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 [...]

Forest Research draws up canker plan

Forest Research is to develop guidance on managing and drawing up controlling strategies for the bleeding canker tree blight, reports Horticulture Week.
“This disease has rapidly become widespread throughout Britain over the past five years,” said a representative for the research arm of the Forestry Commission.
Bleeding canker of horse chestnut was caused by the bacterium Pseudomonas [...]

Tree-killing hurricanes ‘could contribute to global warming’

A first-of-its kind, long-term study of hurricane impact on US trees shows that hurricane damage can diminish a forest’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, Science Daily reports.
Tulane University researchers examined the impact of tropical cyclones on US forests between 1851 to 2000 and found that changes in hurricane frequency might contribute to [...]

Date palm disease threatens livelihoods in Yemen

A disease which kills date palm trees, on which thousands of people depend for a living, has returned to Hadhramaut Governorate in southern Yemen, reports the UN news service IRIN.
Khalid Saleh, 55, could not believe his eyes when he saw his smallholding in Doan District (some 250km north of Mukalla) hit yet again by the [...]

Ancient trees ‘need public funded protection’

One of Britain’s leading experts on trees has expressed astonishment over the lack of public funding to protect ancient trees, reports Horticulture Week.
Ted Green, an adviser to the Queen who was awarded an OBE recently for services to ancient trees, said state cash was needed because of trees’ landscape and cultural importance.
“These trees are old [...]

Study links forest fires to climate shift

A warming climate will fuel larger, more frequent wildfires in the Sierra Nevada and other parts of the West, and the fires will contribute to climate change, according to a new study reported in Insurance Journal.
More than 20 international scientists, in the report published in the journal Science, said fire is not only a consequence [...]

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 [...]

Pine voles blamed for US oak declines

Scientists trying to understand why oaks are starting to disappear from North American forests may need to look just below the surface to find some answers, says a Purdue University press release.
Researcher Robert Swihart found that pine voles, small rodents that live underground, prefer oak roots to those of other common woodland seedlings.
The study identifies [...]

Planting trees amid chaos of war

In the Tree Garden of Kilravock Castle is what looks like a giant octopus, says Steven McKenzie, a reporter for the BBC News website.

Called a layering beech, its limbs snake out from a sturdy trunk and bend to the ground where they have taken root before twisting skywards.
More than 300-years-old, it is classed as “extremely [...]