ABC News – The Biden administration moved on Tuesday to conserve groves of old-growth trees on national forests across the U.S. and limit logging as climate change amplifies the threats they face from wildfires, insects and disease. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the agency was adopting an “ecologically-driven” approach to older forests — an arena… Continue reading US moves to protect old growth forests as climate change threatens their survival
Author: White Oak
Scientists issue warning against commercial tree-planting schemes: ‘We should shift focus’
Yahoo – One strategy that is being implemented to combat the ongoing overheating of our planet may actually be doing more harm than good, scientists have warned. A new study on commercial tree-planting schemes discovered a variety of unintended consequences. The problem is that many of these initiatives simply try to plant as many trees as… Continue reading Scientists issue warning against commercial tree-planting schemes: ‘We should shift focus’
Timber harvests climb in national forests
Politico Pro – The Forest Service harvested more timber in fiscal 2023 than it has for years, but still fell short of the agency’s annual target. National forests yielded 2.9 billion board feet of cut timber, and 3.1 billion board feet in sales, the Forest Service said. Timber industry groups said the numbers reflect progress… Continue reading Timber harvests climb in national forests
Forests with multiple tree species are 70% more effective as carbon sinks than monoculture forests, study finds
Phys.org – Compared to single-species forests, mixed forests are more resilient to pests, diseases, and climatic disturbances, which increases their long-term carbon storage potential. The delivery of other ecosystem services is also greater in mixed species forests, and they support higher levels of biodiversity. Story at Phys.org
We save Arizona’s forests by keeping their largest trees
AZ Central – Decades ago, the logging industry had it backward, removing old-growth trees while leaving the small ones. That’s no longer the case. A coalition of stakeholders, including some former adversaries, came together to fundamentally rethink how we manage ponderosa pine forests in Arizona. Recognizing the need to correct course and safely restore natural… Continue reading We save Arizona’s forests by keeping their largest trees
DNA mapping begins a long road to recovery for endangered Tennessee fish
News Channel 9 – In 2018, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a draft recovery plan for the Cumberland Darter, a pencil-shaped, three-inch fish whose range has been reduced to just a handful of streams in Southeast Kentucky and Northeast Tennessee, including in the Jellico Mountains. The Cumberland Darter’s precipitous decline was caused by… Continue reading DNA mapping begins a long road to recovery for endangered Tennessee fish
Forest ‘thinning,’ aka logging, is not going to save us from wildfires
Seattle Times – Thirty years ago, fuels-reduction work in the national forests to prevent mega-fires was promoted like a religious revival. It involved logging projects focusing on thinning forests to mitigate the damage caused by past timber cutting and fire suppression. But after years of analysis of “fuels-reduction” projects, the painful facts have arrived. Let’s… Continue reading Forest ‘thinning,’ aka logging, is not going to save us from wildfires
Forests Are Worth More Than Their Carbon, a New Paper Argues
Inside Climate News – In a peer-reviewed opinion paper published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, University of Oxford researchers point out that, although carbon sequestration is a valuable tool for climate action, large-scale tree planting projects often lack biodiversity, which can make them ineffective climate mitigations. The authors warn against using carbon as the sole metric… Continue reading Forests Are Worth More Than Their Carbon, a New Paper Argues
Study shows replanting logged forests with diverse mixtures of seedlings accelerates restoration
Phys.org – Satellite observations of one of the world’s biggest ecological experiments on the island of Borneo have revealed that replanting logged forests with diverse mixtures of seedlings can significantly accelerate their recovery. The results revealed that plots replanted with a mixture of 16 native tree species showed faster recovery of canopy area and total… Continue reading Study shows replanting logged forests with diverse mixtures of seedlings accelerates restoration
Conservation groups sue Forest Service for logging proposal near Yellowstone National Park
Daily Montanan – Three conservation groups have filed a lawsuit seeking to stop a United States Forest Service plan for a large logging project near Yellowstone National Park that they say puts several threatened or endangered species in even more danger. The groups said that the Forest Service is refusing to identify the locations, timing… Continue reading Conservation groups sue Forest Service for logging proposal near Yellowstone National Park