#forestry — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #forestry, aggregated by home.social.
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🌳
A lot of people don't know this, but trees provide shade AND air conditioning ❄️
This doesn't mean plant them willy-nilly, but that a good, healthy tree in the right place has a *massive* positive benefit. Yay learning!
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Spotted on LinkedIn: 716 of New Jersey’s biggest trees, ranked by size.. From the home page: “Every record comes directly from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Big and Heritage Trees Program, accessed through their public ArcGIS FeatureServer. The state registry of champion and heritage trees is nominated and measured by foresters and volunteers under a national scoring […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/25/716-of-the-biggest-trees-in-new-jersey/ -
Spotted on LinkedIn: 716 of New Jersey’s biggest trees, ranked by size.. From the home page: “Every record comes directly from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Big and Heritage Trees Program, accessed through their public ArcGIS FeatureServer. The state registry of champion and heritage trees is nominated and measured by foresters and volunteers under a national scoring […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/25/716-of-the-biggest-trees-in-new-jersey/ -
Spotted on LinkedIn: 716 of New Jersey’s biggest trees, ranked by size.. From the home page: “Every record comes directly from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Big and Heritage Trees Program, accessed through their public ArcGIS FeatureServer. The state registry of champion and heritage trees is nominated and measured by foresters and volunteers under a national scoring […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/25/716-of-the-biggest-trees-in-new-jersey/ -
Spotted on LinkedIn: 716 of New Jersey’s biggest trees, ranked by size.. From the home page: “Every record comes directly from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Big and Heritage Trees Program, accessed through their public ArcGIS FeatureServer. The state registry of champion and heritage trees is nominated and measured by foresters and volunteers under a national scoring […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/25/716-of-the-biggest-trees-in-new-jersey/ -
Spotted on LinkedIn: 716 of New Jersey’s biggest trees, ranked by size.. From the home page: “Every record comes directly from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Big and Heritage Trees Program, accessed through their public ArcGIS FeatureServer. The state registry of champion and heritage trees is nominated and measured by foresters and volunteers under a national scoring […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/25/716-of-the-biggest-trees-in-new-jersey/ -
Felled
Those of you who have followed me for a while know we get up Lowther Plantation a lot for woodland shot.
Bit of a shock yesterday, felling has been done so the corridors of mossy logs and branches is now churned up tractor trails.
Now don't get me wrong, this is forestry land so is planted for logging, and it is selective felling but still a shock to see the woodland thinned out yesterday 🤥
Lens: Tamron 18-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di III-A VC VXD on a Fujifilm X-T30
#trees #logging #woodland #forestry #logs #photography #photographer #fuji #tamron
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Felled
Those of you who have followed me for a while know we get up Lowther Plantation a lot for woodland shot.
Bit of a shock yesterday, felling has been done so the corridors of mossy logs and branches is now churned up tractor trails.
Now don't get me wrong, this is forestry land so is planted for logging, and it is selective felling but still a shock to see the woodland thinned out yesterday 🤥
Lens: Tamron 18-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di III-A VC VXD on a Fujifilm X-T30
#trees #logging #woodland #forestry #logs #photography #photographer #fuji #tamron
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Felled
Those of you who have followed me for a while know we get up Lowther Plantation a lot for woodland shot.
Bit of a shock yesterday, felling has been done so the corridors of mossy logs and branches is now churned up tractor trails.
Now don't get me wrong, this is forestry land so is planted for logging, and it is selective felling but still a shock to see the woodland thinned out yesterday 🤥
Lens: Tamron 18-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di III-A VC VXD on a Fujifilm X-T30
#trees #logging #woodland #forestry #logs #photography #photographer #fuji #tamron
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Felled
Those of you who have followed me for a while know we get up Lowther Plantation a lot for woodland shot.
Bit of a shock yesterday, felling has been done so the corridors of mossy logs and branches is now churned up tractor trails.
Now don't get me wrong, this is forestry land so is planted for logging, and it is selective felling but still a shock to see the woodland thinned out yesterday 🤥
Lens: Tamron 18-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di III-A VC VXD on a Fujifilm X-T30
#trees #logging #woodland #forestry #logs #photography #photographer #fuji #tamron
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Felled
Those of you who have followed me for a while know we get up Lowther Plantation a lot for woodland shot.
Bit of a shock yesterday, felling has been done so the corridors of mossy logs and branches is now churned up tractor trails.
