Daily Archives: April 17, 2019

Today’s Takeaway

Suzuki ups the stakes as Caribou recovery plans concern thousands

April 17, 2019
Category: Today's Takeaway

A societal crisis? David Suzuki calls for robust conservation for species at-risk; as the last caribou transplants return from the US; BC’s caribou talks draw record crowds of ‘concerned‘ Revelstoke residents; and Canada’s environment minister warns of a hot future unless action is taken.

In other news: More on the Notre Dame fire and timber beam replacement challenge; Alberta’s election adds opposition to the fed’s carbon tax plan; while companies in the news include Tolko (taxes), Domtar (odours), Roseburg (management) and J.D. Irving (recruits).

Finally, the news is early as the Frogs join FPAC’s celebration of gender equity in the workforce. We’ll have an overview of the event in tomorrow’s news.

Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News

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Business & Politics

Alberta election 2019: Kenney victory another thorn in side of Trudeau as he seeks re-election

By Campbell Clark
The Globe and Mail
April 17, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada

Now there are not one but two premiers clamouring to defeat Justin Trudeau, openly, directly and noisily. The election of Jason Kenney as Alberta Premier brings a second scoop, on top of Ontario Premier Doug Ford, of open warfare between provincial capitals and Ottawa. The problem for the Prime Minister isn’t just that he has another provincial leader tearing apart the last shreds of what was once a nearly-unanimous “Pan-Canadian framework” on combatting climate change or that there are now (arguably) six small-c conservative provincial premiers where once he faced just one. …But Mr. Kenney is the kind of politician who will want to come out of the gates fast as Premier, with the plan to scrap Alberta’s carbon tax likely to be one of the first things on the agenda. A legal action to contest the federal carbon tax “backstop” probably will follow quickly.

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Domtar continuing to reduce emissions, odours in Kamloops

By Chad Klassen
CFJC Today Everything Kamloops
April 16, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

KAMLOOPS — The emissions and odour coming from the Domtar pulp mill continues to drop thanks to investments made by the company to reduce environment impacts. Domtar’s environmental manager Kirstin Dangelmaier presented the 2018 Annual Air Report and says emissions have reduced significantly, by as much as 70 per cent in the last seven years. She says the company spent $3.5 million last year, including the purchase of a new bleach plant scrubber, which has eliminated the use of sulfur dioxide, the most hazardous chemical at the mill. …The number of complaints, however, have remained stagnant despite the air quality improvements. Dangelmaier says domtar has future plans to continue reducing emissions.

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Lightening heavy industry’s tax load in Kamloops

By Jessica Wallace
Kamloops This Week
April 16, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Domtar and Tolko’s tax rate will decrease slightly this year, at a cost of about $4 to the average household. But heavy industry in Kamloops will continue to pay more on average than other B.C. municipalities. City council on Tuesday approved this year’s mill rates. …One city councillor took issue with a reduction of the heavy industry rate, which is charged to the Domtar pulp mill and Tolko’s plywood mill. …The reduction is a result of a council policy implemented in recent years to incrementally lower the rate, due to high taxes paid in Kamloops by heavy industry compared to other communities in the province. …Based on this year’s assessed values, if council were to reduce rates for Tolko and Domtar to meet that average, the city would lose $3.5 million worth of tax revenue in 2019.

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Workers recruited from Ukraine to help forest industry fight labour shortage

By Shane Fowler
CBC News
April 16, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

Svitlana Protsenko’s new job represents a new start for her family and an important new hope for the industry that sustains the New Brunswick town the Protsenkos now call home. …They are just one of the families who’ve make the trip from Ukraine this year to work in the forestry sector, which is suddenly facing a labour crisis. …In a province where forestry is a staple of the economy, immigration is the inevitable answer to a labour shortage, according to industry representatives. “Immigration will certainly be one of the paths we take to try and solve this problem,” said Mike Legere, executive director of Forest NB. Forest NB represents 15 forestry companies across the province, although not the forestry giant J.D. Irving Ltd.  

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Roseburg names Gary Hayes Business Manager of Softwood Plywood and Lumber

Roseburg
April 16, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US West

Gary Hayes

Roseburg is pleased to announce that Gary Hayes has been named Business Manager of the company’s softwood plywood and lumber businesses, effective immediately. Gary previously served as Roseburg’s Business Manager for Distribution, leading the team that provided support for plywood and lumber sales across the U.S. In his new role, Gary’s responsibilities have expanded to leadership of both the inside and field sales teams, as well as additional business leadership responsibilities. Gary’s extensive product and market knowledge make him an excellent fit to execute our sales, product and client initiatives moving forward.

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Timber company, county decry Idaho land buying splurge

By Keith Ridler
Associated Press in the Idaho Statesman
April 16, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US West

Idaho’s plan to buy timberland unfairly competes with private businesses and takes away tax revenue from local governments, a timber company and a northern Idaho county said Tuesday. Keith Williams of the Stimson Lumber Company told Republican Gov. Brad Little and four other statewide-elected officials on the Idaho Land Board that the state buying timberland is a bad idea. Idaho has been selling hundreds of residential home sites as well as commercial real estate as it gets out of leasing properties. The state expects to bank about $180 million that a financial adviser says should be used to buy timberland and farmland. “The scale of the Land Board’s reinvestment strategy just, quite simply, doesn’t work for Stimson,” Williams told the board. “It pits the state in direct competition with the private sector. Why does the state want to compete with the private sector at all?”

