Daily News for October 29, 2025

Today’s Takeaway

BC convenes summit to address lumber tariffs, industry struggles

Tree Frog Forestry News
October 29, 2025
Category: Today's Takeaway

BC announced it will convene a softwood summit to address lumber tariffs and industry struggles. In other Business news: the log fire at Domtar’s Meadow Lake mill is still smouldering; International Paper Savannah mill closure is having an impact; UPM reported reduced earnings; Canada’s exports dropped 7.5% in Q2; the Bank of Canada cut its interest rate to 2.25%; lumber futures dropped to a 7-week low; and US homebuilders continue to struggle. Meanwhile: TAPPI appoints Lawton Roberts president and CEO. 

In Forestry news: BC First Nation pushes back on North Cowichan’s support for logging; Jim Stirling opines on the gap between Quebec and BC land use planning efforts; a BC community forest takes hold in Quesnel; Indiana employs fire to maintain forest health; and a new report says wildfires are taking an increasing toll on Canadian’s health.

Finally, GHG reduction proponent Bill Gates makes stunning claim about climate change.

Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News Editor

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Opinion / EdiTOADial

Quebec moving ahead on land use planning while the BC ignores industry pleas

By Jim Stirling
The Logging and Sawmill Journal
October 28, 2025
Category: Opinion / EdiTOADial
Region: Canada

The province of Quebec is facing an issue its counterpart in British Columbia is resolutely ignoring. Quebec is trying—through legislation—to fairly rationalize land use planning on public lands in the province. It’s important because public lands occupy about 92% of Quebec’s surface area. The province has received a rough ride with its initial proposal, but is working toward a solution. The Quebec government introduced a bill into the legislature earlier this year proposing the creation of three priority land use zones for the province: a conservation zone, multi-purpose zone and a forest development zone. …Reactions to the bill… led to demonstrations and blockades of sawmill millyards. The government subsequently agreed to make amendments to the proposed bill with further First Nations consultation. The sides have been talking, at least, and moving however tentatively toward what will hopefully be an equitable compromise solution.

Imagine that happening in the wild west of BC. …Eby’s tactics during at least the last three years has largely been to ignore industry pleas to improve access to timber on public lands. That is despite forest companies and their dependant communities continuing to suffer as a result. An exception being the appointment of a panel to review BC Timber Sales. …The BC Council of Forest Industries (COFI) has consistently plugged away to keep the industry on the provincial government’s radar, despite its apparent indifference, adding: “The best way to support forest workers is to keep mills operating and people working.” …Most of COFI’s recommendations involve internal reorganization and co-operation and of course, a government willingness to make it happen. But nothing positive had happened by early September. Sections of the BC forest industry have already forged mutually beneficial working relationships with First Nations in the province. But more opportunities await with the parallel provincial government. 

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Business & Politics

B.C. convening ‘softwood summit’ to address tariffs, industry struggles

By Rob Buffam
CTV News
October 28, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Ravi Parmar

Growing concern in the forestry industry has triggered what’s being called an emergency meeting with federal ministers coming to Vancouver next week. BC. Forestry Minister Ravi Parmar announced the development on Tuesday. “We’re working out logistics right now for a softwood summit to be able to talk about this emerging issue,” said Parmar. “For us here in British Columbia, forestry is our auto sector, forestry is our steel sector.” The so-called summit is expected to include a demand for financial support from Ottawa. It will also involve industry players who are bracing for additional duties and tariffs on one of B.C.’s key exports. …Brian Menzies, with the Independent Wood Processors Association, welcomes the meeting in light of recent developments in the U.S. …BC. Conservative Leader John Rustad says the NDP’s red tape and slow permitting created a problem long before the latest tariffs.

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B.C. gov’t invites feds to west coast to talk softwood lumber

Global News
October 28, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

The provincial government is calling on Ottawa to stand up for BC’s forestry sector. It’s inviting federal ministers to the table to discuss the challenges to industry is facing after being slapped with high tariffs from the US. 

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Fire at pulp mill near Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan still smouldering after ‘immense’ blaze

By Halyna Mihalik
CBC News
October 28, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

SASKATCHEWAN — A massive pile of logs that caught fire Monday morning at the Meadow Lake Mechanical Pulp yard was continuing to burn Tuesday, and fire crews say the blaze won’t stop anytime soon. “It’s actually probably going to burn for at least a week, maybe longer, just due to the amount of material burning,” Meadow Lake fire department Chief Joe Grela said. …“We’re probably talking about 100,000 cubic meters of logs here, so quite an immense material,” Grela said. The company that owns the mill, Domtar, said the destruction of the wood is a huge loss. …”It’s always unfortunate when something like this happens, but it’s particularly unfortunate at a difficult time for the sector across the country.” The mill’s wood room was shut down as firefighters kept an eye on the smouldering logs. The fire department said the rest of the mill was running as usual.

