Forests

"Eric Wiersma says there's an 80% chance he'll quit his job helping direct crews to U.S. wildfires if office staff like him are denied new benefits intended for federal firefighters."

"Barely five weeks after the last bout of heavy rain and snow in California's historically wet winter, firefighters on Friday battled the state's first large wildfire of the year in rugged foothills east of Los Angeles."

"When wildfires spread through parts of Northern California wine country in 2017, they melted electronics, combusted cars and exploded propane tanks. The fires sent acrid smoke billowing into the sky, its footprint wafting over the state and extending for 500 miles into the Pacific Ocean."

"The hellbenders’ alarming change in behavior may be linked to deforestation, a new study found."

"The hellbender salamander has been called a lot of things. Snot otter. Mud devil. Old lasagna sides.

And now, perhaps: baby-eating cannibal, according to new research into the parental habits of these giant amphibians.

An eight-year study of hellbenders living in the cold, rocky rivers of southwestern Virginia has found that male salamanders are increasingly consuming their own young in areas near decimated forests.

"Amid the sprawling farmlands of northeast Wisconsin, the Menominee forest feels like an elixir, and a marvel. Its trees press in, towering and close, softening the air, a dense emerald wilderness that’s home to wolves, bears, otters, warblers and hawks, and that shows little hint of human hands. Yet over the last 160 years, much of this forest has been chopped down and regrown nearly three times."

"Air quality across much of eastern North Carolina has reached unhealthy levels in several coastal counties as a 55-square-mile (140-square-kilometer) wildfire burns the Croatan National Forest, the state Department of Environmental Quality said Saturday."

"While Ameen Taylor feels fortunate he has a cooling tree cover in the front and back yards of his Detroit home, he knows it’s a different story for many residents of his hometown where neighborhoods often have little to no shade."

"More than 110 million acres of federally owned forests are old enough to potentially warrant protection as safeguards against climate change, the Biden administration said Thursday in the federal government’s first effort to identify such lands across the country."

"The Biden administration has identified more than 175,000 square miles (453,000 square kilometers) of old growth and mature forests on U.S. government land and plans to craft a new rule to better protect the nation’s woodlands from fires, insects and other side effects of climate change, federal officials planned to announce Thursday."

"The promise to help Brazil protect the Amazon must be approved by Congress, where Republicans are opposed to foreign climate aid."

"WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Thursday will pledge $500 million over five years to fight deforestation in Brazil, a White House official said, in a move that would make the United States one of the largest donors to the global Amazon Fund.