Three wildfires have already occurred in the Edson Forest Area since March 1. The three wildfires, causes unknown, arising from outdoor burning, were all less than one hectare, said Area Information Coordinator Joan Simonton, a forestry official with Agriculture and Forestry. “Winter burns can burn underneath the ground and reignite,” she explained. Campfires don’t need…
Premier Christy Clark’s vow to push work at the $9-billion Site C dam “past the point of no return” may be music to the ears of some construction contractors, but not to all pulp and paper firms. In a great irony, as the costs soar into the billions to build infrastructure to supply “clean” electricity…
Ernst Baxmann is a hero, says International Forest products (Interfor) logging engineer Aaron Gunther. The company agreed without hesitation and stepped up with a way to thank him. It was in early December that Baxmann was driving his personally-owned logging truck, fully loaded, when he met a jeep that had crossed the centre line. Because…
Small, start-up and exporting businesses were among the major beneficiaries of new fiscal measures introduced in Thursday’s provincial budget. “It’s a positive sign being sent to small and medium-sized businesses on whom payroll taxes weigh heavily and hinder growth,” said Martine Hébert, vice-president and spokesperson for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Starting in 2017,…
North America log exports to Japan decreased by 17.1% in 2015, reaching 2,565,063 cbm, thelowest level since 2010. The Canadian log export dropped by 30%, to 802,687 cbm, while the US log exports declined 8.7%, reaching 1,762,000 cbm. Thus, the log share of the US to Japan (of the N. American exports) increased to 68.7%,…
Premier Christy Clark says the province is committed to not repeating past mistakes when it comes to dealing with the recent spruce beetle epidemic. “What happened in the 1990s with the pine beetle infestation and how government sort of seat back and let it roll across the province is a legacy we are still suffering from…
J.D. Irving announces that Phase 2 of the modernization project at its Irving Pulp & Paper Mill in Saint John, New Brunswick is about 95% complete.The project is part of a $450 million modernization — the largest pulp mill investment in Canada since 1993. To date, JDI has awarded over $90 million in contracts to…
Clyde McNichol, Art Petahtegoose and Barbara Ronson McNichol will take their concerns about logging in Benny Forest to the Superior Court of Justice in Sudbury on Friday at 10 a.m., to get an injunction to stop tree-cutting and spraying of defoliants. The three are asking the court to stop three companies from cutting trees in…
Moving into the area of biomass energy doesn’t need to be a bewildering experience, a small audience of some 35 heard Tuesday at the Biomass Energy Forum. They heard how the Kluane First Nation is already using wood to provide district heating for some of its government buildings, creating substantial savings on heating fuel and…
Forty years ago, Maine’s forests were devastated by a cyclical spruce budworm infestation that destroyed 25 million cords of white spruce and balsam fir trees. Forestry experts say another infestation is only a couple of years away, and while Maine is better prepared to respond, the economic impact would be in the hundreds of millions…