Conservation group cleared to take legal action against NSW Forestry Corp
By Patrick Bell
The South East Forest Rescue group alleged the Forestry Corporation of NSW did not conduct a broad area habitat search for features of habitat for three species of glider in a northern New South Wales forest.
#News: @UniofOxford #Research finds while selective logging alters tropical #forests, converting them to #palmoil causes greater harm, especially to #biodiversity. Preserving logged forests is crucial. #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetectives https://wp.me/pcFhgU-9On
"Most notably, about 700 Forest Service employees terminated in mid-February’s “Valentine’s Day massacre” are red-card-carrying staffers, an agency spokesperson confirmed to ProPublica. These workers hold other full-time jobs in the agency, but they’ve been trained to aid firefighting crews, such as by providing logistical support during blazes. They also assist with prescribed burns, which reduce flammable vegetation and prevent bigger fires, but the burns can only move forward if there’s a certain number of staff available to contain them. (Non-firefighting employees without a red card cannot perform such tasks.)
Red-card-carrying employees are the “backbone” of the firefighting force, and their loss will have “a significant impact,” said Frank Beum, a board member of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees who spent more than four decades with the agency and ran the Rocky Mountain Region. “There are not enough primary firefighters to do the full job that needs to be done when we have a high fire season.”
ProPublica spoke to employees across the Forest Service — which manages an area of land nearly twice the size of California — including staff working in firefighting, facilities, timber sales and other roles, to learn how sweeping personnel changes are affecting the agency’s ability to function. The employees said cuts, which have hit the agency’s recreation, wildlife, IT and other divisions, show the Trump administration is shifting the agency’s focus away from environmental stewardship and toward industry and firefighting.
But notwithstanding Trump’s stated guardrails, the cuts have affected the Forest Service’s more than 10,000-person-strong firefighting force."
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-doge-cuts-forest-service-firefighting
Netherlands’ largest forest biomass plant canceled, forest advocates elated
Watch this video on yesterday's #AskAScientist webinar and learn from Hannes Böttcher, Senior Researcher at Oeko-Insttut, and other experts all about #carbonfarming in european #forests:
https://youtu.be/izlUdqVPG1I?feature=shared
No more #clearcutting in #Dutch #forests https://www.fern.org/publications-insight/clear-cutting-in-dutch-forests-is-no-longer-allowed/
Received wisdom in #Silviculture is that #Clearfell or #Clearcut coupes mimic nature in #fireclimax habitats. While I agree clearcut / restock can be brutal & we are heavily over-reliant on the system, it seems 'bold' to outlaw it entirely, regardless of scale. Surely local production and 'better' rather than 'less' silviculture would provide #timber for less #carbon intensive #building solutions
Losing forest carbon stocks could put climate goals out of reach, scientists warn
https://phys.org/news/2025-03-forest-carbon-stocks-climate-goals.html
#InternationalBeaverDay: How These Creatures Alter #Rivers and Shape #Forests
The Impact of Beavers on #Biodiversity
#Beavers essentially create #ecosystems within ecosystems, promoting a rich tapestry of life. Their impact on biodiversity is profound, with studies showing that areas inhabited by beavers often have higher species diversity than those without.
#beaver
@HarriettMB Ah grand! Gosh, that's a relief - much obliged. 
(I don't suppose anywhere on the island is looking for dozens of sycamore seedlings..? 
)
Commentary about:
“Brazil’s escalating forest fire crisis, highlighting a record 237,000 fires in 2024 that devastated over 30 million hectares of vegetation—most of it in the Amazon—and triggered a national environmental emergency…
Brazil is pursuing a range of responses”
Behind Albania’s Forest Crisis: Governance, Economy, and EU Accession
https://www.tiranatimes.com/behind-albanias-forest-crisis-governance-economy-and-eu-accession/ #Forests #Forestry #Europe
Losing forest carbon stocks could put climate goals out of reach
“Delaying action leads to disproportionately higher costs,” explains Michael Windisch, the study’s lead author and PIK guest scientist. “Right now, our climate strategies bet on forests not only remaining intact, but even expanding,” Windisch says. “However, with escalating #wildfires like in #California, and continued #deforestation in the #Amazon, that’s a gamble. #ClimateChange itself puts forests’ immense carbon stores at risk.”