Now don't get me wrong, this is forestry land so is planted for logging, and it is selective felling but still a shock to see the woodland thinned out yesterday 🤥
Lens: Tamron 18-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di III-A VC VXD on a Fujifilm X-T30
#trees #logging #woodland #forestry #logs #photography #photographer #fuji #tamron
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Nature Is Hiring: Why Investing in Biodiversity Means Investing in Jobs
#Biodiversity #Nature #Environment #ClimateChange #GreenJobs #Sustainability #Economy #UNDP #Forestry #NaturePositive #Jobs #RenewableEnergy #EcoTourism #GreenEconomy #Agriculture #ESG
https://the-14.com/nature-is-hiring-why-investing-in-biodiversity-means-investing-in-jobs/ -
Nature Is Hiring: Why Investing in Biodiversity Means Investing in Jobs
#Biodiversity #Nature #Environment #ClimateChange #GreenJobs #Sustainability #Economy #UNDP #Forestry #NaturePositive #Jobs #RenewableEnergy #EcoTourism #GreenEconomy #Agriculture #ESG
https://the-14.com/nature-is-hiring-why-investing-in-biodiversity-means-investing-in-jobs/ -
Nature Is Hiring: Why Investing in Biodiversity Means Investing in Jobs
#Biodiversity #Nature #Environment #ClimateChange #GreenJobs #Sustainability #Economy #UNDP #Forestry #NaturePositive #Jobs #RenewableEnergy #EcoTourism #GreenEconomy #Agriculture #ESG
https://the-14.com/nature-is-hiring-why-investing-in-biodiversity-means-investing-in-jobs/ -
Nature Is Hiring: Why Investing in Biodiversity Means Investing in Jobs
#Biodiversity #Nature #Environment #ClimateChange #GreenJobs #Sustainability #Economy #UNDP #Forestry #NaturePositive #Jobs #RenewableEnergy #EcoTourism #GreenEconomy #Agriculture #ESG
https://the-14.com/nature-is-hiring-why-investing-in-biodiversity-means-investing-in-jobs/ -
Nature Is Hiring: Why Investing in Biodiversity Means Investing in Jobs
#Biodiversity #Nature #Environment #ClimateChange #GreenJobs #Sustainability #Economy #UNDP #Forestry #NaturePositive #Jobs #RenewableEnergy #EcoTourism #GreenEconomy #Agriculture #ESG
https://the-14.com/nature-is-hiring-why-investing-in-biodiversity-means-investing-in-jobs/ -
New spade put to the test. Planted a blueberry bush in the garden, moved a spruce seedling from a hopeless spot by the forest road to my little tree school row and two more maple seedling to the backyard.
The little spruce seedlings are really hard to spot as the grass is much taller than them now. I knew there were several in that area but only found one.
The maples seem to reliably grow their taproot uphill, so when they sprout on a slope its easy to dig them out without severing it. The leaves are easy to spot, too.
-
New spade put to the test. Planted a blueberry bush in the garden, moved a spruce seedling from a hopeless spot by the forest road to my little tree school row and two more maple seedling to the backyard.
The little spruce seedlings are really hard to spot as the grass is much taller than them now. I knew there were several in that area but only found one.
The maples seem to reliably grow their taproot uphill, so when they sprout on a slope its easy to dig them out without severing it. The leaves are easy to spot, too.
-
New spade put to the test. Planted a blueberry bush in the garden, moved a spruce seedling from a hopeless spot by the forest road to my little tree school row and two more maple seedling to the backyard.
The little spruce seedlings are really hard to spot as the grass is much taller than them now. I knew there were several in that area but only found one.
The maples seem to reliably grow their taproot uphill, so when they sprout on a slope its easy to dig them out without severing it. The leaves are easy to spot, too.
-
New spade put to the test. Planted a blueberry bush in the garden, moved a spruce seedling from a hopeless spot by the forest road to my little tree school row and two more maple seedling to the backyard.
The little spruce seedlings are really hard to spot as the grass is much taller than them now. I knew there were several in that area but only found one.
The maples seem to reliably grow their taproot uphill, so when they sprout on a slope its easy to dig them out without severing it. The leaves are easy to spot, too.
-
New spade put to the test. Planted a blueberry bush in the garden, moved a spruce seedling from a hopeless spot by the forest road to my little tree school row and two more maple seedling to the backyard.
The little spruce seedlings are really hard to spot as the grass is much taller than them now. I knew there were several in that area but only found one.
The maples seem to reliably grow their taproot uphill, so when they sprout on a slope its easy to dig them out without severing it. The leaves are easy to spot, too.
-
The next talk in the DiscourseNet Seminar Series on “#Discourse and #Sustainability” will take place on May 29, 1–2 UK pm time.
Salla-Riikka Kuusalu (University of Turku), will talk about “Linguistic constructions of clearcutting in an online forum: Learning from polarised views on #forestry and forest conservation in #Finland”.
For more information on the Seminar Series visit: https://discourseanalysis.net/group/40
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The next talk in the DiscourseNet Seminar Series on “#Discourse and #Sustainability” will take place on May 29, 1–2 UK pm time.
Salla-Riikka Kuusalu (University of Turku), will talk about “Linguistic constructions of clearcutting in an online forum: Learning from polarised views on #forestry and forest conservation in #Finland”.
For more information on the Seminar Series visit: https://discourseanalysis.net/group/40
-
The next talk in the DiscourseNet Seminar Series on “#Discourse and #Sustainability” will take place on May 29, 1–2 UK pm time.
Salla-Riikka Kuusalu (University of Turku), will talk about “Linguistic constructions of clearcutting in an online forum: Learning from polarised views on #forestry and forest conservation in #Finland”.
For more information on the Seminar Series visit: https://discourseanalysis.net/group/40
-
The next talk in the DiscourseNet Seminar Series on “#Discourse and #Sustainability” will take place on May 29, 1–2 UK pm time.
Salla-Riikka Kuusalu (University of Turku), will talk about “Linguistic constructions of clearcutting in an online forum: Learning from polarised views on #forestry and forest conservation in #Finland”.
For more information on the Seminar Series visit: https://discourseanalysis.net/group/40
-
The next talk in the DiscourseNet Seminar Series on “#Discourse and #Sustainability” will take place on May 29, 1–2 UK pm time.
Salla-Riikka Kuusalu (University of Turku), will talk about “Linguistic constructions of clearcutting in an online forum: Learning from polarised views on #forestry and forest conservation in #Finland”.
