trees

Journalist Jesse Winter ventured out with a thermometer during a heat wave last summer. The temperature differences between wealthy and poor neighbourhoods were staggering.

As global warming enables destructive insects and diseases to move farther north into Canada’s forests, keeping the public informed about these pests is critical, says an expert in insects and forest dynamics.

The White Rock Lake wildfire hammered B.C.'s Paxton Valley last summer, levelling houses, destroying ranchland and killing cattle. But even after the worst of the fire had moved on, residents knew one nasty wind could whip up the flames again.

Ten thousand years ago, when the last ice age gave way to the Holocene, a great migration was triggered in North America: trees began travelling northward, colonizing newly thawed landscapes at a pace of up to 500 metres a year. In a geoclimatic blink of an eye, trees colonized 38 per cent of the landmass now known as Canada, ultimately giving us nearly a 10th of all the forest in the world.

The government is planning to plant up to 320 million trees a year to meet the prime minister’s target to put an extra two billion trees in the ground by 2030.

We need to cut less and consider ecosystem values like carbon sequestration, water and biodiversity, not just the price a two-by-four will fetch on the market, says Suzanne Simard.

Prof. Suzanne Simard says she's overwhelmed by the newfound celebrity status but wants to continue her focus on saving the forests.

Finally, incidents of violence against gender-diverse and women tree-planters are being talked about publicly, writes researcher, writer, facilitator and policy consultant Jennie Long.

Aly Hyder Ali works with Nature Canada teaching city-dwellers how to appreciate and protect birds.

Over-reliance on tree-planting to offset carbon emissions could push food prices up 80 per cent by 2050, Oxfam said.

More than 100 celebrities and prominent voices — both national and global — have joined the battle to save B.C.'s old growth. But the Ministry of Forests says their efforts aren't going to work.

Tree-planting agreements between the provinces and the federal government must be transparent to ensure Canada’s two-billion-tree program fulfils climate and biodiversity goals, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society says.

While a pitched battle is underway to save old-growth trees on the West Coast, a B.C.-based non-profit is conscripting a contingent of luxury brands that are pledging to eliminate packaging made from the world’s ancient and endangered forests.

The studies will focus on using trees, peat, rock chips, and charcoal to absorb CO2 as a solution to global warming.

Canada's continent-spanning forest used to remove massive amounts of CO2 from the air each year. It was a hugely valuable "carbon sink", slowing the pace of climate change and benefiting our logging industry.