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  • The rise of wildfire-resilient communities

    Coordination and planning can prove to be the best defensive measures against wildfires. Funded by the US Forest Service, the Community Planning Assistance for Wild Program (CPAW) promotes community fire adaptation, including measures like prescribed burns. Policymakers and city planners enrolled in CPAW benefit from teaming up with foresters, economists, and other experts to model risk and mitigate the impact of fires.

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  • How Baltimore is saving urban forests – and its city

    Baltimore’s urban forest is one of the best-protected in the country. Since a 2006 scientific analysis of Baltimore’s trees, the city has become a leader in tracking and preserving green space and using data to shed light on the interaction between greenery, temperature, safety, and more.

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  • Palawan's indigenous women lead sustainable upland farming, forest protection

    Empowering women to practice sustainable agriculture promotes resilience and enables communities to protect biodiversity. The Kusor Upland Farmer’s Association, sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development, gives farmers an alternative to wildlife poaching and slash-and-burn agriculture by promoting sustainable, organic farming. The KUFA participates in workshops and farming demonstrations to teach women how to grow root vegetables such as yams for additional income as an alternative to more ecologically damaging practices.

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  • A prayer for trees: For Kenyan tribes, saving forests is a sacred duty

    Communities around Kenya address national deforestation by relying on individuals to make changes in the way they use timber as well as to plant trees to repopulate suffering forests. Many towns set strict guidelines about timber sourcing, requiring residents to source from specific groves outside community boundaries; others teach children from a young age that trees are sacred and not to be cut down.

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  • ‘If we don't burn it, nature will': Georgia blazes old fears, leads nation in prescribed fire

    Prescribed fire is a way to protect forest ecosystems by starting fires in a controlled and sustainable way. The practice limits out of control forest fires and promotes the growth of important species. In Georgia, a leader of prescribed fire in the Southeast and the country, successful fire management is hoping to tip forest services nationally in favor of prescribed burn treatment and away from mostly focusing on fire suppression.

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  • Message scent: Douglas fir beetles detoured from Ouray forest by pheromone packets

    By combining biomimicry with biodiversity, Colorado’s forests have kept damaging fir beetles at bay. The city of Ouray, Colorado, and the Colorado State Forest Service have been working with the help of volunteers to apply chemical pheromones to protect Douglas firs from the damaging beetles. The pheromones mimic a warning produced by the beetles, discouraging them from settling on the tree. The pheromones are applied by hand, requiring teams of trained volunteers.

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  • An (Even More) Inconvenient Truth: Why Carbon Credits For Forest Preservation May Be Worse Than Nothing

    This story examines the well-publicized climate-change strategy of carbon credits: the idea that a CO₂-emitting company could offset its emissions by funding anti-logging efforts, effectively "saving" the equivalent amount of carbon. However, as it turns out, despite its popularity, most carbon credit programs do not actually work or, worse, may do more harm than good. This article details the shortcomings of this attempted solution to the effects of global warming.

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  • Cash for trees: Homegrown carbon offset program bears fruit

    Trees for Global Benefits is a carbon offset program that aims to partner with, rather than displace, locals in countries that have space to plant forests. For instance, in the Rubirizi District in Uganda, locals are getting paid to plant trees on their land. This hopes to eliminate the negative ramifications of other carbon offset programs that have displaced native people. Still, companies should be looking for ways to reduce carbon emissions beyond bringing their problems to other countries.

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  • To Control Forest Fires, Western States Light More of Their Own

    Prescribed burns help prevent the devastating impact of uncontrolled forest fires in Western states. In states like Colorado, the US Forest Service, local governments, and nonprofits, are working to improve forest habitat and protect communities from wildfires by increasing the acreage of forest exposed to controlled fires. After years of policy that aimed to reduce fires, agencies are now working to restore ecological balance and prevent future natural disasters.

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  • On the island of Java, a social forestry scheme creates jobs at home

    In Indonesia, transferring land management rights to local residents is slow-going, but one community is setting an example for what can happen when the residents are in charge. Mandiri farmers formed a cooperative and began replacing hillsides; now, tourism to the area has increased and attitudes towards the land and community have changed.

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