For more information on the Seminar Series visit: https://discourseanalysis.net/group/40
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🌳
A lot of people don't know this, but trees provide shade AND air conditioning ❄️
Please always be thoughtful when working near one 🌳
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Larger Forest Patches Have Greater Per-Area Productivity
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03075-5 <-- shared paper
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08688-7 <-- shared related paper
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https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2002)052[0411:FFOTCU]2.0.CO;2 <-- shared related paper
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#GIS #spatial #mapping #spatialanalysis #habitat #ecosystems #fragmented #forests #vegetation #carbonstorage #trees #logging #forestry #naturalresources #canopy #soil #moisture #foresthealth #metrics #productivity #carboncapture #contiguous #USA #CONUS #environment #sustainability #model #modeling #AI #machinelearning #geoai #carbonsequestration #forestcover -
Larger Forest Patches Have Greater Per-Area Productivity
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03075-5 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08688-7 <-- shared related paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2002)052[0411:FFOTCU]2.0.CO;2 <-- shared related paper
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #spatialanalysis #habitat #ecosystems #fragmented #forests #vegetation #carbonstorage #trees #logging #forestry #naturalresources #canopy #soil #moisture #foresthealth #metrics #productivity #carboncapture #contiguous #USA #CONUS #environment #sustainability #model #modeling #AI #machinelearning #geoai #carbonsequestration #forestcover -
Larger Forest Patches Have Greater Per-Area Productivity
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03075-5 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08688-7 <-- shared related paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2002)052[0411:FFOTCU]2.0.CO;2 <-- shared related paper
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #spatialanalysis #habitat #ecosystems #fragmented #forests #vegetation #carbonstorage #trees #logging #forestry #naturalresources #canopy #soil #moisture #foresthealth #metrics #productivity #carboncapture #contiguous #USA #CONUS #environment #sustainability #model #modeling #AI #machinelearning #geoai #carbonsequestration #forestcover -
Larger Forest Patches Have Greater Per-Area Productivity
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03075-5 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08688-7 <-- shared related paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2002)052[0411:FFOTCU]2.0.CO;2 <-- shared related paper
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #spatialanalysis #habitat #ecosystems #fragmented #forests #vegetation #carbonstorage #trees #logging #forestry #naturalresources #canopy #soil #moisture #foresthealth #metrics #productivity #carboncapture #contiguous #USA #CONUS #environment #sustainability #model #modeling #AI #machinelearning #geoai #carbonsequestration #forestcover -
Larger Forest Patches Have Greater Per-Area Productivity
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03075-5 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08688-7 <-- shared related paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2002)052[0411:FFOTCU]2.0.CO;2 <-- shared related paper
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #spatialanalysis #habitat #ecosystems #fragmented #forests #vegetation #carbonstorage #trees #logging #forestry #naturalresources #canopy #soil #moisture #foresthealth #metrics #productivity #carboncapture #contiguous #USA #CONUS #environment #sustainability #model #modeling #AI #machinelearning #geoai #carbonsequestration #forestcover -
Transplanted some maples that were growing in the ditch by the road. Technically not ours, but they get mowed down every summer by the road maintenance tractor, so I think they'll like it better out back behind the barns.
Maples here are really crazy. They pop up everywhere and race to height really fast. Even inside the crown of trees. Well adapted.
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Transplanted some maples that were growing in the ditch by the road. Technically not ours, but they get mowed down every summer by the road maintenance tractor, so I think they'll like it better out back behind the barns.
Maples here are really crazy. They pop up everywhere and race to height really fast. Even inside the crown of trees. Well adapted.
-
Transplanted some maples that were growing in the ditch by the road. Technically not ours, but they get mowed down every summer by the road maintenance tractor, so I think they'll like it better out back behind the barns.
Maples here are really crazy. They pop up everywhere and race to height really fast. Even inside the crown of trees. Well adapted.
-
Transplanted some maples that were growing in the ditch by the road. Technically not ours, but they get mowed down every summer by the road maintenance tractor, so I think they'll like it better out back behind the barns.
Maples here are really crazy. They pop up everywhere and race to height really fast. Even inside the crown of trees. Well adapted.
-
Transplanted some maples that were growing in the ditch by the road. Technically not ours, but they get mowed down every summer by the road maintenance tractor, so I think they'll like it better out back behind the barns.
Maples here are really crazy. They pop up everywhere and race to height really fast. Even inside the crown of trees. Well adapted.
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Friday, at long last!
Actually, my week flew by. I spent three days assessing a forest in North Highland.
The weather was at times really cool, then wet, then very warm; often all three in the space of 30 minutes!
The forest was planted on deep peat and , despite the wet and soft ground, I think they have a unique charm, hence I am sharing a few pictures that I took to jog my memory when writing-up my work.
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A grafted mango tree can begin producing fruit years earlier than a seed-grown tree.
That means faster food security, faster shade, and faster ecosystem recovery for schools and communities.
Youth-led grafting projects are climate action in practical form
#Photography #linux #agriculture #fruittrees #activists #gardening #forestry #nature #biodiversity #environment #mastodon #ClimateAction #fediverse #foodproduction #greenland #sustainability #ecology #ecosystem #graftingplants #plants #hunger -
A grafted mango tree can begin producing fruit years earlier than a seed-grown tree.
That means faster food security, faster shade, and faster ecosystem recovery for schools and communities.
