Author: Site Owner

By Joe Duckworth, Manager of Urban Forest Programs

American Forests, in partnership with Alliance Data and Texas Trees Foundation, is excited to launch a new Community ReLeaf project in one of the fastest growing cities in the country, Dallas. The Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area is the fourth largest in the country, and the city region is expected to add more than 4 million people by the year 2030. Not only is the population of the region growing, but the environment is also rapidly changing.

As urban centers become more developed, they often become warmer than the outlying areas. This is called the urban heat island effect and is caused by changing land cover, such as paving over natural surfaces, and increased energy use. And, this effect can be quite extreme: the city of Dallas can get up to 19 degrees hotter than nearby rural areas.

These higher temperatures can have a negative effect on air quality as well. According to the American Lung Association, Dallas has the eighth worst air quality in the country when it comes to ozone, a gas that can cause a number of health problems, including coughing, increased asthma attacks and lung damage. Hot summer days cause more ozone to form, which reduces the air quality in the city.

Thankfully, Dallas knows the benefits of urban forests on improving air quality and reducing stormwater runoff. Texas Trees Foundation provided the City of Dallas with a State of the Urban Forest report in 2015, detailing the current tree canopy in the city, its economic and environmental value and providing the information on which to base future management decisions. The report found that the 14.7 million trees in the city limits have a replacement value of $9.02 billion and provide $36.1 million annually in ecosystem services. There is also the potential to plant 1.8 million more trees in sites throughout the city.

American Forests, the Texas Trees Foundation and Alliance Data are building off of this report to focus on the urban heat island effect and how it can be mitigated. As a first step, we are creating a detailed map and analysis of the Dallas County surface temperatures. Armed with this data, this partnership will implement catalytic tree planting projects throughout the Dallas region to help cool the areas where the “urban heat island” of higher surface temperatures is highest. These restoration activities combined with targeted civic, business and community engagement will be used to help the community and decision makers plan for and invest in the city’s urban forest and other green infrastructure to positively impact the region.

This partnership with Texas Trees Foundation and Alliance Data seeks to turn the Dallas region into a model for how urban forests can help rapidly growing cities sustainably grow and become healthy, vibrant communities in the 21^st century.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that wildfires are more common during hot, dry summers. The area burned in the United States in 2015, over 10 million acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, occurred during a record temperature year for the Earth, plus record low snowpack and rainfall in some areas of the West.

The sizzling weather of 2015 was similar to what global climate models project for the year 2060. Last year’s weather and fire may become the new normal later in the 21st century.

A warmer climate is expected to increase the frequency and severity of fires.  Historically, fires most often occur in the western U.S., as well as the boreal forest and tundra of Alaska. Current models predict that two to three times more area will burn annually in the West by 2050.  This is a significant change in how wildfire will affect ecological systems and human communities in the future.

A longer fire season and bigger fires in Alaska would have a significant effect on the global carbon cycle. Organic soils in boreal forests and tundra contain up to 30 percent of the Earth’s terrestrial carbon, which can be released to the atmosphere by intense wildfires that burn deep into the soil. Temperature is increasing fastest at northern latitudes, thus increasing opportunities for wildfire to occur.

Foresters manage fuels to reduce fire intensity, vegetation mortality and damage to structures. In the Southeastern U.S., most pine forests are treated with prescribed fire every few years, keeping surface fuels and tree densities low to reduce the risk of fire.  Forest thinning, prescribed fire and other means of fuel removal reduce fire intensity in dry forests in the western U.S.

Increasing temperatures coupled with increased wildfire will create new ecological and social challenges for federal resource managers. Warmer temperatures increase the complexity of conservation in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, threaten homes in the wildland-urban interface, and make the task of fire suppression even more costly.

By identifying “hot spots” where future wildfire may be especially pervasive and damaging to resources, the U.S. Forest Service and other federal agencies are developing adaptation options and locations where fuel treatments can be prioritized.  They are also working with local communities to ensure that residents are prepared to live in areas where fire hazard is high.

