News

Protect older natural forests in the western Cascades

Almost 20 years ago, the U.S. Forest Service essentially stopped logging older primeval forests on national forests in Western Oregon and Washington. Its harvests were halted by protests, legal challenges, species impacts and broadening social realizations of the ecological and wildlife benefits of such forests. The agency then switched to thinning plantations it had created after earlier clear-cutting of mature and old-growth forests.

“We All Want Healthy Forests and Salmon Runs; We All Want Clean Water”

The mayor of a small town describes how the partnership known as the Darrington Collaborative is working to bridge the urban-rural divide, restore rivers, and help the local community

From Root to Tap: How Trees Ensure Fresh Water Supply

When you turn on the tap for a drink of water, forests may have played a role in ensuring its supply and safety.

Forest lands furnish more than 50 percent of our nation’s water supply and 65 percent of the supply in the West. In total, this encompasses about 180 million in more than 68,000 communities, including major cities like Los Angeles, Portland, Denver, and Atlanta.

A Breath of Fresh Air: How Trees Help Mitigate Climate Change

Just like humans, trees breathe. But, while humans inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, trees do the opposite: their leaves pull in carbon dioxide, water, and energy from the sun to turn into sugars that feed the tree. This process, known as photosynthesis, emits oxygen. So, through photosynthesis, trees remove climate-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and help us mitigate the effects of climate change.

Guest View: Proposed River Democracy Act a boon for Oregon’s outdoor recreation economy

Fortified by 2,500 Oregonians nominating more than 15,000 streams and rivers, this bill will safeguard for future generations roughly 4,700 miles of our rivers and streams, increasing the percentage of protected waterways from just 2% to 6%. Many celebrate this bill as a victory for Oregon’s plant and wildlife populations and unique landscape — and rightfully so. Rough and Ready Creek — one waterway up for protection — serves as home to the highest concentration of rare plants in Oregon. Silver Creek, another proposed waterway, is one of the most productive native steelhead streams in the Rogue River Basin.

Her tribe tamed wildfires for generations. Their method might surprise you.

The Karuk Native American tribe in northern California says their partnership with the US Forest Service is limiting their ability to do what they view as a crucial part of their culture.

DNR Releases Forest Action Plan; Prioritizes Local Forests And Concerns

The Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) released its 2020 Forest Action Plan this week, outlining more than 100 priority actions to improve and conserve forests across Washington, including goals that support fish and wildlife, rural economies, wildfire response, outdoor recreation, family forestry, urban trees, and clean air and water.

Our land was taken. But we still hold the knowledge of how to stop mega-fires

As wildfires rage across California, it saddens me that Indigenous peoples’ millennia-long practice of cultural burning has been ignored in favor of fire suppression.

The Nature Gap

Clean drinking water, clean air, public parks and beaches, biodiversity, and open spaces are shared goods to which every person in the United States has an equal right both in principle and in law. Nature is supposed to be a “great equalizer” whose services are free, universal, and accessible to all humans without discrimination.1 In reality, however, American society distributes nature’s benefits—and the effects of its destruction and decline—unequally by race, income, and age.

The Greatest Climate-Protecting Technology Ever Devised

“It’s about 70 meters tall and 2.6 meters in diameter,” Bible says, leaning back to take in the behemoth stretching above him. From way down here on the shady floor of the forest, he has no hope of seeing all the way to the tree’s top. But thanks to a 279-foot-high tower that rises above the trees, Bible, who helps manage this site on behalf of the US Forest Service, has had the chance to know this old Doug from above as well as below.