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The current hurricane season is capturing most media attention, but Westerners have been living through another nasty season of wildfires. So full marks for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who is reversing years of federal neglect to prevent more fires. Last week Mr. Zinke issued a memo instructing his land managers and park superintendents to use the “full authority” of their bureaus to begin clearing the dead and dying trees and brush that clog federal lands and are a tinderbox for Western wildfires. This is the first time in more than 20 years that Interior will, as the memo notes, “proactively...

Today is World Tiger Day. On this day we remember Iconic Tigresses of the past like Machli of Ranthambore Tiger Reserve in the State of Rajasthan in North - West India. We also remember Iconic Tigresses that are still living like Katrina of Bor Tiger Reserve from Maharashtra State and Collarwali of Pench Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh State. Tigers are Flagship Species of Temperate and Sub- Tropical Forests from Siberia to India.

I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. Psalm 138:2 KJV “We want God”, was the chant of the Polish people when they were calling for their freedom from Soviet oppression during the prayers of Pope John Paul in Warsaw. They did not want money or jobs or handouts they wanted God who represented their freedom just as our forefathers wanted to worship God freely when they sailed to America. It is time for America to go back to God...

The House Natural Resource Committee passed the Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2017 today, mostly along party lines. The bill’s supporters claim it will help mitigate or prevent the spread of wildfire-prone areas by easing restrictions on forest-thinning. Environmentalists, however, note the bill goes too far. They claim it opens the door for the timber industry to move into protected wildlands. They also point to the bill’s delisting of the Cascade-Siskiyou forests as a national monument, potentially marking the first monument rescinded per Trump’s executive order. The bill will go before the full House for a vote, expected by August...

Judge T. Henley Graves Image from capegazette.com A year ago, the Bridgeport Rifle and Pistol Club filed suit against the state against the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. The suit is designed to enforce Article 1, Section 20 of Delaware's Constitution. From ballotpedia.com: A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and State, and for hunting and recreational use. The departments mentioned ban the possession of guns from public parks and state forests, unless the person is actually hunting with a valid hunting...

A green energy project has some environmentalists seeing red. Solar energy ordinarily wins praise from groups that want to cut greenhouse gases, but a proposed solar project at a defunct Long Island nuclear power plant has stirred outrage because it requires demolishing 350 acres of woodlands.

As an Alaskan, I am flattered that this year's Capitol Christmas tree comes from our own Chugach National Forest. Selected by the U.S. Forest Service for its perfect, conical shape and evenly dispersed branches, the 74-foot Lutz spruce is a statuesque symbol, for sure. But it symbolizes much more than holiday cheer.

Whether, how, and why forest stands have changed their growth patterns over the last century are still hotly disputed questions The world’s great forests have long been recognized as the lungs of the earth. They fix carbon and produce oxygen. So it should come as a pleasant surprise to hear that there are over three trillion trees on earth, according to a new assessment. The figure is more than seven times as big as the previous best estimate, which counted perhaps 400 billion at most. It has been produced by Thomas Crowther and colleagues, from Yale University, who combined a...

The global extent and distribution of forest trees is central to our understanding of the terrestrial biosphere. We provide the first spatially continuous map of forest tree density at a global scale. This map reveals that the global number of trees is approximately 3.04 trillion, an order of magnitude higher than the previous estimate. Of these trees, approximately 1.39 trillion exist in tropical and subtropical forests, with 0.74 trillion in boreal regions and 0.61 trillion in temperate regions. Biome-level trends in tree density demonstrate the importance of climate and topography in controlling local tree densities at finer scales, as well...

Every so often you will see articles warning that some species is going extinct. And usually it's not really a species -- you never hear about "leopards" going extinct, usually it's "purple dotted left handed bisexual Nepalese leopards" or some subvariety.  We are assured they are going extinct because fewer have been seen recently. But the Earth is so big, how can we really be sure that some subspecies is going extinct just because we see fewer of them? After all, only three percent of the land mass of the Earth is urbanized. Animals could easily be hidden in...