Youth-led grafting projects are climate action in practical form
#Photography #linux #agriculture #fruittrees #activists #gardening #forestry #nature #biodiversity #environment #mastodon #ClimateAction #fediverse #foodproduction #greenland #sustainability #ecology #ecosystem #graftingplants #plants #hunger -
A grafted mango tree can begin producing fruit years earlier than a seed-grown tree.
That means faster food security, faster shade, and faster ecosystem recovery for schools and communities.
Youth-led grafting projects are climate action in practical form
#Photography #linux #agriculture #fruittrees #activists #gardening #forestry #nature #biodiversity #environment #mastodon #ClimateAction #fediverse #foodproduction #greenland #sustainability #ecology #ecosystem #graftingplants #plants #hunger -
A grafted mango tree can begin producing fruit years earlier than a seed-grown tree.
That means faster food security, faster shade, and faster ecosystem recovery for schools and communities.
Youth-led grafting projects are climate action in practical form
#Photography #linux #agriculture #fruittrees #activists #gardening #forestry #nature #biodiversity #environment #mastodon #ClimateAction #fediverse #foodproduction #greenland #sustainability #ecology #ecosystem #graftingplants #plants #hunger -
A grafted mango tree can begin producing fruit years earlier than a seed-grown tree.
That means faster food security, faster shade, and faster ecosystem recovery for schools and communities.
Youth-led grafting projects are climate action in practical form
#Photography #linux #agriculture #fruittrees #activists #gardening #forestry #nature #biodiversity #environment #mastodon #ClimateAction #fediverse #foodproduction #greenland #sustainability #ecology #ecosystem #graftingplants #plants #hunger -
Postdoc (m/f/d) in Silviculture and Forest Ecology
4 days left to apply!
1.5 year posting. University of Freiburg
https://uni-freiburg.de/en/job/00004965/ #Forestry #PlantScience #Botany
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“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest”*…
Robert Beauchamp, owner of Sierra Cone, one of the largest cone collection contractors in the West, reaches for a red fir cone outside of Dorrington, California. Nina RiggioDillon Osleger explains that, while the future of Western forests depends on professional pinecone collectors, they’re slowly being starved out of existence…
High in the crown of a giant sequoia, the world becomes a cathedral of green and amber, hushed but for the creak of ancient wood and the sharp, rhythmic snap of cones being pulled from boughs. Dan Keeley, 31, moved around with a practiced, fluid economy, suspended by thin lines of high-tensile rope 200 feet above the ground on the western edge of California’s Sequoia National Park. To his left, the sequoia’s cinnamon-colored bark provided a steady presence as he leaned out over the negative space between branches.
“There is a lot of trust that goes into this work,” Keeley said, speaking over the wind. He eyed a cluster of green, egg-sized cones. “Trust in the trees, predominantly, but also trust in the system — that I’m being sent to the right trees, at the right time, and for the right reason, not all of which are always the case.”
Keeley, a lean, tanned former rock climber and arborist, is what some in the forestry industry call a pinecone cowboy, a freelance contractor hired to harvest the genetic future of Western forests. He climbs trees of important or threatened species to collect ripe cones for seeds intended to be used for reforestation.
Keeley is part of a specialized workforce that’s become the primary resistance against the rapid erasure of a Western landscape. As megafires — fueled by climate change and a century of heavy-handed forest management and fire suppression — incinerate millions of acres in the West, natural regeneration is failing. Cones from serotinous species, which open their scales and drop their seeds in response to low-intensity wildfires on the forest floor, are now incinerated in increasingly common crown fires — high-intensity blazes that leap into the canopy. Meanwhile, other species’ seeds, dropped into the soil by wind and animals like squirrels and birds, are choked underneath layers of ash or outcompeted by invasive shrubs. The future of a relationship between trees and wildfires that has existed for 350 million years now rests on the shoulders of rope-suspended climbers who collect the trees’ cones one 45-liter bag at a time…
[The work, which dates back to the 1930s, is both arduous and precise; the workers, dedicated. But, as Osleger explains, a number of forces– main among them, Federal budget cuts, have taken a huge toll on the effort…]
… The result is an annual reforestation shortfall that is compounding and transforming entire ecosystems. The Forest Service produces 30 million to 50 million seedlings a year, according to American Forests, a mere fraction of the 120-million annual seedling goal the REPLANT Act established. Roughly 80% of those seedlings will survive, while it takes about 220 trees to reforest each burned acre. Altogether, the agency meets just 6% of its post-wildfire planting needs annually, according to its 2022 Reforestation Strategy Report.
And that’s just on Forest Service land: Wildfires on both public and private lands have affected, on average, 7.8 million acres a year over the last decade, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. In California alone, current seedling production and planting rates mean that it would take 15 to 20 years to reforest what has already been lost, while each additional fire “puts us further behind,” said Kuldeep Singh, operations manager of seed production for CAL FIRE. While the Forest Service considers a tract reforested after seedlings survive their first five years, research says that a functioning ecosystem like the one the fire destroyed won’t return for several decades.
When a forest fails to regenerate, either because it wasn’t replanted or because new seedlings didn’t survive, it often becomes scrub-land, in a permanent ecological shift known as type conversion. The new brush-based ecosystem creates a more flammable fuel bed that resists the forest’s return, effectively locking the land into a cycle of fire and scrub. In areas like South Lake Tahoe, California, for example, fields of 8-foot-tall manzanita and buckbrush now dominate hundreds of acres where conifers once stood. In Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and throughout the Southwest, Forest Service research says that high-severity burn areas — which are difficult to regenerate regardless of human intervention — are increasingly repopulated by invasive grasses or the flowering plants called Brassicaceae, which store less carbon and prevent conifers from taking root. This process is permanently altering the hydrology, fire cycle and carbon-sequestration capacity of the West…
More– and more photos– at: “The plight of the pinecone cowboy,” from @highcountrynews.org.
