Forests

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to withdraw the previous administration’s rule that slashed millions of acres of critical habitat protections for the northern spotted owl."

"Gusty winds and dry, hot weather are increasing the size of dozens of wildfires scorching vast stretches of Oregon, California and other western states, authorities said on Sunday."

"Many of us struggled to adapt to home working and isolation during the coronavirus pandemic. But the few remaining fire lookouts of the US Forest Service often live and work for weeks at a time on their own, scouring the horizon for any hint of smoke from remote lookout towers."

"Hand crews backed by water-dropping helicopters struggled on Thursday to suppress a huge wildfire that displaced roughly 2,000 residents in southern Oregon, the largest among dozens of blazes raging across the drought-stricken western United States."

"As climate change drives worsening U.S. wildfires, federal firefighters say they are underpaid - and some are leaving".

"The Biden administration announced sweeping protections for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest on Thursday, including an end to large-scale old-growth logging and a proposal to bar road development on more than 9 million acres."

"Lawyers say Todsen Design and Construction’s libel case against two individuals and the Qualicum Beach Preservation Society — each fighting to protect a small coastal Douglas fir forest from development — will test a fairly new provincial law designed to halt strategic lawsuits against public participation".

"The Amazon rainforest is now emitting more carbon dioxide than it is able to absorb, scientists have confirmed for the first time."

"Wildfires that torched homes and forced thousands to evacuate burned across 10 parched Western states on Tuesday, and the largest, in Oregon, threatened California’s power supply."

"As the Pacific Northwest sweltered through a record-breaking heat wave last week, many residents here in America’s least air-conditioned city sought relief under the shade of cedars and maples in city parks. But in some areas of Seattle, that shelter was hard to come by."