forestry

The Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center located on the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska is a site to see for many tourists.  This recently renovated Center is a popular cruise ship destination giving a boost to the local economy. Tourism spending in the Juneau, Alaska area is expected to reach $160 million this summer season.

How do you turn biting, stinging, pantry raiding, picnic ruining pests into pollinating, irrigating, aerating, fertilizing, ecosystem balancing helpers? … By educating as many people as possible about the role of bugs in the environment.

One of the responsibilities of the U.S. Forest Service is to inform the public about the value of insects in helping to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands.

With many people either afraid of or grossed out by bugs, changing their negative image is a challenge. However, a partnership between the Forest Service Southern Research Station and Kent House, in Alexandria, La., is demonstrating a growing public interest in insects.

The prestigious EPA clean air award acknowledges the Placer County Air Pollution Control District, the US Forest Service and Sierra Pacific Industries who have teamed to implement projects designed to cost effectively manage portions of the 550,000 acres of forested lands that are at severe risk for wildfire in the Lake Tahoe region.

A new report titled Innovations in Watershed-Based Conservation in the United States: Payments for Watershed Services for Agricultural and Forest Landowners was just released by EcoAgriculture Partners with funding and support from USDA’s Office of Environmental Markets (OEM) and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry & Communities. The report surveys payments for watershed services (PWS) schemes to understand their current role in the U.S. and future potential for increasing cost-effective watershed protection on private lands.

Water is crucial for many human needs; yet water resources in the United States face serious threats from increasing pollution and overuse.  PWS can address these challenges effectively as a complement to USDA conservation programs and other existing incentives.

Baseball fans thrill at the thought of hearing a bat crack. But seeing an actual bat shatter is not one of those thrills. That’s because this seemingly harmless wood breaking can be dangerous for the players and fans and is the reason that the U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Lab has worked for several years to improve the strength of wooden bats.

The Products Lab’s efforts have not been in vain. Since Major League Baseball’s partnership with the Forest Service began in 2008 there has been an astonishing 50 percent reduction in multiple-piece failure rates in bats.

You might say that Dave Kretschmann has engineered his way into Major League Baseball’s history books. Kretschmann’s work as a research general engineer led him to figure out why so many bats used by Major League Baseball were shattered.

“Since late in the 2008 season, we’ve seen video of every shattered bat in Major League Baseball,” said Kretschmann, who is assigned to the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wis., “We’ve tested hundreds of bats and recorded the who, when, and how of every shattered bat in 2009 and 2010. As a result of the implementation of our recommendations and the work of TECO, an independent certification and testing agency for wood products, there’s been a 50 percent reduction in the rate of multiple piece failures since the 2008 season.”

To celebrate its 13^th anniversary this year, the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center in Great Falls, Montana, has gone to the dog – one dog in particular that served as an integral part of the Lewis & Clark expedition more than 200 years ago.

The Center historically interprets the importance and relevance of the expedition that opened up the western portion of the growing Unites States to other exploration and expansion. It is part of the Lewis & Clark National Forest.

A study by researchers at the U.S. Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory shows that the lowest rates of deforestation and forest carbon emissions occur in global regions with the highest rates of forest product output.

Counter intuitively global regions with the highest rates of deforestation and forest carbon emissions rank lowest in forest product output or what is referred to technically as industrial roundwood harvest.

Every year across the country, the U.S. Forest Service plants trees on thousands of acres of land. These efforts help to restore valuable ecosystems and helping to combat the effects of climate change.

“Planting trees is a win-win investment,” said Dave Cleaves, Climate Change Advisor for the Forest Service. “Not only do trees store carbon, making them one of our most effective tools for climate change mitigation, they provide many other benefits – from watershed protection, to wildlife habitat, to shading houses and reducing cooling costs.”

Nan Christianson worked in many jobs during her three decades with the U.S. Forest Service.  She considers them all gifts.

“I think that because I’ve been able to work with communities as well as with natural resources, it is fun to go back and see some of the things I have been a part of over the past 30 years that are making a difference in communities and in the mountains today”, said Christianson, Assistant Director for Communications at the Rocky Mountain Research Station, in Fort Collins, Colo.