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Our waters
 ...and fire |
It's not only trees -- Wildfires imperil water too (HCN.org December 2017) he Fourmile Canyon Fire, sparked by a backyard burn west of Boulder, Colorado, in 2010, caused $220 million in damage and destroyed 168 homes. It also scorched nearly a quarter of a watershed that supplies water to the nearby community of Pine Brook Hills. The problems didn’t end there: Long after the blaze was put out, intense rainstorms periodically washed sediment and other particles downstream, disrupting water treatment and forcing... Read More
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Wildfire
 Funding |
Proper Fire Funding Continues to Elude Congress (HCN.org December 2017) On Sept. 14, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue officially declared that the 2017 fire season was the Forest Service’s most expensive ever, with costs topping $2 billion. Perdue noted that fire suppression, which accounted for just 16 percent of the agency’s budget in 1995, now takes up over 55 percent. “We end up having to hoard all of the money that is intended for fire prevention,” he wrote in a press release, “because we’re afraid we’re going to need it to actually fight fires.” ... READ ARTICLE
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Forests and a Changing Climate
 Cheesman Reservoir in Drought |
Colorado's Forests in a Changing Climate (Colorado State Forest Service) |
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Colorado
 Environmental Optimism |
This Colorado physicist’s gospel of energy efficiency is taking hold. But is it too late? (Colorado Independent, by Allen Best, November 2017) Amory Lovins recently traveled from his home near Aspen to talk about growing bananas at 7,100 feet in the Colorado Rockies. The house was built in the early 1980s, he told an audience at an energy conference held at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and since then he’s had 66 harvests. But his point wasn’t really about the bananas. It was about the energy used to grow the bananas. Temperatures in the Aspen area then.. READ MORE
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Skiers!
 Citizen Science in Pacific Northwest and Alaska |
Backcountry skiers on Thompson Pass measured the snowpack for scientists (AP, January 2018) |
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Sustaining our Tree Farmers
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The 2018 Outlook for the American Tree Farm System (American Forest Foundation, December 2017) As we look to a new year, we find ourselves at the cusp of an exciting and important time for the American Tree Farm System (ATFS), the largest landowner program of the American Forest Foundation (AFF). As an organization, AFF’s core work to engage family landowners in stewardship that protects clean water, improves wildlife habitat and provides sustainable wood supplies is helping to tackle some of the greatest conservation challenges in the U.S. today. And, there are results to prove it. Through our conservation placed-based work, we have found break-through ways to introduce sustainable forestry to landowners and engage them in management. What’s more, in these projects... Read article
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Events & Info
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NEXT FHTF Monthly Meeting |
