- Author: Kat Kerlin
Study finds resilient, frequent-fire forests have far fewer trees
What does a “resilient” forest look like in California's Sierra Nevada? A lot fewer trees than we're used to, according to a study of frequent-fire forests from the University of California, Davis.
More than a century ago, Sierra Nevada forests faced almost no competition from neighboring trees for resources. The tree densities of the late 1800s would...
/h2>- Author: Kara Manke
Reposted from Berkeley News
For nearly half a century, lightning-sparked blazes in Yosemite's Illilouette Creek Basin have rippled across the landscape — closely monitored, but largely unchecked. Their flames might explode into plumes of heat that burn whole hillsides at once, or sit smoldering in the underbrush for months.
The result is approximately 60 square miles of forest that look remarkably different from other parts of the Sierra Nevada: Instead of dense, wall-to-wall tree cover — the outcome of more than a century of fire suppression — the landscape is broken up by patches...
- Author: UC Berkeley Public Affairs
Reposted from UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources news
A Berkeley researcher in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management travelled to Washington, D.C., to testify on Tuesday before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and the Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change.
The hearing, titled “
- Author: Kara Manke
Spotted owl populations are in decline all along the West...
- Author: Kim Ingram
- Posted by: Susie Kocher
Reposted from the UCANR Green Blog
Thinning a forest of woody materials has multiple objectives. It can increase the resiliency of the remaining trees from the effects of fire, drought, pest and disease; it can improve habitat quality for wildlife including watersheds; and it can make it easier for firefighters to protect human lives and livelihoods when a fire is burning. There are several ways thinning is carried out: cable logging, feller bunching, conventional tractor skidding, hand-thinning and piling, and mastication. One of the issues with thinning is the disposal of biomass that is non-merchantable (e.g., branches, tree tops, small diameter trees)....