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  • Should We Genetically Engineer Carbon-Hungry Trees?

    March 07, 2021 |

    Freethink |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Boston, Massachusetts

    As a way to combat climate change, scientists are experimenting with genetically modified trees as a way to draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to store in its leaves, roots, and trunk. The startup Living Carbon has genetically modified poplar and pine seeds in the ground and expect them to be ready by the end of the year. Some scientists are worried about how these trees can impact forest ecosystems, but they grow faster than normal trees, allowing them to study and assess the risks quicker.

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  • Planting Trees Sounds Like A Simple Climate Fix. It's Anything But.

    February 05, 2021 |

    The Huffington Post |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United Kingdom, England

    As governments and businesses make pledges to cut their carbon emissions, planting tress has become a popular solution to combat the effects of climate change. But tree-planting schemes take time and proper management to actually be effective. Many efforts have failed to take some key factors into consideration, including types of trees, location, and even community-involvement.

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  • The bold plan to save Africa's largest forest

    January 07, 2021 |

    BBC |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: Democratic Republic of the Congo

    Under an innovative scheme in the Democratic Republic of Congo, indigenous communities are obtaining the legal right to own and manage the forests where they reside. This ownership has shown success in slowing deforestation of the Congo rainforest and creating new economic opportunities for residents in these villages. “Rather than just being an add-on, community forestry is now being considered as a mainstream model for forest management,” says a coordinator for the Rainforest Foundation UK.

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  • Colombia's sustainable forestry drive boosts biodiversity and business

    December 30, 2020 |

    Mongabay |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: Colombia, Tarapacá

    The Colombian government has been working with regional regulatory agencies, the World Wildlife Fund, and local forest communities to encourage sustainable timber production and the implementation of forest management plans. They launched the Legal Wood Pact — a commitment with 69 entities to exclusively use wood from legal sources. While it can be difficult to convince people to purchase sustainable timber that’s more expensive, the sales of legal timber in the country increased from $500,000 in 2011 to $13 million in 2018.

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  • A Bold Plan to Save the Last Whitebark Pines

    December 24, 2020 |

    Wired |

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    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Montana

    After a fungus has nearly wiped out the whitebark pine species in North America, scientists and conservationists are coming together to restore the species. The trees offer food to various animal species and are important to drinking and agricultural water supplies. A pilot project in Montana has planted up to 125 acres each year of whitebark pines, but the restoration process is expensive and time consuming. By combining traditional seed collecting efforts with gene sequencing, scientists hope to make these trees resistant to the fungus.

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  • A Lesson in Learning to Live With Fire, and Each Other

    November 05, 2020 |

    Bloomberg CityLab |

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    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Shaver Lake, California

    A collaboration between former adversaries over forest management and preservation in the Sierra National Forest led to a $9 million investment into making 154,000 acres healthier, and able to withstand destruction in one of the largest wildfires in California history. The Creek Fire largely spared land in the Dinkey Landscape Restoration Project, despite severe damage in hundreds of thousands of adjacent acres. Years of strategic tree-thinning and intentionally set small fires proved effective.

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  • How AI Can Help Save Forests

    November 03, 2020 |

    Wall Street Journal |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: Sweden

    Satellite-based forest monitoring, paired with other sophisticated measures of a forest's health, is transforming the speed, precision, and economics of finding and eradicating infestations and pinpointing acreage where preventing wildfires and deforestation will prove most effective. Rather than rely on ground-based, manual surveys of vast tracts, forest managers are refining their ability to observe more useful data from space. As success stories pile up, however, the science still must rely on the political will to enact needed policies for a healthier climate and forests.

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  • Colville, Washington Survived the Timber Wars. Now It's Tackling Wildfire

    October 23, 2020 |

    Bitterroot |

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    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Colville, Washington

    A collective of timber companies, conservationists, and forestry professionals has made the adjacent national forest more resilient to wildfires by focusing on small-diameter trees while preserving old growth. In 2019, the Northeast Washington Forest Coalition allowed for the harvesting of 87.1 million board-feet from the forest and 16,561 acres underwent controlled burns and mechanical thinning to mitigate the risk of wildfires. The group’s record of compromise and innovation could offer a blueprint for other areas looking to boost the resilience of fire-prone forests and rural economies.

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  • Europe's New Trick Against Wildfires: Let It Burn

    September 29, 2020 |

    Bloomberg |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Portugal

    Led by Portugal and Spain, European nations have shifted their responses to wildfires from a heavy emphasis on suppression to a more prevention-based approach. Climate change has increased fire risk greatly. By letting smaller fires burn, to reduce the fuel available to future megafires, and with other forest-management methods, Mediterranean countries have had no large blazes so far in 2020. Portugal, three years after a massive fire killed at least 120, registered its lowest number of fires in a decade. In Spain, prevention includes Fire Flocks, herds of sheep and goats whose grazing cleans up forests.

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  • As Concerns Over Climate Change Rise, More Developers Turn to Wood

    September 22, 2020 |

    The New York Times |

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    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Spokane, Washington

    Eastern Washington University recently built the first tall wood office building in the state joining hundreds of other large “mass-timber” projects in the United States. This growing industry constructs panels, beams, and columns from trees that need to be thinned to curb wildfires in forests. While wood buildings can be more expensive to build than ones constructed from concrete and steel, environmentalists are on board because wood can store carbon, which can help offset greenhouse gas emissions.

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