Month: May 2020

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.     

Franklin D. Roosevelt

From the New York Times:

We can know those trees in their full glory thanks only to literature and memory. There you encounter chestnuts so abundant that in spring, the tree’s creamy, threadlike flowers “like foaming waves rolled down the mountainsides,” as Lucille Griffin, executive director of the American Chestnut Cooperators’ Foundation, once wrote, channeling her grandfather’s recollections. In fall, the tree would erupt again, this time in spiny burrs sheltering sweetness. “When chestnuts were ripe I laid up half a bushel for winter,” an exuberant Thoreau writes in “Walden.” “It was very exciting at that season to roam the then boundless chestnut woods of Lincoln.”

Read more here.

From NPR:

The tree-killer is a bacterium called xylella fastidiosa. Since 2013, it has killed millions of olive trees in Italy and is now threatening those in Spain and Greece. Together, these countries produce 95% of Europe’s olive oil. A recent study projects that southern Europe, already crushed by the coronavirus pandemic, could lose at least $22 billion over the next 50 years, if xylella spreads.

“There is no cure,” says Maria Saponari, a plant virologist at the Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection in Italy, “and the disease spreads quickly.”

Read more here.

From NASA Earth Observatory:

The strips are forested windbreaks—180-meter (590-foot) wide rows of coniferous trees that help shelter grasslands and animals from Hokkaido’s sometimes harsh weather. In addition to blocking winds and blowing snow during frigid, foggy winters, they help prevent winds from scattering soil and manure during the warmer months in this major dairy farming region of Japan. The thinner, less regular strips are forested areas along streams.

The Japanese government began creating the windbreaks in the 1890s as part of an effort to colonize the area. Rather than planting forested strips, they simply cleared squares into the broadleaf forests that were already there at the time, leaving the windbreaks behind. Planners used a grid pattern inspired by land development and farming practices popular at the time in pioneer areas of the midwestern and central United States.

Read more here.

From the Washington Post:

Frelich is among a small army of scientists working to understand the subtle but unmistakable shifts that are unfolding in one of the nation’s fastest-warming states — shifts that he and others say will become more profound and troubling in the hotter future that lies ahead.

They are running ambitious experiments that simulate rising temperatures with heat lamps and underground wires, use computer models to decipher where certain species might thrive and involve planting trees from as far away as South Dakota that might one day take the place of native species stressed by heat

Read more here.

From Hyperallergic:

The fossilized remains of an ancient forest, dazzling with glints of opal and amethyst, have tempted many a visitor to Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park. Some who pocketed a rock were later guilt-stricken into sending them back, and some even included letters of lamentation and curses. Bad Luck, Hot Rocks: Conscience Letters and Photographs from the Petrified Forest, published in November by the Ice Plant, is a photography and archive project by artists Ryan Thompson and Phil Orr to document these stolen fossils and their woeful apologies.

Read more here.

From BBC Future:

Reforestation is seen as a way to help cool the climate, sucking excess warming carbon out of the atmosphere. But it’s not always that simple.

Read more here.

From the Carleton Voice:

When construction of the new science center, Evelyn M. Anderson Hall, threatened its survival, grounds manager Jay Stadler suggested saving the tree. The oak’s age and central location earned it support from the preservation committee and a decision was made to do what was necessary.

Stadler treated the tree with a root growth regulator to help it through the construction process. And, because not all of the trees around the building could be saved, the construction team used the felled trees to make benches for the building.

From Gray’s Harbor Talk:

In 1945, Simpson loggers had reached the high country of the South Olympics. A new type of camp was planned just south of the Wynoochee Dam. It was to be a place to attract the loggers with their families. The camp was given a name rather than a number: Grisdale, after brothers J. William (1874-1968) and George M. (1872-1929) Grisdale, nephews to founder Sol G. Simpson. Grisdale became a timber transfer station where logs were moved from trucks to flatbed train cars at the Simpson railhead. Former residents are still proud of specialized high country logging techniques they developed on the steep slopes around Grisdale.

Read more here.

From National Geographic:

Today, the Icelandic Forest Service has taken on the mammoth task of bringing back the woodlands. With the help of forestry societies and forest farmers, Iceland’s trees are slowly beginning to make a comeback. Watch this short film by Euforgen to learn more about how their efforts are working to benefit Iceland’s economy and ecology through forestry

Watch the film here.