Forestry and lumber businesses make the cut for a prosperous industry during the current economic downturn. High Prairie Forest Products continues to thrive since the parent company West Fraser Timber Co. bought the former Buchanan Lumber in April 2014. “It hasn’t affected us too much,” says Lee Barton, general manager. “We’ve just been forging ahead…
There’s some nervousness for Alberta’s forestry companies. But there’s also talk of new opportunity in China. The Softwood Lumber Agreement with the United States is about to close, and Alberta’s Minister of Economic Development and Trade sees reaching a deal as ‘very unlikely’. “It comes to a close in less than three weeks,” Deron Bilous…
Researchers from UBC have helped discover a pattern of genes in two coniferous trees that help them to rapidly adapt to changing climates. Sally Aitken, professor of Forest and Conservation Sciences at UBC, co-authored the study that found the same set of 47 genes in the lodgepole pine and interior spruce that allowed each species…
The mayor of Merritt says he’s angry about Tolko Industries’ decision to close a sawmill that employs 200 people in his community. Neil Menard says the company had set up a meeting with city officials last week but cancelled it, and now he knows why. Tolko says the mill will be closing Dec. 16 because…
The planned closure of Tolko’s Merritt sawmill by the end of the year — throwing 200 workers out of a job — is the latest in 15 years of joblessness and permanent shutdowns in the Interior’s forest sector. Citing a lack of timber, Tolko Industries Ltd. announced this week it will close its Nicola Valley…
More than 200 jobs will be lost when Tolko Industries shuts its Nicola Valley sawmill in Merritt in December because of a lack of lumber. “It’s a dark day for Merritt,” said Marty Gibbons, president of United Steelworkers Local 1417. “We’ve lost one of the two major employers in town.” He said the 203 workers…
An unlikely alliance of the Queen, Prince William, the Labour MP Frank Field, Commonwealth countries and Canadian ecologists join forces today to protect one of the largest coastal temperate rainforests in the world: the Great Bear rainforest along the central and west coast of British Columbia. Prince William is in the Canadian province for a…
The provincial government and BC First Nations Forestry Council (BCFNFC) have entered into a new labour market partnership to bring aboriginal communities together with forestry employers. The B.C. government has provided more than $80,000 through the Sector Labour Market Partnership Program, to the BCFNFC to lead the First Nations Regional Forestry Opportunity Studies Engagement project….
We on the Sunshine Coast love our wood. The Wood Expo, a one-day celebration of this natural resource, took place last Saturday and drew a constant flow of crowds to the Seaside Centre in Sechelt. It was organized by the Sunshine Coast Community Forest and the 22 exhibitors were all local folk who do the…
Walk a few hundred yards into the woods in Durham, Connecticut, and you’ll see something that looks like it’s out of “Mad Max” — large trucks, with big wheels, and giant robotic arms, grabbing trees and slicing them down. But this controlled chaos is a calculated timber harvest, with the long-term goal of creating a…