Daily Archives: October 11, 2019

Today’s Takeaway

Climate change threatens extinction for most birds: Audubon Society

October 11, 2019
Category: Today's Takeaway

The Audubon Society says climate change threatens two-thirds of North America’s bird species, especially in Canada. In related news: Oregon’s moral dilemma with killing Barred Owls to save Spotted Owls, a BC court rules in favour of logging in Haida Gwaii; and voices weigh in on how much BC old growth should be left.

In BC Business news: forest company goodwill, generosity hailed; Liberals call for forest minister’s ouster; Tolko workers face uncertain future; and Part 2 of BC’s Independent Wood Processors plan to replace lost sawmill jobs. Elsewhere: Fort Frances, Ontario has 90 days to find a mill buyer; Oregon State unveils wood products lab; and a contrast in fire seasons: Oregon and Indonesia.

Finally, happy Thanksgiving to our Canadian readers and happy Columbus Day to our US readers. The frogs will be back on Tuesday with full bellies and the weekend headlines.

Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor

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Business & Politics

Independent Wood Processors support Premier’s vision, have plan to replace lost sawmill jobs (Part 2 of 2)

By Russ Cameron
Independent Wood Processors Association of BC
October 9, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, United States

Unless we abandon the BC forest tenure system, there are 3 likely outcomes to the current softwood lumber dispute with the USA. One, the Duties remain on permanently.  Result … value added in BC will continue to decline. …Two, we eventually win the case at NAFTA after a couple more years of paying Duty. Result … a brief period of free trade until a new US Coalition Petition reimposes Duties and we can start all over again. Three, we reach an Agreement with the Americans. Result … it’s not that simple. An Agreement can be Border Tax based or Quota based, and they each have very different outcomes for BC’s non-tenured value-added wood processors. …The US Coalition is expected to insist on a Quota-based deal or no deal at all. …But there is a way to allocate BC’s Quota that would be beneficial to all. We call it the “Growth Pool”… and the result will be more logging jobs, more trucking jobs, more sawmill jobs, more remanufacturing jobs, and more Government Revenue. And these benefits will increase in direct proportion to the amount of wood to which we add value to in BC. And the Premier’s vision can become a reality.

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Williams Lake fundraiser to support logging families raises thousands for those in need

By Monica Lamb-Yorski
Williams Lake Tribune
October 9, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Almost $6,000 will go to put groceries on the tables of logging families in need thanks to a fundraising barbecue held outside of Margetts Meats in Williams Lake on Friday, Oct. 4. Organizers Lesley Destree and Serena Neels said their husbands work at Finning Canada and they know there are many people who have been out of work for months due to the downturn in the forest industry. “We have talked to a few local logging companies and are waiting to talk to a few more,” Destree said . “It will be very discreet and we are going to let them give to crew members they know could really use help. For someone to put groceries on the table for a week or two will be a huge help, I’m sure.”

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Opposition Liberals call for forest minister’s ouster in Thursday question period

By James Peters
CFJC Today Kamloops
October 10, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Doug Donaldson and John Rustad

VICTORIA — There was spirited sparring in question period at the B.C. Legislature Thursday as the opposition B.C. Liberals called for an NDP minister to be fired. Liberal Forests Critic John Rustad demanded the ouster of Forests Minister Doug Donaldson over the government’s response to the industry crisis in the province’s Interior. …”Where was your plan from two years ago, [or] from 2015, when you knew that the crisis was going to hit the Interior forest sector with the end of the beetle wood,” said Donaldson. “You did nothing to prepare communities.” …Despite Donaldson’s protestations, Rustad and his Liberal colleagues continue to call for Premier John Horgan to replace him. …“If he can’t do the job, he needs to be replaced and we need to have somebody in there who can do the job to be able to support our forest sector.”

