Forests

"The 2012 wildfire season isn't over yet, but already this year is shaping up to be the one of the worst on record in the American West. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, with nearly two months still to go in the fire season, the total area already burned this year is 30 percent more than in an average year, and fires have consumed more than 8.6 million acres, an area larger than the state of Maryland."

"LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Officials have canceled a proposal for commercial logging in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Rockcastle County that had caused concern about the potential impact on a pristine spring and trees hundreds of years old."

"The emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle that has destroyed millions of trees in North America since being accidentally introduced from Asia, has been identified in Massachusetts for the first time, state officials said on Wednesday."

"Two Pacific Northwest conservation organizations are seeking permission from a federal court in Washington to fight a lawsuit that aims to limit the use of science to help manage U.S. national forests."

"Wildfires burning across the northern Rockies threatened hundreds of homes on Monday in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, while firefighters in Washington state scrambled to battle scores of blazes sparked by weekend lightning storms across the eastern Cascades."

Ancient chestnut trees in Europe are vanishing. "The culprits: a moth that produces leaf-eating larvae and a bacterium that makes trunks bleed and die. ... A cure? Not immediately in sight."

"A new management plan for the Giant Sequoia National Monument further limits logging in and near groves of the world's largest trees, but would still allow it in nearly a quarter of the monument."