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In Illinois, the city of Elgin has completed a U.S. Forest Service Recovery Act-funded urban forestry project that channeled over one million dollars into the local economy.

Working with businesses such as tree service firms, nurseries, landscapers, hotels, restaurants, graphic designers, and printers, the city engaged in a successful 18-month public-private partnership effort.

USDA Forest Service research is transforming exhausted farmland in Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee into thousands of acres of hardwood forests that will provide revenue to landowners, remove carbon from the air and serve as habitats for wildlife.

In 1998, scientists with the Forest Service’s Center for Bottomland Hardwoods Research, in Stoneville, Miss., began testing methods of afforestation – growing trees on barren farmland. The result was a tree-planting technique that mixed cottonwoods trees (poplars) with hardwood yearlings to produce strong, straight-stemmed hardwood trees.

Cross posted from the White House Rural Champions of Change website:

Bruce formed the nonprofit organization Choose Outdoors in 2008 to bring together the diverse outdoor recreation interests that enjoy the National Forests and Grasslands.

District of Columbia science classes help in an enhanced pest detection program.

The Challenge – Non-native wood-boring insects and pathogens that infest and kill trees pose a serious threat to our nation's forests.

But monitoring trees to look for emerging insects is time-consuming and resource intensive.  Exotic pests are frequently first introduced in the country’s urban areas where they go undetected until they are well established and have damaged host trees.  Enhanced survey and detection methods are needed to identify new introductions of invasive insects and diseases.

I have lived and worked abroad for most of my adult life, including many years in Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia, so it was not too difficult adjusting to life in the Brazilian Amazon. I learned to speak Portuguese in the field; my tutors were the field assistants that I hired locally. The politics of doing research on this species are challenging and complicated. That side of my research has been almost as educational and fascinating as the actual fieldwork.

In conjunction with National Bike Month, the National Forests in Florida celebrated the renovation of the Munson Hills Off-Road Bicycle Trail on the Apalachicola National Forest. The project was funded by the Recovery Act.

The ribbon-cutting event in Bristol, Fla., was attended by an enthusiastic crowd. Guest speaker Jim Wood of the Florida Office of Greenways and Trails kicked off the ceremony. Recognition was given to those individuals who contributed to the restoration and renovation of the trails by Deputy District Ranger Harold Shenk. Following the ceremony, a group bicycle ride was led by the Tallahassee Mountain Bike Club.

Recovery Act funding spurs a renaissance in backcountry trail maintenance.

This year, visitors to the Los Padres National Forest, near Goleta, Calif., are seeing widespread wilderness trail improvements thanks to Recovery Act funds.  Nearly $2.3 million was allocated to the forest for wilderness trail rehabilitation and maintenance which was divided among its five ranger districts.

With just over two weeks left in the 2011 Feds Feed Families campaign, Forest Service employees are joining forces all over the country in an extraordinary show of commitment and compassion as its summer food drive moves to full gear in helping reach the USDA’s goal of 500,000 pounds of donated food. Across the country, Forest Service employees have stepped up to the plate to help feed the hungry in their region. Here are some examples of what’s happening:

“Packing on the Pounds,” a collaborative effort between the Pacific Northwest Region and the Pacific Northwest Research Station is tipping the scales to feed Portland, Oregon’s hungry families.  Their goal is to collect one ton of foodstuffs; they’re more than halfway to their goal.

Deep amid the dense greenery of a rain forest, U.S. Forest Service scientists are nursing a special patient back to health.

The patient is on pain medication, but lucid enough to ruffle his emerald green feathers and fill the room with angry squawks when a biologist removes him from an incubator. It is a Puerto Rican parrot with a broken leg, a serious injury for one of the world's most endangered bird species.

Over the past year, the USDA Forest Service has been providing technical advice and assistance to the Deputy Minister for Forestry in the Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture and Food. From July 18-30, the Forest Service hosted a six-member delegation of Bulgarian forestry officials to provide insight of the day-to-day operations in timber sales management.  The agency facilitates the participation of international visitors in a broad variety of educational and cultural exchange programs in the United States.