Daily Archives: November 22, 2017

Today’s Takeaway

‘In Russia they think: brick or concrete house is better than wooden — it is a mistake’

November 22, 2017
Category: Today's Takeaway

If you’re buying a real Christmas tree, you better hit the lots soon – it’s going to be like Black Friday shopping this year for trees. Nine years ago many producers shut down, and today farmers are saying they won’t be able to meet demand – this has lot owners worried. If you’re thinking you’ll head out into the wild to cut your own tree you may want to hone your lumberjack skills by spending a day at Bad Axe Throwing – the latest fitness craze to hit Washington DC!

In Business news, after six months of negotiations, Florida-based Rayonier Advanced Materials has officially acquired Canada’s Tembec Inc. and “just like the fairy tale: all the investors ended up happy“! In the West, The Idaho Forest Group has acquired The St. Regis sawmill, calling the transaction “an excellent strategic addition to our existing operations in Northern Idaho”. 

In the Wood section today we share the grand opening of StructureCraft’s new all wood plant in Langley; a discussion about the safety of tall wood structures; a Japanese developer teaching glulam technology in Russia, who says, “In Russia they think a brick or concrete house is better than wooden – it is a mistake“; and a Swiss apartment prototype that applies experimental applications to beech wood making it rot and warp resistant. 

Sandy McKellar – Tree Frog Editor

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Froggy Foibles

Forget CrossFit: Competitive ax-throwing has officially come to D.C.

By Fritz Hahn
The Washington Post
November 22, 2017
Category: Froggy Foibles
Region: United States, US East

Nick Jahl

There’s something immensely satisfying about the thud and thwack a four-pound ax makes when it loops through the air and  sticks onto a piece of wood. Especially when it’s a bull’s eye. Ax throwing, long a sport of choice for lumberjacks and Canadians, could become Washington’s new blowing-off-steam activity of choice, with multiple ax-throwing venues opening in the next few months. The first to arrive is Bad Axe Throwing, a Canadian-born chain with 19 locations, including one that debuted last week near Echostage in Northeast D.C. …“You don’t have to be a lumberjack to work here,” said Nick Jahl, 24, who instructed me in the art of ax throwing, “but we have a lot of beards and flannel in the company.” 

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Business & Politics

Prime Minister Trudeau Confirms Canada Will Negotiate Softwood Deal With The U.S

HIBusiness
November 22, 2017
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirms that Canada will continue to negotiate a new softwood lumber deal with the United States despite another round of import tariffs smacked on Canadian wood by the United States, earlier last week. …Prime Minister Trudeau stated that the introduction of both countervailing and anti-dumping duties is almost the same as what use to happen in past softwood disputes. So far, this is the fifth time the United States has levied duties on softwood since 1981, and each time the two countries have ultimately come to a negotiated settlement. This is a problem that will affect so many jobs, he said. It is something we are going to take very solemn and will do our best and work hard on with the American administration, he added.

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Boiler system nearly catches fire at Resolute sawmill

By Doug Diaczuk
Thunder Bay News Watch
November 21, 2017
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

THUNDER BAY – Thunder Bay Fire Rescue crews remain on the scene at Resolute Forest Products sawmill after a fire near the boiler system that uses oil experienced a small explosion. According to Thunder Bay Fire Rescue platoon chief, Shawn Merrifield, crews were called to the sawmill on Darrell Ave. early Monday morning after receiving reports of an automatic fire alarm. The call turned out to be a false alarm. However, a power outage caused a circulating pump in the boiler system to fail, which uses hot oil to heat the kilns.

