Trump slaps 20% Tariff on Canadian Softwood-Lumber Imports
U.S. President Donald Trump intensified a trade dispute with Canada, slapping tariffs of up to 24 percent on imported softwood lumber in a move that drew swift criticism from the Canadian government. Trump announced the new tariff at a White House gathering of conservative journalists, shortly before the Commerce Department said it would impose countervailing duties ranging from 3 percent to 24.1 percent on Canadian lumber producers. This is a long standing issue with most Canadian timber harvested on public lands compared to the US where much of the timber is in private ownership. Canadian provinces that own the forests from where softwood lumber is sourced are basically subsidizing logging activities, which allow Canada to dump the lumber in the US at below-market prices. Read more
Vermont Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year
The Vermont Woodlands Association and the Vermont Tree Farm program announced David and Jenny Stoner as the 2017 Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year. The Stoners 361-acre Certified Tree Farm, purchased in the late 1990s, is located in Greensboro. They have worked as a family to manage it from the ground up for the last 20 plus years. The Stoner Family began considering owning and managing land in Vermont when they attended a workshop in the early 1980s led by Ross Morgan, who then became their Consulting Forester. The Stoners have implemented a variety of habitat management practices with assistance from the Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS), in addition to working with Morgan on commercial harvest. Their land is important to two major watersheds in Vermont. Read about other regional winners
Buying Woodland in the UK
Money really can grow on trees for investors in woodland with annual returns from commercial forestry averaging 9 per cent over the past 20 years. But it’s not just landed gentry who can enjoy the thrill of owning a forest. People can get involved for as little as £10,000 which could buy them a one-acre wooded spinney. Buying woodland can enable families to enjoy activities such as camping out under the stars, coppicing and green woodturning – carpentry when the timber is still fresh and pliable. Rules for owning woodland mean permanent dwellings must not be built that can be slept in but tool sheds are allowed. You can camp in the woods up to a maximum 28 days a year. Owners can cut up to five cubic metres of timber every quarter – more than enough to keep a house heated using woodburners. If you want to cut more wood then you must apply for a felling licence from the Forestry Commission. Read More
NZ look to expand native forest for carbon credits
Wellington-based Motu Economic and Public Policy Research's report suggests establishing native forests is an environmentally and economically attractive way to decrease the risk for high CO2 emitting companies. Report co-author Dr Suzi Kerr said about eight per cent of the forest land registered in New Zealand's main carbon mechanism, the Emissions Trading Scheme, was native.
Since 2008, however, only 500ha of new native forest had been established and registered. "If we established another 10,000ha of land in native forest, this would sequester 65,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases annually, which would be eligible to earn 65,000 NZUs per year under the ETS." Read More
Reality bites for small scale woodlots in NZ
A possible 5% reduction in forestry replanting could mostly be the result of owners of small woodlots not replanting. Some of the blame also lies with corporate and large forest owners converting to other forms of land use, such as dairy, when irrigation has become available. This is partly due to poor returns based on locality and size of areas planted under the post-1989 afforestation grant scheme.
Many of the later growers did not bother with post-planting treatment, pruning and thinning resulting in low grade thin-stem woodlots with small volume and piece size trees. Apart from limited size of areas planted, it did not entice contractors to take on these jobs yielding light volumes, resulting in high prices for logging operations. This can explain many small woodlot owners not getting adequate returns. Other factors that should have been considered were distance to port or mill, price variations and availability through end buyers. So can pruning and thinning improve returns for small-hectare plots? Calculated on the back of an envelope, the difference would be as much as plus $6500 p/ha for the treated plot. Read more
Clearfelling in South Carolina for potatoes and corn
A land-use change has mowed down woodlands and pine plantations between Aiken and Columbia. Since 2012, loggers have cut about 6,000 acres of forests to make room for row-crop farms. Converting forested property for agriculture can cause loose soil to run into rivers, and it can result in groundwater pollution if farmers aren’t careful. "If you clear 5,000 acres and replace that with herbaceous grass or corn, and you irrigate and you add (fertilizer), you have the potential for nitrate to leave the root zone and get into the water table,’’ said Jim Landmeyer, a groundwater expert with the U.S. Geological Survey. The biggest farm in the Springfield-Windsor area is Walther Farms’ Augusta tract. It’s a 3,700-acre site near Windsor in Aiken County where about 1,800 acres were cleared so the company could plant its first industrial-scale potato farm in South Carolina. Since Walther’s arrival in 2013, the Michigan corporation and the Woody agribusiness group have acquired more land and cleared another 2,000 acres of forest. Read more
US Forestry Facts
About one-third of the US is forested. Forests have an enormous impact on our water resources, economy, wildlife, recreational activities and cultural fabric. They also are major economic assets: The forest products industry manufactures more than $200 billion worth of products yearly, and is one of the top 10 manufacturing employers in 47 states. About 58 percent of the nation’s forestland is privately owned, mostly by families and other individuals. The public owns the rest. Read more
Can an engineered wood product bridge ecological and social divides?
