Latest Forest Stories
Climate change appears to be driving accelerated growthSpeed is not a word typically associated with trees; they can take centuries to grow. However, a new study published the week of Feb. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found evidence that forests in the Eastern United States are growing faster than they have in the past 225 years. The study offers a rare look at how an ecosystem is responding to climate change.For more than 20 years forest ecologist Geoffrey...
Well-designed plantations can mitigate social, economic and environmental pressuresNot all plantations need to be the biological deserts that have come to characterize large-scale, industrial plantations. According to scientists in a paper out in February's issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, well-planned plantations can actually alleviate some of the social, economic and ecological burden currently being placed on natural forests.In addition, these biologically...
Forests in northern areas are stunted, verging on the edge of survival. It has been anticipated that climate change improves their growth conditions. A study published last week in Forest Ecology and Management journal shows that due to their genetic characteristics trees are unable to properly benefit from the lengthening growing season. Furthermore, the researchers were surprised to find that the mortality of established trees considerably promotes the adaptation of forests to the changing...
Tropical forest destruction accounts for some 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. But quantifying these emissions has not been easy, particularly for tropical nations. New technology, developed by a team of scientists at Carnegie's Department of Global Ecology, is revolutionizing forest monitoring by marrying free satellite imagery and powerful analytical methods in an easy-to-use, desktop software package called CLASlite. Thus far, 70 government, non-government, and academic...
Call for a Focus on Reducing Emissions from All Land UsesDisagreement over what constitutes a forest could undermine an agreement to protect forests, which is expected to be one of the bright spots at the UN climate change meeting in Copenhagen, according to an analysis by the Alternatives to Slash and Burn (ASB) Partnership for Tropical Forest Margins.While negotiators are struggling to reach consensus in many areas, there is widespread optimism that the conference will produce a framework...
Deforestation in tropical rain forests could have an even greater impact on climate change than has previously been thought. The combined biomass of a large number of small forest fragments left over after habitat fragmentation can be up to 40 per cent less than in a continuous natural forest of the same overall size. This is the conclusion reached by German and Brazilian researchers who used a simulation model on data from the Atlantic Forest, a coastal rain forest in the state of São...
A Smoky Mountain forest's woodland herb population has shown that climate may play a role in how forest understories recover from logging, according to Purdue University research.Despite heavy logging in portions of the forest nearly 80 years ago, the distribution of trillium plants on the secondary forest floor was similar to that of undisturbed areas. Michael Jenkins, a Purdue assistant professor of forestry and natural resources, said that contrasts with a study by other researchers of an...
The Brazilian government said it experienced the smallest loss of its sprawling Amazon rainforest over the past year in more than two decades, attributing the change to its tougher environmental policies, AFP reported. However, the region still lost 2,700 square miles of rainforest between July 2008 and July 2009. Officials said that was 45 percent less than what was lost during the previous 12 month period to inroads by ranchers, loggers and other human development in the planet's largest...
WARREN, Pa., Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- In a petition distributed by the Pennsylvania Oil & Gas Association (POGAM) and Allegheny Forest Alliance (AFA), nearly 2,000 citizens, and civic and business leaders from Elk, Forest, Warren and McKean counties have called for President Obama and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to lift a ban on oil and gas development by the U.S. Forest Service, which effectively has halted drilling on privately owned mineral lands underlying the Allegheny...
Logged rainforests can support as much plant, animal and insect life as virgin forest within 15 years if properly managed, research at the University of Leeds has found.Because trees in tropical climates soak up large amounts of carbon dioxide, restoring logged forest through planting new trees could also be used in carbon trading, according to Dr David Edwards, from University's Faculty of Biological Sciences.Dr Edwards is calling for the inclusion of biodiversity-friendly strategies in...
Latest Forest Reference Libraries
Clearcutting, otherwise known as clearfelling, is a controversial forestry/logging practice in which the majority or all of the trees in an area are uniformly cut down. Clearcutting, in addition to shelterwood and seed tree harvests, is utilized by foresters to construct certain types of forest ecosystems and to encourage select species that require plentiful sunlight or grow in large, even-age stands. Logging companies and forest-worker unions in certain countries support the practice for...
The Amazon Rainforest (known as Floresta Amazônica or Amazônia in Portuguese, and Selva Amazónica or Amazonia in Spanish), also known as Amazonia, or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers almost all of the Amazon Basin in South America. The basin consists of 1.7 billion acres, of which 1.4 billion acres is rainforest. This rainforest covers nine nations (Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana). Brazil contains...
Deforestation is the act or process of removing trees from forested lands by cutting or burning. There are many reasons for deforestation. Logs are sold as a commodity and cleared lands can be used for pastures and human settlements. The damage caused by deforestation, however, can be great. If land is not somewhat reforested it can cause damage to habitats for wildlife and other plant life, affect the aridity of the region, and possibly encourage degradation into wasteland. Due to negligent...
The Cacomistle (Bassariscus sumichrasti) is a nocturnal, arboreal and omnivorous species of mammal that belongs to the family Procyonidae. Its range extends from Mexico to western Panama. Its preferred habitats are wet, tropical evergreen woodlands and mountain forests. It will move seasonally to drier deciduous forests. It is not common in its natural range. It is completely dependent on forest habitat, making it susceptible to deforestation. The term cacomistle is from the Nahuatl...
