• Forests

Hundreds of CA’s Giant Sequoias Destroyed By Wildfires

• carbon sink
• Castle Fire
• climate change
• Fire
• forest
• Sequoias

Hundreds of giant sequoia trees were killed in the Castle Fire in California, according to experts. Despite being naturally resistant to fire, sequoias, the world’s most massive trees, the intensity of recent wildfires has done more damage than the trees can handle.

Why This Matters: The fiery death of these trees is a canary in a coal mine.

• Forests

Deforestation Rises in the Amazon

• Amazon
• Bolsonaro
• deforestation
• wildfire

by Natasha Lasky, ODP Contributing Writer In October, deforestation rose in the Amazon for the first time in four months. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, has refused to take action against logging in the Amazon calling the act “cultural” and expressing that it “will never end.” Yet this year, from July to September, logging slowed because […]

• Forests

Building Fire-Resistant Green Space

• Almeda Fire
• logging
• Oregon
• restoration
• US Forest Service
• wildfire

Earlier this fall, when the Almeda Fire tore through southern Oregon, the Bear Creek Greenway became a tunnel of flames. As Next City reports, restored native ecosystems “burned at a much lower intensity, making [the fire] less destructive, less dangerous to fight, and slower to spread into adjacent neighborhoods.” 

Why This Matters: Because of climate change, fires are becoming bigger and more intense, as this year devastatingly showed.

• Forests

The Case Against Indiscriminate Forest Clearing in the PNW

• forest management
• Forests
• Oregon
• Pacific Northwest
• Washington

After a devastating wildfire season in the Pacific Northwest, the U.S. Forest Service proposed a plan to remove existing restrictions on cutting down large trees on public lands east of the Cascades in Oregon and Washington. However, recently published research suggests that cutting down these big trees will greatly decrease the amount of carbon stored […]

• Forests

A Canadian Model for Sustainable Land Management

• Canada
• First Nations
• Forests
• Great Bear Rainforest
• indigenous people
• timber

by Ashira Morris From fishery management to forest protection, the environmentalist vs. industry frame is often a roadblock to sustainable practices. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In Canada, environmentalists, logging companies, and First Nations people came together to create a management plan for the Great Bear Rainforest. This stretch of the British […]

• Forests

“Season Creep” is Affecting Fall Folliage

• climate change
• fall
• foliage
• invasive species

If you’ve ever noticed that there’s something off about the timing and duration of fall foliage where you live–you’re not imagining things! As with many ecological processes, human activity is shifting the arrival of our seasons through what’s described as “season creep.“ As the Washington Post wrote this past weekend: “Human activities transform not just […]