Forestry

Forests become a veritable garden in the fall, presenting a riot of color in national forests as well as on the streets where we live. But what exactly is going on in those leaves? How – and why – do leaves change color, and why is there so much variety? It boils down to chemistry.

The following guest blog is part of a series featuring the Forest Service’s work with partners on restoration across the country. By Scott Bissette, Assistant Commissioner of the North Carolina Forest Service and chair of the National Association of State Foresters Forest Markets Committee Our...

A small but enthusiastic group of volunteers joined a famous bear and well-known owl to support an international competition attended by more than 100,000 people from all over the world. The U.S. Forest Service was a proud partner of the 2015 World Special Olympics in Los Angeles recently. Employees...

One of the greatest natural events in the world is starting to change — change colors that is. The brilliant colors on the leaves of millions of trees are about to make you look up in awe and the U.S. Forest Service wants folks to get outside and experience it this Fall. This year the Forest Service...

Smoke from wildfires can have an enormous impact on the public and on fire personnel, affecting health, interfering with transportation safety and upsetting tourism and local economies. Trent Procter, like all U.S. Forest Service Air Resource Advisors, is a technical specialist with expertise in air...

Throughout his life, Chris Fields-Johnson has been keenly aware of the need to preserve the natural landscapes, which provide us with clean air to breathe, water to drink and food to eat. As a graduate student of soil science at Virginia State and Polytechnic University, a forestry undergraduate, a...

Living memorials serve as a reminder of fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, neighbors and friends—but also of the power of community to reflect, rebuild and renew. Our research suggests that living memorials demonstrate the role of nature in contemporary times not only as...

We’ve all seen the heart-wrenching images on TV: lives and property destroyed by wildland fire. And, this fire season, with over eight million acres burned, we are seeing these images more frequently. Most of us think nothing can be done to protect a home from the onslaught of a raging wildland fire...

Standing in a disturbed patch of forest, Menominee forester Jeff Grignon looks around and explains, “My role is to regenerate the forest, maintain the forest, create diversity, and look toward the future.” This task is becoming increasingly challenging as growing forest health issues intersect with...

Since the 1800s, heirs of the San Joaquin del Rio de Chama Land Grant in northern New Mexico have been tending to graves and religious sites in a small cemetery at the top of a mesa in the Chama River Canyon. For at least three decades, they had to travel by foot up the hill to reach the cemetery...