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‘A lot of them are just in limbo’: laid-off Kelowna mill workers face uncertain future

By Klaudia Van Emmeric
Global News
October 10, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Tolko Industries announced an indefinite closure in mid-September putting more than 120 workers out of a job. …“The future doesn’t look good,” said Pat McGregor, president for the United Steelworkers Union, Local 1-423. “Pretty much they’re done until spring and they can re-assess in the springtime.” …“There’s nothing permanent and they can’t really look for a job in another town because at a moment’s notice, or 72 hours’ notice, they have to be ready to come back here. “So although they can find other work, if they do find that work and the mill decides to start up again, they need to make a tough decision, so right now it’s just the fear of not knowing.” …“We’ve had difficult, challenging conditions with beetle infestation, particularly in the Interior,” said Susan Yurkovich, CEO of the B.C. Council of Forest Industries.

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Biting the hand that feeds

By Trudy Klassen
Prince George Citizen
October 10, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Resource industries in Canada are used to facing pressure. …What we have happening right now is a few idealists pushing the public into thinking that the very industries that provide our jobs, food, health care, and all other government services, are harmful and will kill us and the Earth if we don’t shut them down. …Many local charities wouldn’t survive in their current form if it wasn’t for donations from our various resource industries. …even the largest companies don’t advertise their charitable giving. And often it seems that they make many small donations to many different organizations. …The one thing that is very public is Canfor Theatre at UNBC, which implies a significant donation to the university. …Local forest product companies like Carrier Lumber, Dunkley Lumber and Brink Forest Products provide significant funding to various organizations as well. …There is so much good here. So much generosity. …These companies and their employees have built a better life for us all. 

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More time needed for review of Northern Pulp pipeline proposal: community group

By Taryn Grant
The Toronto Star
October 10, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

HALIFAX—A community group opposed to Northern Pulp’s plan to pump treated effluent into the Northumberland Strait is pressing the Nova Scotia government to give more time for the review of a report that claims there won’t be any significant, adverse environmental impacts. Friends of the Northumberland Strait submitted a letter to Environment Minster Gordon Wilson Thursday morning requesting that he add another 30 days to the public consultation period for thousands of pages of new documents from Paper Excellence, the owners of the Northern Pulp kraft mill in Abercrombie, N.S. The letter also requests an extension to the internal review period.

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‘No pipe’ placards popping up on P.E.I. election signs

CBC News
October 10, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

Some federal election signs around P.E.I. are carrying an extra message — candidates are adding a second, smaller sign printed with the words “No Pipe in the Strait.” The signs are from the P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association, and they oppose a proposal by the Northern Pulp mill in Nova Scotia across the Northumberland Strait from Prince Edward Island to extend a waste-water effluent pipe into the strait, part of its plan to improve its pollution control. Nova Scotia’s environment minister has to make a decision by mid-December. “We did have an inquiry from one candidate,” said Ian MacPherson, executive direction of the P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association. …As of Thursday, the association said it had distributed about 150 of the signs to candidates.

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Town given 90 days to find new mill buyer

By Sam Odrowski
Fort Frances Times
October 9, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

The Town of Fort Frances now has a little less than three months to find a new owner for the idle pulp and paper mill here. An agreement was reached last Thursday between the town and Riversedge Development’s numbered company, 2670568 Ontario Limited, that settles close to $500,000 in unpaid taxes and allows any qualified buyer to access the mill and put forward an offer. “The town has 90 days to try and flush out a buyer,” Mayor Caul said. …the town is sending an advertisement out to several different companies that might be interested in starting up some form of wood production at the site. …The agreement between Resolute and 2670568 Ontario Limited prevents equipment inside the mill from being used to manufacture newsprint, coated or uncoated mechanical paper, and other paper. It also says a new owner cannot discuss wood supply with the province, which is necessary to determine what areas of the forest wood can be harvested from.

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Looking Back: Softwood Lumber Arbitrations Provided Early Engagement with Questions of Parallel NAFTA Chapter 11 Proceedings

By Jarrod Hepburn
By Investment Arbitration Reporter
October 10, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States

[Wonkish] — The Canfor/Tembec/Terminal cases provided an early analysis of issues arising from parallel claims under NAFTA, both in respect of the varying dispute settlement mechanisms contained in NAFTA, and in respect of multiple parties attempting to use the same one of those dispute settlement mechanisms – namely, Chapter 11 investor-state arbitration – in relation to the same facts. The three cases… were all brought by Canadian producers of softwood lumber that had been affected by the larger context of trade disputes between the US and Canadian lumber industries. Two separate tribunals were constituted, and a third claim was commenced. …Washington DC was set as legal seat of Canfor arbitration, due to location of dispute subject-matter. In its only substantive decision, dated January 23, 2004, the Canfor tribunal determined the legal seat of the arbitration.