Pair with: “Make Your Own Micro Forest” (“The Miyawaki method of reforestation inserts small, densely packed wild acreage into urban environs. It’s proving wildly successful.”)
* John Muir
###
As we treasure trees, we might recall that it was on this date in 1910 that Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana was established. The park encompasses more than 1 million acres and includes parts of two mountain ranges (sub-ranges of the Rocky Mountains), more than 130 named lakes, more than 1,000 different species of trees and plants, and hundreds of species of animals. Its pristine ecosystem is the centerpiece of what has been referred to as the “Crown of the Continent Ecosystem,” a region of protected land encompassing 16,000 square miles.
The park’s predominantly coniferous forest is home to various species of trees such as the Engelmann spruce, Douglas fir, subalpine fir, limber pine and western larch, which is a deciduous conifer, producing cones but losing its needles each fall.
Mountain goats (the official park symbol) at Logan Pass (source) #culture #forest #forestManagement #forestry #forests #GlacierNationalPark #history #MiyawakiForests #pineconeCowboy #pineconeCowboys #pinecones #politics #Science #trees -
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest”*…
Robert Beauchamp, owner of Sierra Cone, one of the largest cone collection contractors in the West, reaches for a red fir cone outside of Dorrington, California. Nina RiggioDillon Osleger explains that, while the future of Western forests depends on professional pinecone collectors, they’re slowly being starved out of existence…
High in the crown of a giant sequoia, the world becomes a cathedral of green and amber, hushed but for the creak of ancient wood and the sharp, rhythmic snap of cones being pulled from boughs. Dan Keeley, 31, moved around with a practiced, fluid economy, suspended by thin lines of high-tensile rope 200 feet above the ground on the western edge of California’s Sequoia National Park. To his left, the sequoia’s cinnamon-colored bark provided a steady presence as he leaned out over the negative space between branches.
“There is a lot of trust that goes into this work,” Keeley said, speaking over the wind. He eyed a cluster of green, egg-sized cones. “Trust in the trees, predominantly, but also trust in the system — that I’m being sent to the right trees, at the right time, and for the right reason, not all of which are always the case.”
Keeley, a lean, tanned former rock climber and arborist, is what some in the forestry industry call a pinecone cowboy, a freelance contractor hired to harvest the genetic future of Western forests. He climbs trees of important or threatened species to collect ripe cones for seeds intended to be used for reforestation.
Keeley is part of a specialized workforce that’s become the primary resistance against the rapid erasure of a Western landscape. As megafires — fueled by climate change and a century of heavy-handed forest management and fire suppression — incinerate millions of acres in the West, natural regeneration is failing. Cones from serotinous species, which open their scales and drop their seeds in response to low-intensity wildfires on the forest floor, are now incinerated in increasingly common crown fires — high-intensity blazes that leap into the canopy. Meanwhile, other species’ seeds, dropped into the soil by wind and animals like squirrels and birds, are choked underneath layers of ash or outcompeted by invasive shrubs. The future of a relationship between trees and wildfires that has existed for 350 million years now rests on the shoulders of rope-suspended climbers who collect the trees’ cones one 45-liter bag at a time…
[The work, which dates back to the 1930s, is both arduous and precise; the workers, dedicated. But, as Osleger explains, a number of forces– main among them, Federal budget cuts, have taken a huge toll on the effort…]
… The result is an annual reforestation shortfall that is compounding and transforming entire ecosystems. The Forest Service produces 30 million to 50 million seedlings a year, according to American Forests, a mere fraction of the 120-million annual seedling goal the REPLANT Act established. Roughly 80% of those seedlings will survive, while it takes about 220 trees to reforest each burned acre. Altogether, the agency meets just 6% of its post-wildfire planting needs annually, according to its 2022 Reforestation Strategy Report.
And that’s just on Forest Service land: Wildfires on both public and private lands have affected, on average, 7.8 million acres a year over the last decade, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. In California alone, current seedling production and planting rates mean that it would take 15 to 20 years to reforest what has already been lost, while each additional fire “puts us further behind,” said Kuldeep Singh, operations manager of seed production for CAL FIRE. While the Forest Service considers a tract reforested after seedlings survive their first five years, research says that a functioning ecosystem like the one the fire destroyed won’t return for several decades.
When a forest fails to regenerate, either because it wasn’t replanted or because new seedlings didn’t survive, it often becomes scrub-land, in a permanent ecological shift known as type conversion. The new brush-based ecosystem creates a more flammable fuel bed that resists the forest’s return, effectively locking the land into a cycle of fire and scrub. In areas like South Lake Tahoe, California, for example, fields of 8-foot-tall manzanita and buckbrush now dominate hundreds of acres where conifers once stood. In Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and throughout the Southwest, Forest Service research says that high-severity burn areas — which are difficult to regenerate regardless of human intervention — are increasingly repopulated by invasive grasses or the flowering plants called Brassicaceae, which store less carbon and prevent conifers from taking root. This process is permanently altering the hydrology, fire cycle and carbon-sequestration capacity of the West…
More– and more photos– at: “The plight of the pinecone cowboy,” from @highcountrynews.org.