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Closed loop a technology issue, not a financial one

By Kathy Cloutier, director of communications, Paper Excellence Canada.
The Chronicle Herald
November 21, 2017
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

There is a growing conversation regarding closed-loop pulp mill treatment systems and specifically, why did consultants hired by the province and Northern Pulp not design a zero-effluent solution. As confirmed by expert consultants, a zero-effluent bleached kraft mill does not exist at this time. Therefore, it cannot be argued that it is a question of “spend the extra money” to design a closed-loop system for Northern Pulp. The technology is simply not available for Northern Pulp’s process.  …It is important to recognize that the effluent quality of today is not the quality of decades past — specifically pre-1990s — as significant improvements have been made over the years. …The proposed new treatment system for Northern Pulp will be a modern AST system that mills and other facilities (industrial, municipal, etc.) throughout the world have in place.

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Rayonier Advanced Materials takes over Tembec

CBC News
November 21, 2017
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

The Canadian forestry company Tembec has a new name and a new owner. The official acquisition was completed on Monday by global manufacturer Rayonier Advanced Materials. The takeover includes all of Tembec’s northeastern Ontario operations in Cochrane, Chapleau, Kapuskasing and Hearst as well as 3,000 employees in Canada, the United States and France. Louis Aucoin with Rayonier says for now, all the Tembec sites will remain forestry operations. “They were competitors, so we have to find what one company can learn from the other, what are the markets we can deliver to with all this capacity, or are we going to change some plans to other kind of production,” he said. “This has to be known.”

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How Staples and the Dogwood Alliance Hope to Save the Forests of Appalachia

By Steve Zwick
Huffington Post
November 21, 2017
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States

Mark Buckley still remembers the confusion he felt 17 years ago, when environmentalists started picketing stores affiliated with his employer, office supplies retailer Staples. “Initially, we were a little taken aback,” he recalls. “We weren’t quite sure what this was all about.” Danna Smith knew what it was about – because she’s the one who got it started. “We had over 600 protests outside of Staples stores,” she says, recalling the company’s initial response as: “Why are you targeting us?  We don’t really log forests.” …Within two years of those first protests, Staples and Dogwood were on the same side. Today, they’re true partners. “What we saw in Staples was real leadership,” says Smith, appearing with Buckley on a recent episode of the Bionic Planet podcast. “Mark in particular has been a real visionary.”

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NAFTA talks are in trouble

By Patrick Gillespie
CNN Money
November 21, 2017
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States

No meaningful progress is being made in NAFTA trade talks between the United States, Canada and Mexico, increasing the odds that President Trump could withdraw from a critical 23-year old agreement. …”While we have made progress on some of our efforts to modernize NAFTA, I remain concerned about the lack of headway,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a statement. …Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said the U.S. put forward “extreme proposals” that “we simply cannot agree to.” “Some of the proposals that we have heard would not only be harmful for Canada but would be harmful for the U.S. as well,” Freeland added, citing concerns from U.S. and Canadian auto companies. …The U.S. and Canada have renewed a decades long fight over Canadian lumberexported to the United States. The Trump administration slapped tariffs as high as 18% on Canadian lumber.

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Long winter burn depleting log inventories in the US Northwest

American Journal of Transportation
November 22, 2017
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US West

Sawmills and pulpmills in the US Northwest have been struggling to build log inventories for the winter season because of the unusually long fire season this year and increased competition for small-diameter logs in the four states of the US Pacific Northwest has resulted in a higher share of logs being consumed by sawmills, thus leaving many pulpmills with low log inventory levels going into the 4Q/17, reports the North American Wood Fiber Review. …Unlike BC and its large provincially-owned commercial timber base, the loss of burnt timber on US federal forests has had little impact on the availability of timber with the exception being Montana, where regular timber sales from federal lands have proven crucial to selected sawmills. In general, however, the US Forest Service timber sale program provides minimal sawlog or pulplog volumes to the forest industry in Western US.

