Daily Archives: February 23, 2018

Today’s Takeaway

‘Tis the season? Foresters, loggers and wood specifiers gather to honour their champions

February 23, 2018
Category: Today's Takeaway

‘Tis the season? Foresters, loggers and wood specifiers are gathering to learn, and honour their respective champions. The Association of BC Forest Professionals recognized more than a dozen professionals for their outstanding work in sustainable forest management; the 80th annual Oregon Logging Conference kicked off in Eugene Oregon and the Canadian Wood Council announced its Manitoba Wood Solutions Fair in April.

Researchers at the University of BC have made a wood-based concrete panel that performs best with beetle-killed wood; while Purdue University researchers show that concrete infused with wood nanocrystals is stronger, allowing for less concrete in some applications. In other news: inside the operation to save ‘ghosts of the woods’ from hungry wolves; Ontario’s forest industry is also committed to protecting caribou; and drier conditions could doom Rocky Mountain spruce and fir trees.

Finally, Canfor announces and then updates a delay to its planned construction of a new mill in Washington GA.

— Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor

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Special Feature

The Distinguished Forester and the Carbon Conundrum Top Day Two at ABCFP Conference

By Kelly McCloskey
Tree Frog Forestry News
February 23, 2018
Category: Special Feature
Region: Canada, Canada West

Lorne Bedford RPF

Topping off day-two of the ABCFP conference in Victoria was the President’s Awards Banquet where more than a dozen forest professionals and others were honoured for their outstanding work in sustainably managing BC’s forests. The association’s highest honour for a member—the Distinguished Forester Award—went to Lorne Bedford RPF for his decades of work in forest practices and silviculture with the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. The award recognizes an individual for outstanding service to the profession of forestry and for furthering the principles of the association. …A feature panel [for us inquiring Frogs], was on the carbon conundrum and the potential of managing for timber and carbon at the same time. The experts included Dr. Werner Kurz, (Pacific Forestry Centre) Satnam Manhas (Ecotrust Canada) and Albert Nussbaum (BC Forest Analysis and Inventory Branch). The key takeaway being that climate change is serious business; the associated issues of wildfire and beetles are key to carbon management, and forests and forest management can play a helpful role. 

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Business & Politics

Canfor Corporation – Update to Greenfield Sawmill Announcement

By Canfor Corporation
Cision Newswire
February 23, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

VANCOUVER – Canfor Corporation has been advised today by the contractor selected to build the greenfield mill in Washington, Georgia of a potential previous commitment that may prevent their construction of the facility.  The Company is working to rectify the situation but may encounter delays relative to the construction schedule provided in yesterday’s news release. Certain statements in this press release constitute “forward-looking statements” which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. 

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Canfor going ahead with US$120M sawmill in U.S. as softwood dispute continues

Canadian Press in the Victoria Times Colonist
February 22, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

VANCOUVER — Canfor Corp. says its going ahead with the construction of a US$120 million sawmill in Washington, Ga., as Canada’s softwood lumber industry continues to deal with punitive duties from the U.S. But the Vancouver-based lumber company said early Friday that construction of the new 275-million board feet mill may not start in the second quarter of 2018 as initially planned.  Canfor said it has been advised by a contractor selected to build the mill of a “potential previous commitment that may prevent their construction of the facility.” The company said it was working to rectify the situation. The investment announcement came as Canfor reported adjusted net income of $114.8 million or 89 cents per share for the last quarter, up from $37.7 million or 29 cents per share for the last quarter of 2016.

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Chemainus sawmill group takes protest to Western Forest Products job fair in Nanaimo

By Don Bodger
Chemainus Valley Courier
February 22, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Chemainus sawmill protesters showed up with placards at a Western Forest Products job fair Friday at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre in Nanaimo, bringing issues pertaining to the company to light. “We’ve got a bit of a gripe with WFP,” said Chris Hardy, a 32-year employee of the Chemainus sawmill dating back to when the new restructured mill opened in the mid-1980s. “In the last 12 months, approximately 15 salaried people have resigned,” he noted as one of the key issues. “That got our interest. Here you are putting on a job fair. “Why are people leaving in such numbers?” Hardy, on behalf of the group, also challenged a recent company statement about reduced hours among employees that was published in the Courier Feb. 8.

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Biggest logging conference west of the Mississippi kicks off in Eugene

By Spencer Guimont
KEZI.com
February 22, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US West

EUGENE, Ore. — The 80th annual Oregon Logging Conference kicked off in Eugene on Feb.22. Its the largest indoor, outdoor logging equipment show west of the Mississippi.  The three day event features lots of opportunities for forestry professionals to network and learn more about the trade. There will be seminars, hands-on workshops and panel discussions all about the logging industry.  Ponsse, was one of the companies to feature equipment. They showcased a training simulator. The simulator is like a video game, but it allows people to train in a safe and controlled environment.  The company said they’d like to someday create a virtual reality training simulator. 

