Treesearch

Due to concern over climate change, there is an increasing desire to limit new carbon dioxide emissions and to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Specific efforts include taxing carbon emissions, capping carbon emissions and selling emissions allowances, and rewarding activities that avoid new carbon emissions or that capture and store carbon from the atmosphere. Cross-laminated timber (CLT) is a relatively new product that enables mass timber construction to replace traditional construction materials in mid-to-high-rise buildings. Wood materials offer substantial “carbon benefits”...

By nature, the subject of invasion biology is a global phenomenon and considerable insight can be gained by comparing species in their native and invaded habitats and among invaded regions. As such, scientists, students and managers often seek out information about invasions in different parts of the world. Most of the literature on biological invasions originates from either North America and Europe (Pyšek et al. 2008) so the recently published edited volume, Biological Invasions in South Africa (Van Wilgen et al., editors) provides a useful window into biological invasions in the African...

Diverse workforce representation helps organizations achieve their goals and is important for government agencies that seek to gain public trust. Prior research has examined patterns of representation in the USDA Forest Service and found an overall lack of representation despite advances at leadership levels. Federal agencies are required to report total workforce demographics; however, representation relative to local communities is rarely known. Using data from the US Census Bureau, we examined demographic profiles of populations within a 1-hour drive time around Forest Service workplaces...

Research on residents’ attitudes toward tourism suggests an exchange relationship between perceived tourism impact and support among residents. However, there is limited knowledge about the cognitive processes through which such a relationship occurs. This study demonstrates the potential utility of integrating cognitive appraisal and social exchange theories to explain the cognitive process linking perceived tourism impact, quality of life, and residents’ support for tourism. We used a survey of residents of Klamath and Linn Counties in the state of Oregon, United States, to obtain data...

The USDA Forest Service has long worked with international partners. In that tradition, the Forest Service and Mpingo Conservation & Development Initiative (MCDI) launched a partnership to support community forestry in Tanzania. Starting in 2017, Susan Charnley and Greg Frey, researchers with the Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station and Southern Research Station, respectively, built on that partnership through a research collaboration with MCDI. They investigated factors that contribute to financially viable community forests. They also assessed whether Forest Stewardship...

Gender equity has progressed unequally within science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, with geosciences and specifically the Earth Observation (EO) field remaining largely unbalanced. Limited work has centred women's experiences in forest carbon monitoring (FCM), a field that combines EO and in situ data collection. Fewer studies have focused on perceptions of women from Latin America, Africa and Asia. This study examines participants in SilvaCarbon, an interagency technical cooperation program of the U.S. Government to build FCM capacity in tropical countries, where...

Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) savannas and woodlands are known for providing numerous ecosystem services such as promoting biodiversity, reducing risk of wildfire and insect outbreaks, and increasing water yields. In these open pine systems, there is also interest in managing carbon (C) in ways that do not diminish other ecosystem services. Additionally, there may be management strategies for accomplishing these same objectives in plantations and degraded stands that developed from natural regeneration. For example, C accumulation in live trees and C storage in harvested wood...

One potential legacy of the widespread deforestation of the 1700-1800s and subsequent agricultural abandonment and reforestation across the eastern United States (U.S.) during the 1900s is the establishment of introduced apple trees (Malus domestica) exclusive of naturally occurring native crab apple species. As these apple trees might provide ecological services and a genetic reserve of long-forgotten apple cultivars, a region-wide forest inventory was used to estimate the current extent, condition, and changes in the population of apple trees across eastern forests of the U.S. It was...

Fire management is growing increasingly complex in an environment beset by climate change, an ever-growing wildland-urban interface, and difficulties developing and maintaining workforce capacity. Delivery of timely and relevant fire science to managers is imperative, but here, too, there are challenges. Research on fire and fuels management is spread across a great variety of sources and platforms, and managers have limited time to search for relevant information needed for addressing critical management issues.