The Trump administration’s plan to make it easier for industry to frack and mine in national forests would endanger the climate, wildlife and watersheds, the Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation groups said in comments submitted Monday to the U.S. Forest Service. “The Forest Service shouldn’t be complicit in the Trump administration’s assault on […]
The following is a joint statement from Global Justice Ecology Project, Indigenous Environmental Network, Rural Coalition, Biofuelwatch and Canadian Biotechnology Action Network. In an apparent effort to allay serious public and scientific concerns about contamination threats from genetically engineered (GE) trees, on Aug. 3 researchers at Oregon State University claimed they had genetically engineered sterility […]
Imran Khan, who’s set to become Pakistan’s next prime minister, has a goal of planting 10 billion trees across the country in five years, Climate Change News reported. The former cricket star’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), won last week’s elections and campaigned on several environmental initiatives. This ambitious pledge builds on Khan’s Billion Tree […]
When researchers set out to investigate the structure, growth and age of Africa’s iconic baobab trees—the largest and longest-living flowering trees in the world—they received a devastating surprise. Many of the oldest, largest baobabs were dead or dying. The final study, published in Nature Plants Monday, reported that nine of the 13 oldest and five […]
By Dan Nosowitz A recent study from the USDA’s Forest Service used aerial imagery to take a look at the change in tree cover in the U.S.’s cities and towns over a five-year period, from 2009 to 2014. What they found is staggering: each year over that period, non-rural areas lost 36 million trees. From […]
The benefits of trees are incalculable, from providing oxygen and cooling our streets with shade, to helping us relax and connect with nature. But in a world experiencing increasingly extreme weather, many tree species are at risk. For instance, last year’s devastating hurricanes—Harvey, Irma and Maria—snapped and downed innumerable trees, altering treasured landscapes in Texas, […]
By Mikaela Weisse and Katie Fletcher This edition of Places to Watch examines forest clearing detected between Nov. 9, 2017, and Jan. 31, 2018 in Indonesian Papua, Cameroon and Brazil. Due to occasional cloud cover that can obscure satellite recognition, some loss may have occurred earlier. Oil Palm Plantation Encroaching on Primary Forest in Indonesian […]
One sapling at a time, thousands of volunteers planted trees in Portugal’s oldest forest burned by last year’s devastating wildfires. Around 3,000 volunteers planted roughly 67,500 pine trees in the Leiria forest in central Portugal on Sunday. Cidalia Ferreira, the mayor of Marinha Grande, a municipality in the Leiria district, noted that the effort was […]
Trump Forest—a global reforestation project aiming to offset President Trump‘s anti-climate policies—has reached 1 million trees after thousands of pledges from around the world. Trump Forest was launched just under a year ago after POTUS announced he was pulling the U.S. from the Paris agreement. “Thanks to you guys, you’ve pledged more than a million […]