The Fort McMurray wildfire was most likely man-made, says Chad Morrison, senior manager of Alberta wildfire investigations. The exact reason it ignited is still under investigation, with the final report due in one month, Morrison says. No doubt the larger debate about origins of the fire will rage much longer. As soon as the wildfire burned…
T he Council of Forest Industries (COFI) today announced the winners of the 48th BC Lumber Grading Championship held in Kelowna on May 28, 2016 where top lumber graders from around the province gathered to demonstrate their skills. This year’s winners include: • Brian Marsh of Comact, Prince George, scored the highest practical mark in…
A few days ago Mike Flannigan travelled to Fort McMurray as part a special scientific research team studying the raging wildfire. He got a bird’s eye view from above and a close look at the ruins on the ground. With smoke still smouldering in the forests, not many people had come back, and yet nature…
Biomass inventory, supply-chain logistics, standards and technological applications, emerging markets, technical and regulatory hurdles were highlights of two bio-economy workshops held recently in Thunder Bay. Hosted by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF), the take-home messages were positive and promising. The province has organic material from forest wood and agriculture residues that complements…
Cherryville residents hope a review will lead to changes within a government agency. The Forest Practices Board will examine the activities of the B.C. Timber Sales program in the Okanagan-Shuswap starting Monday. “I hope rural communities will have some influence on forest management in watersheds next to communities,” said Hank Cameron, Cherryville director. Cherryville has…
When the linguists Martin Meissner and Stuart Philpott first started visiting sawmills in British Columbia in the 1970s, they thought they’d find workers communicating without speaking, probably with some simple gestures that contained technical information. There was a long history of such communication in the face of extreme noise: For centuries, American mill workers had…
Sawmills across Northern Ontario continue to be busy, feeding an increasingly hungry U.S. housing market. Statistics Canada reports that mills cranked out 6 per cent more lumber in March than they did a year earlier. That includes the five sawmills in northern Ontario run by Eacom. Eacom spokesperson Christine Leduc says this is a big change…
Women in Forestry is the first in a series of hands-on, one-day workshops for women with an interest in woodland management and will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 4. The workshop is funded by the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources and organized by the Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute. Sessions will include…
The planting of the billionth tree in the Prince George Natural Resource District was celebrated Thursday at the Central British Columbia Railway and Forestry Museum. That was where dignitaries planted a spruce tree to mark the milestone. The number dates from when planting began in 1959 and it wasn’t the only large figure cited. “Silviculture…
The RICO suit alleges Greenpeace is a ‘fraud’ that has ‘duped’ donors. All too often, corporations, concerned about the potential damage to their bottom lines from any “controversy,” kowtow to media-savvy radical environmentalists. Thus the lawsuit brought three years ago by Montreal-based Resolute Forest Products against Greenpeace for “defamation, malicious falsehood and intentional interference with…