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Wood, Paper & Green Building

France does not have big enough trees to replace Notre Dame’s medieval beams

By Cillian O’Brien
CTV News
April 16, 2019
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

David Elstone

A French cultural heritage expert says France no longer has trees big enough to replace ancient wooden beams that burned in the Notre Dame fire. Bertrand de Feydeau, vice-president of preservation group Fondation du Patrimoine, said that the wooden roof …was built with beams more than 800 years ago from primal forests. …De Feydeau said the restoration work will have to use new technologies to rebuild the roof. Meanwhile, David Elstone, executive director of B.C.-based Truck Loggers Association, said his province would not have suitable oak, but if architects required soft wood timber Canada could help. “We probably have a tree that would suit the needs of the architects that are trying to rebuild Notre Dame,” he said. “We grow large strong trees that you cannot find in other areas.” The oldest trees aren’t always the largest ones when measuring a tree’s age in centuries, Elstone explained.

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A Challenge of Rebuilding Notre Dame: The Forests That Supplied Its Wood Are All But Gone

By Katherine Dunn
Fortune Magazine
April 16, 2019
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

…Even though “the worst has been avoided,” as President Emmanuel Macron said Monday night, early reports of the damage are devastating. …As the oak frame met its end, so too did remnants of Europe’s dwindling ancient forests. …Replacing those beams with comparable oak is simply not an option, said Bertrand de Feydeau, vice president of the preservation group Fondation du Patrimoine. Trees that supplied the roof’s frame came from primary forests—forests that are largely untouched by human activity, he said. He surmised that the huge trees associated with primary forests are gone too. …Only 4% of Europe’s remaining woodland is primary forest, according to a study published last May. …De Feydeau seemed to come to this conclusion too: Notre Dame, he said, will have to rely on new technologies to rebuild.

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Forestry

When does plant and animal species loss become a societal crisis?

By David Suzuki
The Georgia Straight
April 16, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, International

It’s heartening, in the midst of the human-caused sixth mass extinction, to find good wildlife recovery news. As plant and animal species disappear faster than they have for millions of years, Russia’s Siberian, or Amur, tigers are making a comeback… thanks to conservation measures that include habitat restoration and an illegal-hunting crackdown. It shows the value of sound policies and regulations to protect wildlife. …The authors recommend proactive, precautionary measures to protect at-risk species. These are rare in Canada. Even when species are pushed to the brink, governments continue to stall. That’s true for boreal woodland caribou…Not one province or territory with boreal caribou has implemented the risk-based threshold-management approach. Throughout Canada, industrial activities continue to degrade caribou habitat in the absence of sufficient protection regimes. In the past year, two of B.C.’s caribou populations died out.

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Caribou protection plan spawns racist backlash in northeast B.C.

By Sarah Cox
The Narwhal
April 16, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Misinformation is running rampant, but Treaty 8 chiefs say the proposed plan for the Peace region would not close any existing mining operations, affect approved pipelines or restrict backcountry access for activities such as mountain biking, fishing or hunting. Two Treaty 8 First Nations chiefs are alarmed by the racism and misinformation that has surfaced in recent weeks during consultations about draft agreements to save B.C.’s endangered caribou herds from local extinction. “All three of them bands will sell the lives of all those caribou for a few bucks in their pockets,” says one Facebook post with 20 likes. “I guarantee the Indians don’t know who they signed up,” says another Facebook post. “Cause there [sic] fuckin stupid . . . There [sic] using the Indians and there [sic] too dumb to know it.” “Its [sic] not about the caribou,” says yet another Facebook post with 19 likes. “Wake up and follow the money.”

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‘We’re concerned’: hundreds attend caribou meeting in Revelstoke

By Liam Harrap
Revelstoke Review
April 16, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

There was standing room only at the caribou conservation meeting last night. A crowd of more than 800 filled the Community Centre auditorium, spilling into the hallway. Thousands more tuned in to watch the proceedings live. Government representatives are traveling the province to gather feedback on two draft agreements to protect endangered caribou. One draft plan covers the southern mountain caribou herds from the Kootenays to north of Prince George and the other focuses on the central mountain herds in northeastern B.C. Mayor Gary Sulz told the government representatives that Revelstoke wants a seat at the table for ongoing caribou recovery plans negotiations. “In a loud and clear tone. We’re concerned.”

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Last caribou from lower 48 U.S. released back into the wild

By Liam Harrap
Revelstoke Review
April 16, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

The five mountain caribou from the now two extinct southern B.C. herds were released into the wild earlier this month north of Revelstoke. The caribou are from the southern Selkirk and Purcell mountains and were relocated earlier this year to the maternal pens along Highway 23N. Those herds are now locally extinct and there are no more caribou in the lower 48 U.S. states. Another caribou calf was also released with the five. “She’s now where she belongs,” said Cory Legebokow, Land and Resource Specialist with the BC Caribou Recovery Program at Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. Last year, wildlife cameras captured footage of bears chasing a lone baby caribou. Biologists named it Grace, after a mountain where her mother came from. Her mother died last year and to help Grace escape predation the gates to a caribou maternity pen were reopened and the calf sought refuge inside.

