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Forest Journalism for a Sustainable Future

Larch beetle explosion one of 1st signs of climate change in Minnesota’s forests

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Troy Holcombe, a forester with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, looked for tamarack trees damaged by larch beetles. The native bugs’ population is exploding as the warm season grows longer. Photo: Josephine Marcotty/Star Tribune

Every week brings new reports of ecological changes brought about by the Earth’s changing climate – everything to the effects of rising sea levels to the extinction, or explosion, of the globe’s plant and animal species.

That includes tiny insects not previously on the radar of most Minnesotans.

“Eastern larch beetles, tiny burrowing bugs native to Minnesota, are exploding in number across the state’s northern forest and have killed or damaged about a third of the state’s tamarack trees — one of the first clear signs of a rapidly changing climate,” wrote Josephine Marcotty in a recent Minneapolis Star Tribune story. [Read more…]

Acorn woodpecker at risk as its favored crop, and the climate, change

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An acorn woodpecker at a granary tree in California. The species is highly dependent on the abundance of acorns, which varies from year to year. Photo by Todd Steckel via Birdshare.

Climate change will, ultimately, affect every creature on this planet.

And the changes will be more complex and multi-layered than most of us can comprehend – at least until we see them with our own eyes.

I was reminded of this recently while reading a trio of research reports about acorn woodpeckers, a wondrous species common along the Pacific Coast and in the southwestern United States. [Read more…]

Deadly Gatlinburg fire fueled by ‘exceptional’ drought in southeastern U.S.

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The Drought Monitor issued Nov. 29 showed “exceptional drought”, the highest category, for the Gatlinburg area and large sections of Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Map: NOAA

Of the dozens of wildfires that burned across the southeastern United States last November and December, none was more devastating than the Chimney Tops 2 Fire in Tennessee.

Fanned by strong winds on the afternoon of Nov. 28, the fire grew to more than 17,000 acres, leaving Great Smoky Mountains National Park and raging through the city of Gatlinburg.

Fourteen people were killed, 145 were injured; 1,711 residences and 42 commercial properties were destroyed in Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and the surrounding area. [Read more…]

“Fire dominoes:” Tennessee prof warned of potential Gatlinburg disaster

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For years, Henri Grissino-Mayer warned that Gatlinburg, Tennessee, was “made to burn.”

Henri Grissino-Mayer

The surrounding Great Smoky Mountains National Forest was overstocked with fuel and all of Gatlinburg’s homes and tourist cabins were made of wood, the professor warned. If a wildfire reached the surrounding forests, and then the town, there would be a disaster.

For years, Grissino-Mayer was ridiculed and scorned.

Then came the last week of November 2016 and the Chimney Tops 2 inferno. [Read more…]

Penn State researcher: Fire exclusion takes toll on Eastern U.S. forests

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Eastern forests, after many decades of fire suppression, when faced with prolonged drought, are more vulnerable to hotter-burning, terribly destructive wildfires, according to a researcher in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. Photo: U.S. Forest Service

Western wildfires are the headline grabbers, but forests in the eastern United States are also fire-dependent and increasingly at risk because of fire exclusion, according to a researcher at Penn State University.

“Many people have been lulled into believing that it is just the West that is prone to devastating wildfires, but that’s not true,” said Marc Abrams, professor of forest ecology and physiology, who for three decades has studied the historic role of fire in Eastern forests.

“Fire has played an important role historically in the forest ecosystem in the eastern United States, but the balance created by frequent — but not catastrophic — forest fires was upset by the Smokey Bear fire suppression regimen beginning in the late 1940s. Now, Eastern forests, when faced with prolonged drought, are more vulnerable to hotter-burning, terribly destructive wildfires.” [Read more…]