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American Forest Management Announces New Chief Executive Officer

By American Forest Management
GISuser.com
October 10, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US East

Brent Keefer

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA – American Forest Management, a national land management and real estate brokerage firm, today announced that industry veteran Brent Keefer has been appointed Chief Executive Officer, effective January 1, 2020. Keefer will succeed Roy Belser, who has served as interim chief executive officer for the past six months and will continue to maintain his role as Chairman of the Board. …Keefer brings with him over 30 years of experience… Most recently, he was the president of Hancock Timber Resource Group. …In his new role as CEO, Keefer will oversee American Forest Management’s 48 offices throughout 11 regions and over 265 employees. 

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Affiliates of The Lyme Timber Company acquire approximately 49,600 acres of timberland in Tennessee and Alabama

WoodBizForum
October 10, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US East

Affiliates of The Lyme Timber Company LP closed on approximately 46,900 acres of timberlands in southeastern Tennessee and northern Alabama adjacent to the Emory River and Brimstone properties owned by affiliates of Lyme. According to the announcement, this diverse, natural Appalachian hardwood property has an established log yard and accesses robust local markets. A forest carbon sequestration project is underway, and Lyme expects to maintain certification for this property under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) program. Earlier, Lyme fund established an operating company, the Straight Fork Timber Company, Inc., now Straight Fork Forest Management LLC. 

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European wood flooring consumption presents mixed picture in 2019

The Timber Trades Journal
October 11, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: International

Wooden floor markets in France, Germany and Spain registered slight improvements during the first half of 2019, according to the European Federation of the Parquet Industry (FEP). FEP represents members who produce either solid wood flooring or engineered wood flooring, where the latter’s product has a top solid wood wear layer greater than 2.5mm thickness. …Germany, Austria, France, Poland and Spain all showed positive developments in parquet flooring during the first half of 2019, compared to the same period in 2018. However, flat or slightly declining consumption trends were observed in Italy, Switzerland and Benelux. Scandinavia is presenting a mixed picture. Competition from Luxury Vinyl Tiles was cited as a factor in the declining markets of the Netherlands and Norway.

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Wood, Paper & Green Building

Technology trends reframe building design

By Hayley Woodin
Business in Vancouver
October 10, 2019
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada

Virtual reality, artificial intelligence and big data are reframing the operations of an industry often thought of as a technological laggard. Those technologies are also fundamentally changing how buildings are designed.  “Technology is just looming there as the big game-changer,” said David Thom, president of IBI Group, which ranks second on Business in Vancouver’s Biggest Architecture Firms in Metro Vancouver. For many of the firms on BIV’s list, technology has changed the way they work. …“It’s a data business,” Thom said. “How are these buildings designed? They’re designed by inputting data, not lines on a paper.” …Mass timber construction has also generated excitement and opportunity in the industry. …The cost premium concerns have disappeared, Wolfe said. The challenge is availability. Net-zero-ready construction is also a dominant trend. …“We’re not talking LEED anymore. We’re talking passive house and beyond,” said Gillies.

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Oregon State University unveils wood products lab

By Bennett Hall
The Corvallis Gazette-Times
October 10, 2019
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US West

Normally, German-built Kuka industrial robots are used for precision machining, high-speed assembly or other automated manufacturing tasks. On Thursday, however, Oregon State University employed one of the $300,000 machines for a more mundane purpose: cutting the cake at the grand opening of the new A.A. “Red” Emmerson Advanced Wood Products Laboratory. …Along with the 80,000-square foot George W. Peavy Forest Science Center under construction nearby, the lab is part of a new Oregon Forest Science Complex that’s intended to nurture and showcase the state’s growing expertise in engineered wood products and mass timber construction. …“Wood is the only primary building material we can grow, and its effective use has to be a cornerstone in mounting an aggressive front in challenging our sustainability and climate crises,” he told the 150 or so people on hand for the event.

