The forest sound detectives

Evidence continues to build that humans are contributing to a climate change issue that is nothing but bad news for the planet. Hopeful stories from seven countries, including India, Indonesia, and China, show that efforts to combat climate change might finally be working.

Summer in the Northwest presents a great risk of wildfires. A pile burning operation, just one facet of the strategy that Oregon has enacted to conserve its forests, clears undergrowth to lessen the risk of mega-fire. The work stimulates the local economy and provides employment, but it's also a very small part of what needs to be done.

Geography and climate change challenge the viability of sea-level cities in Vietnam, but architects, researchers, and urban planners work together to find creative solutions. One architect in Ho Chi Minh City designed green roofs to absorb the rainwater that causes floods.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture assists farms which follow the sustainable farming style, Silvopasture, but few farmers take advantage of the program. ForeverView Farms in Vermont is advising policy groups about ways they can boost this type of farming.

In Colombia, traditional cattle pastures have caused soil degradation, deforestation, and desertification. To reconcile this, several thousand acres of land in Latin America have been transformed into a silvo-pastoral system of grazing and raising cattle with agro-forestry. The Colombia-based Center for Research in Sustainable Systems of Agriculture seeks to reduce pasture land by 26 million acres while increasing cattle numbers by 2019.

In Africa, many people rely on wood from trees to cook food over stoves. The tremendous usage of wood contributes to deforestation and environmental decline. Using bamboo instead of wood is a more profitable and greener solution.

The overpopulation of white-tailed deer is a conservation realization and an environmental disaster for the communities that harbor them. Hastings-on-Hudson, a progressive community, has opted for a humane birth control method PZP that is injected by darts into does. The method is successful for its non-lethal approach and the population growth has slowed, but as of yet has not significantly decreased.

13 years ago, Brazil didn't have satellite data or heat mapping to track illegal logging. Neither did they have weapon wielding agents working to stop ecological crime. These tools, in addition to the help of indigenous Brazilians is making the goal of ending Amazon deforestation by 2030 seem more and more likely.

A new timber mill in Costilla County could majorly improve the forest health of the greater region by thinning undergrowth to reduce risk of wildfires, curbing the spread of invasive insects, and decreasing the demand for water in the face of drought. The mill could also create jobs and further economic development for the area.

What do you do with 102 million dead trees, strewn across the Sierra Nevada’s forests? According to California’s Forest Service, something productive; previously left to stand in place and risk spreading fire at a much faster rate, the trees are now being used to produce energy. Though this solution had been tested in the 1990s and was found to produce more environmental harm than good, a few small, innovative companies are now working to extract energy through an environmentally sound method.