Forests

"Thick smoke has enveloped extensive areas of the Brazilian Amazon on Thursday as the region grapples with a surge in wildfires and a historic drought."

"In prisons across Western states, incarcerated people are raising tens of thousands of plants to restore sagebrush habitat, a vanishing ecosystem home to the iconic endangered greater sage-grouse and hundreds of other species."

"Reforestation projects to restore degraded lands in Chad and Cameroon, like the “Great Green Wall” and the “Reforestation 1400” projects, are facing increasing pressure from logging activity."

"Experts say carbon sequestration projects that don’t prioritize biodiversity may be doing more harm than good, including to the climate."

"Abandoned farmland has been increasing, with a billion acres — an area half the size of Australia — lost globally. Ecologists are increasingly pointing to the potential of these lands and of degraded forests as neglected resources for rewilding and for capturing carbon."

"Hours before devastating fires scorched the historic town of Lahaina on Maui, Kyle Ellison labored to save his rental house in Kula, a rural mountain town 24 miles away, from a different blaze."

"Only 5 percent of the redwood forests that once stretched across coastal Northern California have never been logged. An initiative to restore these forests is gaining momentum, aided by research showing that redwoods store more aboveground carbon than any forest on Earth."

"Congressional Democrats are vowing to defend President Joe Biden’s new federal green jobs program from future Republican attacks."

"Extreme working conditions, low pay and high turnover are leading to a crisis exacerbated by more intense wildfires. Eighteen firefighters tell their stories of the mental toll — from burnout to PTSD to the loss of peers to suicide."

"Over the last few decades, air in the U.S. has undergone a remarkable transformation: pollution levels of health-damaging tiny particles have dropped by roughly 40% since 2000, primarily thanks to the country's decades-long effort to improve air quality through the Clean Air Act, a landmark environmental law."