Publication archives

Eric Herkins sold his mountain home and lived in a tent so he could buy a tree skidder, a machine that can grab and haul logs. The 43-year-old took the bold gamble a few years ago when trees started dying by the thousands as the bark-beetle crisis raced across the San Bernardino Mountains.

Lovely and lissome, the masuku tree rises maybe 35 feet at maturity, its wood the hue of a rare steak, its branches dotted with sweet golfball-size fruits that ferment into a tasty wine. Working just after sunrise atop a small mountain not far from here, Injes Juma and his nine friends needed less than five minutes to sever a masuku at its base and send it crashing to the ground.

California's iconic oak woodlands have endured many assaults over the years--they've been cut for fuel, cleared for vineyards and housing developments, and their seedlings face intense grazing pressure and competition from invasive grasses. But the future will bring a new threat--climate change--which could drastically reduce the areas in which oaks can grow.

The world's second largest rainforest stands a greater chance of being protected after Congo's president finally backed a largely ignored ban on new logging, conservation group Greenpeace said on Friday.

A new study released today in the journal Science shows that areas buffered by coastal forests, like mangroves, were strikingly less damaged by the 2004 tsunami than areas without tree vegetation. This is believed to be the first peer-reviewed empirical and field-based study to document a clear link between coastal vegetation and protection from the tsunami.

Canada must learn quickly how to adapt to climate change in the boreal forest, warns a report released today by a national advisory agency. It could be too hot and dry for trees at the southern limit of the forest, says the report by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, an independent body created by the federal government.

Private timber companies have been getting "green" certifications for the past decade to boost sales among consumers who want to be assured that forests are not harmed by producing the lumber they buy. Now the U.S. Forest Service, battered by court battles over balancing logging against fish and wildlife habitat, is looking into it.

The 2005 wildfire season was declared officially over here the other day. Rain and snow in the mountains have dampened the timber, and the sound of firefighting helicopters and trucks has been replaced by the rifle fire of deer and elk hunters.