Earlier this month at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, scientists presented new projections about wildfire activity over the next few decades — and it doesn’t look pretty. Using NASA satellite data and climate models, scientists estimate that in the next 30-50 years, we will see longer, stronger fire seasons across all regions [...]
By working with partners far and wide, American Forests is able to fund restoration projects from Maine to Hawaii, and even in places as far from our Washington, D.C. offices as Kenya. But some projects are a bit closer to home. Yesterday, Jesse Buff and Megan Higgs, our director and manager of forest restoration programs, [...]
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it’s helped restore more than 2.6 million acres of wetlands habitat in the U.S. through its Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP)! The program began 20 years ago as a way to bring people together to protect, restore and enhance wetlands on private and tribal lands. [...]
The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP18) wrapped up last week in Doha, Qatar. Here’s a recap of what happened. In the final hours of the conference on Saturday, representatives from nearly 200 countries decided on a final deal called the Doha Climate Gateway, an extension of the Kyoto Protocol until 2020 with the hopes of [...]
Forests are workaholics. They do a lot for us. They sequester carbon, mitigating climate change, buffer the flow of nasty pollutants into our waterways, prevent flooding by retaining snowpack and so much more. If forests were people, you might expect this round-the-clock do-gooding to stress them out. But, plant stress is caused not by busy [...]
Have you ever had a connection to an object that’s difficult to explain? Sitting on the mantle in my childhood home is a hunk of rock that on the surface is just a large, heavy, brownish thing. It resembles a trunk; it’s round and tall and polished to a high gloss — and I’ve loved [...]
Tired of hearing about how gridlock in Washington is preventing our country from moving forward on important issues? Well, here’s some good news for you! The Obama administration released the America’s Great Outdoors 2012 Progress Report on Tuesday, and the results look good. Here at American Forests, we support the America’s Great Outdoors initiative (AGO) [...]
In 1904, a forester at the Bronx Zoo in New York discovered a fungus that would eventually spell disaster for eastern forests. Endothia parasitica, later known as Cryphonectria parasitica (or chestnut blight) is believed to have been introduced to America by imported Asian chestnut trees. This disease spread quickly down the East Coast, affecting American [...]
A new report from Headwaters Economics is out that highlights a growing trend: Talented workers are choosing to move to the West. The report, “West Is Best: How Public Lands in the West Create a Competitive Economic Advantage,” identifies the West as 11 states: Arizona, Colorado, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington [...]
I’m dreaming of a white Christmas … and I may have to keep dreaming if the unusually warm temperatures of the past week continue into the rest of the month. And while I know that warm temperatures do not equal climate change evidence exactly, it does feel appropriate on a balmy December day — at [...]
