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Norske Skog is expanding its corporate management with VP Corporate Finance, Even Lund, and SVP General Counsel, Einar Blaauw. Tord Steinset Torvund (33) has been appointed as the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Source: Timberbiz Despite his young age, Mr Torvund has solid experience from various audit and finance positions both inside and outside Norske Skog. He is currently the finance director at Norske Skog Saugbrugs in Halden and was previously controller for the group’s operations. He is currently also the general manager of Saugbrugs Bioenergi AS, and a board member of the Norske Skog companies Cebina AS and Cebico AS. Before his employment at Norske Skog, Mr Torvund worked as an auditor at KPMG for five years with responsibility for large industrial clients. Mr Torvund has three master’s degrees respectively in financial economics from the Norwegian School of Economics in Bergen (NHH), CEMS international management at NHH and St. Petersburg University, and in accounting and auditing (NHH). Even Lund (31) has been promoted to Vice President Corporate Finance and will now become part of corporate management. Mr Lund has worked as Investor Relations Manager at Norske Skog since 2020. Going forward, he will follow up group financing, business development and investor communication, and be part of corporate management. Mr Lund previously worked at ABG Sundal Collier and has a master’s degree in financial economics from Bergen School of Economics. Einar Blaauw (43) has been promoted to Senior Vice President General Counsel and will now become part of corporate management. Mr Blaauw was employed in the legal department in 2014 and has been the company’s head of legal since 2017. He has had key roles in connection with the group’s capital markets and financing transactions, restructuring and strategic projects. Through his position as board secretary, he has participated in corporate management and board meetings since 2014, and now becomes part of corporate management. Mr Blaauw has previously worked as a lawyer at Advokatfirmaet Thommessen, and for two periods at the international law firm Clifford Chance, in London and New York respectively. He has a master’s degree in law from the University of Bergen, and an attorney practising certificate.

Forget the Amazon; forget India’s forests with their living bridges; even forget the remote Malaysian rainforest with one of the world’s tallest trees. The world’s oldest forest is in Cairo. No, not Cairo the capital of Egypt – Cairo, the small town in upstate New York. Source: IFLScience At the bottom of a sandstone quarry in the small town of Cairo in New York state, researchers found a network of trees that they think may have once spread around 400 kilometres. The extensive network is thought to be 386 million years old, making it the oldest forest in the world. “You are walking through the roots of ancient trees,” Dr Christopher Berry, a paleobotanist at Cardiff University, told Science in 2019. “Standing on the quarry surface we can reconstruct the living forest around us in our imagination.” The forest was discovered in 2019, as researchers mapped over 3,000 square metres of the Devonian period forest in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains in the Hudson Valley. They found that the forest was home to two types of trees: early fern-like plants called cladoxylopsids; and Archaeopteris, trees that had a woody trunk and flattened green leaves coming out from frond-like branches. Scientists also think they could have uncovered a third tree species in the area that would reproduce, like these others, using spores rather than seeds. “It is surprising to see plants which were previously thought to have had mutually exclusive habitat preferences growing together on the ancient Catskill delta,” said Dr Berry. The roots of the Archaeopteris trees were found in one area to be over 11 metres in length. These are some of the first examples of complex roots systems that grew as the plants grew, with many branching sections. Prior to this, plant roots were unbranched, and died off and were replaced as the plant grew larger, the authors explain in the paper. “This would have looked like a fairly open forest with small to moderate sized coniferous-looking trees with individual and clumped tree-fern like plants of possibly smaller size growing between them,” said Dr Berry. Many fish fossils were also recovered from the site, leading the team to believe that the once enormous forest could have been wiped out by flooding. The previously believed oldest forest was the Gilboa Forest, only about 40 kilometres away from the new record holder, but it is thought to be around two or three million years younger than the one found in Cairo. In 2016, a huge tropical fossil forest was discovered in Norway by the same team. The rise of larger trees with more complicated roots systems is thought to have also triggered a process called “weathering”, during which carbon dioxide is pulled from the atmosphere and eventually stored as limestone. With the drop in carbon dioxide levels, oxygen levels were able to increase, leading to larger animals and insects evolving within the ancient forests. “In order to really understand how trees began to draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, we need to understand the ecology and habitats of the very earliest forests, and their rooting systems,” said Dr Berry.