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Foster Plywood sale pending; to retain local jobs

By Alex Paul
The Albany Democrat-Herald
November 21, 2017
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US West

SWEET HOME — The impending sale of Weyerhaeuser’s Foster Plywood plant to the family-owned Murphy Company of Eugene is good news for Sweet Home, according to Bob Dalton, who spent 38½ years in the wood products industry. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of the month.  Dalton started working as an hourly employee for Willamette Industries right out of high school in 1973, and retired in 2012 in a supervisory role. “The Murphy Company has come in with plans to keep jobs in our community. I know it’s always tough for the employees when a transition like this occurs,” Dalton said. “They have to go from one style of doing things to a different direction with the new company.”

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Man dies in accident at Columbia Forest Products

By Stephen Floyd
Herald and News
November 21, 2017
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US West

State authorities are investigating an industrial accident that led to the death of a Klamath Falls man during the weekend. On Monday, Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) confirmed it is investigating the death of Francis “Frankie” Crispen Jr., 28. Crispen was found dead Saturday at Columbia Forest Products, in Klamath Falls, where he was employed. OSHA spokesperson Aaron Corvin said he was not able to comment on the specifics of the incident. He said it is likely their investigation will conclude in the next three to four months, after which a report detailing their findings will be made public. Jeff Moresi, human resource manager for Columbia Forest Products’ Klamath Falls location, said they are working closely with OSHA during the investigation. Moresi said the fatal incident occurred Friday evening, but he did not yet have further information.

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Chinese logging ban to boost demand for foreign timber

By Mateusz Perkowski
Capital Press
November 21, 2017
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US West

A logging ban in China’s natural forests will likely increase its demand for foreign logs, but the impact on the Northwest’s timber market is uncertain. Though the country will need to import more logs, it’s unclear how motivated Chinese buyers will be to compete with domestic sawmills, which are currently offering high prices, experts say. “To expand the market, they’re going to have to go head-to-head with the mills,” said Gordon Culbertson, international business director at the Forest2Market consulting firm. According to USDA, a prohibition against commercial timber harvests in natural forests — as opposed to plantations — was enacted by China’s government to counter decades of over-cutting, contributing to a 5 percent drop in its log production in 2017. …Even so, China’s demand for logs helps establish a price floor for U.S. timber producers, since the country provides an export outlet even if the domestic market softens, said Paul Owen, president of Vanport International, which specializes in log exports.

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Idaho Timber Company Acquiring St. Regis Stud Mill

By Dillon Tabish
Flathead Beacon
November 21, 2017
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US West

One of the nation’s largest lumber producers based in Coeur d’Alene is acquiring Tricon Timber’s stud mill in St. Regis. The Idaho Forest Group, a family owned wood products company, announced the acquisition last week. The transaction is scheduled to close by Dec. 1. “The St. Regis sawmill acquisition supports our continued growth and will be an excellent strategic addition to our existing operations in Northern Idaho,” Erol Deren, Idaho Forest Group vice president of sales and marketing, said in a statement posted online. …Timber companies across western Montana have decried the lack of available timber, and in recent years significant consolidation and closures have occurred. Most prominently, Weyerhaeuser Co. merged with Plum Creek Timber Co. in early 2016.

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Wood, Paper & Green Building

New StructureCraft Headquarters goes all-in on wood

By Warren Frey
Journal of Commerce
November 22, 2017
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

Lucas Epp, the head of engineering for StructureCraft Builders, gave highlights of the design and construction of the StructureCraft dowel laminated timber (DLT) plant, a wood-based industrial building, at the recent Wood Solutions Conference in downtown Vancouver. StructureCraft recently entered the mass timber market, Epp said, and applied the firm’s engineering approach to complex wood projects towards mass timber use. After the recent upsurge in wood construction, they decided to build their own plant and relocate to Abbotsford. The only choice, given their reputation for wood construction, was to use the material for their own headquarters, he said. “Our idea was to take the idea of tilt-up concrete and apply it to wood,” Epp said. …The main advantages of DLT are that it is a 100 per cent wood product, does not have off-gassing and is CNC-friendly, Epp stated.