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International Paper closure leaves hundreds unemployed in Savannah

By Laura Finaldi
The Island Packet
October 28, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US East

SAVANNAH, Georgia — Right after Labor Day weekend, less than two weeks after International Paper announced it would close Savannah and Riceboro containerboard facilities, Sheron Morgan was on the ground at the Savannah mill. As she spoke in front of a group of employees, going through resources like training programs and resume help, Morgan, the executive director of WorkSource Coastal in Savannah, said the mood in the room was heavy. This wasn’t a surprise. After all, Morgan said, their lives had just been upended, and now someone with a job was standing in front of them, telling them they would make it through. …But over the next month, as Morgan, her team and partners from other workforce development organizations set up shop in the plant’s conference room, the employee’s mood softened. …But even though many resources were available, the plant closing was a major disruption for the workers and the broader Lowcountry economy.

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TAPPI announces new president and CEO as longtime leader plans 2025 retirement

By Simon Matthis
PulpPaperNews.com
October 29, 2025
Category: Business & Politics
Region: International

Lawton Roberts

TAPPI, the premier association for the global pulp, paper, tissue, packaging, and converting industries, announced the appointment of Lawton C. Roberts as its new President and CEO, effective November 3, 2025. Roberts will succeed Larry N. Montague, who is retiring at the end of 2025 after 19 years of leadership, according to Pulp & Paper Chronicle. “I’m confident Lawton is the right person to lead TAPPI into its next chapter”, as quoted by PaperAge. Roberts, currently TAPPI’s Chief Operating Officer, has been with TAPPI since 2017 and has worked alongside Montague since 2006 in various capacities. TAPPI is a non-profit, volunteer-led association that is built around “a community comprised of thousands of member engineers, managers, scientists, academics, suppliers and others from around the world”. TAPPI is headquartered right outside of Atlanta, Georgia.

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Finance & Economics

Bank of Canada cuts interest rate to 2.25%, but signals this may be the end of easing

By Jordan Gowling
The Financial Post
October 29, 2025
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: Canada

The Bank of Canada cut its interest rate by 25 basis points to 2.25 per cent on Wednesday, but signalled that it may end its easing cycle there if the economy operates in line with its latest forecast. …Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem said, “If the economy evolves roughly in line with the outlook in our Monetary Policy Report, governing council sees the current policy rate at about the right level to keep inflation close to 2% while.” …The central bank presented its first baseline forecast since January after trade war uncertainty prompted policymakers to instead assess multiple potential scenarios. After a contraction in the second quarter, the bank expects weak growth for the remainder of 2025, with 0.5% annualized GDP growth in the third quarter and 1% growth in the last quarter of this year. It projects GDP growth of 1.1% in 2026 and 1.6& in 2027.

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Canada’s exports drop as tariffs weigh heavy on economy

By Anam Khan
CTV News
October 27, 2025
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: Canada

US tariffs on key Canadian goods and weakening global demand triggered a sharp pullback in exports in the second quarter of 2025, according to new data released by Statistics Canada. Exports dropped 7.5% in Q2 after the US implemented tariffs on key Canadian goods like steel, aluminum, automobiles and other goods not compliant with the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement. “This was the largest quarterly decline since 2009, excluding the COVID-19 pandemic period,” according to the report released Monday. The slump extended to manufacturing, wholesaling and employment, all of which posted declines or stalled growth. …The report states businesses which engage in cross-border trade with the U.S. are looking for mitigation strategies to deal with the tariff caused disruptions. …The report also states there was no net employment growth from February to August this year.

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Lumber Futures Drops to 7-Week Low

Trading Economics
October 28, 2025
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: Canada, United States

Lumber futures tumbled toward $560 per thousand board feet, a seven-week low, as weakening demand, persistent oversupply, and trade-policy uncertainties converged. US tariffs are intensifying pressure on Canadian softwood, with existing antidumping and countervailing duties around 35%, plus new Section 232 levies of 10% on timber and 25% on wood products, lifting import costs above 45%. Weak demand compounds the decline, with US residential building permits at a seasonally adjusted 1.4 million units in July, the lowest since June 2020, and construction spending down 3.4% from May 2024. Housing starts remain near five-year lows, keeping retail price pass-through muted despite higher import costs. Export channels have narrowed, with Canadian softwood constrained by tariffs and hardwood exports to China dropping from 40% of volume in 2017 to 7% today. Temporary curtailments and mill closures are emerging, yet abundant inventories and sluggish construction sustain downward pressure. [END]