California has a pioneering spirit. Rural folks there have been on the frontier for generations. That frontier may have been gold mines and cattle grasslands in the past, but today that frontier is the very air, soil and water of California itself. Climate change is transforming California like it’s transforming our globe. But Californians are leading the pioneer charge to transform, with pragmatism, ingenuity and a commitment to rural communities.

Just recently, I visited a small dairy farm in Elk Grove, California, the site of an anaerobic digester. Case Van Steyn’s operation of around 700 cows produces manure, and the Maas Energy digester, secluded in an unobtrusive red shipping container, uses the manure to produce methane. That methane creates enough electricity to power 125 homes—and enough to sell electricity back to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, or SMUD.

SMUD unveiled the Van Steyn anaerobic digester project last Thursday as its newest dairy-fueled renewable energy plant, financed in part by USDA’s Renewable Energy for America Program. Van Steyn works the cows and Maas Energy works the digester. It’s a new model, where every player does what they do best, and it may mean many more digesters will crop up in the future.

For the sake of California and our nation’s struggle with climate change, I hope we see a lot more successes just like the Van Steyns’. Dairies are a backbone of California agriculture; milk and cream products are the second largest agricultural export and represented over $9.4 billion in production value in 2014. Turning dairies into clean energy plants positions them in a new, more sustainable niche—one that supports California families and one that is better for the state’s air, the water, and the soil. With a digester, local dairies can produce milk for the world and clean energy for their own communities.

“Dairying isn’t farming,” said Van Steyn when I visited him. “Dairying is a way of life. If you don’t want to wake up at two in the morning on a Sunday to pull a calf, then this isn’t for you.”

Van Steyn’s commitment shows in the dairy itself, from the hand-built dairy sheds to the bright red digester. He inherited the land, the buildings, the cows, and the way of life from his parents, who bought the dairy in the 1970s. Now his son works with him to run the farm today.

Digesting on the dairy is certainly a new way of doing business. But the high-tech system helps Van Steyn to manage the manure and makes money, too. He calls it a win-win. And he says he couldn’t have done it without help from the USDA.

Find out the latest in forest news in this week’s Forest Digest!

• The Climate Benefits of Healthy Forests — YaleClimateConnections.org
  While forests provide many benefits to our climate when healthy, they are currently being threatened by disease and infestation due to climate change.
• How tree-mendous! The $100,000 cell towers of America concealed to blend in with forests — Daily Mail
  In order to help improve the beauty of landscapes, telecommunications companies are investing in cell towers that will look like trees and provide a more pleasing aesthetic.
• More ‘underwater forests’ to be restored off Sydney’s iconic beaches — ABC News
  Forests provide benefits even underwater, so a restoration effort in Australia is aimed at restoring underwater forests to rejuvenate the underwater ecosystems.
• Senegal’s southern forests may disappear by 2018: ecologist — org
  If the continuing issue of illegal logging within the country of Senegal is not addressed quickly, projections indicate that the country could lose the entirety of their southern tree cover in just a couple of years.

Nutritional security is defined as “a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”

Achieving nutritional security in the context of the burgeoning population, climate change, diminishing land and water resources, environmental degradation, and changing incomes and diets will require not just approaches to sustainably producing more food, but also smarter ways of producing food, dealing with food waste, and promoting improved nutritional outcomes.  The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) invests in and advances agricultural research, education, and extension and seeks to make transformative discoveries that solve these societal challenges. NIFA’s portfolio of support for nutritional security and sustainable agriculture includes literally thousands of impactful efforts across our nation; below are just a handful that speak to the transformative work transforming lives.  For example:

Healthy lifestyles are critical to address obesity and diabetes, which are rampant in Native American communities. To this end, Southwest Indian Polytechnic Institute in New Mexico has created the successful Seven Generations of Native Health programs, which include topics such as understanding food labels, food consumption, and cholesterol.

Almost 80 percent of the consumptive use of freshwater is in the food we consume, and agricultural irrigation accounts for 62 percent of freshwater use in the United States.  Such water use cannot be sustained in many parts of our nation, considering the intense weather events and droughts, combined with depletion of groundwater. University of Maryland researchers have developed sensors and control systems for commercial nursery and greenhouse operations that can reduce water use by 40 to 80 percent.

