Tree Planting Isn't Replacing Burned U.S. Forests — Not Even Close

"DEER LAKE MESA, N.M. - Experimental pine seedlings poke from the rocky New Mexico earth, the only living evergreens on a hillside torched by one of the U.S. West’s drought-driven wildfires.

These climate-smart sprouts about 30 miles (48 km) east of Taos are part of a push to increase the dramatically lagging replanting of U.S. forests after fires.

To condition trees for life in the Southwest, now suffering its worst drought in 500 years, biologist Owen Burney takes the scraggly seedlings to the point of death and back several times by starving them of water in the nursery."

Adria Malcolm, Andrew Hay, and Andrea Januta report for Reuters September 9, 2021.

SEE ALSO:

"Burned Trees And Billions In Cash: How A California Climate Program Lets Companies Keep Polluting" (Los Angeles Times)