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Home builders are struggling, and it’s not just because new houses aren’t affordable

By Tomi Kilgore
Market Watch
October 28, 2025
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: United States

Shares of D.R. Horton took a hit Tuesday, as the home builder confirmed that the market for new houses was still weak, and it wasn’t just because prices and mortgage rates were too high — people are afraid to shell out so much for a new house when they’re worried about the economy and their jobs. …But even with lower prices and mortgage rates, the number of homes closed fell 1.2% to 23,368, which was below the average analyst estimate. And that weakness comes despite higher incentives to home buyers to boost sales, which pushed profits below what Wall Street was expecting. …Chief Executive Paul Romanowski said affordability was certainly still an issue. But consumers were also concerned about the “volatility and uncertainty” in the economy, which may be leading to worries about the job market. It certainly won’t help matters to see large layoff announcements from high-profile companies.

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Finnish forestry firm UPM’s earnings nearly halve in third quarter

Reuters in Trading View
October 29, 2025
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: International

Finnish forestry group UPM-Kymmene’s operating profit slumped 47% in the third quarter, hurt by low pulp prices, high wood costs and subdued consumer demand amid global trade tensions. The company reported comparable operating earnings of 153 million euros ($178.4 million) on Wednesday, slightly below the average forecast of 157.7 million euros from analysts polled by LSEG. Its shares fell around 2% in early trading in Helsinki. Nordic forestry companies’ profits have been squeezed by stubbornly high timber prices and low pulp prices in recent quarters. In the UPM Fibres division, low prices of the key paper-making ingredient resulted in significantly lower operating profit compared to last year, CEO Massimo Reynaudo said. “Wood costs reached their highest levels, even though wood market prices started to show the first signs of decline,” he added.

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Forestry

British Columbia’s Community Forests have growing appeal

By Jim Stirling
The Logging and Sawmill Journal
October 28, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

QUESNEL, BC — Given what’s going on around the world, it’s easy to understand why more areas in BC are taking a closer look at the Community Forest form of log harvesting tenure. It returns the management and responsibility for small, designated areas of forest land back into the hands of appointed people who live, work and care about them. Some control of what happens to and on the forest land in their own back yard has a growing appeal to its residents. …A community forest attempts to better accommodate other land users. …Co-operating with others as one cohesive unit becomes the catalyst for achieving dynamic, site specific land use solutions. It’s challenging but exciting work. It requires administering a cocktail of flexibility and responsiveness. Nick Pickles understands all that. It’s part of the appeal to being manager of the Three Rivers Community Forest based in the Cariboo region. 

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Halalt First Nation shocked by N. Cowichan decision to make harvesting public forests a priority

Ladysmith Chemainus Chronicle
October 28, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

…Chief James Thomas said in a letter to council that the Halalt community is concerned that North Cowichan made that decision in August considering the efforts of the municipality and the First Nation to establish a co-management framework for the 5,000-hectare MFR, and in light of the significant concerns Halalt members have raised regarding the impacts of forest operations in the Chemainus watershed.  …Thomas said the MFR is located within the Halalt’s unceded territory and the land is essential to the First Nation’s life and culture, and this includes the forests within the MFR and the surrounding landscape.  …Speaking for the majority of council, Coun. Bruce Findlay argued that North Cowichan could make some much-needed money if the sustainable harvesting of the natural resource resumed.

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Land managers use fire to help maintain forest health but some environmentalists are wary

By Sophie Hartley
Indianapolis Star
October 29, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

The question of how to manage Indiana’s forests sparks some of the livelier and more contentious debates among local environmentalists. Many Midwestern forest managers want to utilize prescribed burning to root out invasive species, prevent wildfires and move forests toward what they see as ideal conditions. …Already the United States Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy use pre-planned, controlled burns set by professionals to alter the array of plants in Indiana ecosystems. …Yet, some environmentalists, who believe that forests should be left to their own devices, have in recent years mounted a protest against intensive forest management techniques like prescribed burning. …The practice of prescribed burning is far from new. …Many eastern hardwood forests were razed for agriculture, and Indiana forests have seen little fire over the past 100 or so years.

