See Australia’s plans for Urban Forests and stay informed on California’s wildfires in this week’s Forest Digest!

• Urban forest creation guide unveiled in Melbourne in bid to increase Australia’s green spaces – CBS Australia
  Melbourne’s city council released a guide to urban forestry in Australia as part of a Victorian government-backed campaign to increase green spaces in cities by 20 percent by 2020.

• Lax rules put Congo’s forests, key carbon reserve, at risk – EurekAlert
  A new study from the University of Vermont projects a loss of up to 20 percent of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s forests in the absence of stricter regulations over the next decades.

• California drought fueling wildfire flames – CBS Alerts
  Fighting wildfires, like the recent Sterling fire in the San Bernandino Mountains of California, is becoming harder and harder as the “extreme” drought has dried up most of the water sources used to extinguish the flames, officials state.

• Stanford researchers seek least destructive balance of agriculture vs. forests – Stanford News
  Four Stanford researchers recently released a study describing how to optimally clear forest areas for the most agricultural space with the least amount of damage to carbon storage and biodiversity.