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Carlsberg Moves a Step Closer to Creating the World’s First ‘Paper’ Beer Bottle

By The Carlsberg Group
Cision Newswire
October 11, 2019
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Carlsberg Group has today updated on its journey to create the world’s first ‘paper’ beer bottle made from sustainably-sourced wood fibres that is both 100% bio-based and fully recyclable. Carlsberg has unveiled two new research prototypes of its Green Fibre Bottle, which are the first ‘paper bottles’ to contain beer. Carlsberg also announced it has been joined by other leading global companies who are united in their vision of developing sustainable packaging through the advancement of paper bottle technology. …Carlsberg kicked off the project to develop a bottle made from sustainably sourced wood fibres, the ‘Green Fibre Bottle,’ in 2015 alongside innovation experts ecoXpac, packaging company BillerudKorsnäs, and post-doctoral researchers from the Danish Technical University, supported by Innovation Fund Denmark. 

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Forestry

Logging moves forward as court rules against Haida Gwaii protesters

By Alex Kurial
The Northern View
October 10, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

A logging company on Haida Gwaii now has the green light to cut down trees in a forest of cultural importance for the Haida Nation. O’Brien and Fuerst Logging won an injunction in court against Haida Gwaii protesters who had been trying to halt cutting activity in the Tlaga Gaawtlaas Blue Jackets area near Masset. The decision came down at B.C. Supreme Court Thursday morning under the direction of Justice Ronald A. Skolrood, and is seen as a blow to activists, who had set up a blockade to prevent access to the site. “The logging of the Bluejacket area would be a blatant act of disrespect and disregard of Haida title, sovereignty and jurisdiction, as well as a violation of provincial legislation,” Gaagwiis Jason Alsop, president of the Council of the Haida Nation (CHN), said.

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BC’s Old Growth – What Should Be Cut and What Should Be Left? Various Voices Weigh In.

By Malcolm Johnson
Mountain Culture Magazine
October 11, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

As the Pacific Northwest clings to much of the planet’s remaining old-growth timber, what should be left to stand and what needs to fall? …It’s no easy thing to manage a landscape in a way that balances the environment and the economy; …few involved are satisfied with the status quo: one side wants more forest protections and the other wants more land available to log. …Today, however, forestry seems to have faded from the public consciousness… But the basic business template that’s been in place since the 80s is still trucking: timber companies are still chopping, protestors are still protesting, and politicians are still issuing carefully worded statements about their firm commitment to jobs, sustainability, and the rights of Indigenous Peoples. All the while, irreplaceable old-growth forests keep getting converted into cut blocks, and working towns and families keep struggling to get by.

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Relocated caribou have bred on Lake Superior island

CBC News
October 11, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

A small group of caribou relocated to a remote Lake Superior island last year, has successfully bred. The animals, transferred from Michipicoten Island in March of 2018, included four cows and two bulls. The transfer was undertaken by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry to help ensure the survival of Lake Superior’s caribou population. The OMNRF undertook the caribou relocation in collaboration with the Michipicoten First Nation. Wolves that crossed on an ice bridge in 2014 ultimately decimated the caribou on the Slate Islands and Michipicoten Island. …”So the question was, how were the bulls doing? We know there is at least one there. But we would like to make sure there are two, of course,” Eason said. “Just as a back-up in case something happens to one — sort of the population security.”

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California power outage: Isn’t there an easier way?

By Cathy Bussewitz
The Associated Press
October 10, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States

NEW YORK — Power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses has been cut off, affecting millions of people in California. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said a forecast of extreme wind and dry weather has created fire danger of an unprecedented scope, prompting it to initiate the largest preventive outage in state history to reduce the risk of wildfires sparked by faulty power lines. PG&E has estimated the power could be out for as long as five days in some places. …it can’t switch the power back on until its equipment is inspected for damage and repaired. …The power shutoffs are part of a wildfire prevention plan PG&E released in February… The new plan included other ways to reduce the possibility of its power lines causing fires… But those changes will take years to implement, and PG&E’s territory is facing wildfire threats that seem to grow every year.