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With West Fraser WestPine mill rebuilt, Hardwoods broadens moisture-resistant MDF distribution

By Bill Esler
Woodworking Network
November 21, 2017
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

LANGLEY, B.C. – West Fraser says its year-long rebuilding and updating of the WestPine mill in Quesnel, B.C. is complete and production has returned to its normal operating levels. “With this significant milestone behind the company, WestPine is re-introducing its moisture resistant MDF,” says the company, noting WestPine EcoPlus MR50 is available through all Hardwoods Distribution – Hardwoods Specialty Products and Frank Paxton Lumber distribution locations nationwide. In addition to the smoothness and stability of EcoPlus MR50, the moisture resistant MDF is formulated to endure humid conditions. This makes it a useful substrate for commercial applications in food service industries, institutional buildings and healthcare establishments. EcoPlus MR50 is also suited for residential interiors such as kitchen and bath cabinetry, interior storage systems, and mouldings and millwork also benefit from its moisture resistant qualities.

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Timber buildings are growing in popularity, but are they safe?

CBS News
November 22, 2017
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US West

Builders in Oregon will break ground early next year on this country’s tallest building made primarily of wood. The 12-story, 60-unit apartment complex in Portland called Framework is part of a national boom in wood construction, but some fire experts are raising alarms about the safety of these structures. …Glen Corbett, a fire science professor at John Jay College, thinks wood could fuel an inferno that firefighters can’t fight — like the deadly Grenfell fire in London, which climbed the building’s aluminum cladding. …Architect Peter Weismantle, who helped design the world’s tallest building, also worries that more wood could mean more fire if codes aren’t strictly enforced. “We have got a responsibility to think about all the unthinkable things. So I’m glad there are advocates for timber. But there need to be reasonable control and understanding applied to it,” Weismantle said.

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Cross-Laminated Timber Could Be The Next Big Thing In Construction

By Julie Littman
Bisnow
November 21, 2017
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US West

Rising labor and material costs have many developers and contractors looking to new ways to build their projects. One emerging material is cross-laminated timber or mass timber, which is a prefabricated wood system that creates a dense wood panel. It requires less labor and helps decrease construction costs.  While it has been used in Europe for two decades, it has become a popular material in the Pacific Northwest after timber died off due to disease. After the timber industry became depressed, the government wanted to find ways to use the timber and began funding research on CLT and mass timber on high-rise construction, according to KPFF Managing Principal Marc Press. “What started in the Pacific Northwest is fighting its way to the rest of the country,” Press said during a recent Bisnow event in San Francisco.

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Masashi Kanei: ‘In Russia they think: brick or concrete house is better than wooden — it is a mistake’

Realnoe vremya
November 22, 2017
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

Japanese developers have entered the real estate market in Tatarstan promising to invest $100 million in Russian business. $30 million has already been allocated, including for the launch of a plant to produce glued laminated timber in the Far East of Russia. The similar production is planned in Tatarstan. …One of the features of the houses of Iida Sangyo Rus (a subsidiary company of Iida Group) is the Japanese wooden technology. We use glued laminated timber with the ‘dovetail’ technology, which requires great skill of carpenters. But we want to mechanize this work. We have plans to produce with the use of high technologies not only timber, but also metal fasteners, panels that are also used in house assembling. Since all our materials are of very high quality, even with a small experience of the builders the house is made of high quality.

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Winners of the wood awards 2017 announced

Planning and Building Control Today
November 22, 2017
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

Commercial & Leisure

Gold Award

The winners of the annual Wood Awards have been announced at a ceremony held yesterday at Carpenters’ Hall in London. Hosted by Johanna Agerman Ross, Founder of Disegno magazine and Curator of Twentieth Century and Contemporary Furniture and Product Design at the V&A, the Wood Awards is the UK’s premier competition for excellence in architecture and product design in the world’s only naturally sustainable material. The Wood Awards aims to recognise, encourage and promote outstanding design, craftsmanship and installation using wood.

