Forest Products Industry

Researchers Guanqun Chen and Juli Wang engineered a strain of red yeast that can turn forestry waste into a high-value fatty acid for nutritional supplements and animal feed. Source: Timberbiz Forestry waste can be turned into a high-value fatty acid, thanks to a bright red yeast engineered by University of Alberta researchers. Using wood-derived sugar as a feedstock, the strain, developed from a yeast called Rhodosporidium toruloides, proved capable of producing punicic acid. The discovery offers potential economic wins for the forestry and food industries, says study co-author Guanqun Chen, associate professor in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences and Canada Research Chair in Plant Lipid Biotechnology. Derived mainly from the seed oil of pomegranate fruit, punicic acid offers healthy cholesterol-lowering, anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic properties. However, with a very low seed-to-fruit ratio and oil yield, it’s currently not financially feasible to produce for large-scale use in the food industry. But being able to produce the fatty acid using sugar solution derived from low-value leftovers like wood chips provides both economic and environmental benefits, Chen says, noting that the yeast strain could also be used on agricultural byproducts like canola and wheat straw, after pre-treatment. “We’ve shown that this engineered strain can serve as an industrial platform for converting large volumes of biomass waste or byproducts into a valuable product, which may open up opportunities for creating high-value nutritional supplements, functional food and animal feed ingredients. “That creates additional revenue, improves resource efficiency and can help sustainability for these various industries.” The strain, which is now under a provisional patent application, could, for example, serve as an alternative to using baker’s yeast, the current approved choice for animal feed supplements, notes study co-author Juli Wang, who carried out the research as a part of his PhD thesis project in plant science. “It’s got high oil content and a quick growth rate that make it a better option for producing punicic acid using fermentation.” The research, conducted in collaboration with U of A professor David Bressler’s Biorefining Conversions and Fermentation Lab, marks the first time R. toruloides was engineered to produce punicic acid. In their experiments, the researchers genetically modified the red yeast by introducing two key enzymes from pomegranate fruit. When cultured with a sugar solution derived from the wood waste, the yeast strain produced 6.4%  of its total fatty acids as punicic acid. The discovery proves that the strain can produce a high amount of the fatty acid during fermentation, signalling potential for producing it at the commercial level. “We can now look at how to optimize and then scale up the fermentation process,” Wang says. The researchers plan to continue tweaking the yeast strain to boost its punicic acid content and exploring the use of other renewable feedstocks from Alberta’s forestry and agricultural industries, such as sugar beet molasses. It could also have wider-ranging uses, Chen adds. “Beyond producing punicic acid, red yeast could potentially be engineered to produce a variety of other specialty fatty acids, such as omega-3 fatty acids, which have many nutraceutical applications.”

Polish scientists are working alongside an international team to create a forestry robot capable of inventorying trees, counting animals, collecting ticks and scouring the forest floor for archaeological nuggets. Source: TVP World The project, which is a world first, has been jointly undertaken by researchers at Poznań’s University of Life Sciences (UPP) and Adam Mickiewicz University as well as scientists from Italy and Cyprus. With the project still in its infant stages, scientists say that they will design various models and test different sets of sensors before settling on a final version. “For now, we have the idea that this will be a walking robot, with legs similar to an Alpine chamois [a species of goat-antelope found in southern Europe] to enable it to move over steep mountain slopes,” says UPP’s Anna Wierzbicka. Prototypes will be tested on a variety of terrains, including flat ground in central Poland’s Puszcza Zielonka National Park and steep ground in Cyprus. Their sternest test, however, awaits in Italy. “There [they will be tested] on surfaces of varying degrees of difficulty, some of it very bushy, some rocky, some steep,” Wierzbicka told the Polish Press Agency. According to scientists, the robot will relieve the workload of Europe’s dwindling number of foresters and will primarily be used to collect data in the EU’s network of Natura 2000 protected areas. “This requires specialists, and there are fewer and fewer of them,” says Wierzbicka. “Additionally, inventorying such areas is hard fieldwork that also demands knowledge of plants and animals. [The robot] is a response to the decreasing availability of competent staff and would also satisfy the need to reach hard-to-access areas.” Sensors mounted on the robots would allow them to verify the condition of trees and vegetation found in a national park and count and identify all the wild animals they encounter. The robot would also serve ulterior purposes, and the scientists are set to join forces with archaeologists to see how they can develop it to fulfill archaeological functions. “We’re looking forward to working with archaeologists as we still know very little about what or who lies beneath the surface of Poland’s forests,” says Wierzbicka. Furthermore, the team hopes to use the robot to collect ticks to allow for their further study. “Tick-borne diseases are our occupational hazard and a risk we take when entering a forest,” says Wierzbicka. “Ticks are also important for research reasons, so we decided that [enabling the robot to collect ticks] would be an interesting additional element that could contribute to improving our knowledge about them,” she adds. According to Wierzbicka, the first prototype robots will be ready in approximately one year, with the entire 1.5-million-euro project forecast to take three years.