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To save the world’s tropical forests, learn from Brazil

The Economist
October 23, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: International

Chopping down rainforests is daft. The social costs of clearing a typical patch of Brazilian Amazon are perhaps 30 times the benefits of rearing cows on it, by one estimate from 2023. The problem is, those costs, which include aggravating climate change, are spread across the entire world’s population, whereas the profits from cutting down the trees go to the men commanding the chainsaws. Somehow, the world has to find a way to make conservation pay. …Yet there is hope. Though Brazil lost more rainforest than any other country last year, due to to wildfires, it also shows how better policy can make a difference. …The pace of deforestation fell by 80% during Lula’s first terms (2003-11), and fell again when he returned in 2023, before the wildfires set things back. …Since preserving rainforests is a global public good, the world should help pay for it. [to access the full story an Economist subscription is required]

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Plantation forests are key for koalas’ survival: Researchers say urgent rethink on logging is needed

By Griffith University
Phys.Org
October 28, 2025
Category: Forestry
Region: International

A new study has shown areas of state forest in Northern New South Wales, currently zoned as hardwood eucalypt plantation and slated for logging in 2025–2026, are in fact vital koala habitat. Tuckers Nob State Forest, southwest of Coffs Harbor, was analyzed in the collaborative research project between Griffith University, CQUniversity, conservation organizations and citizen scientists. Published in the journal Wild, the study combined drone technology, historical mapping, and ground surveys to track koala populations in the forest. The team’s findings challenged current assumptions that timber plantations lacked conservation value. “Instead, we’ve shown many plantation areas still contained original, high-quality eucalypt forest that supported our endangered koala populations,” said co-author Dr. Timothy Cadman, from Griffith University. …These findings suggested excluding areas such as the Tuckers Nob study site from the proposed Great Koala National Park footprint for the sake of logging was both “short-sighted and inconsistent with current conservation strategies.”

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Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Bill Gates makes a stunning claim about climate change

By David Goldman
CNN Business
October 28, 2025
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, International

Bill Gates

In a stunning and significant pushback to the “doomsday” climate activist community, Bill Gates, a leading proponent for carbon emissions reductions… argued resources must be shifted away from the battle against climate change. Instead, Gates argues, the world’s philanthropists must increase their investment in other efforts aimed at preventing disease and hunger. Climate change is not going to wipe out humanity, he argued, and past efforts that strive for achieving zero carbon emissions have made real progress. But Gates said that past investments fighting climate change have been misplaced, and too much good money has been put into expensive and questionable efforts. Although Gates said investment to battle climate change must continue, he argued that… a more urgent problem, inflicting potentially lasting global damage to the fight against famine and life-threatening preventable sickness. …“We should deal with problems in proportion to the suffering they cause.”

In related coverage by David Gelles, NY Times: The Two Big Questions Surrounding Bill Gates’s Climate Memo

  • Is this going to change the way people talk about climate change?
  • Will this change how climate efforts are funded?

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Foresta welcomes Government support for wood energy as Kawerau plant planned

By Diane McCarthy
New Zealand Herald
October 28, 2025
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

A $9 million government boost to wood energy production has been welcomed by a company with its sights set on building a torrefied wood-pellet plant in Kawerau. …In line with the plan, the Government is offering $3m in co-funding via the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority and $6m in repayable grants to businesses looking at building wood-energy supply manufacturing facilities. Foresta, an Australian company planning to build a $410m wood-pellet plant in Kawerau, told Local Democracy Reporting that it had already applied for funding under the new facility. …Foresta said the planned Kawerau plant on Putauaki Trust industrial-zoned land could employ more than 75 people. …Foresta has proposed that a consistent supply of wood pellets to Huntly Power Station could be a viable option to offset issues around coal supply and reliance, while maintaining necessary power generation levels.

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Health & Safety

1,400 annual deaths linked to wildfire smoke in Canada: climate and health report

By Jordan Omstead
The Canadian Press in Times Colonist
October 28, 2025
Category: Health & Safety
Region: Canada

A new global health report suggests that every year from 2020 to 2024 about 1,400 deaths in Canada were associated with wildfire smoke pollution as climate change takes an increasing toll on the country’s health. The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change, compiled by more than 100 experts worldwide, is considered one of the most comprehensive looks at the subject. Between 2020 and 2024, the report found the wildfire smoke pollution in Canada had increased on average by 172 per cent compared to what it had been between 2003 and 2012. …The report’s findings suggest heat exposure last year resulted in the loss of more than 40 million potential labour hours, 136 per cent more than average in the 1990s. That’s an estimated $1.4 billion in lost income. …The report suggests access to affordable, off-grid, renewable electricity is “essential to tackle the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions and reduce climate risk.”

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