It seems that scientists were a little off in calculating the number of trees on the planet. You remember trees: they turn CO2 into oxygen and water. In fact, if you buy a “carbon credit,” you are paying to plant trees to buy an indulgence for your private jet travel -- just like Al Gore and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. supposedly do. Well, all those calculations of doom over purported CO2-caused global warming may be a little more unsettled. The Wall Street Journal reports:

There are just over three trillion trees in the world, a figure that dwarfs previous estimates, according to the most comprehensive census yet of global forestation. Using satellite imagery as well as ground-based measurements from around the world, a team led by researchers at Yale University created the first globally comprehensive map of tree density. Their findings were published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. A previous study that drew on satellite imagery estimated that the total number of trees was around 400 billion. The new estimate of 3.04 trillion is multiple times that number, bringing the ratio of trees...

The global map of tree density at the square-kilometer pixel scale. Credit: Crowther, et al A new Yale-led study estimates that there are more than 3 trillion trees on Earth, about seven and a half times more than some previous estimates. But the total number of trees has plummeted by roughly 46 percent since the start of human civilization, the study estimates. Using a combination of satellite imagery, forest inventories, and supercomputer technologies, the international team of researchers was able to map tree populations worldwide at the square-kilometer level. Their results, published in the journal Nature, provide the most comprehensive...

Oregon is in the midst of its third consecutive summer of severe forest fires, and industry professionals say logging limits on federal land are largely to blame. The fires have already made their costs felt, as the Oregon Department of Forestry has already spent an estimated $25 million to date on this year’s blazes. This comes on the heels of two consecutive severe seasons in 2013 and 2014, the former of which was the most destructive wildfire season in the state’s history.

I'm writing on a story I heard about the spread of the Burmese python in Florida. This is also my first post on this site. Despite all our objections against the dangers of blind and excessive "green" regulations by the federal government, conservationism SHOULD NOT be seen as a strictly progressive movement. In the context of invasive species, these types of pests infest an area the size of Delaware every year in this country (according to the Audubon Society). Pythons roam the Everglades. Chinese privet chokes out vital understory species in the Southern uplands. Zebra mussels crust the surface of...

Hungry for a means to supplement is budget, the US Forrest Service is proposing new regulations that would allow it to charge visitors $1500 if they want to take pictures in wilderness areas. Liz Close, the Forest Service’s acting wilderness director, called the new fees “essential to our mission. These wilderness areas belong to the government. Why shouldn’t we get revenue from what is our property?” Close warned against thinking that “these areas are too vast for us to enforce collection. We are watching from both the ground and the air. Rangers randomly patrol with orders to seize any cameras...

How do you turn hundreds of thousands of acres of smallish trees into a profitable product? If you’re the Campbell Group, contractors for the Four Forests Restoration Initiative, you do it the old-fashioned way: Convert timber into lumber. Company officials say they will forgo more costly biofuel efforts for now as they prepare to thin 300,000 acres of northern Arizona forests. But the company faces a challenge even larger than the small trees. The logging industry has all but vanished from this region of the country. To thin that many acres, they’ll need drastically more loggers, trucks and mills. At...

Americans know the importance of forests to our communities and our economy. They provide jobs and recreational opportunities, filter our air and water, and make up essential habitat for wildlife and natural resources. But increasingly, we’re also recognizing that forests play an important role in mitigating climate change. Recently, President Obama announced a Climate Action Plan to reduce carbon pollution, prepare for the impacts of climate change on our communities and economy, and lead international efforts to combat global climate change. This plan recognizes that America’s forests play a critical role in addressing carbon pollution, absorbing as much as 14...

A new study has warned that Europe’s forests are showing signs of reaching saturation point in their ability to absorb carbon dioxide. … Forests currently soak up about 10 percent of Europe’s emissions, but woodlands from Spain to Sweden are getting older and are packed with trees that are less efficient at soaking them up. … The information comes in a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. …

Environmental activists constantly pressure government agencies to intervene in the lives of others, whether it is telling them how to run their businesses, where they can build their homes, or what types of food they can and cannot eat, among countless other examples. Another area activists are increasingly focusing on is forest management, telling tree farmers how they should manage their land. Common sense would tell you that a one-size-fits-all system of land management would not fit the diverse landscapes of the U.S., in terms of climate, elevation, and many other variables. Unfortunately, common sense is not that common among...