Many global cereal production systems are not irrigated and are located in semi-arid regions. The limited precipitation and often extreme temperatures in these regions make these systems vulnerable to climate change. To address these and associated challenges, the Regional Approaches to Climate Change project in the Pacific Northwest promotes practices that are improving soil nutrient management, diversify cropping systems, and anticipating changes in pest pressure.

Food waste losses are greatest at the level of the consumer, and reducing these losses can have global impacts.  For example, Elena, a mother of two children, experienced food insecurity because she did not have enough money to buy more food. But, after participating in the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program’s Plan, Shop, $ave lesson, Elena began cooking more purposefully.  “I didn’t look at what I had. Now I look at the pantry to see what I can use before I shop,” she said.  “It’s saving me money.” Thankfully, Elena now has a better idea of how much her children need, wastes less, and focuses on healthier meals – but there are many more people who are still in the dark about food economy.

NIFA invests in and advances agricultural research, education and extension and seeks to make transformative discoveries that solve societal challenges.

All this month we will be taking a look at what a changing climate means to Agriculture. The ten regional USDA Climate Hubs were established to synthesize and translate climate science and research into easily understood products and tools that land managers can use to make climate-informed decisions. The Hubs work at the regional level with an extensive network of trusted USDA agency partners, technical service providers, University collaborators, and private sector advisers to ensure they have the information they need to respond to producers that are dealing with the effects of a variable climate. USDA’s Climate Hubs are part of our broad commitment to developing the next generation of climate solutions, so that our agricultural leaders have the modern technologies and tools they need to adapt and succeed in the face of a changing climate.

The USDA Northern Plains Regional Climate Hub (NPRCH) partnered with the 1914 Cooperative Extension programs in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, North and South Dakota, and Nebraska to develop and deliver science-based, region specific information and technologies to agricultural and natural resource managers to enable them to make climate-informed decisions.  The team has met monthly since June 2015, and through their efforts and partnership with the NPRCH they reached out to Extension colleagues to develop relevant projects that meet stakeholder needs in the region.

Since becoming partners, the NPRCH Extension and Outreach participants have developed the following three efforts, which they will work on during the coming year.

North Dakota State University (NDSU) Extension will lead an effort titled Extension Climate Curriculum, A Primer for Weather Extremes in the Northern Great Plains with Montana State University (MSU) Extension.   The team will create an interactive iBooks-based weather curriculum to be delivered by Extension professionals.  The project goals include:

• Engage Extension professionals in climate issues
• Create an iBook curriculum focusing on basic weather terminology and weather extremes
• Provide training for Extension professionals in the use of the curriculum

The Extension Climate Curriculum team anticipates raising the awareness and improving peoples’ knowledge of and use of weather terms, and concepts to create a common language.

The University of Nebraska Lincoln (UNL) Extension will lead an effort titled Scenario Planning for Resilient Beef Systems with South Dakota State University (SDSU) Extension. The team will facilitate scenario planning with beef system stakeholders to leverage use of regional climate data, discover robust management options, and prioritize Extension programming, creating more resilient beef systems in the region.  The project goals include:

• Determine a suite of key, plausible future scenario based on climate science, divergent, relevant, and challenging to the beef industry
• Develop white papers summarizing climate impacts to Northern Plains beef systems

The Scenario Planning for Resilient Beef Systems team anticipates Extension professionals in the region will be better prepared to engage beef system stakeholders to address climate challenges, and stakeholders will be more engaged in addressing climate challenges.

The University of Wyoming (UW) Extension will lead an effort titled Adapting Agriculture to Weather and Extreme Events by Connecting Agricultural Producers to Early Adopters with SDSU, Colorado State University Water Institute, and NDSU. The team will use multi-media to highlight agricultural producers who are early adopters of adaptation strategies, which build resiliency of operations to weather and extreme events. The project goals include:

• Identify and film agricultural producers who are early adopters of adaptation strategies
• Develop an interactive webpage highlighting videos
• Create interactive fact sheets featuring adaptation strategies
• Write popular press articles highlighting the early adopters

The Adapting Agriculture to Weather and Extreme Events team anticipates an increase in knowledge of agricultural producers and Extension professionals about different adaptation strategies.

