Check out what’s happened this week in forestry news!
The recently approved Yaguas National Park will be located in the northern region of Loreto in Peru. The expanse of rainforest it encompasses — about the same size as Yellowstone National Park — is home to a diverse wildlife population. In addition to conserving the region’s biodiversity, the Peruvian government intends to protect the sacred lands of the indigenous communities in the area.
Los Angeles needs open space for wildlife and for our sanity – Los Angeles Times
An issue that arises with the expansion of residential developments in Los Angeles is the threat of losing open, undeveloped land. The combined efforts of Citizens for Los Angeles Wildlife and Laurel Canyon Association were able to preserve open space by raising money to buy a mountain ridge in Hollywood Hills. In the Santa Ana and Santa Monica mountain areas, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s process for issuing “depredation permits” to residents has been changed to give mountain lions a three-strike policy.
In this interview, longtime forester Randy Rogillio discusses the importance of responsible forest management techniques. By sustainably harvesting forests, the overall health of the forests can be maintained while also using the harvested wood to serve numerous products, such as lumber, paper, and fuel pellets. He explains the process of “thinning,” and how the by-products of this process are turned into wood pellets for the biomass industry. He also explains the aftercare of harvested forests.
According to a recent study, the reason that California’s rare spotted owls are abandoning breeding territories after intense wildfires is due to post-fire logging, not the actual fires. In the aftermath of wildfires, the remains of the forest attract small mammals, which the owls then hunt. While the spotted owls have evolved to survive off the remnants of wildfires, the growing practice of post-fire logging threatens their livelihood.
Europe’s lost forests: Coverage has halved over 6,000 years – Science Daily
In a study published in Nature’s Scientific Reports, scientists analyzed pollen samples from various locations and determined that most of Europe was once covered by trees. The study aims to establish how Europe’s forests have changed over the past 11,000 years. Researchers hope the data collected for this study can be used to understand how future forestry techniques may influence wildlife habitat changes.