Forests

"The Biden administration on Monday said the government will plant more than one billion trees across millions of acres of burned and dead woodlands in the U.S. West, as officials struggle to counter the increasing toll on the nation’s forests from wildfires, insects and other manifestations of climate change."

"Major wildfires in Europe are starting earlier in the year, becoming more frequent, doing more damage and getting harder to stop. And, scientists say, they’re probably going to get worse as climate change intensifies unless countermeasures are taken."

"Alaska is burning this year in ways rarely or ever seen, from the largest wildfire in a typically mainly fireproof southwest region to a pair of blazes that ripped through forests and produced smoke that blew hundreds of miles to the the Bering Sea community of Nome, where the normally crystal clear air was pushed into the extremely unhealthy category."

"A destructive wildfire near Yosemite National Park burned out of control through tinder-dry forest on Sunday and had grown into one of California’s biggest blazes of the year, forcing thousands of residents to flee remote mountain communities."

"Wildfires are increasing in frequency and intensity in many countries, spreading smoke that contains noxious gases, chemicals and particulate matter and carries serious health risks. More toxic than air pollution, wildfire smoke can linger in the air for weeks and travel hundreds of miles."

"Environmental criminals in the Brazilian Amazon destroyed public rainforests equal the size of El Salvador over the past six years, yet the Federal Police — the Brazilian version of the FBI — carried out only seven operations aimed at this massive loss, according to a new study."

"A burn scar in Northern California offers an unsettling glimpse into what forests across the Sierra Nevada could become. Bare tree carcasses are strewn across the dun-colored hills. Rock outcroppings jut out like bones."

"African leaders will gather in the Rwandan capital this week for the first continent-wide meeting to set out plans for the conservation of nature across Africa."

"France scrambled more water-bombing planes and hundreds more firefighters to combat spreading wildfires that were being fed Monday by hot swirling winds from a searing heat wave broiling much of Europe. In Spain, two people have been killed in blazes there."