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Fast Company
On his vacation over Memorial Day weekend, Jakub Bednarek headed into the forest near his home in Leavenworth, Washington, and collected samples of maple leaves to send to a lab for DNA analysis. Bednarek, who also works as a biologist in his day job, is one of 150 volunteers in a project this summer that stretches along the Pacific Coast. The project's aim: To create a genetic map of a particular species of maple, which can then be used to help identify illegally harvested wood.
DNA testing has been used on black market timber in the past–in a case in 2015, for example, when a sawmill owner was convicted of trading illegal wood, scientists used DNA analysis to identify the exact stumps of the trees that had been cut down. But it can also be used at a broader level; by mapping how the genetics of a particular species of tree changes by region, it's possible to identify where particular timber came from.
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Mongabay
An estimated 50 to 80 percent of southern wetland forest is now gone, and that which remains provides ecosystem services totaling $500 billion as well as important wildlife habitat. Logging is considered one of the biggest threats to the 35 million acres of remaining wetland forest in the southern U.S., and conservation organizations are saying this threat is coming largely from the wood pellet biomass industry.
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Woodworking Network
Forest mortality exceeded net growth on America’s national forest timberlands in 2016, based on data publicly available from the U.S. Forest Service. The USFS said that forest growth was 48 percent of mortality, while timber harvests were just 11 percent of what is dying annually. Forest mortality continues to trend upward, reports Healthy Forests Healthy Communities.
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Wood Resources International LLC
After softwood lumber consumption in the U.S. reached a 10-year high in 2017, demand fell in early 2018. Despite the reduced first quarter consumption, lumber production on the U.S. west coast was actually up by 9 percent year over year when compared to the 1Q/17 due to strong demand from China. In fact, shipments to China during the 1Q/2018 were up almost 50 opercent as compared to the 1Q/17.
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Think Wood via Globe Newswire
Wood buildings play a critical role in the design and development of our communities, making the places we live safer, healthier, livable and more resilient. In support of this year's AIA theme, Blueprint for Better Cities, Think Wood will attend the AIA Conference on Architecture to share research and resources on the benefits of wood and how it offers better solutions for the communities where we work, live and play. With mounting pressure to reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment, smart designers are finding ways to build more responsibly while still meeting operational and structural needs.
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Woodworking Network
Codenamed Operation Thunderstorm, a massive amount of illegally-obtained timber and wildlife was seized by International police agency Interpol. Several tons of timber, along with thousands of live animals, ivory and pangolin scales, worth millions of dollars, were seized from 92 countries. Over 1,400 traffickers were identified in the scheme — exposed over a monthlong global crackdown.
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Eye On Housing
Shortages of framing lumber are now more widespread than at any time since the National Association of Home Builders began tracking the issue in a consistent way in 1994, according to results from the May 2018 survey for the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. Over 30 percent of single-family builders responding to the survey's special questions in May reported a shortage of framing lumber, outdistancing the other 22 listed building products and materials by a wide margin.
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Comstock's
A southern pine in the southeastern United States grows quickly, practically like a weed. This tree will inevitably be cut down. That's because this timber may hold one key to staving off a plastics-induced garbage apocalypse. It is raised to be harvested and chopped into wood chips to live out its fate — not as pulp to make paper, but as feedstock to make a new type of plastic.
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PRI
The 12 cooling towers at the Drax Power Station have dominated the flat North Yorkshire countryside since the plant was built to burn coal from local mines in the 1960s. It's the largest power plant in the UK, and for years it served as a visible reminder of how essential coal has been for the country. But five years ago, Drax started switching from burning coal to burning wood.
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