Pair with: “Make Your Own Micro Forest” (“The Miyawaki method of reforestation inserts small, densely packed wild acreage into urban environs. It’s proving wildly successful.”)
* John Muir
###
As we treasure trees, we might recall that it was on this date in 1910 that Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana was established. The park encompasses more than 1 million acres and includes parts of two mountain ranges (sub-ranges of the Rocky Mountains), more than 130 named lakes, more than 1,000 different species of trees and plants, and hundreds of species of animals. Its pristine ecosystem is the centerpiece of what has been referred to as the “Crown of the Continent Ecosystem,” a region of protected land encompassing 16,000 square miles.
The park’s predominantly coniferous forest is home to various species of trees such as the Engelmann spruce, Douglas fir, subalpine fir, limber pine and western larch, which is a deciduous conifer, producing cones but losing its needles each fall.
Mountain goats (the official park symbol) at Logan Pass (source) #culture #forest #forestManagement #forestry #forests #GlacierNationalPark #history #MiyawakiForests #pineconeCowboy #pineconeCowboys #pinecones #politics #Science #trees -
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest”*…
Robert Beauchamp, owner of Sierra Cone, one of the largest cone collection contractors in the West, reaches for a red fir cone outside of Dorrington, California. Nina RiggioDillon Osleger explains that, while the future of Western forests depends on professional pinecone collectors, they’re slowly being starved out of existence…
High in the crown of a giant sequoia, the world becomes a cathedral of green and amber, hushed but for the creak of ancient wood and the sharp, rhythmic snap of cones being pulled from boughs. Dan Keeley, 31, moved around with a practiced, fluid economy, suspended by thin lines of high-tensile rope 200 feet above the ground on the western edge of California’s Sequoia National Park. To his left, the sequoia’s cinnamon-colored bark provided a steady presence as he leaned out over the negative space between branches.
“There is a lot of trust that goes into this work,” Keeley said, speaking over the wind. He eyed a cluster of green, egg-sized cones. “Trust in the trees, predominantly, but also trust in the system — that I’m being sent to the right trees, at the right time, and for the right reason, not all of which are always the case.”
Keeley, a lean, tanned former rock climber and arborist, is what some in the forestry industry call a pinecone cowboy, a freelance contractor hired to harvest the genetic future of Western forests. He climbs trees of important or threatened species to collect ripe cones for seeds intended to be used for reforestation.
Keeley is part of a specialized workforce that’s become the primary resistance against the rapid erasure of a Western landscape. As megafires — fueled by climate change and a century of heavy-handed forest management and fire suppression — incinerate millions of acres in the West, natural regeneration is failing. Cones from serotinous species, which open their scales and drop their seeds in response to low-intensity wildfires on the forest floor, are now incinerated in increasingly common crown fires — high-intensity blazes that leap into the canopy. Meanwhile, other species’ seeds, dropped into the soil by wind and animals like squirrels and birds, are choked underneath layers of ash or outcompeted by invasive shrubs. The future of a relationship between trees and wildfires that has existed for 350 million years now rests on the shoulders of rope-suspended climbers who collect the trees’ cones one 45-liter bag at a time…
[The work, which dates back to the 1930s, is both arduous and precise; the workers, dedicated. But, as Osleger explains, a number of forces– main among them, Federal budget cuts, have taken a huge toll on the effort…]
… The result is an annual reforestation shortfall that is compounding and transforming entire ecosystems. The Forest Service produces 30 million to 50 million seedlings a year, according to American Forests, a mere fraction of the 120-million annual seedling goal the REPLANT Act established. Roughly 80% of those seedlings will survive, while it takes about 220 trees to reforest each burned acre. Altogether, the agency meets just 6% of its post-wildfire planting needs annually, according to its 2022 Reforestation Strategy Report.
And that’s just on Forest Service land: Wildfires on both public and private lands have affected, on average, 7.8 million acres a year over the last decade, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. In California alone, current seedling production and planting rates mean that it would take 15 to 20 years to reforest what has already been lost, while each additional fire “puts us further behind,” said Kuldeep Singh, operations manager of seed production for CAL FIRE. While the Forest Service considers a tract reforested after seedlings survive their first five years, research says that a functioning ecosystem like the one the fire destroyed won’t return for several decades.
When a forest fails to regenerate, either because it wasn’t replanted or because new seedlings didn’t survive, it often becomes scrub-land, in a permanent ecological shift known as type conversion. The new brush-based ecosystem creates a more flammable fuel bed that resists the forest’s return, effectively locking the land into a cycle of fire and scrub. In areas like South Lake Tahoe, California, for example, fields of 8-foot-tall manzanita and buckbrush now dominate hundreds of acres where conifers once stood. In Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and throughout the Southwest, Forest Service research says that high-severity burn areas — which are difficult to regenerate regardless of human intervention — are increasingly repopulated by invasive grasses or the flowering plants called Brassicaceae, which store less carbon and prevent conifers from taking root. This process is permanently altering the hydrology, fire cycle and carbon-sequestration capacity of the West…
More– and more photos– at: “The plight of the pinecone cowboy,” from @highcountrynews.org.
Pair with: “Make Your Own Micro Forest” (“The Miyawaki method of reforestation inserts small, densely packed wild acreage into urban environs. It’s proving wildly successful.”)
