- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
![Healthy cannabis plants on raised beds surrounded by stakes.](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/Green/blogfiles/94725small.jpg)
Wildfires are an increasing threat to people's lives, property and livelihoods, especially in rural California communities. Cannabis, one of California's newer and more lucrative commercial crops, may be at a higher risk of loss from wildfire because it is mostly confined to being grown in rural areas, according to new research by scientists in the Department of Environmental Science Policy and Management at UC Berkeley.
"Our findings affirm that cannabis agriculture is geographically more threatened by wildfire than any other agricultural crop in California,” said Christopher Dillis, lead author of the
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
![Outdoor planting of cannabis bushes supported by trellising. Green forest in background.](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/Green/blogfiles/84027small.jpg)
The legalization of marijuana for recreational use in California has encouraged growers to expand plantings of the lucrative crop. Like any plant, cannabis requires water to grow. A new study from the Cannabis Research Center at UC Berkeley examined where cannabis growers in California are getting water for their crops, highlighting significant gaps in cannabis cultivation policy.
Environmental advocates have expressed concern that cannabis farms are diverting water from rivers and streams, which could harm fish and other wildlife.
The researchers studied water use in 11 of the state's top cannabis-producing counties – Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, Monterey,...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
![Cannabis grows near a salmon stream in Humboldt County. Environmental impacts of cannabis are among the research funded to inform cannabis policy in California.](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/Green/blogfiles/75311small.jpg)
Several scientists affiliated with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources have received grants from the California Bureau of Cannabis Control. The BCC awarded on Nov. 13 a total of $29,950,494 in public university research grants across California for research projects related to the implementation and effect of Proposition 64.
Research proposals had to fall within one of the several specified categories, including public health, criminal justice and public safety, economics, environmental impacts and the cannabis...
- Author: Kara Manke
![Tree leaves and needles are removed because they block sunlight needed for marijuana plants. Pacific Southwest Region 5 photo, via Flickr](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/Green/blogfiles/57845small.jpg)
Cannabis is unlike any other agricultural crop. Because of its circuitous history — once illegal to grow, and now legal but heavily regulated — cannabis has cast a unique footprint on the environment and the communities of farmers who grow it.
UC Berkeley's new Cannabis Research Center, announced today by a...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
![Plants and wildlife, like this mountain lion, will need to find natural corridors to migrate into areas with suitable climates. (Photo: National Park Service)](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/Green/blogfiles/55263small.jpg)
Californians received bleak news last month when the state released its fourth assessment of climate change in California. The report predicts severe wildfires, more frequent and longer droughts, rising sea levels, increased flooding, coastal erosion and extreme heat.
“It's great to be living in a state where science and facts around climate change are valued,” said UC Cooperative Extension specialist Adina Merenlender, “but the recent forecasts may make you want to devour a quart of ice cream in a pool of salty tears.”
Modern civilization has changed the world climate, and even dramatic reductions in...