What does President Biden’s ’30×30′ order aim to protect?
President Joe Biden signed an executive order setting a goal of protecting 30 percent of all U.S. lands and waters by 2030. What does “30×30” mean, and what does it “protect” these lands and waters from? According to the Natural Resource Defense Council, 30×30 is intended to “prevent mass extinctions and bolster resilience to climate…
Forests and the Choices We Make- Episode 1: Mt. St. Helens
On Labor Day, 2020, Oregon witnessed the start of the most destructive wildfire season in recent history, burning nearly one million acres across public and private forest lands in less than a week. Now that the smoke has cleared, our forest sector is pivoting its focus to the future – restoration and regeneration of Oregon’s…
Keep Mt. Hood National Forest Green and Accessible
The Mt. Hood National Forest provides clean water, recreation, forest products, and wildlife to the region. But these values are at risk from large and severe fires. Nearly 200,000 acres of the Mt. Hood National Forest have burned since last year- threatening communities, water supplies and public health. We are also losing access. The US…
Climate Benefits of Forest Management and Harvested Wood Products
In a recent letter to congressional leadership, dozens of scientists urged policymakers to support legislative proposals recognizing forest management and wood utilization as part of the solution to climate change. Their research found wood and wood products, when appropriately deployed, can reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in the built environment, transportation, and manufacturing sectors, “with…
Fuel Reduction Success Story on the Badger Fire
The following is an informational release from the Klamath National Forest and Cal Fire. In the afternoon of July 18, 2020, two fires were reported within the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) Siskiyou Unit’s direct fire protection area in the area of Hawkinsville/Humbug, just north of Yreka, California. Weather conditions were…
Severe fires are taking a toll on our forests, wildlife
Annual land area burned by severe wildfires in the western United States has grown eight times larger in less than four decades. Roughly 210,000 acres burned in 2017, up from 26,000 acres in 1985, in high severity fires that kill more than 95 percent of trees in their path, according to a new study by the U.S.…
Another bad wildfire year for our national forests
This year over 3.8 million acres have burned on U.S. Forest Service-protected lands, an area larger than the size of Connecticut. There have been 6,046 fires on these lands, which is just 13 percent of the 46,466 fires started in 2020. Yet they account for 45 percent of the total acres burned. Records continue…
Thinning and prescribed fire treatments reduce tree mortality
From the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station To date in 2020, 1,217 wildfires have burned 1,473,522 million acres of National Forest System lands in California; 8,486 wildfires have burned over 4 million acres across all jurisdictions in California. This current fire activity comes after forests in the region experienced an extreme drought accompanied…
Rachel Lee Hall: What Happened to Southern Oregon’s Forest in Spring 2020?
Rachel Lee Hall contributed the following article to our web site. She previously contributed her Forest Under Stress research here, her research on Reverse of Sequestration and Forest Under Stress (RSFUS) here, and research on Mega Drought Southern Oregon- Spring 2020 Forest Under Stress (FUS) here. The ecological disaster arrived on time. The disturbance in…