As boreal forest wildfires increase in severity and frequency, new patterns of post-fire recovery are emerging. Research led by Jill Johnstone and colleagues at the U.S. National Science Foundation-supported Bonanza Creek Long-term Ecological Research site found that recent wildfires led to changes in tree species dominance that are persisting through post-fire succession in Alaska’s boreal forests. Boreal black […]
Documents obtained via Freedom of Information Act detail close collaboration linking logging interests, Forest Service, and State of Alaska JUNEAU – Up to $1.3 million in U.S. Forest Service (USFS) dollars will wind up in the hands of the Alaska Forest Association – a timber industry group – for work that entails selecting old-growth […]
JUNEAU – As climate change rapidly alters conditions in southeast Alaska, lower snowpack levels have caused a massive decline of yellow-cedar trees. Without an insulating blanket of snow, the shallow roots of yellow-cedar trees freeze during late spring cold snaps. Left behind is a growing expanse of “ghost forests” of dead yellow-cedars, affecting roughly […]
Image: Dead trees near a shoreline of Russell Fjord about 15 miles from the town of Yakutat. Ned Rozell photo. RUSSELL FJORD — Standing on this smooth gravel shoreline, 15 miles northeast of the town of Yakutat, you can tell something big happened. A forest of dead trees encircles the shoreline. The dry, bone-white stems […]