A new glasshouse that’s almost as big as two football pitches and capable of producing up to 19 million trees a year for planting out into the forests of the future, will soon be built at a nursery in Scotland. Source: Timberbiz Forestry & Land Scotland’s (FLS) Newton Nursery is set for a major modernisation in 2024 that will see the nursery provide more trees to support Scotland’s ambitious tree planting targets while also providing FLS with greater self-sufficiency. The new 12000m2 glasshouse near Elgin is a central part of the redevelopment that also includes new offices, a new distribution and operations centre. Growing trees from seed inside the glasshouse that are currently grown outdoors in fields, will allow FLS to have much better control over the growing environment, meaning the seedlings are less vulnerable to damage from extreme weather events and competition from weeds. Trials indicate germination rates could be improved by 60%, demonstrating a much more efficient use of valuable seeds. Energy and resource efficiency is core to the redevelopment: boreholes will supply water to irrigate the seedlings so there will no new demand on the mains water system, and low energy use technologies have been incorporated into the building design, while solar panels will supplement electricity use. The stock produced, mostly conifer species such as Lodge Pole Pine, Scots Pine, Sitka and Norway Spruce, is the backbone of Scotland’s forestry industry which adds £1 billion to the economy every year. The resulting wood products will help the UK reduce its reliance on imported timber, reducing pressure on vulnerable forests around the world. Once the redevelopment is complete, Newton could have up to 25 million trees in any one year, growing on site. Some will be newly planted and others will be more than a year old and ready to send to forests around Scotland. “This modernisation will allow us to continue developing new techniques for growing, planting and harvesting trees for forests now and in the future, to increase woodland cover and to help mitigate the impacts of climate change,” Alan Duncan, FLS’s Head of Plant & Seed Supply, said. The redevelopment and modernisation – made possible with financial support from Scottish Government – represents the biggest, single infrastructure investment ever by FLS. It should be complete by early 2025. The redevelopment will break ground in spring 2024, the first batch of seeds should be planted in early 2025.

The community grants program launched by OneFortyOne in July 2021 supports grassroot community organisations in New Zealand. Since its inception, OneFortyOne has been dedicated to the local communities that form the backbone of its operations. At the core of this commitment lies its Grants Program. Source: Timberbiz “Since we launched, we have supported 55 community projects in the region, contributing over NZ$145,000 in funding and building materials through the community grants programme,” communications manager Kylie Reeves said. “There are a lot of people doing amazing things in the community, but funding is a real challenge for community groups, and it’s only getting harder and harder. From a OneFortyOne perspective we try and make the applications as easy as possible, it’s an online process and we keep reporting requirements to a minimum. We believe that regional communities are exciting places to live and sometimes just need a funding boost to start something incredible.” Applications are assessed on a bi-monthly basis, giving consideration to objectives and impact. “This ensures the process is fair –but otherwise we leave it to applicants to let us know what they need most,” Ms Reeves said. The community of Rai Valley are recent recipients of a grant which enabled them to purchase an asset not only for the school but also to help build the community’s resilience to events such as the 2022 floods. Coordinator Tania Billingsley first became aware of the OneFortyOne Grants Program during that time. “We realised what the school needed to be able to provide a welfare centre for the local community when were cut off by natural disaster. The grant has enabled us to purchase two commercial portable ovens for the school that can be run off a generator. During an emergency we can now feed up to 200 people simply and easily from anywhere within our valley. They have also meant that during sports tournaments, and any other major community events, we now have the flexibility to easily feed a large group,” she said. Jimmy van Der Calk, the General Manager for Wanderers Sports Club added that it is important that when applying to ensure it is for something that aligns with your organisation’s strategy/purpose and One-FortyOne’s PINE objectives. If this alignment is not there the application will either be declined. As recipients, the grants have enabled the club to install a new basketball court at their base in Brightwater. “We had an underutilised court next to our clubrooms. It appeared old and run down and equipment was outdated so it was no surprise people weren’t using it. We wanted to turn it into a place our community would want to use. We pitched the idea of a basketball court to OneFortyOne and they saw the benefit and approved funding for the project,” Mr van Der Calk said. “The application process is very simple, but applicants should take the time to prepare supporting documents such as project costings and a cover letter ex-plaining why the project is important and what the benefits will be. “The majority of non-profits will find the application process simple when compared to typical grant funding.”