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A Season of Fire Tests Indonesia’s Efforts to Curb Deforestation

By Henry Fountain
The New York Times
October 11, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, International

Indonesia is experiencing another bad fire season, with forests and peatlands burning across much of the country. The fires have forced schools to close, caused respiratory problems for an estimated million people and infuriated neighboring governments. They have also cast doubt on the effectiveness of Indonesia’s recent efforts to reduce deforestation. At issue is whether improvements seen in the past few fire seasons had more to do with the weather — 2019 has been warmer and drier in Indonesia than the past few years — and less with policy changes and better enforcement of environmental laws. …But, so far this year, the fire season has been the worst since 2015, when fires burned nearly six and a half million acres, caused more than $15 billion in economic losses and led to an air pollution crisis across the region.

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How Sacramento’s urban forest divides the city — and some neighborhoods are left behind

By Michael Finch
Sacramento Bee
October 10, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

…Communities with a higher-than-average number of trees …also have the largest concentrations of high-income households. …For many urban foresters and city planners, that’s troubling not only because under-planted places are more exposed to hot temperatures but because tree-lined streets are associated with better overall health. …As climate change rises in the pecking order of urban priorities, some major cities around the country have turned to trees as a solution. …There could be more at stake for treeless communities than a little heat exhaustion. Evidence has been mounting for years about the underlying benefits a hearty canopy affords to individual health. …“Trees are going to play a huge role in capturing carbon and reducing the urban heat island effect,” said Stacy Springer, chief executive of Breathe California for the Sacramento region. “It serves as a relatively inexpensive solution — one of many — to some of the issues that we’re facing in our communities.”

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Tongass timber history a reminder of history’s contradictions

By Steve Haycox
The Anchorage Daily News
October 10, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Taxpayers for Common Sense just announced that the U.S. Forest Service has lost $30 million annually for the last 20 years on timber sales in the Tongass National Forest. That forest has a checkered history, as do the Alaska politicians associated with it. In 1947, Congress passed the Tongass Timber Act, legislation that authorized 50-year leases from the U.S. Forest Service to timber companies for harvesting pulp timber, a guarantee that planned pulp mills would have a secure wood supply. …In 1947, the Tlingit and Haida Indians of Southeast Alaska filed a suit in the U.S. Court of Claims asserting their ownership of virtually all of the land in Southeast Alaska…including all of the Tongass National Forest. …For Gov. Gruening and Heintzleman [chief forester for Alaska], Alaska’s economic development took precedence over Native land rights, whatever those might be. These same arguments would be made later, during debate over the 1971 comprehensive Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

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Oregon was lucky this year, but it’s fire season somewhere

The Albany Democrat-Herald
October 10, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

You might be familiar with that classic drinking song “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” made famous in a recording by Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett. That song kept popping into our heads as we reflected on the mid-valley’s lighter-than-expected fire season this year. The state’s firefighting agencies recently officially declared the end of Oregon’s 2019 fire season, and it was considerably quieter than what we’ve experienced in previous summers. …All told, wildfires burned only 67,795 acres during this year’s season, less than a tenth of the 883,405 acres that burned last year. The cost of fighting those fires took a commensurate plunge, dropping to about $58 million this year compared with a record $530 million in 2018. …The weather was cooperative: Thanks to generally cooler temperatures and greater humidity, especially in the state’s mountains, Oregon’s forests didn’t dry out to the extent they had in previous years. 

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Owl killings spur moral questions about human intervention

By Phuong Le
The Associated Press in KATU News
October 10, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

CORVALLIS, Oregon — As he stood amid the thick old-growth forests in the coastal range of Oregon, Dave Wiens was nervous. Before he trained to shoot his first barred owl, he had never fired a gun. …More than 2,400 barred owls killed so far in a controversial experiment by the U.S. government to test whether the northern spotted owl’s rapid decline in the Pacific Northwest can be stopped by killing its aggressive East Coast cousin. …”It’s a little distasteful, I think, to go out killing owls to save another owl species,” said Wiens. “Nonetheless… We knew that barred owls were outcompeting spotted owls and their populations were going haywire.” …The federal government has been trying for decades to save the northern spotted owl, a native bird that sparked an intense battle over logging across Washington, Oregon and California decades ago.

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Does Forest Thinning Work?