* John Muir
###
As we treasure trees, we might recall that it was on this date in 1910 that Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana was established. The park encompasses more than 1 million acres and includes parts of two mountain ranges (sub-ranges of the Rocky Mountains), more than 130 named lakes, more than 1,000 different species of trees and plants, and hundreds of species of animals. Its pristine ecosystem is the centerpiece of what has been referred to as the “Crown of the Continent Ecosystem,” a region of protected land encompassing 16,000 square miles.
The park’s predominantly coniferous forest is home to various species of trees such as the Engelmann spruce, Douglas fir, subalpine fir, limber pine and western larch, which is a deciduous conifer, producing cones but losing its needles each fall.
Mountain goats (the official park symbol) at Logan Pass (source) #culture #forest #forestManagement #forestry #forests #GlacierNationalPark #history #MiyawakiForests #pineconeCowboy #pineconeCowboys #pinecones #politics #Science #trees -
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest”*…
Robert Beauchamp, owner of Sierra Cone, one of the largest cone collection contractors in the West, reaches for a red fir cone outside of Dorrington, California. Nina RiggioDillon Osleger explains that, while the future of Western forests depends on professional pinecone collectors, they’re slowly being starved out of existence…
High in the crown of a giant sequoia, the world becomes a cathedral of green and amber, hushed but for the creak of ancient wood and the sharp, rhythmic snap of cones being pulled from boughs. Dan Keeley, 31, moved around with a practiced, fluid economy, suspended by thin lines of high-tensile rope 200 feet above the ground on the western edge of California’s Sequoia National Park. To his left, the sequoia’s cinnamon-colored bark provided a steady presence as he leaned out over the negative space between branches.
“There is a lot of trust that goes into this work,” Keeley said, speaking over the wind. He eyed a cluster of green, egg-sized cones. “Trust in the trees, predominantly, but also trust in the system — that I’m being sent to the right trees, at the right time, and for the right reason, not all of which are always the case.”
Keeley, a lean, tanned former rock climber and arborist, is what some in the forestry industry call a pinecone cowboy, a freelance contractor hired to harvest the genetic future of Western forests. He climbs trees of important or threatened species to collect ripe cones for seeds intended to be used for reforestation.
Keeley is part of a specialized workforce that’s become the primary resistance against the rapid erasure of a Western landscape. As megafires — fueled by climate change and a century of heavy-handed forest management and fire suppression — incinerate millions of acres in the West, natural regeneration is failing. Cones from serotinous species, which open their scales and drop their seeds in response to low-intensity wildfires on the forest floor, are now incinerated in increasingly common crown fires — high-intensity blazes that leap into the canopy. Meanwhile, other species’ seeds, dropped into the soil by wind and animals like squirrels and birds, are choked underneath layers of ash or outcompeted by invasive shrubs. The future of a relationship between trees and wildfires that has existed for 350 million years now rests on the shoulders of rope-suspended climbers who collect the trees’ cones one 45-liter bag at a time…
[The work, which dates back to the 1930s, is both arduous and precise; the workers, dedicated. But, as Osleger explains, a number of forces– main among them, Federal budget cuts, have taken a huge toll on the effort…]
… The result is an annual reforestation shortfall that is compounding and transforming entire ecosystems. The Forest Service produces 30 million to 50 million seedlings a year, according to American Forests, a mere fraction of the 120-million annual seedling goal the REPLANT Act established. Roughly 80% of those seedlings will survive, while it takes about 220 trees to reforest each burned acre. Altogether, the agency meets just 6% of its post-wildfire planting needs annually, according to its 2022 Reforestation Strategy Report.
And that’s just on Forest Service land: Wildfires on both public and private lands have affected, on average, 7.8 million acres a year over the last decade, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. In California alone, current seedling production and planting rates mean that it would take 15 to 20 years to reforest what has already been lost, while each additional fire “puts us further behind,” said Kuldeep Singh, operations manager of seed production for CAL FIRE. While the Forest Service considers a tract reforested after seedlings survive their first five years, research says that a functioning ecosystem like the one the fire destroyed won’t return for several decades.
When a forest fails to regenerate, either because it wasn’t replanted or because new seedlings didn’t survive, it often becomes scrub-land, in a permanent ecological shift known as type conversion. The new brush-based ecosystem creates a more flammable fuel bed that resists the forest’s return, effectively locking the land into a cycle of fire and scrub. In areas like South Lake Tahoe, California, for example, fields of 8-foot-tall manzanita and buckbrush now dominate hundreds of acres where conifers once stood. In Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and throughout the Southwest, Forest Service research says that high-severity burn areas — which are difficult to regenerate regardless of human intervention — are increasingly repopulated by invasive grasses or the flowering plants called Brassicaceae, which store less carbon and prevent conifers from taking root. This process is permanently altering the hydrology, fire cycle and carbon-sequestration capacity of the West…
More– and more photos– at: “The plight of the pinecone cowboy,” from @highcountrynews.org.
Pair with: “Make Your Own Micro Forest” (“The Miyawaki method of reforestation inserts small, densely packed wild acreage into urban environs. It’s proving wildly successful.”)
* John Muir
###
As we treasure trees, we might recall that it was on this date in 1910 that Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana was established. The park encompasses more than 1 million acres and includes parts of two mountain ranges (sub-ranges of the Rocky Mountains), more than 130 named lakes, more than 1,000 different species of trees and plants, and hundreds of species of animals. Its pristine ecosystem is the centerpiece of what has been referred to as the “Crown of the Continent Ecosystem,” a region of protected land encompassing 16,000 square miles.
The park’s predominantly coniferous forest is home to various species of trees such as the Engelmann spruce, Douglas fir, subalpine fir, limber pine and western larch, which is a deciduous conifer, producing cones but losing its needles each fall.