According to the study, postponing action to reduce #emissions and to protect and monitor #forests could jeopardise #climate targets. “We must act immediately to safeguard the carbon stored in forests,” Windisch emphasises. “Otherwise, compensating for potential forest carbon losses through steeper emissions cuts in key emission sectors like #energy, #industry and #transport will become increasingly expensive and possibly unattainable.”
““Right now, our climate strategies bet on forests not only remaining intact, but even expanding,” Windisch says.
“However, with escalating wildfires like in California, and continued deforestation in the Amazon, that’s a gamble. Climate change itself puts forests’ immense carbon stores at risk.””
In a remote region in Thailand's northwest, scientists are confronting the toll that human activity and climate change are already having on forests that are supposed to be pristine and protected. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/environment/2025/04/05/climate-change/thailand-scientists-wildfires/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #environment #climatechange #climatechange #thailand #forests #wildfires
The price for Europe’s packing paper boom
"For years, #Portugal was a primary source of cellulose in Europe, producing it from vast plantations of #eucalyptus trees. But due to concerns over the fire risk and ecological impact of eucalyptus plantations, the Portuguese government put a halt to their expansion. This decision prompted several European companies to seek alternative locations for large-scale plantations."
https://news.mongabay.com/video/2025/04/the-price-for-europes-packing-paper-boom/
"As the ocean intrudes and saltwater rises, it kills trees and creates these ghost forests—bare trunks, and stumps, ashen tombstones marking a once-thriving coastal ecosystem. In North Carolina, pine, red maple, sweetgum and bald cypress forests are being replaced by saltmarsh. Eventually, that saltmarsh will be replaced by open water, a shift that leads to significant and complex costs to the environment and the local economy. The loss of forests will reduce carbon storage, further fueling climate change, and the agriculture industry, timber interests will suffer as saltwater moves inland."
Capitalism Eating Itself by Fueling Climate Mayhem, Warns Capitalist
If humanity stays on current course, warns top insurer, the "financial sector as we know it ceases to function. And with it, capitalism as we know it ceases to be viable."
According to GüntherThallinger, a former top executive at Germany's branch of the consulting giant #McKinsey & Company and currently a board member of #Allianz SE, one of the largest insurance companies in the world, the #ClimateCrisis is on a path to destroy #capitalism as we know it.
"We are fast approaching temperature levels—1.5C, 2C, 3C—where #insurers will no longer be able to offer coverage for many" of the risks associated with the #climate crisis, Thallinger writes in a recent post highlighted Thursday by #TheGuardian.
There is no way to "adapt" to temperatures beyond human tolerance. There is limited adaptation to #megafires, other than not building near #forests. Whole cities built on flood plains cannot simply pick up and move uphill. And as temperatures continue to rise, adaptation itself becomes economically unviable.
Once we reach 3°C of warming, the situation locks in. Atmospheric energy at this level will persist for 100+ years due to carbon cycle inertia and the absence of scalable industrial carbon removal technologies. There is no known pathway to return to pre-2°C conditions. (See: #IPCC AR6, 2023; NASA Earth Observatory: "The Long-Term Warming Commitment")
At that point, risk cannot be transferred (no insurance), risk cannot be absorbed (no public capacity), and risk cannot be adapted to (physical limits exceeded). That means no more mortgages, no new real estate development, no long-term investment, no financial stability. The financial sector as we know it ceases to function. And with it, capitalism as we know it ceases to be viable.
"The logging industry is finding ways to get around the so-called ban."
"A loophole in the law banning Victoria's native timber harvesting means logging projects can still go ahead as the state government passes project approval responsibility to local councils."
"How could it be that a local council would have the expertise, the biological and ecological expertise, to approve logging in an area? When you log and regenerate an area of native forest … that same area of forest becomes much more flammable for a prolonged period of time," Professor Lindenmayer said. "I don't think that we should be adding that extra fire burden for rural and regional people to have to deal with."
>>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-03/timber-harvesting-ban-loophole-victoria/105123078
#LoggingIndustry #LoggingImpacts #bushfire #risks #conservation #biodiversity #wildlife #forests #NSWLogging #BellingenLogging #council
Forest restoration is booming but biodiversity isn’t https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/03/forest-restoration-is-booming-but-biodiversity-isnt/
Mask up 
