Publication archives

Timber researchers hope to create wood sniffers that could track lumber from forest to front-room furniture the way bloodhounds track criminals -- by their scent.

Going to work every day in a place where Air Force fighter planes fly directly above the tree-line at speeds of 600 mph, while dropping bombs only a few hundred yards from your office, takes some getting used to, especially for someone in the forestry profession.

What happens when a timber company's land becomes too valuable for timber?

Fires whipping through rainforests in New Caledonia are wiping out rare plant species and overwhelming firefighters, and environmental groups and local leaders appealed Tuesday for help.

America's pre-eminent redwoods showcase, Redwood National Park, will begin 2006 significantly larger, and not just because the massive trees there grew taller. The formerly 112,000-acre park in Humboldt and Del Norte counties -- home to the tallest living things on Earth -- grew by about 26,000 acres after President Bush signed a law to expand the park's boundaries on Dec. 21.

Northern Minnesota has deep cultural and ancestral roots to Finland. But there's more we share. Our forests of pine, spruce, birch and aspen-and the logging trucks that regularly roll by-are familiar to both regions. Finland's economy, like Minnesota's, leans heavily on its forest-based industries. And their long history of intensive forest management holds valuable lessons.

A group in Bend is working to buy what could become the first community forest in Oregon. The Deschutes Basin Land Trust is hoping to take advantage of a new state law that allows local governments to set up special bonding authorities to help buy private forests that would be managed for the public through a combination of logging and recreation.

The remote 1,400-mile (2,250-kilometer) long string of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are blanketed with the 14 million seabirds that nest there. Beneath the surface of the surrounding waters, fish crowd into pristine coral reefs. The islands are home to about 7,000 species, a quarter of which are unique to Hawaii.