For Harbour Air CEO Greg McDougall, there is a bit of symmetry in his company’s efforts to stay carbon-neutral. His airline’s float planes fly over large parts of British Columbia’s south coast, and the company buys some of the carbon offsets for their emissions from a program that generates carbon credits from preservation of the…
It can take Mother Nature 1,000 years to grow a forest. But Nikolay Strigul, assistant professor of mathematics and statistics at Washington State University Vancouver, can grow one on a computer in three weeks. He and Jean Lienard, a mathematics postdoctoral researcher, created the first computer simulation that grows realistic forests down to the branches,…
Officials with the city’s forestry section say the massive plan to remove 23,000 dead and dying ash trees on city property over 10 years is more than one-third completed. A total of 8,800 trees afflicted by the emerald ash borer have so far been taken down across Hamilton. Those trees include ones on the city…
The government of Saskatchewan is scrapping a controversial policy that has been used to prioritize forest fires. Under the policy, the province could let forest fires burn unless they were within 20 kilometres of a community. Many northerners criticized that policy during last year’s record-setting season of wildfires. They said once a fire was within 20 kilometres of…
A mill shutdown in Port Alberni that resulted in close to 100 workers being laid off is symptomatic of a much larger problem as timber harvesting contractors up and down the BC coast are struggling to be sustainable in the face of consistently low rates. Western Forest Products (WFP) Alberni Pacific Division mill sent home…
Saskatchewan is recalling firefighting crews two weeks earlier and hiring eight new crews as it prepares for what could be an early start to the wildfire season. An air tanker and a bird-dog aircraft, which directs the operation of the air tankers, are scheduled to be ready by March 27. Seasonal staff will start in…
We always hear that everything’s bigger in Texas, but what about Alaska? It’s bigger than Texas, California and Montana combined, and its forests hold almost half the living wood of the United States, while its marshes, bogs, and tundra comprise 63% of the country’s wetlands. These ecosystems store massive amounts of carbon in their trees, soil, and…
Parc national d’Opemican, a 252-square-kilometre tract of lakes, rivers and old pine forests in the Abitibi-Temiscamingue region along the Ontario border. The work, expected to be completed in about three years, will include the creation of a main park hub, Pointe-Opemican, on Lac Temiscamingue. The site was a centre of forestry operations in the region…
Western Forest Products (TSX:WEF) has resorted to layoffs at its Port Alberni sawmill, says the Truck Loggers Association (TLA), but not because of falling revenue. In fact, the company last week reported a doubling of fourth quarter earnings over Q4 2014, and year-over-year, the company’s annual revenue for 2015 grew by $1 billion – a…
A migration of toads described as a croaking, moving carpet and one of the world’s environmental wonders is dividing a southeastern British Columbia village over forestry jobs and the protection of tiny amphibians. The western toad migration near the Village of Nakusp attracts tourists every summer to the Toad Festival at Summit Lake, where people…