A quiet revolution in wood building products began is just now reaching the US. That revolution is the generation of mass timber products—extremely strong panels and beams created from the glue lamination of boards and slabs—that can be used as structural components in large buildings. Because CLT is built from small dimensional lumber, you can use smaller-diameter trees in their manufacture. This creates greater value for trees from restoration or fuel-reduction harvests in western and central Montana and creates an economic incentive to conduct habitat-improving activities that might not happen otherwise.
From the 1950s to 1980s, the practice of conservation forestry was overtaken by administrators’ economically driven focus on achieve maximum allowable yield, with only localized emphasis on the health of the environment. Predictably, the capacity of the federal forest system to deliver ecological services (clean water, habitat, and aesthetics) quickly declined.As the impacts of these practices became clearer, the public began to equate forestry with other extractive industries, such as mining and oil exploration.
In the last few years, this new wood product has brought together foresters, environmentalists, lumber mills, green architects, urban planners, and agency personnel around a shared vision for a sustainable future. This group might be formerly have had very different or even antagonistic interests, but are now sharing a unifying goal of balancing sustainable forest management with green building, rural community well-being, and reduced suburban sprawl.
There’s still a lot more to learn about CLT, and how best to build an industry that will uphold the many values that need to be served, but perhaps the agreement around CLT exemplifies what is needed to overcome polarization and accomplish shared goals through a lasting bond. Read more
Unmanaged woodlands irk sheep farmers in Scotland
“Whilst there are many thousands of acres already planted with unthinned woodland, unmanaged regeneration and lodgepole pine which is uneconomic to harvest and replant, it is not acceptable to many of our members that government money should be buying good stock farms for planting,” he said. “I have yet to see sound evidence that a heft of 500 ewes replaced by commercial Sitka will provide more jobs or rural output, though I am open to figures if they are out there. What I do have is evidence of neighbouring farms to those planted struggling to maintain fences 30 years on from planting, and lacking labour to help gather and to control vermin once the neighbouring sheep have gone.” Mr Fyall added: “I do think that it is not morally acceptable to take a sustainable agricultural model and lessen its production abilities, whilst we import food and destroy forest in parts of the world where the climate and soils are not suited to perennial agriculture, and the water needed for crops and stock is diverted from local humans to European shelves.” Read more
Paper mill woes in India
Farmers who traditionally grew tobacco in the drought-prone Prakasam district took to social forestry plantations in a big way in the 1990s with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development promoting them. But they are now in an unenvious position with paper mills forming a syndicate and driving down the prices. The trouble began for the planters after the paper mills appointed brokers and purchased logs bypassing the Agriculture Market Committees. The government should come to the rescue of the farmers by starting a paper mill on its own and create a healthy competition between public and private players in the field in the interest of farmers, opines Prakasam District Development Forum president Ch. Ranga Rao. Read more
Our future is in the forest and it’s Green Gold
SCOTLAND’S wealth of trees and forests is a national resource that can unlock environmental, social and economic riches. This rich resource is infinitely renewable, with many valuable end-uses – vital for a modern, industrialised society that takes its environmental responsibilities seriously. A graph of Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions shows forestry enjoys a unique position. While other sectors, such as transport, construction and agriculture sit ‘above the line’, the forestry sector sits, alone, below the line as a sector that locks up far more carbon than it produces.
