Eight months ago, a hiker and friend of our organization found new surveying tape in the central Walbran Valley. There, centred around the iconic Castle Grove, stands one of the largest intact tracts of unlogged old growth rainforest on southern Vancouver Island. The area was ground zero for B.C.’s war in the woodsmore than 20 years…
The word “green” has become common parlance for “good for the environment.” However, for researchers studying images of forests from the Carnegie Airborne Observatory, doing what’s good for the environment means using all of the colors of the rainbow. The CAO, as its name suggests, is not a building but a twin-engine plane. Equipped with…
The Canada Revenue Agency has issued notice SWLN47 to provide exporters of softwood lumber products under the Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006 with information on a surge charge for the month of April 2015 for the region of Alberta. Pursuant to the surge mechanism described in subsection 14(1) of the Softwood Lumber Products…
Canadian scientists are helping trees outrun climate change. “Trees are adapted to historical climate and the climate’s moving out from under them,” said evolutionary biologist Sally Aitken. “We’re using genomics to generate answers more quickly than they can.” Foresters have long known that the best seeds for replanting forests comes from trees in the same…
The Lytton First Nations Band has issued an evacuation order for 10 homes and an alert for another 65 properties because of a fast-growing wildfire south of Lytton, B.C. The B.C. Wildfire Management Branch says strong winds gusting up to 80 km/h are driving the 1,300-hectare blaze, which is burning up a steep hillside on the west side of the Fraser river, roughly…
The granddaddy of all trade disputes is getting ready to rear it’s ugly head again. The current softwood lumber agreement is set to expire in October. It has been in place since 2006 and was the result of a nasty 5 year legal battle between neighbours that killed thousands of forestry jobs across the country….
Premier Christy Clark, Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Minister Steve Thomson helped Lee Doney, chair, Western Forest Products, celebrate $30 million in new capital investment in the Duke Point sawmill. Of the $30 million, $28 million will be invested in Western Forest Products’ Duke Point sawmill to modernize the sawmill, planer mill and install…
Western Forest Products is spending $30 million — most of it in Nanaimo — to upgrade three Vancouver Island sawmills. Lee Doney, company chairman, said today at the Duke Point mill: “Our harvesting strategies and continued demand for our western red cedar and specialty lumber products allows us to make the needed strategic capital investment…
Greenpeace is fighting back after members of North Eastern Ontario Municipal Association (NEOMA) likened the environmentalist group to “eco-terrorism.” During a press conference this week, the mayors of NEOMA member communities, including Timmins’ Steve Black, announced that they were banding together to fight environmental groups such as Greenpeace, which they believe are making it impossible…
When the “war in the woods” was in full swing in British Columbia, one of the front lines ran through the Walbran Valley on southern Vancouver Island. And now, after 24 years of relative peace, it may do so again as a dispute is set to spill out of the back rooms and into the…