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Experimental Swiss apartment wants to bring timber into the 21st century

By Antonio Pacheco
The Architect’s Newspaper
November 21, 2017
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

The Wood Materials Science department at ETH Zurich in Switzerland is pioneering new ways of utilizing timber and wood construction by imbuing the traditional material with extraordinary properties using its new Vision Wood apartment prototype. The multidisciplinary team—guided by department head Tanja Zimmermann and wood materials science professor Ingo Burget, and joined by a slew of industry partners—developed the prototype apartment in an effort to find new uses for the continent’s abundant, but mostly underutilized, beech lumber. Beech lumber is a hard and versatile wood with superb structural capabilities, but it is also prone to sun damage, rot, and warping. To combat these maladies, the team developed a slew of experimental applications of beech wood building components that have been waterproofed, magnetized, and mineralized in order to broaden their residential applications.

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Forestry

Jumbo Glacier Resort ruling a ray of sunshine amid B.C.’s regulatory snowstorm

By Mike Milke
The Globe and Mail
November 21, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

The recent decision by the Supreme Court of Canada to deny a British Columbia First Nation de facto religious veto power over a ski-resort proposal… was positive insofar as the court finally circumscribed the heretofore ill-defined and thus endless duty to consult First Nations. However, the decision is but one bit of common-sense blue sky in an otherwise fog-bound anti-development environment in British Columbia. …It is now 27 years after a group of investors first went down this ski-development road. The Supreme Court of Canada decision is sensible and welcome. It might not be enough to remove the justifiable perception that special interests, the province’s Environment Ministry and some First Nations, activists and politicians in British Columbia are reflexively anti-investment.

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Eleven wildfires a year in Burns Lake

BC Local News
November 21, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Between 2007 and 2016, there was a total of 111 wildland fire starts within the radius service area of the Village of Burns Lake – an average of 11 per year. That’s according to the village’s community wildfire protection plan (CWPP), which has recently been updated. According to the CWPP, local weather conditions have been changing to a drier climate with the trend toward longer fire seasons, extending several days each year. The impact of this trend on existing forests may be increased probability of fire frequency, intensity and loss of control of wildfires and increased tree mortality. More severe wildfires could pose a threat to the local community.

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No business outliving Nova Scotia’s forests

Zack Metcalfe
The Chronicle Herald
November 21, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

Forestry is an indispensable industry if employed sustainably, ensuring the continuous supply of high quality wood with which we build our homes, feed our fires and carve our masterpieces, but if our cuts are too frequent, too all consuming, places like this doomed stand of hardwood will continue to lessen until they’re downright difficult to find, for us and for the wildlife which depends on such maturity. …There are some very intelligent and dedicated people who, right now, are in pursuit of Nova Scotia’s last remaining old growth forests. …With solemn steps, I bid farewell to trees I had no business outliving.

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Senate Appropriations release bill addressing wildfires, sage grouse

Fence Post
November 21, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: United States

The Senate Appropriations Committee released a fiscal year 2018 bill that addresses the longstanding issue of the U.S. Forest Service firefighting budget, but Senate Appropriations ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the bill is not bipartisan. While the bill provides funding for programs important to Vermont, Leahy said “I am deeply disappointed that the overall bill has bowed to the anti-science know-nothingism of President Trump by slashing environmental programs and denying the reality of climate change.” In a summary of the bill, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., noted it includes $5.8 billion for the U.S. Forest Service, including the full 10-year average for wildfire suppression costs as well increased funding for hazardous fuels reduction to help prevent catastrophic wildfires.

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Murkowski moves forward with legislation to nix Tongass plan

By Elizabeth Jenkins
KTOO
November 22, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Congress could be one step closer to undoing a U.S. Forest Service decision to end old growth logging in the Tongass National Forest. On Monday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski added the measure to a Senate Interior and Environment appropriations bill. Last year, the forest service included new directives to its Tongass plan. Timber industry groups and conservationists thought the decision was final. It called for the forest service to transition away from cutting old growth trees.

