of our buildings—particularly office spaces—to promote productivity, functionality, creativity and occupant wellbeing. Uses of wood as a structural or finishing material not only offer aesthetic beauty, but enhances indoor air quality, acoustics, thermal comfort, and energy efficiency. Perhaps most notably, it also has biophilic benefits—the innate wellness humans feel towards nature. …Portland, Oregon-based Ankrom Moisan Architects is one of several innovative architecture firms that has designed its own office using wood. 38 Davis features a timber-frame structure with exposed glulam beams over a concrete podium, and other exposed wood, brick and concrete elements throughout that reflect the firm’s sustainable values, creative culture and urban identity.

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2018 Tall + Urban Innovation Conference

Tall Innovation 2018
January 23, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US East

The annual CTBUH Tall + Urban Innovation Conference explores and celebrates the very best in innovative tall buildings, urban spaces, building technologies, and construction practices from around the world. Incorporating what was previously known as the CTBUH Annual Awards Event, this two-day conference will see the owner/ developers and design teams for 45 Finalist projects compete in front of an international audience and live juries for winning distinctions in various categories. 

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Growth in timber and prefab will surprise, Strongbuild says

By Tina Perinotto
The Fifth Estate Australia
January 23, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

Adam Strong

The timber and prefab sector is set to kick goals again this year if a raft of ambitious projects get the go ahead, among them one of the biggest commercial timber building in the world by volume. Adam Strong, group managing director of prefab timber powerhouse Strongbuild, is expecting a year of continued growth in 2018, with little if any negativity from the market slowdown already apparent towards the end of last year. …Besides, timber and prefab is a niche sector and it’s only just starting to properly take off. …Breakthroughs in the sector include stair and lift shaft now built in cross laminated timber, or CLT, and closed panel walls, or panellisation, meaning pretty much the entire wall including fitted windows and doors can be pre-made at the factory and sent out as a flat-pack.

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Has prefab disrupted the building industry?

By Geraldine Chua
Architecture and Design Australia
January 23, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

It’s been said that all industry disruptors are innovators, but not all innovators are disruptive. With prefabricated construction, the question of whether this 21st century process has truly shaken up Australia’s building industry is one with no clear answer. On the one hand, there has been a growing buzz around prefab design – the umbrella term given to any structural, architectural or service elements that are fabricated offsite in a factory. Some call it pre-built construction, others off-site construction. Then there’s modular construction, where individual prefab units are connected and built up to form an overall structure. “Prefab is becoming extremely popular in Australia, with many large and smaller builders, suppliers and tradesmen embracing prefab in hundreds of different formats,” says Andrew Grimshaw, director of SBS Group.

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Forestry

Restoring Forestry in BC

By Bob Williams
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
January 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

This report finds that instead of environmental stewardship, BC has advanced policies of liquidating forests by clear-cutting countless valleys and allowing giant corporations to demolish this great natural asset and move on. After five decades involvement—including as the province’s forests minister in the early 1970s—Bob Williams says regionally based forestry with co-management by local communities and First Nations would best serve BC’s public forests and the communities that depend upon them for economic benefits and jobs. He looks to Sweden as a model where forests are managed in the public interest for the long term rather than for the short-term interests of the commodity lumber industry. 

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Fuel treatment underway in Cranbrook Community Forest

By Trevor Crawley
Cranbrook Daily Townsman
January 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

A fuel management program remains underway in the Cranbrook Community Forest and on private land belonging to the College of the Rockies (COTR), as heavy equipment is being used to thin the forest. …The treatment program is designed to reduce the available fuels in the case of a catastrophic wildfire, which could threaten the College as well as homes in the surrounding neighbourhood. The project has a few different aspects; while fuel reduction and mitigating wildfire hazard is a big priority, there are other residual benefits such as ecosystem restoration, says Grant Griffin, a board director with the Cranbrook Community Forest Society. …Funding for the project has come from COTR, the Cranbrook Community Forest Society and the Forest Enhancement Society of BC.

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B.C. officials ask for help identifying those who interfered with Fisher Creek road

Canadian Press in Metro Vancouver
January 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

VICTORIA — The forest service road near Chetwynd was deactivated last fall to help with the recovery of an endangered caribou herd; those who reopened the road could face fines of up to $50,000 or two years in jail. Provincial officials hope the public can help identify the people who interfered with a caribou recovery program in northeastern British Columbia by trying to reopen part of a closed backcountry road. The Ministry of Forests says in a news release that someone used heavy equipment to remove logs, level out earthen barriers and fill deep pits that had been placed along sections of the Fisher Creek forest service road near Chetwynd. The road was deactivated last fall to help assist with the recovery of the endangered Klinse-Za caribou herd, which currently numbers about 70 animals.

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Does The B.C. Forest Industry Need A Change?

By Jon McComb
News Talk 980 CKNW
January 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Jon McComb interviews Bob Willians, former Forestry Minister. With high tariffs and doubt regarding NAFTA, the question is: Does the BC Forest Industry need a facelift? Radio show. 

