For years now, there have been studies and concerns about mercury levels in our oceans and bodies of water and how they affect aquatic life and consequently those of us that rely on fish and shellfish for sustenance — from children to birds and fish-eating mammals. But these studies hadn’t really examined mercury’s affect on [...]
Yesterday, the state of Michigan celebrated its 175th birthday — it joined the Union on January 26, 1837. Around half this state is covered with forest, about 19 million acres of it. With that amount of forest coverage, it isn’t surprising that Michigan boasts a crazy number of state and national parks and forests. It [...]
As covered in the autumn issue of American Forests, tree rings tell compelling stories. Far from just revealing a tree’s age, they record natural events like volcano eruptions, the history of civilizations like the Roman and Aztec Empires and other moments in time. And, now, they make music. Yes, you read that right: music. German [...]
Wyoming is exactly what I envision as the great American West; a region of the country I have yet to (but want very much want to) visit. The western half of the state is covered by the Rocky Mountains and rangelands, while the eastern part of the state is mostly high-elevation prairie. The state is [...]
We’d like to introduce a new member of the American Forests team and our newest blogger, Melinda Housholder. Moving forward, Melinda will be joining us every third Tuesday to share information specifically on urban forests, aka forests and trees in cities and towns. ~K&M I am excited to have joined American Forests as the Urban [...]
The Amazon rainforest is hitting the news again. I know it’s easy to get worn out hearing about the usually sad goings-on in this most vital of forests, but I find I’m always drawn to these stories. Even with the damage it has sustained, I’m still in awe of the Amazon. For one thing, it’s [...]
Bats. Such a simple word immediately evokes a few distinct images in my brain: running and shrieking humans being swarmed by the flying mammals, a certain playboy billionaire who likes to masquerade as one and some blood-sucking fiends of Transylvania. Unfortunately for our winged friends, false images like these mean that their vital role in [...]
This week, Florida said goodbye to an old friend. A very, very old friend, in fact. The cypress tree — dubbed “The Senator” after Florida State Senator M. O. Overstreet, who donated the property around it to Seminole County in 1927 — was estimated to be around 3,500 years old, making it one of the [...]
I’ve loved lemurs ever since I saw the movie Madagascar in 2005. Two years later, I did a summer internship in Madagascar, working for a nonprofit organization in a remote village on the southern coast. One of the highlights of my summer was when we visited Berenty Reserve, a small private forest along the Mandrake [...]
Last week, NASA Earth Observatory released as series of maps showing the world’s forests, as mapped from three dimensions: area, density and height. Through the work of researchers, we have one of the largest, highest-resolution forest biomass maps ever. Pretty nifty, huh? It is, in terms of the research and technology that went into creating [...]
