• Forests

Biden Administration Moves to Restore Tongass Roadless Rule

• Biden Administration
• Forests
• Tongass

by Amy Lupica, ODP Staff Writer The Biden administration has announced that it will “replace or repeal” a Trump rollback of the Clinton-Era “roadless rule” in the Tongass National Forest. The roadless rule protected 9.4 million acres of the forest, prohibiting road construction and timber harvesting. The Trump administration rolled back the rule in October 2020 to ease […]

• Forests

WWF’s Forests Forward Campaign Helps Businesses Meet Sustainability Goals

• conservation
• Forests
• WWF

by Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer Every day, the world loses an area of tree cover about the size of New York City from deforestation. World Wildlife Fund’s new Forests Forward campaign partners with companies to help improve forest management and trade. Companies like Kimberly-Clark and Lowe’s have already signed on, committing to the program’s […]

• Forests

CI and Dove Team Up to Conserve Sumatra’s Forests

• conservation
• Indonesia
• rainforest
• Sumatra

As conservationist Paul van Nimwegan wrote for Conservation International, Sumatra’s biodiversity is at a critical juncture — widespread forest clearing, wildlife poaching and land-use intensification have put much of the island’s astonishing flora and fauna under considerable threat. About 12 million hectares of Sumatra’s vast forest ecosystem have been cleared in the past 22 years, […]

• Forests

Can Drones Rebuild the Canadian Woods?

• Canada
• carbon sink
• drone
• Fire
• forest
• indigenous knowledge
• logging
• resilience
• trees

In Canada’s British Columbia, a new project plans to replant resilient forests with the combination of Indigenous knowledge and new technology. According to reporting by Grist in partnership with The Tyee, Seed the North will “collect seeds, combine them in biodiverse seedpods, and drop them using drone technology over thousands of acres.” 

Why This Matters: Over the past decades, British Columbia’s forests have been through climate change-fueled droughts, wildfires, and pest infestations.

• Forests

Green Groups Urge Biden Administration to Protect Old Growth Forests

• 30 by 30
• Forests
• old growth forests
• Tongass National Forest

Environmentalists are urging President Biden to prioritize old-growth forests in his plans to protect 30% of all lands and waters by 2030. Following the Trump administration’s attacks on the Tongass National Forest and a devastating wildfire season in California’s old-growth Sequoia forests, advocates say that restoring and improving protections for these massive carbon sinks is crucial to fighting climate change. Meanwhile, tree-planting […]

• Forests

European Arctic Faces Early Wildfire Season, Zombie Fires

• Arctic
• Drought
• heat
• record-high temperatures
• wildfires
• zombie fires

Record hot temperatures are wreaking havoc in northern Europe as wildfires spark in Siberia. Some experts say that this early fire season is the continuance of the 2020 season and that some “zombie fires” were never truly put out. Last week, 1.7 million Siberian residents were put under severe “black sky” air quality warnings due to smoke from nearby wildfires. 

Why This Matters: The Arctic is warming two to three times faster than the rest of the world.