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Christmas tree shortage has family-owned lots worried about future

WQAD
November 21, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

DENVER, Colorado — We know it’s a bit early to talk about Christmas, but after Thanksgiving dinner when you head out this weekend to shop, you may want to add a Christmas tree to that list because they’re going fast. There is a nationwide Christmas tree shortage and prices are rising. Some local Denver businesses worry it could put them out of business for good. Pete Elliot, the owner of Tree Land Christmas Trees …“A month ago I found out I had no trees when I called my farmers. They said we don’t have no trees for you,” said Elliot. “I’ve done this since I was a little kid. It’s a family business. I’ve never not had trees going into my season.” …The problem started back in 2008 when the market burst. Farmers had too many trees, and they weren’t making enough money. “They couldn’t get rid of their trees. They couldn’t sell them, so they came in and just plowed and just burn mountainsides of them,” said Elliott.

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Wyden, Merkley: Bill fails to fully fix wildfire funding issue

KTVZ
November 21, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

WASHINGTON – Following the Senate Appropriations Committee’s release of its draft 2018 Interior and Environment bill, Oregon Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden called the bill’s wildfire provisions insufficient to prevent a repeat of 2017’s funding squeeze, reiterating their call for a full, long-term fix to wildfire suppression and prevention funding. Currently, the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies must raid funding from other programs to pay for wildfire suppression during bad wildfire years when suppression costs exceed the budgeted cost for fighting fires. …Merkley and Wyden have been pushing for the year-end government funding agreement to include a version of the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, bipartisan legislation from Wyden and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) that would end this cycle by treating wildfires similar to other natural disasters.

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Air attacks, big box couldn’t cage fire’s surge toward Gatlinburg

By Matt Lakin
Knoxville News Sentinel
November 22, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

Greg Salansky

GATLINBURG — How did a one-acre fire on the Chimney Tops trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park transform into a massive firestorm? Take an inside look at the events leading up to the November 2016 Gatlinburg wildfires that claimed 24 lives.  The crew commander looked down and didn’t like what he saw. Below the plane stretched a growing fire, about 25 to 35 acres, “active on all flanks” as a slight breeze rippled across the Chimney Tops peaks in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. …Why hadn’t the park called sooner? “No action was being taken on the fire perimeter,” the commander later told a National Park Service review team. “There were plenty of resources available.” Greg Salansky, fire management officer for the park, kept watch from the ground. The final bill for the water drops wouldn’t be pretty — $10,000 to $20,000 — but he saw no choice.

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Forest pest spreads, forcing Maine landowners to cut down hemlocks

By Kevin Miller
The Press Herald
November 22, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

BERWICK — A tiny pest that has devastated hemlock forests from southern Appalachia to New England is steadily spreading in Maine, forcing some landowners to choose between saving and harvesting trees. …“Landowners are going to have to adapt to it,” said Dave Struble, chief entomologist with the Maine Forest Service. …Individual trees can be treated with pesticides to kill or control the adelgid, but such an approach would have been unfeasible or cost prohibitive for an infestation the size of the one in Berwick. Forestry and entomology professionals in Maine also are experimenting with the release of predatory beetles – also from Asia – that feed exclusively on the woolly adelgid. Such natural-control methods are costly, however, and often take years to take root, if they ever do.

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New England Needs Federal Help With Forest Fire Funding

By Britta Greene
New Hampshire Public Radio
November 21, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

Governor Chris Sununu and Vermont Governor Phil Scott signed a joint letter to House and Senate leadership Monday, calling on Congress to increase funding for fighting and preventing forest fires. “This is far from just a ‘Western’ issue,” they wrote, arguing the Forest Service is increasingly allocating its funds to fight fires at the expense of other priorities. The budget for trails in the White Mountain National Forest, for example, has declined more than 30 percent in the last two years, according to the letter. Less funding has also been available for programs that work with private landowners on forest stewardship. These programs support rural communities in both New Hampshire and Vermont, Sununu and Scott wrote.