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Wood, Paper & Green Building

Alternative Wood Products and Processing Methods to Watch

By Blaine Bronwell
ARCHITECT Magazine
February 22, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, United States

The architecture, engineering and construction industry recently has a newfound appreciation for wood and its applications in tall and mass timber construction. But the material’s relatively lightweight and carbon-storing capacities are also inspiring innovators and scientists to experiment with new uses and manipulations. From readily available commercial products to highly modified materials, ARCHITECT is highlighting inventive examples of wood products and technologies below. …Researchers at the University of British Columbia have made a wood-based concrete into non-structural panels …“Normally, cement repels organic materials, such as wood,” said Sorin Pasca, “But for some reason, cement sticks to lodgepole pine and this compatibility is even stronger when the tree has been killed—or you could say, enhanced—by the mountain pine beetle.” …Yet one should always be careful when creating composites in which the original ingredients cannot be easily extracted for recycling purposes…

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Wood conference coming to Manitoba

Construction Canada
February 22, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada East

The Winnipeg Wood Solutions Fair (WWSF) will be held April 11 at the RBC Convention Centre Winnipeg. Presented by WoodWorks and the Canadian Wood Council (CWC), the event will showcase wood use in commercial, institutional, industrial, and multi-unit residential construction. The educational expo will feature a trade show, as well as seminars. Feature speakers include architect Eleanor Brough, who will deliver a presentation entitled ‘Timber Solutions in Education Projects,’ and structural engineer Cory Zurell with his seminar called ‘Timber Office Buildings: Everything Old is New Again.’

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Purdue researchers show concrete infused with wood nanocrystals is stronger, plan to use it in California bridge

Purdue University
February 22, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US West

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University researchers studying whether concrete is made stronger by infusing it with microscopic-sized nanocrystals from wood are moving from the laboratory to the real world with a bridge that will be built in California this spring. The researchers have been working with cellulose nanocrystals, byproducts generated by the paper, bioenergy, agriculture and pulp industries, to find the best mixture to strengthen concrete, the most common man-made material in the world. …Strengthening concrete could have other implications, such as making items made with concrete thinner and lighter while retaining the same strength with a potential side benefit of decreasing carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Cement plants account for an estimated 8 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide, a main cause of climate change.

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Our View: Projects put new spin on Maine’s old industries

By the Editorial Board
Portland Press Herald
February 22, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US East

Raw material and good workers helped build and sustain Millinocket, until changing markets and a global economy doomed Great Northern Paper Co. And while it’s unlikely newsprint will ever be produced again in northern Maine, that doesn’t mean those factors no longer matter – they just need a new spin. “It’s been a long time since you could say that we’re on the forefront of a new forest product,” Sean DeWitt, president of Our Katahdin, a nonprofit organization working to rebuild the mill site, told Mainebiz earlier this month, after LignaCLT Maine announced a project that could bring more than 100 jobs there. “You may say, ‘We’re never going back to the days of 4,000 jobs (at the site),’ but this is something. This is really special.” 

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Student residence in Marseille is not so tall wood

By Lloyd Alter
TreeHugger
February 22, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

Tall wood buildings are all the rage these days, but this TreeHugger has been wondering if we shouldn’t be really be thinking differently about it, and instead of doing technical gymnastics to go tall, we should be concentrating on building for that “missing middle” as Daniel Parolek called it, or the Goldilocks Density as I call it. …Not everyone agrees with me, and this tweet response makes a very good point. But what works for a tree in the forest is not necessarily best for buildings. That’s why I like this new student residence in Marseille, designed by A+ Architecture, which at this time is one of the tallest buildings in France at eight storeys.

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Forestry

Regional District of Mount Waddington is frustrated over WFP response to logging trucks on the highway

BC Local News
February 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Western Forest Products (WFP) was once again taken to task by the Regional District of Mount Waddington’s Board of Directors. Following a heated board meeting back in November, which WFP attended to address the closure of the Englewood train, the company returned for another board meeting Feb. 20 to provide an update on their promised road safety plan and to seek input on how best to honour the Englewood train’s history. …“I don’t think I’ve ever been to a regional district board meeting in the 20 years I’ve been here where there has been such animosity between a major employer and the regional district and it’s uncomfortable,” said Port Hardy Mayor Hank Bood.

