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Forest Journalism for a Sustainable Future

USFS researchers monitor sassafras forests for ‘leaps’ of laurel wilt disease

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Sassafras leaves

The scent of a crushed sassafras leaf is unforgettable – sweet, pungent, fragrant. If you have never plucked one of the leaves and rolled it around between your fingers, you should.

But sassafras trees are in danger in Georgia and other coastal states.

“Sassafras is susceptible to laurel wilt disease,” says U.S. Forest Service research mathematical statistician KaDonna Randolph. “The disease has not reached the heart of the sassafras range, but it is spreading throughout the Southeast.”

A nonnative fungus-beetle duo causes laurel wilt disease. The beetle, known as the redbay ambrosia beetle, has mandibular mycangia – pockets of fungus in its mouth. The fungus that causes laurel wilt disease can survive in these pockets.  [Read more…]

Western communities create partnerships to restore forests, protect watersheds

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Smoke from the Schultz Fire rises as the sun sets for the day. Taken 6/20/10 by Brady Smith. Credit: USDA Forest Service, Coconino National Forest.
Smoke from the Schultz Fire rises as the sun sets for the day. Taken 6/20/10 by Brady Smith. Credit: USDA Forest Service, Coconino National Forest.

It was risky, Paul Summerfelt concedes, to ask voters for an unprecedented $10 million bond issue for forest and watershed restoration.

But the greater risk was to do nothing – to wait for the inevitable wildfire that damaged, or destroyed, the city of Flagstaff’s drinking water supply.

So Summerfelt, the city’s wildland fire program manager, took a deep breath and joined his colleagues in local government and the firefighting community and made the request. [Read more…]

National Forest Foundation grant: Sierra Institute to build 3MW heat, power plant

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Sierra institute and partners discuss campus development at the site in Plumas County. Photo: Sierra Institute

The National Forest Foundation on Wednesday announced the winner of the 2016/2017 Barrett Foundation Business Concept Challenge. This unique competition provides awards for the best entrepreneurial approaches that help to solve one or more of the challenges facing America’s 193-million-acre national forest system.

Sponsor Dr. Craig R. Barrett, former chairman and CEO of Intel and current chairman of the NFF’s Board of Directors, described the purpose of this competition as, “stimulating new ideas and cultivating the next generation of entrepreneurial natural resource and business leaders.”

This year’s winner, the Sierra Institute for Community and Environment, submitted an innovative proposal that meets Barrett’s vision of the Challenge.

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Rockin’ the gospel of sustainability: Chuck Leavell launches ‘America’s Forests’

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Keyboardist Chuck Leavell’s new documentary television series, “America’s Forests with Chuck Leavell,” debuted on Oregon Public Broadcasting earlier this month. Photo: chuckleavell.com

Most of us know Chuck Leavell from what he calls his “night job,” as the longtime keyboardist for the Rolling Stones.

But Leavell has another gig, and he attacks it with equal fervor: forestry.

Whether managing his 3,000-acre pine and oak plantation in southern Georgia or touring the country preaching the need for widespread forest restoration, Leavell is a passionate advocate for the use and perpetuation of America’s forests.

Now he’s taking that advocacy another step with the production of a documentary television series, “America’s Forests with Chuck Leavell,” which aired its premiere episode earlier this month on Oregon Public Broadcasting and at the International Mass Timber Conference in Portland. (You can watch it online here.)

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Restoration renaissance: A new paradigm in John Day

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The Corner Cup Coffee House, John Day, Oregon. (Marcus Kauffman/Oregon Department of Forestry)

The remote rural community of John Day, Oregon, is enjoying a restoration renaissance. The only mill left in the county, Malheur Lumber Co., is humming along with 104 employees working extended hours processing a steady supply of logs from federal forest restoration projects. Restoration work has become an economic engine for the community: Careful thinning of smaller trees increases forest resilience while providing additional material for local industry. And the results are real: Local school enrollment has grown from 570 to 615 students, the highest it’s been in fifteen years. Unemployment has fallen from a high of 14 percent in 2012 to 8.9 percent in 2015. Community leaders hope that more jobs will give the younger generation a reason to stay in, or come back to, the community.

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