Housatonic Heritage Walks Announced

BusinessWest

"The Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area announced the 20th annual autumn Housatonic Heritage Walks on five weekends: Sept. 3-4, 10-11, 17-18, and 24-25; and Oct. 1-2. More than 80 free, guided walks will be offered throughout Berkshire County, Mass., and Litchfield County, Conn. The public is invited to participate in these family-friendly, informative walks, offered in partnership with our region’s historical, cultural, and outdoor recreational organizations. [...] Detailed Heritage Walks brochures will be available at libraries, post offices, restaurants, and grocery stores in the region. The schedule is also available online by clicking here. To request a brochure by mail, email programs@housatonicheritage.org." Read More

Family Forest Carbon Program Opens to Small Woodland Owners Across Vermont, Parts of Massachusetts, and New York

Glynnis Breen | American Forest Foundation

"The American Forest Foundation (AFF), a national conservation organization that supports family woodland owners, and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a global conservation organization, [...] announced their joint program, the Family Forest Carbon Program, is open for enrollment to rural small woodlot owners with as little as 30 acres in Vermont and western Massachusetts (Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire and Worcester counties) and eastern New York (Columbia, Dutchess, Rensselaer and Washington counties). The Family Forest Carbon Program provides annual payments to family and individual landowners with small forest holdings to implement scientifically proven climate-friendly forest practices that increase the carbon sequestered and stored on the land. In addition, the program provides expert consultation from foresters and creates a customized forest management plan for those who need one. Families and individuals collectively own the largest portion – 39 percent – of U.S. forests in parcels of ten to 2,000 acres. Yet historically, carbon markets have generally only been accessible to large land holders with properties of 5,000 acres or more. As of 2019, less than one percent of the land in forest carbon projects was on properties under 1,000 acres in size. This is mostly due to high upfront costs, complexity, and contract length. [...] Enrollment to the Family Forest Carbon Program is being offered for 20 years for one of two improved management practices: Enhance Your Woodland, which supports growing a more robust forest through sustainable harvesting; or Grow Older Forests, which grows an older forest by deferring harvests for the length of the contract. Both practices were developed in consultation with a team of regional forestry, wildlife, and climate experts in line with the Healthy Forests for Our Future guidelines. Both practices will not only support increased carbon sequestration and storage but will also build resiliency against the already-occurring impacts of climate change." Read More

Reader Photo Gallery: June 2022

Northern Woodlands 

"Many of you took your cameras into the bog this month, emerging with colorful images of flowers and insects. Fishing scenes, caterpillars, and baby birds were also common themes. In Windham, New Hampshire, Danielle Durocher captured an image of an ovenbird in flight, and in Plymouth, Vermont, a painted turtle rewarded Kelly Stettner and other volunteers’ work removing invasive phragmites. Check out Don Wharton’s image from Stony Creek, New York, of an impressively sized yellow birch burl." See More Photos

Mangrove Tree Offspring Travel Through Water Currents. How will Changing Ocean Densities Alter this Process?

Inside Climate News | Hannah Loss

"The pods were everywhere. Thousands of mangrove propagules, or germinated seeds, had washed up along shorelines in Corpus Christi, Texas. Biologists were puzzled. They knew these bean-shaped pods couldn’t be from local black mangrove trees—nearly all the Texas trees were killed during the February freeze event that chilled the state in 2021. Could these mangrove propagules have drifted from forests in Louisiana, Florida or Mexico? 'We don’t actually know,' said marine biologist Anna Armitage. For Armitage, a professor at Texas A&M University at Galveston, it was an example of the importance of mangrove seed dispersal to replenish and grow the species over long distances. And what the consequences might be if this water-dependent process is interrupted. Climate change may influence how far the trees can spread. That’s according to a recent study published in the journal Nature, which found that the density of seawater could change as temperatures rise, precipitation increases and the salinity of ocean water drops. An international group of geographers and biologists found that mangrove propagules will sink more quickly in less-dense oceans. That could potentially limit their dispersal over long distances. These findings suggest seawater density may deserve some additional research attention as an important effect of climate change, particularly for species like mangroves that depend on an exact ocean chemistry to survive. [...] Temperature and precipitation are factors that are often considered in mangrove dispersal and survival. In this new study, researchers calculated seawater density using publicly available datasets on sea surface temperature and salinity, along with information on global mangrove ranges and habitats. The density of water varies with its temperature and salinity, said Tom Van der Stocken, lead author on the study and a researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. Van der Stocken and colleagues then calculated future sea surface conditions under four different greenhouse gas concentration scenarios. In all of the warming scenarios there were decreases in sea surface density across the globe. However, certain regions experienced greater changes. In Indonesian and West Pacific mangrove regions, the ocean salinity decreased. Fresh water is less dense than salty water so mangrove propagules that float just under the water’s surface might sink faster in this scenario. This “freshening” of the water could be from longer rainy and monsoon seasons that dump rain into the ocean, said Van der Stocken." Read More