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VIDEO: Harvester alleges province allows cutting that goes against its own policies

By Arron Beswick
The Chronicle Herald
February 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

The two processors that had been cutting swaths through the hardwood stands on Loon Lake Road weren’t operating on Wednesday morning. “They’re broke down — they’re not designed to be cutting hardwood this big,” said Danny George, a Guysborough County harvester. “This area has never been cut. This is old growth.” Taking a measuring tape out, one yellow birch had a circumference of three metres at the butt. “Sure, they pick some saw logs out of it but primarily these trees are getting burnt for biomass,” said George. That’s a big accusation on two counts. Because, according to the province’s Old Forest Policy, no one is allowed to cut old-growth forest on Crown land. And, according to provincial government policy, Nova Scotia Power and Port Hawkesbury Paper, saw logs aren’t getting burnt for electricity at the Point Tupper mill. We’ll start with the cutting of old-growth timber.

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Lussier to address April forestry forum

The Bradford Era
February 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

Jean Martin Lussier

KANE — The Roach-Bauer Forestry Forum, scheduled for April 5, will feature Dr. Jean-Martin Lussier of the Canadian Forest Service, who will share insights on rehabilitation of forested stands. The title of his presentation is “Using a Multiple Treatment Approach for Rehabilitation Silviculture.” Lussier is currently employed as a research scientist in silviculture and forest management at the Canadian Wood Fibre Center within the Canadian Forest Service of Natural Resources Canada of the Government of Canada. The Wood Fibre Center is dedicated to the enhancement of the competitiveness of the Canadian forest sector. The Centre is directly supported by Forest Program Innovations, one of the world’s largest private, non-profit research centres working in forest research.

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The caribou catchers: Inside the operation to save ‘ghosts of the woods’ from hungry wolves

By Jake Edmiston
Montreal Gazette
February 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

Serge Couturier, a net-gunner for hire, can catch large animals by shooting nets from helicopters. He was summoned from Quebec last week to assist the Michipicoten First Nation and Ontario’s ministry of natural resources and forestry in their plan to rescue caribou from the wolves that have taken over Michipicoten Island. Since the 1980s — after the MNRF airlifted in mates to join a lone bull caribou on the island — Michipicoten has become one of the best chances at survival for the threatened woodland caribou species in southern Ontario. The First Nation suspects in three decades the island’s caribou population ballooned from less than 10 to almost 900. (The MNRF gives a more conservative estimate of 450.) Regardless, both sides agree that population has been devastated by a pack of wolves that crossed to the island on an ice bridge in 2014.

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Forestry industry also committed to protecting caribou

Ian Dunn, RPF, director of forest policy, OFIA
The Toronto Star
February 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

Ian Dunn

Earlier this month, the Toronto Star published an opinion piece, “We don’t have to choose between jobs and saving woodland caribou” where the authors attempted to establish a link between American protectionism, caribou, and “dwindling forestry jobs” in Northern Ontario. The op-ed went as far to suggest that Premier Wynne was “placing the demands of large forestry companies above the interests of everyone else.” This left me wondering why such a positive and responsible step by our provincial government could be taken so far out of context, and how something so categorically untrue can be published in our nation’s media landscape. …Putting a glass dome over caribou habitat will not solve the issue — forestry has the ability to create new habitat with the added benefit of capturing carbon dioxide in solid wood products and regenerating new, healthy forests.

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Forest Service to reducing air resources to fight fires

By Andrew Shipotofsky
Newscenter 1
February 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

The U.S. Forest Service is cutting the number of large air tankers. With their Fiscal Year 2018 budget, the Forest Service is only allowing for 13 large air tankers on exclusive contracts – down from 20 the previous year. Those aircraft are used to fight fires across the United States and were used on the Rankin Fire and Legion Lake Fire in South Dakota in 2017. These changes could reduce the likelihood of South Dakota receiving air resources if multiple wildfires burn at the same time across the country. The Forest Service also plans to further reduce the size of their Type 1 helicopter fleet, but they have yet to announce how many helicopters they’ll keep. A 2009 study by the National Interagency Aviation Council had projections for the optimum number of Forest Service assets in 2018. The study concluded that there should be 35 Type 1 helicopters and 32 large air tankers.

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Industrial Forestry Paradigm drives Colville Newfoundland logging

By George Wuerthener
The Wildlife News
February 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

The recent response to my editorial on the ecological value of dead trees by Russ Vaughn and Mike Peterson demonstrated exactly the problem I was attempting to address: that the Industrial Forestry Paradigm, not ecological understanding, drives forestry on the Colville National Forest.  Their last paragraph illustrates this industrial bias. Vaughn and Peterson wrote: “The logs delivered to area mills are simply the byproduct of creating healthy forests. On our public lands, the focus is no longer on resource extraction, but on creating a healthy, resilient forest that can be used and enjoyed for generations to come.” The problem is that neither Vaughn or Peterson seem to understand what constitutes a “healthy” forest ecosystem.