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UBC professor suggests partnership with N. Cowichan on municipal forest reserve future

By Robert Barron
The Lake Cowichan Gazette
April 16, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

A partnership is being proposed that would see North Cowichan work with UBC and the Coastal Douglas Fir Conservation Partnership to plan and advance long-term, sustainable goals for the municipality’s forest reserve. Peter Arcese, a professor and chairman of Forest Renewal BC in Conservation at UBC’s faculty of forestry, will appear before council at its meeting on April 17 to suggest that the municipality work together with the university and the CDFCP to identify “made in Cowichan” approaches to the management of the 5,000-acre municipal forest reserve. He said the partnership would explore how North Cowichan might develop forest management plans to “sustain economic growth and enhance human well-being”. …The municipality is now conducting a full review of its forest management practices within the reserve, and is seeking input from the public and professional sources.

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Ecosystem restoration burn planned for Centre Hill

By BC Wildfire Service
Government of British Columbia
April 16, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

The BC Wildfire Service plans to conduct a 36-hectare ecosystem restoration burn in the Centre Hill/Ingram Creek area, about seven kilometres north of Midway.  The exact timing of this burn will depend on weather and site conditions. …This burn will tie into a 27-hectare prescribed burn that was successfully completed in the same location in fall 2018. …Fire is a normal and natural process in many of British Columbia’s ecosystems. The BC Wildfire Service works regularly with land managers to undertake fuel management activities (including the use of prescribed burns), to help reduce the severity of future wildfires and related threats to communities.

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Stamping out wildfires requires invisible infrastructure

By Rachelle Chong
The Hill
April 16, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States

Wildfires are growing in intensity and frequency, escalating the threat posed to Americans — and the critical utility infrastructure we rely on. …The good news is that new technologies are being developed every day to prevent and quickly spot wildfires caused by utility and communication infrastructure. However, there is a lack of adequate funding for infrastructure needed to be extended in high fire risk utility service areas to deploy these advanced technologies that can save lives and property. …The technology is clearly available, but unless industry and government invest in it, our critical infrastructure and our residents won’t benefit. An example of successful implementation of technology is San Diego Gas & Electric, which has developed capabilities to sense and then cut off the flow of electricity to a broken powerline before it hits the ground.

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Ducey appoints state forester

Payson Roundup
April 16, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Doug Ducey

Gov. Doug Ducey recently announced the appointments of David Tenney as director of the Department of Forestry and Fire Management (DFFM), a position commonly known as state forester, and Jorge Fuentes as director of the Residential Utility Consumer Office (RUCO). Tenney has served as interim director of DFFM since November 2018. Before working at the department, Tenney served as the director of RUCO, which represents the interests of residential utility consumers in rate cases before the Arizona Corporation Commission. “With over 30 years experience in forestry and land management, David Tenney is well-suited to serve as Arizona’s next state forester,” said Ducey. “David brings insights from both the public and private sectors to the department, including a deep understanding of Arizona’s forests. I am confident that he will do an excellent job managing Arizona’s forests and working with our firefighting cooperators to protect our state’s residents from wildfires.”

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Fifteen of Australia’s biggest trees destroyed by Tasmanian bushfires

By Felicity Ogilvie
ABC News Australia
April 16, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: International

Fifteen of Australia’s tallest trees have been found destroyed after Tasmania’s summer bushfires, tree enthusiasts say. The Riveaux Road fire in south-west Tasmania burnt almost 64,000 hectares of bush in summer, damaging eucalypts in the Huon Valley area, south of Hobart. Giant tree enthusiasts Brett Mifsud and Russell DuGuesclin have now surveyed the damage. To be protected, trees must be taller than 85 metres, or have 280 cubic metres in volume. According to Sustainable Timber Tasmania, which manages the state forest, 180 Tasmanian trees meet that criteria. But Mr Misfud and Mr DuGuesclin discovered 15 of those giants had been destroyed.

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Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Environment minister warns of hot future for Victoria unless action taken

By Cindy E. Harnett
Victoria Times Colonist
April 16, 2019
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, Canada West

A failure to curb carbon dioxide emissions could mean a future with more days above 25 C in Greater Victoria, says Canada’s environment minister. “Mayors, cities [and] towns are on the front lines when it comes to climate change when there’s extreme heat, or forest fires or floods,” Catherine McKenna said after a discussion about climate change with the region’s mayors at Esquimalt Municipal Hall on Tuesday. The minister’s visit comes two weeks after Environment and Climate Change Canada released a report warning that Canada is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. The report compared the effects in 25 years of high carbon emissions with reduced carbon emissions. In Greater Victoria, the high-emissions scenario included 42 days with temperatures above 25 C, up from the typical eight days seen now.

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