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Why the difference in timber auction values?

Letter by Christine Linnemeier
Brown County Democrat
November 21, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

I own a woodlot in Washington County with some other family members. At the same time that the state was auctioning off trees in the Yellowwood Back Country Area (Nov. 9) we were taking bids on a managed cut in our woodlot. I was shocked at the huge difference in what we were offered for our trees vs. what the state was being offered for theirs. …If you do the math, you will find that the state sold their trees for 24 cents a board foot and ours are going for 60 cents a board foot. If you do it by the number of trees, the state is getting $62 a tree and we’re getting $290 a tree without including the culls. Including the culls, we’re getting $204 a tree.

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Anonymous group illegally marks trees in Yellowwood in attempt to delay logging

By Sarah Bowman
Indianapolis Star
November 21, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

Nearly 1,730 trees are set to be logged in Yellowwood State Forest. Yet hundreds of additional trees have also been marked, all in an attempt to create confusion and disrupt and delay the cutting.  Just days after the state’s Department of Natural Resources sold the rights to log parts of the forest to Hamilton Logging, Inc., a group calling itself “Night Owls, Paint and Exteriors,” or N.O.P.E., spray painted additional trees along the 300 acres of Yellowwood.  “We did this to obscure the trees Hamilton Logging bought, and to force the DNR Division of Forestry to redo the work of marking these tracts, thus delaying when logging could start,” the group said in an anonymous post in the online ‘Earth First Journal.’ The department confirmed that additional trees were illegally marked for harvest during the Nov. 11 weekend. 

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Forest plantations are a potent blend for coffee production

By Anthony King
Horizon magazine
November 22, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: International

Climate change is threatening Europe’s coffee supplies, but the impacts could be diluted by planting the crops amongst trees – a technique known as agroforestry, which is also being revived in European farming. …The top producers of arabica coffee beans today are in Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia and Indonesia, and half of all coffee is grown under full sun. These exposed coffee trees are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. …However there is an alternative way to grow coffee, one which harks back to its origins in the forested highlands of Ethiopia where wild coffee grew in shady forests. The idea is to grow the crop in the shade of taller timber or fruit trees, in so-called agroforestry systems. It is also the only way to grow coffee and preserve mountain soils.

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Brazil exporter shipping massacre-linked illegally logged hardwood worldwide: Greenpeace

The Japan Times
November 22, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: International

RIO DE JANEIRO – Endangered Amazon hardwood sold by a Brazilian exporter allegedly behind the massacre of nine farmers this year is being sold unimpeded around the world, Greenpeace said Tuesday. The environmental pressure group said the purchase of murder-tainted products by importers from as far apart as Japan and the United States illustrates lack of control over a logging industry ravaging the world’s greatest rainforest. In its report, “Blood-Stained Timber — Rural violence and the theft of Amazon timber,” Greenpeace cataloged continued large-scale shipments from the Madeireira Cedroarana sawmill in the months following the April 19 massacre.

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Russia brands environmental NGOs ‘foreign agents’

By Megan Darby
Climate Home
November 21, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: International

The Russian government is using anti-spying legislation to silence environmental campaigners, a leading watchdog warned on Tuesday. Human Rights Watch (HRW) found 29 environmental NGOs had been labelled “foreign agents” under a law brought in five years ago. …Efforts to defend forests, educate young people on environmental issues and give voice to victims of radiation accidents have suffered in the crackdown. “Government has put in place an administrative structure for de-legitimising environmental organisations and activists, effectively smearing them as anti-Russian spies,” Richard Pearshouse, associate environmental director at HRW, told Climate Home News. …In one example, Spok, a forest conservation charity based in the Karelia region of northwest Russia, was targeted over its public advocacy. The public prosecutor accused it of creating “doubt about the work of the Karelia judicial, law enforcement, and executive bodies in the eyes of the public”.

