Climate ‘adds fuel to Asian wildfire emissions’

In the last decade, Asian farmers have cleared tens of thousands of square miles of forests to accommodate the world’s growing demand for palm oil, an increasingly popular food ingredient, reports Science Daily.
Ancient peatlands have been drained and lush tropical forests have been cut down.
As a result, the landscape of equatorial Asia now lies [...]

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 [...]

Wildlife flee Kenyan forest fires

Hundreds of thousands of flamingos and other wildlife are at risk after five forest fires erupted in Kenya on Saturday, say wildlife officials.
The BBC News website reports that police say they suspect some of the still-raging blazes were started by communities to make space for farmland.
The fires have had an adverse effect on [...]

Forest fires ‘to add to climate concerns’

The fierce bushfires that scorched Australia’s Victoria State released millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide, a leading scientist has warned.
Forest fires could become a growing source of carbon pollution as the planet warms, he told Reuters news agency.
Mark Adams of the University of Sydney said global warming could trigger a vicious cycle in which forests [...]

Human activity ‘triggers rise in Borneo forest fires’

Severe fires in Indonesia – responsible for some of the worst air quality conditions worldwide – are linked not only to drought, but also to changes in land use and population density, according to a new study in Nature Geoscience.
“During the late 1970s, Indonesian Borneo changed from being highly fire-resistant to highly fire-prone during drought [...]

Australian bushfires raise questions over forest strategies

Fire experts say inadequate fuel reduction strategies in Victoria’s forests may have contributed to the weekend disaster, The Age reports.
Rapid population growth on Melbourne’s fringes may also have been a factor in the high toll, one expert said.
But as Victoria reeled in disbelief at the scale of the disaster, most debate centred on whether to [...]

Amazon rainfall projections ‘underestimated’

Amazonian forests may be less vulnerable to dying off from global warming than feared because many projections underestimate rainfall, Reuters reports.
A study by UK researchers suggested that Brazil and other nations in the region would also have to act to help avert any irreversible drying of the eastern Amazon, the region most at risk from [...]