The plan to use more timber in construction is a big deal and can help meet the Scottish Government’s target to build 50,000 new affordable homes by the end of the parliamentary session in 2021. Wood offers a greener, more sustainable alternative to other construction materials like brick, steel and concrete. Scottish sawmillers have developed independently-audited tools to measure the carbon life cycle of wood. The forest and wood processing industries are now challenging other building materials industries to set out what their carbon life cycle assessment is, and to include every aspect of the materials and building process. The sector’s confidence comes from the knowledge that a tonne of brick requires more than four times the energy to produce than a tonne of sawn softwood. Read more
Forestry in West Virginia
One of the oldest and largest industries in West Virginia is the timber and wood products industry. “We are the third most forested state in the United States. We have 7 million more forested acres in West Virginia than we did 100 years ago. There are more than 250,000 forest landowners in West Virginia,” said Frank Stewart, Executive Director of the West Virginia Forestry Association. “There are 30,000 jobs that we provide by our industry and we have over $3 billion in income gross a year in the state. We are a naturally regenerating, biodegradable industry.” To see how different species of trees regenerate and thrive, we visited the Fernow Experimental Forest in Tucker County, where, for nearly 70 years foresters have been studying how different management and cutting practices affect the regeneration and growth of trees – from seedlings to saplings to healthy, mature specimens. Read more
Forest conservation investment imperative in sub-Saharan Africa
Godwin Kowero, the Executive Secretary of Nairobi-based Africa Forest Forum (AFF) said healthy forest ecosystems will underpin the continent's future prosperity, stability and peace. "Africa is losing its forest cover faster than other parts of the world hence the need to prioritize investments in programs that can reverse this trend," Kowero said. He noted that climate change, governance hiccups, population growth and urbanization were exerting pressure on Africa's forests. African governments must overhaul outdated policies, enforce the laws and engage communities in a bid to restore degraded forests. Kowero regretted that poor enforcement of laws and lack of trained personnel were undermining forest governance in many African countries. Read more
U.S. President Donald Trump intensified a trade dispute with Canada, slapping tariffs of up to 24 percent on imported softwood lumber in a move that drew swift criticism from the Canadian government. Trump announced the new tariff at a White House gathering of conservative journalists, shortly before the Commerce Department said it would impose countervailing duties ranging from 3 percent to 24.1 percent on Canadian lumber producers. This is a long standing issue with most Canadian timber harvested on public lands compared to the US where much of the timber is in private ownership. Canadian provinces that own the forests from where softwood lumber is sourced are basically subsidizing logging activities, which allow Canada to dump the lumber in the US at below-market prices. Read more
Vermont Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year
The Vermont Woodlands Association and the Vermont Tree Farm program announced David and Jenny Stoner as the 2017 Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year. The Stoners 361-acre Certified Tree Farm, purchased in the late 1990s, is located in Greensboro. They have worked as a family to manage it from the ground up for the last 20 plus years. The Stoner Family began considering owning and managing land in Vermont when they attended a workshop in the early 1980s led by Ross Morgan, who then became their Consulting Forester. The Stoners have implemented a variety of habitat management practices with assistance from the Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS), in addition to working with Morgan on commercial harvest. Their land is important to two major watersheds in Vermont. Read about other regional winners
Buying Woodland in the UK
Money really can grow on trees for investors in woodland with annual returns from commercial forestry averaging 9 per cent over the past 20 years. But it’s not just landed gentry who can enjoy the thrill of owning a forest. People can get involved for as little as £10,000 which could buy them a one-acre wooded spinney. Buying woodland can enable families to enjoy activities such as camping out under the stars, coppicing and green woodturning – carpentry when the timber is still fresh and pliable. Rules for owning woodland mean permanent dwellings must not be built that can be slept in but tool sheds are allowed. You can camp in the woods up to a maximum 28 days a year. Owners can cut up to five cubic metres of timber every quarter – more than enough to keep a house heated using woodburners. If you want to cut more wood then you must apply for a felling licence from the Forestry Commission. Read More
NZ look to expand native forest for carbon credits
Wellington-based Motu Economic and Public Policy Research's report suggests establishing native forests is an environmentally and economically attractive way to decrease the risk for high CO2 emitting companies. Report co-author Dr Suzi Kerr said about eight per cent of the forest land registered in New Zealand's main carbon mechanism, the Emissions Trading Scheme, was native.