Mountain goats (the official park symbol) at Logan Pass (source) #culture #forest #forestManagement #forestry #forests #GlacierNationalPark #history #MiyawakiForests #pineconeCowboy #pineconeCowboys #pinecones #politics #Science #trees -
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest”*…
Robert Beauchamp, owner of Sierra Cone, one of the largest cone collection contractors in the West, reaches for a red fir cone outside of Dorrington, California. Nina RiggioDillon Osleger explains that, while the future of Western forests depends on professional pinecone collectors, they’re slowly being starved out of existence…
High in the crown of a giant sequoia, the world becomes a cathedral of green and amber, hushed but for the creak of ancient wood and the sharp, rhythmic snap of cones being pulled from boughs. Dan Keeley, 31, moved around with a practiced, fluid economy, suspended by thin lines of high-tensile rope 200 feet above the ground on the western edge of California’s Sequoia National Park. To his left, the sequoia’s cinnamon-colored bark provided a steady presence as he leaned out over the negative space between branches.
“There is a lot of trust that goes into this work,” Keeley said, speaking over the wind. He eyed a cluster of green, egg-sized cones. “Trust in the trees, predominantly, but also trust in the system — that I’m being sent to the right trees, at the right time, and for the right reason, not all of which are always the case.”
Keeley, a lean, tanned former rock climber and arborist, is what some in the forestry industry call a pinecone cowboy, a freelance contractor hired to harvest the genetic future of Western forests. He climbs trees of important or threatened species to collect ripe cones for seeds intended to be used for reforestation.
Keeley is part of a specialized workforce that’s become the primary resistance against the rapid erasure of a Western landscape. As megafires — fueled by climate change and a century of heavy-handed forest management and fire suppression — incinerate millions of acres in the West, natural regeneration is failing. Cones from serotinous species, which open their scales and drop their seeds in response to low-intensity wildfires on the forest floor, are now incinerated in increasingly common crown fires — high-intensity blazes that leap into the canopy. Meanwhile, other species’ seeds, dropped into the soil by wind and animals like squirrels and birds, are choked underneath layers of ash or outcompeted by invasive shrubs. The future of a relationship between trees and wildfires that has existed for 350 million years now rests on the shoulders of rope-suspended climbers who collect the trees’ cones one 45-liter bag at a time…
[The work, which dates back to the 1930s, is both arduous and precise; the workers, dedicated. But, as Osleger explains, a number of forces– main among them, Federal budget cuts, have taken a huge toll on the effort…]
… The result is an annual reforestation shortfall that is compounding and transforming entire ecosystems. The Forest Service produces 30 million to 50 million seedlings a year, according to American Forests, a mere fraction of the 120-million annual seedling goal the REPLANT Act established. Roughly 80% of those seedlings will survive, while it takes about 220 trees to reforest each burned acre. Altogether, the agency meets just 6% of its post-wildfire planting needs annually, according to its 2022 Reforestation Strategy Report.
And that’s just on Forest Service land: Wildfires on both public and private lands have affected, on average, 7.8 million acres a year over the last decade, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. In California alone, current seedling production and planting rates mean that it would take 15 to 20 years to reforest what has already been lost, while each additional fire “puts us further behind,” said Kuldeep Singh, operations manager of seed production for CAL FIRE. While the Forest Service considers a tract reforested after seedlings survive their first five years, research says that a functioning ecosystem like the one the fire destroyed won’t return for several decades.
When a forest fails to regenerate, either because it wasn’t replanted or because new seedlings didn’t survive, it often becomes scrub-land, in a permanent ecological shift known as type conversion. The new brush-based ecosystem creates a more flammable fuel bed that resists the forest’s return, effectively locking the land into a cycle of fire and scrub. In areas like South Lake Tahoe, California, for example, fields of 8-foot-tall manzanita and buckbrush now dominate hundreds of acres where conifers once stood. In Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and throughout the Southwest, Forest Service research says that high-severity burn areas — which are difficult to regenerate regardless of human intervention — are increasingly repopulated by invasive grasses or the flowering plants called Brassicaceae, which store less carbon and prevent conifers from taking root. This process is permanently altering the hydrology, fire cycle and carbon-sequestration capacity of the West…
More– and more photos– at: “The plight of the pinecone cowboy,” from @highcountrynews.org.
Pair with: “Make Your Own Micro Forest” (“The Miyawaki method of reforestation inserts small, densely packed wild acreage into urban environs. It’s proving wildly successful.”)
* John Muir
###
As we treasure trees, we might recall that it was on this date in 1910 that Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana was established. The park encompasses more than 1 million acres and includes parts of two mountain ranges (sub-ranges of the Rocky Mountains), more than 130 named lakes, more than 1,000 different species of trees and plants, and hundreds of species of animals. Its pristine ecosystem is the centerpiece of what has been referred to as the “Crown of the Continent Ecosystem,” a region of protected land encompassing 16,000 square miles.
The park’s predominantly coniferous forest is home to various species of trees such as the Engelmann spruce, Douglas fir, subalpine fir, limber pine and western larch, which is a deciduous conifer, producing cones but losing its needles each fall.
Mountain goats (the official park symbol) at Logan Pass (source) #culture #forest #forestManagement #forestry #forests #GlacierNationalPark #history #MiyawakiForests #pineconeCowboy #pineconeCowboys #pinecones #politics #Science #trees
