The culprit is an insect, the 2-3-inch Douglas fir beetle (aka the fir engraver beetle), which gained a foothold in Gila country during the height of the 2003 drought. This is not the first time the forest has suffered a beetle epidemic, and the forest has always done a good job of rebounding. The bad news is that many Douglas fir stands have suffered 100-percent mortality rates as a result of the beetle influx. Another contributing factor of the severity of the beetle infestation is the...

Police reported that all the timber was being transported illegally. A total of 20 career courses will include aqua-culture technology, poultry breeding, flower and ornamental plant horticulture, fine-arts handicraft and household electricity. Police seize eight tonnes of illegal timber. Lightning strike kills two in Thanh Hoa. THANH HOA Two people died and three others were injured when a lightning storm hit Quang Chieu Commune of Muong Lat District in the central province of Thanh Hoa on...

We knew the fire had swept through there, but we didn't know how much of the forest remained. Each night at the meetings, I would hold my breath and close my eyes before the list materialized, as if I could will the fire away from our neighborhood. The fire was still miles from our house and our town, but the smoke-filled landscape outside Lake George was too close for us to be complacent. I unpacked the car, and gradually, over the next few months, stopped watching the sky for the smoke...

In September, the recovery team recommended a spotted owl recovery strategy based on the Northwest Forest Plan, the 1994 federal land management plan still considered the most scientifically credible strategy for balancing conservation and timber production. Their superficial description of the issues apparently is the Bush administration s way of telling the public, in the words of the Great Oz, to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! In September, the recovery team recommended...

The group was well known for its sensational tactics, which included chaining members to bulldozers and inhabiting trees in the middle of proposed timber sales. Last winter, loggers cut another 50 green trees around his home in an effort to open up the canopy a bit to both enhance fire protection and let some sunshine in. Soon after that long, hot season ended, Kreilick and his neighbors began working with the local fire district and Forest Service to start thinning some of the thick...

Forest landowners can gain access to the carbon market by enrolling in a new service provided by Dogwood Carbon Solutions, an enterprise that links Missouri forest and grassland owners with the emerging market for carbon storage (or carbon sequestration) Now, forest landowners can earn a new source of income from their forest landscape: payments for carbon stored by growing trees. In the next four to six months, uneven-aged management, timber stand improvement and other sustainable forest...