I have always been a fan of poetry – not this modern nonsense that passes for poetry, but the old-fashioned kind with rhyming verses and iambic pentameter. My contention is, if it doesn’t rhyme, it is not poetry. Of course, like most prejudices, this one is purely personal and it carries no moral authority, save…
Member companies of the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) have agreed to follow an innovative approach to sustainable forest management that takes its cue from nature. The approach, known as Natural Range of Variation (NRV), is aimed at recreating natural landscapes by harvesting in patterns that are similar to the impact of wind, fire,…
A major step to increase the similarity between natural and managed forest landscapes has been agreed after collaborative discussions between a group of Canadian forest products companies and leading environmental organizations. Forestry companies belonging to the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) have committed to using a management approach that comes closer to recreating natural…
The Pacific Northwest had many fires last year. For some, forest fires conjure images of trees completely vaporized by fire. But crown fires often move through a forest fairly rapidly, consuming tree needles and fine branches and leaving charred snags. Chopping into those trees often reveals sound wood. Salvage sales can be set up in…
Forwarders and harvesters are among the common giants in the woods around any commercial logging operation, but one Upper Peninsula man – though practicing on a smaller scale – has help from a whole different type of giant: his Belgian draft horses. Horse-powered logging is something John Boyd, of Hermansville, has been doing off and…
When Darren Hudson first purchased land in Barrington, the seven-time logrolling champion lumberjack had a vision. “I wanted to pass on the skillset that I possess,” said Hudson in a Jan. 5 interview. That vision has grown into the Lumberjack AXEperience camp – a celebration of the history and heritage of the lumber industry in…
Wildfires scorched a record amount of Canada’s national parks last year — the latest in a number of long, hot summers that have almost entirely depleted Parks Canada’s firefighting reserve. “We had a very busy fire year,” said director of fire management Jeff Weir. “We had more wildfires than normal and those fires burned larger…
The early 1990s was a pivotal time for the forest industry and for forest activism in British Columbia. Massive demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience resulted in hundreds of arrests in Clayoquot Sound in response to large-scale clear-cutting on the west coast of B.C. and Vancouver Island. International protests and market campaigns forced the government…
If you had to sexually attract a brown spruce longhorn beetle, would you know what to do? Jon Sweeney knows. Start with a deep whiff of male beetle sex pheromone. “By itself, it’s not very attractive, but if it’s emitted along with odours that smell like a stressed spruce tree …it increases the attraction five…
The Forest Stewardship Council is launching a mediation process to try and bring peace to Quebec’s woodlands. The organization that oversees the world’s most recognized forest certification standard said Thursday that the process will bring together Resolute Forest Products, First Nations, unions, environmental groups and others to find “common ground” over contentious issues raised about…