USA

China has come to the rescue for many sawmills and timberland owners in the US and Canada the past year.

The challenge to delegates at United Nations (UN) climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico was to “Show Cancun Can!”. And for forests, Cancun did!

Timberland and timber REIT (real estate investment trust ) investors continue to wade through "erroneous and underreported analysis in financial outlets" writes Forisk blog which is a forest economics research firm. In a recent article Weyerhaeuser , now structured as a REIT, was called the worst performers in S&P. The Forisk blog show the comparative performance of the three publicly traded timber REITs: Plum Creek (PCL), Rayonier (RYN), Potlatch (PCH); and Weyerhaeuser. Read blogg

There are also reports far more positive about Weyerhaeuser

BOCA RATON, USA, Jan 06, 2011 - Patriot Rail Corp. (“Patriot”), a privately-held short line and regional freight railroad holding company, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of the six short line railroads belonging to Weyerhaeuser Company, effective December 30, 2010. This acquisition, the largest for Patriot to date, brings to 13 the number of short line railroads currently owned by Patriot Rail.

On December 15 2010, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released all the documents necessary to kick off the implementation of the Biomass Crop Assistance Program. Biomass conversion facilities can now apply for qualifying status.