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Forestry department must step up

Noah Greenwald, endangered species program director
The Oregonian
February 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission made the right decision to follow the best science and move the marbled murrelet seabird from threatened to endangered (“Marbled murrelet officially listed as endangered species in Oregon,” Feb. 9). The murrelet nests in Coast Range old growth trees, flying up to 100 miles daily to the sea and back to fish for its young. Protecting murrelets as endangered will help ensure this amazing animal’s survival. Fish and Wildlife’s status review, which formed the basis for increased protections, showed that continued logging of mature and old-growth forests, particularly on state and private lands, threatens murrelets. Clearly, more needs to be done.

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Drier conditions could doom Rocky Mountain spruce and fir trees

By University of Colorado at Boulder
Science Daily
February 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Drier summers and a decline in average snowpack over the past 40 years have severely hampered the establishment of two foundational tree species in subalpine regions of Colorado’s Front Range, suggesting that climate warming is already taking a toll on forest health in some areas of the southern Rocky Mountains. The findings, which were published today in the journal Ecology, show that spruce and fir tree establishment was limited to a handful of years with above average snowpack and cooler, wetter summer conditions — all of which have grown scarcer in recent decades. The study is believed to be the first to reconstruct establishment frequency on an annual basis for the two conifer species.

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More logging won’t make California forests healthier

By Chad Hanson is principal scientist with the John Muir Project
The Sacramento Bee
February 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Chad Hanson

Earlier this month, California’s Little Hoover Commission released a report that proposed increased logging as a way to save our forests from dead trees and address climate change. However, the report omits key scientific information that points to very different conclusions. …The commission also fails to mention that the “mechanical thinning” logging projects it promotes actually reduce carbon storage. Logging trees and burning them in “bioenergy” plants, as the report advocates, produces even more carbon emissions than burning coal for an equivalent amount of energy produced. Increased logging is not a climate change solution. Further, the report simply assumes that more logging will somehow reduce fire intensity, but this is strongly contradicted by the most comprehensive and current scientific analysis, which concludes that forests with the most logging actually burn more intensely. 

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Fire warning: Irma’s debris could go up in flames

By Cindy Swirko
Gainesville Sun
February 22, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

It’s already started. Seven small wildfires have occurred in the past two days in the district consisting of Alachua, Gilchrist, Levy, Marion and Putnam counties. Hurricane Irma unleashed plenty of rain over the region last summer but also toppled wildland trees, shrubs and other vegetation that has spent the last six months withering away. That may be bad — all that dead vegetation could go up in smoke this spring. The U.S. Forest Service has released a wildfire forecast based on current conditions and expected weather patterns that has put much of the state, including North Florida, at a greater likelihood for blazes. “Fire danger has held at an elevated level through the winter in much of Florida, southern Georgia and southern Alabama,” the report stated.

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Billion tree planting timetable gives industry confidence

NZ Forest Owners’ Association
Scoop Independent News
February 23, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: International

Billion tree planting timetable gives industry confidence. Forest Owners say the announcement of the timetable for the government’s billion tree ten year project will give confidence that the massive afforestation is a serious proposition. The Forestry Minister Shane Jones announced today in Gisborne that the government programme will see a gradual rise of tree numbers planted out every year as seedlings become available. From 2022 planting will be in full swing at an annual rate of 110,000 hectares a year. Forest Owners Association President Peter Clark says there are plenty of sceptics who believe that the government will not get to the billion tree target over ten years.

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Queensland is one of the world’s worst places for deforestation

The Economist
February 24, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: International

MOST deforestation takes place in poor countries. In richer places, trees tend to multiply. Australia is an unhappy exception. Land clearance is rampant along its eastern coast, as farmers take advantage of lax laws to make room for cattle to feed Asia. WWF, a charity, now ranks Australia alongside Borneo and the Congo Basin as one of the world’s 11 worst “fronts” for deforestation. The worst damage occurs in the north-eastern state of Queensland, which has more trees left to fell than places to the south, where agriculture is more established. …They erased 395,000 hectares of forest, including huge tracts of ancient vegetation, between 2015 and 2016—the equivalent of 1,000 rugby pitches a day. As a share of its forested area, Queensland is mowing down trees twice as fast as Brazil.

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Health & Safety

Critical Condition: ‘People are dying from treatable medical conditions’

By Betsy Kline
Trail Times
February 22, 2018
Category: Health & Safety
Region: Canada, Canada West

CASTLEGAR — The executive director of the emergency medical care advocacy group BC HEROS (BC Helicopter Emergency Rescue Operations Society) Hans Dysarsz says problems caused by ambulance service policy are not just happening here in the West Kootenay — they are systemic and province-wide. Dysarsz isn’t the only one who thinks so — the BC Auditor General and the Ombudsman for Forest Safety have produced critical reports and the employees’ union for ambulance attendants has bemoaned response time delays and staffing shortages. Dysarsz also believes that things aren’t likely to change until the citizens of the province take a stand and demand better pre-hospital care from their legislative representatives.

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