UK launches public woodlands online database

The Woodland Trust is to create a searchable online database of 24,000 woodlands across the UK, reports Horticulture Week.
The project won grant funding of £1.2m from Natural England’s Access to Nature initiative, which is  funded by £25m from the Big Lottery Fund.
It will form part of a new VisitWoods’ project, with around 20 groups ushering [...]

US Forest Services announces plan to save at risk forests

US Forest Service chief Gail Kimbell announced $50 million in grants to permanently protect 24 working forests across 21 States, as part of the  Forest Legacy Program, a USDA press release said.
The programme is designed to permanently protects important private forestland threatened by conversion.
“The Forest Legacy Program conserves open space, which allows us to respond [...]

UK’s Woodland Trust to plant a million trees

The Woodland Trust is to plant around a million trees on several sites across the UK to protect the “UK’s equivalent of the rainforest”,  reports Horticulture Week.
“The Plant a Tree appeal will help us plant around a million trees at five key sites across the UK, with others to come in the future,” said conservation [...]

Key role of forests ‘may be lost’

Forests’ role as massive carbon sinks is “at risk of being lost entirely”, the BBC’s Mark Kinver has reported top forestry scientists as warning.
The International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) says forests are under increasing degrees of stress as a result of climate change.
Forests could release vast amounts of carbon if temperatures rise 2.5C [...]

UN: World’s forests facing tough tests

World forests face the dual challenge of climate change and the global economic crisis, a key UN report says.
On the BBC News website, environment reporter Mark Kinver said it suggested that although the economic slowdown might reduce deforestation rates in the short term, it was also likely to lead to other problems.
One concern, would be [...]

Satellite to spy on tree munching bugs

More than 150 years after tamarisk, a small Eurasian tree, started taking over river banks in south-western US, saltcedar leaf beetles were unleashed to defoliate the “exotic invader”, says a press release from the University of Utah.
Now, researchers from the university say it is feasible to use satellite data to monitor the extent of the [...]

Dangerous climate change ‘to kill Amazon rainforest’

Global warming will wreck attempts to save the Amazon rainforest, reports the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
It says a study presented at a major climate science conference in Denmark has predicted that one-third of its trees will be killed by even modest temperature rises.
The research, by some of Britain’s leading experts on climate change, shows that even [...]

Twiglet: Indonesian newly weds must plant trees

An Indonesian district in West Java, Garut, has started a unique program to support reforestation.
Mongabay.com reports that any couple planning to get married must give 10 trees to local authorities for reforestation efforts before the marriage will be legally sanctioned.
But it’s not just married couples that must support reforestation. Couples filing for divorce must [...]

Wildlife trade ‘creating empty forest syndrome’

The illegal trade in wildlife products around the globe risks creating an “empty forest” syndrome, a US researcher has warned.
Mongabay.com reports Elizabeth Bennett, from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), as saying that for many endangered species it is not the lack of suitable habitat that has imperiled them, but hunting.
She made her remarks during a [...]

Twiglet: Trees are farmers’ best friends

At the turn of the 20th Century in France, many flowering trees, such as hawthorn and whitebeam, were protected by law.
This was because the authorities knew that birds, which relied on the energy-rich autumnal fruits, would lay seige to springtime insects, which would otherwise damage crops.
Natural approach that delivered a safe, simple and cheap [...]