By James MacDonald
JSTOR Daily
October 10, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

As the climate warms and catastrophic wildfires become more common, land managers are seeking ways to reduce the risk of forest fires while maintaining forest health. A new pilot plan in Arizona hopes to accomplish this goal by selectively cutting some of the trees in the forest—a strategy known as thinning—and selling the felled timber as wood chips to South Korean buyers. …Besides climate change, the general consensus…is that the growth in catastrophic fires stems from decades of overzealous fire suppression. … The conclusion is that at least in the short term, proper forest thinning has the potential to drastically reduce not only fire danger but other threats as well. Hood and colleagues note that while thinning is highly effective in the short term, in the long term, forest health requires the restoration of a normal fire regime. If tree density isn’t maintained at a natural level, the whole process will need to be repeated.

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Florida timber farmers face tough choices year after Michael

By Bobby Caina Calvan
Associated Press in The Times and Democrat
October 10, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

…It’s been an excruciating year for the Leonards and other Panhandle families who make their living off the land. …Less than a fifth of the 2.8 million acres of timberland destroyed by Hurricane Michael have been salvaged. Tons of timber will most likely be left to rot. There are so many fallen logs that they’d fill more than 2.6 million logging trucks. Trees once towered over much of Calhoun County, an inland expanse of tiny communities surrounded by forests that suffered the most catastrophic damage to the region’s timberland. Stands of pines… are now mostly gone. …Federal relief hasn’t come fast enough, even though the government authorized a $19 billion relief package — held in limbo until this past summer because of political clashes in Washington — to assist communities across the country hit by wildfires, flooding, tornadoes and hurricanes. Florida officials estimate that the timber industry sustained nearly $1.3 billion in losses.

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Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Climate change threatens extinction for most birds, especially in Canada: report

By Bob Weber
Canadian Press in Victoria Times Colonist
October 10, 2019
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada

Climate change threatens extinction for two-thirds of bird species across North America, including almost all of those filling the forests and tundra of northern Canada, says an extensive report. “More than we thought are vulnerable,” said Jeff Wells of the Audubon Society, which crunched 140 million records from 70 data sources on 604 different species for the study released Thursday. “It’s yet another of these wake-up calls.” The study mapped information onto projections of how climate change will alter the habitats on which birds depend. If global average temperatures go up by three degrees — which is what is expected under the measures of the Paris climate agreement — the results are dire. …Audubon concludes that 389 bird species, or 64 per cent, would be at least moderately threatened with extinction by 2100. The news for Canada is much worse. …Northern birds would have nowhere left to go, said Wells.

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Sharing data for improved forest protection and monitoring

By International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Phys.org
October 10, 2019
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

…Although satellite remote sensing technology …still requires reliable, up-to-date, on-site data for calibration and validation. …143 researchers involved in this type of data collection in the field, explored whether it was possible to build a network that openly shares their data on biomass for the benefit of different communities. They particularly wanted to see if they could bring together as much on-site data on biomass as possible to prepare for new satellite missions, such as the European Space Agency’s BIOMASS mission, with a view to improving the accuracy of current remote sensing based products, and developing new synergies between remote sensing and ground-based ecosystem research communities. Their efforts have resulted in the establishment of the Forest Observation System (FOS)—an international, collaborative initiative that aims to establish a global on-site forest aboveground biomass database to support Earth Observation and to encourage investment in relevant field-based measurements and research.

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Health & Safety

WorkSafeNB investigating death of worker at Fredericton sawmill

By Andrea Jerrett
CTV News Fredericton
October 11, 2019
Category: Health & Safety
Region: United States, US East

HALIFAX — WorkSafeNB is investigating the death of a worker at a sawmill in Fredericton. The workplace accident happened Thursday at Devon Lumber on Gibson Street. The Fredericton Police Force confirms it responded to the incident at Devon Lumber, but says the investigation has been turned over to WorkSafeNB. “The investigation will help us determine how the fatality may have been prevented and whether there were any violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act or its regulations,” said Laragh Dooley, director of communications, in a statement. Dooley says WorkSafeNB won’t be releasing any information about the worker or the circumstances surrounding their death at this time. Devon Lumber remains closed Friday.

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