Since 2008, however, only 500ha of new native forest had been established and registered. "If we established another 10,000ha of land in native forest, this would sequester 65,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases annually, which would be eligible to earn 65,000 NZUs per year under the ETS." Read More
Reality bites for small scale woodlots in NZ
A possible 5% reduction in forestry replanting could mostly be the result of owners of small woodlots not replanting. Some of the blame also lies with corporate and large forest owners converting to other forms of land use, such as dairy, when irrigation has become available. This is partly due to poor returns based on locality and size of areas planted under the post-1989 afforestation grant scheme.
Many of the later growers did not bother with post-planting treatment, pruning and thinning resulting in low grade thin-stem woodlots with small volume and piece size trees. Apart from limited size of areas planted, it did not entice contractors to take on these jobs yielding light volumes, resulting in high prices for logging operations. This can explain many small woodlot owners not getting adequate returns. Other factors that should have been considered were distance to port or mill, price variations and availability through end buyers. So can pruning and thinning improve returns for small-hectare plots? Calculated on the back of an envelope, the difference would be as much as plus $6500 p/ha for the treated plot. Read more
Clearfelling in South Carolina for potatoes and corn
A land-use change has mowed down woodlands and pine plantations between Aiken and Columbia. Since 2012, loggers have cut about 6,000 acres of forests to make room for row-crop farms. Converting forested property for agriculture can cause loose soil to run into rivers, and it can result in groundwater pollution if farmers aren’t careful. "If you clear 5,000 acres and replace that with herbaceous grass or corn, and you irrigate and you add (fertilizer), you have the potential for nitrate to leave the root zone and get into the water table,’’ said Jim Landmeyer, a groundwater expert with the U.S. Geological Survey. The biggest farm in the Springfield-Windsor area is Walther Farms’ Augusta tract. It’s a 3,700-acre site near Windsor in Aiken County where about 1,800 acres were cleared so the company could plant its first industrial-scale potato farm in South Carolina. Since Walther’s arrival in 2013, the Michigan corporation and the Woody agribusiness group have acquired more land and cleared another 2,000 acres of forest. Read more
US Forestry Facts
About one-third of the US is forested. Forests have an enormous impact on our water resources, economy, wildlife, recreational activities and cultural fabric. They also are major economic assets: The forest products industry manufactures more than $200 billion worth of products yearly, and is one of the top 10 manufacturing employers in 47 states. About 58 percent of the nation’s forestland is privately owned, mostly by families and other individuals. The public owns the rest. Read more
Can an engineered wood product bridge ecological and social divides?
A quiet revolution in wood building products began is just now reaching the US. That revolution is the generation of mass timber products—extremely strong panels and beams created from the glue lamination of boards and slabs—that can be used as structural components in large buildings. Because CLT is built from small dimensional lumber, you can use smaller-diameter trees in their manufacture. This creates greater value for trees from restoration or fuel-reduction harvests in western and central Montana and creates an economic incentive to conduct habitat-improving activities that might not happen otherwise.
From the 1950s to 1980s, the practice of conservation forestry was overtaken by administrators’ economically driven focus on achieve maximum allowable yield, with only localized emphasis on the health of the environment. Predictably, the capacity of the federal forest system to deliver ecological services (clean water, habitat, and aesthetics) quickly declined.As the impacts of these practices became clearer, the public began to equate forestry with other extractive industries, such as mining and oil exploration.
In the last few years, this new wood product has brought together foresters, environmentalists, lumber mills, green architects, urban planners, and agency personnel around a shared vision for a sustainable future. This group might be formerly have had very different or even antagonistic interests, but are now sharing a unifying goal of balancing sustainable forest management with green building, rural community well-being, and reduced suburban sprawl.