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Temporary Change in Leadership at College of Forestry

Oregon State University
January 19, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University’s College of Forestry Dean Thomas Maness announced this week his intention to begin immediately an approximate six-month change in responsibilities to attend to personal matters. As a result, from January 17 to June 30, Executive Associate Dean Anthony S. Davis will serve as acting dean of the college. The temporary changes occurs at a very important time within the college, as it continues to work on the Oregon Forest Science Complex and expand on the excellent teaching, research, and outreach and engagement that has built one of the finest forestry programs in the world and a source of great pride for Oregon State University.

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Lawmakers Again Pushing For State Forest Protections

By Becca Costello
Indiana Public Media
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

Lawmakers are again attempting to set aside a portion of state forests to be protected from timber harvests. Logging on state forest property has been a controversial issue for years. The Department of Natural Resources has increased logging in state forests significantly over the past decade. The DNR says it’s a way to keep the forest healthy, but opponents say it’s damaging the forest ecosystem. Republican Senator Eric Koch (R-Bedford) says he spoke with various groups that disagree on the science and economics of forestry before drafting his bill. …Koch’s bill would set aside 30 percent of each state forest as “old growth,” where logging could not occur. Sen. Jon Ford (R-Terre Haute) and Sen. Eric Bassler (R-Carmel) are co-authors.

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Coppicing wood of 500 trees to be planted in St Peter field

Jersey Evening Post
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

Over the coming weeks more than 500 trees are to be planted in a field above Moulin de Quétivel to create a coppicing wood. Coppicing is an ancient and sustainable form of woodland management which involves repetitive felling on the same stump, near to ground level, to allow shoots to regrow from the main stump. The new 3.3-vergée site is to be planted with sweet chestnut, common oak and hazel, which will be coppiced on a rotational basis. …Coppicing has been traced back to neolithic times by archaeologists, who have excavated wooden tracks over boggy ground made entirely of coppiced material.

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Logging fears loom among conservationists, tourists due to proposed zone changes at Mohican-Memorial State Forest

Cleveland.com
January 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

The Ohio Division of Forestry stirred up a flurry of protest last summer after it announced plans to log 20 to 40 acres of pine trees per year for the next 20 years in the Mohican-Memorial State Forest, about 80 miles south of Cleveland near Mansfield. Now, a plan that critics say would remove protection from an additional 1,700 acres of state forest hardwood is renewing the logging controversy, raising concern from tourists and conservationists. Without formal announcement, state foresters posted a draft proposal, “Restoring Native Hardwoods Initiative,” on the Division of Forestry website in August. …The change was made in such a way that it “would not be readily apparent to laypersons,” said Nathan Johnson, director of Public Lands for the Ohio Environmental Council.

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Growth of forestry is impacting on people’s mental heath – former Leitrim rose

Farm Ireland
January 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: International

The fractious and heated debate on forestry in Leitrim was to the fore at a public meeting in Carrick-on-Shannon on Friday night. Farmers are being led to make money for big corporations not to generate an income for themselves by planting forestry, according to Gerry Loftus Mayo Chairman of the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association. …He cited an initiative launched in 2017 where the European Investment Bank and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund are working with Finland forestry company Dasos to secure 15,000ha of forestry. “That’s not right. They can’t do that. Farmers are being outbid by forestry companies (for land), how can we compete?” …“Forestry is wiping out communities, nobody can deny it and forestry companies don’t care… follow the trees and you’ll find rural depopulation.”

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Forest fire risk assessment using hotspot analysis in GIS

By Dr. El-Said Mamdouh Mahmoud Zahran et al
EurekAlert
January 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: International

The recent forest fire incidents are becoming a major concern as they seriously threaten the environment, economy and human’s safety. This research study aims to figure out forest fire hotspots using advanced hotspot analysis in Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Further it can help propose appropriate preventive measures using Site Suitability and Network Analyses in GIS. The study focuses on Brunei Darussalam because it is increasingly struck by forest fire incidents among all regions in Southeast Asia. Brunei-Muara is the worst-hit district by forest fire in Brunei Darussalam, and hence it was selected as a case study for this research.

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Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Getting more out of wood

By Heather Peden
The Chronicle Journal
January 23, 2018
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, Canada East

Stephane Renou

The Resolute Forest Products plant in Thunder Bay will soon be home to a pilot project that could transform the forestry industry. With federal government funding of $5.8 million announced on Monday, FP Innovations and Resolute Forest Products will be developing a $21-million project to extract bio-chemicals from wood that could replace petroleum-based chemicals in common products such as plastics and insulation. The facility would be the first of its kind on a commercial level and if it is successful it could create an alternative way for Northwestern Ontario to keep the forestry industry viable. …The new thermo-mechanical-pulp bio-refinery will be constructed within existing buildings on the Resolute property. Equipment is being built from scratch, explained Stephane Renou, chief executive officer of FP Innovations.

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Stora Enso is the First Forest Products Company to set Ambitious Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets

By Stora Enso Oyj
PRNewswire
January 23, 2018
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

Karl-Henrik Sundström

HELSINKI — The renewable materials company Stora Enso has become the first forest products company to set ambitious science-based greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets to address significant emissions along the company’s value chain. The targets have been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative. “For over a decade we have been actively reducing the energy-intensity of our operations and our dependence on fossil fuels,” says Stora Enso CEO Karl-Henrik Sundström. “As a company operating in a bioeconomy and using renewable raw materials, we are in a unique position to take the next step. We are now committing to further reducing our CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions in line with the 2°C limit set for global warming by the Paris Agreement.

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