The City of Orillia has put its ash trees under surveillance to keep an eye out for the emerald ash borer insect, which has already made its way into Barrie, Midland, Oro-Medonte Township and Tay Township. “Right now, what we’re doing is monitoring,” said Rob Jackson, city arborist. “We’re working with Simcoe County, (and) they’ve…
Canada’s exports grew for the first time in four months in November, cutting the trade deficit in a sign the country’s weak currency is helping manufacturers even as the price of oil slides. Statistics Canada said on Wednesday the deficit narrowed to $1.99 billion from C2.49 billion in October. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast…
Europe is in a bind. It has ambitious goals for changing its polluting energy system, and plans to source 20% of the EU’s total energy from renewables by 2020. But the main way it’s getting there is a method with murky credentials: biomass. Biomass can include many things, from quick-growing elephant grass to trees. But…
When Designboom described this house in Poland, designed by też architekci, as “a stealthy and brooding presence” I thought that was for sure, along with some other adjectives. But the next sentence caught my eye: “the dwelling is entirely clad with darkthermowood.” What’s that? ThermoWood is a Finnish product, sustainably harvested timber that is subjected to a three-stage heat…
They waited almost until New Year’s Eve to do it, but Resolute Forest Products has decided to make things interesting in the world of governments “investing” in business. Here’s the situation in a nutshell: the Nova Scotia government, in an effort to save a closing paper mill in Port Hawkesbury, N.S., provided the operation with…
The United Riders of Cumberland (UROC), Village of Cumberland, TimberWest Forest Corp., and Hancock Forest Management announced Tuesday that a land access agreement has been reached to formally allow non-motorized recreation on private managed forest lands adjacent to the Village of Cumberland. This progressive and multi-faceted agreement not only authorizes public recreation on private and…
The value of homes in communities dependent on resource extraction has taken a beating in 2015, the sour note in a general rise of residential real estate assessments. A long slide in copper and coal prices has led to layoffs and mine closures in mining towns such as Trail, Elkford, Fraser Lake and especially Tumbler…
Some time in the new year, the new federal Liberal government will begin consulting Canadians on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a 12-nation trade agreement that is supported by the B.C. forest industry. It will also have to try to fill the vacuum that the expiration of the softwood lumber agreement has left – a…
Now the Quebec government is calling for the Forest Council to back down Slowly but surely, multinational environmental enforcer Greenpeace is being dragged kicking and screaming to court to answer for its job-destroying misinformation campaigns in the name of “protecting” Canadian forests, which are among the best regulated in the world. The company doing the dragging…
Nearly lost in the noise of last year’s federal election was the finalization of the historic Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. The TPP is a sweeping trade agreement between 12 Pacific Rim countries including Canada, the United States, Japan, Australia, Vietnam and Mexico. After seven years of negotiations, the deal phases out countless tariffs and other trade…