The world is running out of time to halt deforestation and forest degradation. Yet instead of stepping up, the United States is dismantling forest protections and undermining global progress – highlighting the dangers of global forest policy that fails to hold the wealthiest, most powerful countries accountable. Source: The Guardian Unsustainable logging is one of the global north’s best-kept secrets. Each year, millions of acres of old-growth and primary forests across North America, Europe and Australia are clearcut under the guise of “sustainable forest management”. International policy, by design, looks the other way, focusing attention instead on deforestation in the tropics. This double standard allows the world’s wealthiest nations to evade accountability for industrial logging’s catastrophic consequences. It is a system built on the false assumption that the global north behaves responsibly, while scrutiny is reserved for tropical countries. But the latest actions by the US highlight just how dangerous and unbalanced this paradigm is. Donald Trump has taken an axe to forest protections in the US, announcing two executive orders that aim to strip away foundational checks on destructive logging. Under the pretence of national security, the president’s orders aim to gut environmental safeguards and fast-track industrial clearcutting in some of the US’s most precious and climate-critical forests. This aggressive expansion will degrade irreplaceable forests like Alaska’s Tongass national forest – one of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforests. It will also increase carbon emissions and make communities more vulnerable to climate disasters. Meanwhile, as Europe strengthens forest accountability, US state officials are pushing to exempt the country from new deforestation protections. These officials, echoing industry talking points, are urging the EU to exclude US wood products from a law requiring due diligence to prevent imports or exports tied to deforestation or forest degradation. Their argument? That the US doesn’t need oversight. The global north has long dictated the terms of international forest policy, supporting stricter environmental standards on tropical nations while sidestepping accountability at home. Canada, for example, clearcuts over 1.3m acres of forest every year yet claims near zero deforestation through regulatory loopholes. Sweden has marketed its forestry sector as a climate leader while logging threatens its last remaining old-growth forests. But Trump’s latest action clearly shows the current model needs to change. The world needs a more equitable, partnership-driven model of forest protection. In August 2023, the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment called for the creation of a framework to drive more equitable global forest policy. More than 100 environmental organizations echoed this call ahead of last year’s UN climate conference in Dubai. With the next UN climate meeting taking place this year in Belém, Brazil – the gateway to the Amazon rainforest – Brazil has an opportunity to work with other countries to create this new reality. There are some signs of change. The EU is strengthening trade policies to exclude deforestation-linked products. Investors and corporations are aligning with international commitments to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. In Illinois, legislators have introduced a bill to eliminate state procurement tied to deforestation and forest degradation. United Kingdom policymakers recently acknowledged the need to avoid incentives for logging primary and old-growth forests. A fragmented system that arbitrarily evaluates risk differently in the global south and global north is bad for the climate and bad for business. Markets need consistency, and environmental policies should apply universally. For decades, the global north has moulded international forest policy to benefit its logging sector. After marking the International Day of Forests, on 21 March, in this critical year, the global community must seize this moment to shape a new, more equitable, form of global forest governance. The world needs unified standards for all forests that hold all countries, including – especially – the most powerful, accountable.