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Urban trees are growing — and dying — faster than their rural counterparts

By Matt Hickman
Mother Nature Network
November 21, 2017
Category: Forestry
Region: International

In a newly published study, researchers at Germany’s Technical University of Munich (TUM) conclude that urban trees can grow up 25 percent faster than their country cousins. This is a positive thing, right? After all, trees growing in densely populated metropolitan areas do so much good… Why would the fact that these multitasking miracle-workers are thriving and growing at an accelerated rate be construed as bad? Per the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, the clip that urban trees are growing at — easily viewed as a sign of health and vitality — is believed to be direct result of climate change, specifically the heat island effect. So yeah, not great. …It’s a tricky arboreal quandary: Elevated temperatures are helping city trees flourish, enabling them to do what they do best, while also hastening their premature demise.

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Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Forest sector welcomes Natural Resource Canada’s clean growth program

Forest Products Association of Canada
November 21, 2017
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada

OTTAWA: Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) welcomes Natural Resources Canada’s Clean Growth Program launched today in Ottawa. The $155-million program will fund clean technology projects, helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve environmental performance in the natural resources sector. Canada’s forest products sector was the first major Canadian industry to commit to helping the Government of Canada meet its carbon reduction goals. In 2016, the sector launched the 30 X 30 Climate Change Challenge, pledging to remove 30MT of C02 per year by 2030 – 13% of the government’s goal. “The Clean Growth Program will provide much needed support to forest product companies working hard to mitigate climate change,” says Derek Nighbor, CEO of FPAC. “We are a sustainable industry committed to doing our part to take care of the environment for generations to come.”

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Species may appear deceptively resilient to climate change

By University of California – Davis
EurekAlert!
November 22, 2017
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US West

Nature itself can be the best defense against climate change for many species — at least in the short term­ — according to a study published in the journal Ecology Letters from the University of California, Davis. The study found that natural habitats play a vital role in helping other plants and animals resist heat stresses ramping up with climate change — at least until the species they depend on to form those habitats become imperiled. This suggests a need to re-evaluate climate change predictions for many species, including predictions that species in the south will move north with global warming. The work focused on the rocky shoreline stretching from California’s Channel Islands to Washington’s Olympic National Park… But this study shows that, for some species, habitat is more important than latitude in protecting them from the effects of climate change.

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Burning forest waste for energy is ‘worse than coal’, conservationists say

By Bruce MacKenzie
ABC News, Australia
November 21, 2017
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

AUSTRALIA — Conservationists say suggestions that north coast New South Wales forest residues could be burnt as a power source are an outrage that will not be accepted by consumers. New research by the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) has analysed timber production areas surrounding Grafton, Kempsey and Bulahdelah on the NSW north coast. It found there were enough residues in the forests and sawmills to power more than 200,000 homes a year. But National Parks Association senior ecologist Oisín Sweeney said it was hard to imagine a worse idea. He said evidence from Europe showed the adoption of biomass power was driving deforestation in Russia, Canada, the USA, Slovakia, Italy, Spain and Finland.

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Forestry alliance calls bioenergy scheme ‘sheer madness’

By Cathy Adams
Northern Star Australia
November 22, 2017
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: International

THE North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) has described a plan to provide up to one million tonnes of trees each year to generate electricity as sheer madness. The Department of Primary Industries (DPI) released new research indicating forestry “residue” could be used to provide bioenergy to power up to 200,000 homes. The alliance however expressed concerns the plan would mean an increase logging intensity in north-east NSW forests to “provide up to one million tonnes of trees each year to generate electricity as sheer madness”. Spokesman for the alliance Dailan Pugh said: “Forests are the lungs of the earth, they take in our carbon dioxide, storing the carbon and giving us back oxygen, left standing they are part of the solution to climate change, cut down they become part of the problem”.

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