The NPRCH thanks our Extension and Outreach partners.  We are excited to continue working with the Extension and Outreach team throughout the Northern Plains to develop and deliver science-based, region specific information and technologies to agricultural and natural resource managers to enable them to make climate-informed decisions.

By Austa Somvichian-Clausen, Communications Intern

Our final day on our fall adventure in Rocky Mountain National Park is our fly fishing day! After a homemade breakfast at the Lodge of the Stanley Hotel, we’ll head into the park for a guided fly fishing tour suitable for all levels of fishing expertise, from beginners to experts. Our fly fishing guide, Eddie, will be showing us the ropes of fly fishing amidst the beauty of the Rockies and bringing us to the best spots in the park for catching trout. All the materials you need for a perfect fly fishing trip will be provided, including waders and reels.

We’ll get the chance to fish for what is known as the Colorado Grand Slam, which includes four different species of trout. While on our fishing adventure, you can look out for rainbow, brown, brook and the greenback cutthroat trout species.

The greenback cutthroat trout is unique to the area and was actually presumed to be extinct by 1937, until several wild populations of what were thought to be greenback cutthroat trout were discovered in the South Platte and Arkansas basins starting in the late 1950s. This discovery prompted an aggressive conservation effort, and the greenback was designated as Colorado’s state fish in 1996.

We all have a different connection to nature. For those who have a love of outdoor adventure and spend much of their time in nature, that connection is imperative to who they are. This is the case for Ben Ditto. Ditto is an avid climber and has climbed all over the world, including in the Indian Himalayas and the Peruvian and Patagonian Andes. He is also a photographer and filmmaker and has done work to spotlight the peregrine falcon. During his summers, Ditto serves as a “climber in residence” in Yosemite Valley. In the following interview, learn more about Ditto’s connection to the forests and environment in which he thrives.

Q: Do you think it was nature or nurture that created in you the seeds of the passion you have for outdoor adventure?

A: A mix of Nature and Nurture combined to allow me to find inspiration in the outdoors as a youngster. My outdoorsy father has a weak spot for unknown places on any map. As a kid growing up around Chattanooga, Tenn., there are a great number of forests, mountains and Canyons to explore. In those days it was very common for me and my brothers to join my father at cold winter campsites and on isolated trails. It was through him that I learned to love the unknown and be okay with being lost in the woods, the canyon or the white-out. Thanks to my Dad and the landscape around Chattanooga, I had exposure to climbing, trails, rivers and, believe it or not, a little bit of snow every now and then. So, it was quite a fun childhood.

Q: Of all the creatures to go to bat for, so to speak, what is it about the peregrine falcon?

A: Due to our behavior as humans, we are culpable for the extinction of a great many species whose habitat is rapidly changing. As a climber, one of the species that I have encountered worldwide is the great cliff dwelling raptor, the peregrine falcon. Between the 1950s and 1980s, the peregrine almost became extinct due to the pesticide DDT.  Due to recovery efforts from scientists around the world, and the ban of DDT, top tier predators, such as the peregrine falcon, have made a remarkable recovery. I find the peregrine falcon to be an inspiring success story, and I love to see them soar and hunt among the steep walls of Yosemite. My work filming the peregrine falcon is motivated by a desire to promote respect among climbers for something beyond themselves.

Q: As a photographer, filmmaker and blogger/adventurer, what impact do you hope your work will have on others?

A: I think that we all have a personal perspective that can inform our friends and families about issues that are important in our lives. My goal as a content creator is to provide information about environmental issues and low impact ways of living so that people who may be paying attention can take this information into account while making decisions about their own lives. I think people make better decisions when they have more information about subjects. I hope to inspire people to live outside of the box when it comes to work, living simply and respecting nature and all the organisms on the earth, including themselves.

Q: What is the connection for you, if any, between your adventure life and your view of the natural world?

A: Being out in the landscape keeps me focused on the important things in life. Whether I’m climbing, skiing or just out for a walk, being in nature keeps me humble by reminding me to pay attention to what I’m doing and that I’m just a tiny part of what is happening on the planet. The tiredness I feel after a long day in the mountains also helps me to appreciate the simple things in life.