There’s still a lot more to learn about CLT, and how best to build an industry that will uphold the many values that need to be served, but perhaps the agreement around CLT exemplifies what is needed to overcome polarization and accomplish shared goals through a lasting bond. Read more
Unmanaged woodlands irk sheep farmers in Scotland
“Whilst there are many thousands of acres already planted with unthinned woodland, unmanaged regeneration and lodgepole pine which is uneconomic to harvest and replant, it is not acceptable to many of our members that government money should be buying good stock farms for planting,” he said. “I have yet to see sound evidence that a heft of 500 ewes replaced by commercial Sitka will provide more jobs or rural output, though I am open to figures if they are out there. What I do have is evidence of neighbouring farms to those planted struggling to maintain fences 30 years on from planting, and lacking labour to help gather and to control vermin once the neighbouring sheep have gone.” Mr Fyall added: “I do think that it is not morally acceptable to take a sustainable agricultural model and lessen its production abilities, whilst we import food and destroy forest in parts of the world where the climate and soils are not suited to perennial agriculture, and the water needed for crops and stock is diverted from local humans to European shelves.” Read more
Paper mill woes in India
Farmers who traditionally grew tobacco in the drought-prone Prakasam district took to social forestry plantations in a big way in the 1990s with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development promoting them. But they are now in an unenvious position with paper mills forming a syndicate and driving down the prices. The trouble began for the planters after the paper mills appointed brokers and purchased logs bypassing the Agriculture Market Committees. The government should come to the rescue of the farmers by starting a paper mill on its own and create a healthy competition between public and private players in the field in the interest of farmers, opines Prakasam District Development Forum president Ch. Ranga Rao. Read more
Our future is in the forest and it’s Green Gold
SCOTLAND’S wealth of trees and forests is a national resource that can unlock environmental, social and economic riches. This rich resource is infinitely renewable, with many valuable end-uses – vital for a modern, industrialised society that takes its environmental responsibilities seriously. A graph of Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions shows forestry enjoys a unique position. While other sectors, such as transport, construction and agriculture sit ‘above the line’, the forestry sector sits, alone, below the line as a sector that locks up far more carbon than it produces.
The plan to use more timber in construction is a big deal and can help meet the Scottish Government’s target to build 50,000 new affordable homes by the end of the parliamentary session in 2021. Wood offers a greener, more sustainable alternative to other construction materials like brick, steel and concrete. Scottish sawmillers have developed independently-audited tools to measure the carbon life cycle of wood. The forest and wood processing industries are now challenging other building materials industries to set out what their carbon life cycle assessment is, and to include every aspect of the materials and building process. The sector’s confidence comes from the knowledge that a tonne of brick requires more than four times the energy to produce than a tonne of sawn softwood. Read more
Forestry in West Virginia
One of the oldest and largest industries in West Virginia is the timber and wood products industry. “We are the third most forested state in the United States. We have 7 million more forested acres in West Virginia than we did 100 years ago. There are more than 250,000 forest landowners in West Virginia,” said Frank Stewart, Executive Director of the West Virginia Forestry Association. “There are 30,000 jobs that we provide by our industry and we have over $3 billion in income gross a year in the state. We are a naturally regenerating, biodegradable industry.” To see how different species of trees regenerate and thrive, we visited the Fernow Experimental Forest in Tucker County, where, for nearly 70 years foresters have been studying how different management and cutting practices affect the regeneration and growth of trees – from seedlings to saplings to healthy, mature specimens. Read more
Forest conservation investment imperative in sub-Saharan Africa
Godwin Kowero, the Executive Secretary of Nairobi-based Africa Forest Forum (AFF) said healthy forest ecosystems will underpin the continent's future prosperity, stability and peace. "Africa is losing its forest cover faster than other parts of the world hence the need to prioritize investments in programs that can reverse this trend," Kowero said. He noted that climate change, governance hiccups, population growth and urbanization were exerting pressure on Africa's forests. African governments must overhaul outdated policies, enforce the laws and engage communities in a bid to restore degraded forests. Kowero regretted that poor enforcement of laws and lack of trained personnel were undermining forest governance in many African countries. Read more