A Curious Flower

Charley Eiseman | Bug Tracks

"...'The poop beetles are eating the groundcherry!' This wasn’t news to me; a week or so ago I had noticed the tiny larvae, with poop piled on their backs, on a leaf of one of the potted groundcherry plants we had overwintered indoors with the hope of actually getting some fruit out of them this year. But when I looked over at the plant now, I saw the reason for her alarm: the top of the plant had been reduced to a 'Y' of two blunt, naked branches, and when I went over to inspect, I saw that each fork of the Y was topped with a 'flower' of larvae that were working together to munch the branch down to nothing. [...] They are larvae of the three-lined potato beetle (Chrysomelidae: Lema daturaphila, or another similar Lema species). And being the good botanists that they are, they know that groundcherries (Solanaceae: Physalis) have nothing to do with cherries (Rosaceae: Prunus), but belong to the nightshade family, along with potato, tomato, eggplant, and goji." Read More

Biden announces modest climate actions; pledges more to come

Seung Min Kim & Matthew Daily | AP News

"President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced modest new steps to combat climate change and promised more robust action to come, saying, 'This is an emergency and I will look at it that way.' The president stopped short, though, of declaring a formal climate emergency, which Democrats and environmental groups have been seeking after an influential Democratic senator quashed hopes for sweeping legislation to address global warming. Biden hinted such a step could be coming. 'Let me be clear: Climate change is an emergency,' Biden said. He pledged to use his power as president 'to turn these words into formal, official government actions through the appropriate proclamations, executive orders and regulatory power that a president possesses.' When it comes to climate change, he added, 'I will not take no for an answer.' Biden delivered his pledge at a former coal-fired power plant in Massachusetts. The former Brayton Point power plant in Somerset, Massachusetts, is shifting to offshore wind power manufacturing, and Biden chose it as the embodiment of the transition to clean energy that he is seeking but has struggled to realize in the first 18 months of his presidency. Executive actions announced Wednesday will bolster the domestic offshore wind industry in the Gulf of Mexico and Southeast, as well as spend $2.3 billion to help communities cope with soaring temperatures through programs administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies." Read More

The Accidental Ecosystem: behind the rise of urban wildlife in US cities

Veronica Esposito | The Gaurdian

"'Animals that do well in cities do things that, in a lot of ways, resemble what people do.' Peter Alagona, author of The Accidental Ecosystem – a new book about how wildlife make habitats out of cities – is talking about one of his favorite creatures: bears. He’s explaining how, in part, they thrive in our cities because they resemble us so well. [...] As The Accidental Ecosystem explains, bears have made a comeback from the verge of extinction in no small part because they’ve thrived in urban areas – a tract of land in an urban area can support 40 times as many bears as the same amount of space in the wilderness. Figuring out what to do with these bears hasn’t been simple, as they’ve freaked out urbanites and wreaked havoc. Alagona recounts the Los Angeles police department’s (LAPD) record of shooting them dead... [...] Wildlife like bears have more and more come to thrive in urban areas, we’ve created “accidental ecosystems” that we are still figuring out what to do with. Unaccustomed to thinking of cities as spaces where wide varieties of animals coexist alongside us, we’ve mostly maintained the old-fashioned idea that these creatures live strictly in the wilderness. But Alagona argues that this view is both factually incorrect and harmful. [....] As a field of study, urban ecology is still emerging and is only just beginning to produce research and practical applications. [...] Part of that is coming to see that, while cities may not look like our idea of pristine wilderness, that doesn’t mean they’re not places of nature and natural processes that we now share with wild animals, like it or not." Read More

Utah's Great Salt Lake is drying out, threatening ecological, economic distaster

Nathan Frandino | Reuters

"Utah's Great Salt Lake dropped to its lowest recorded level this month amid a two-decade drought, a grim milestone as researchers and politicians point to grave threats to wildlife and people along its receding shores. The nearby metropolis of Salt Lake City is already subject to dust storms that experts fears could get worse. [...] For years, water that would otherwise end up in the lake has been diverted for human consumption, industry and agriculture. Combined with the ongoing drought, which has been exacerbated by climate change, that has exposed ever more lakebed. On July 3, the surface of the lake fell to the lowest level since records began in 1847, to an average of 4,190 feet (1,277 meters) above sea level, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It is expected to decrease further until fall or early winter, when incoming water equals or exceeds evaporation. The lake contains little more than one-fourth the volume of water now as it did at its high point in 1987, USGS said. The lake has lost nearly half its surface area from the historic average, exposing some 800 square miles (2,000 square km) of lakebed - an area larger than the Hawaiian island of Maui. Layers of earth that were formerly underwater have swirled into dust clouds laced with calcium, sulphur and arsenic, a naturally occurring element linked to cancer and birth defects. Exposed lakebed is also contaminated with residue from copper and silver mining. [...] More than just humans are endangered. Underwater reef-like structures host a micro-organism that is food for brine shrimp, in turn an important food for birds, but the structures dry out and turn gray when exposed. Alvin Sihapanya, a researcher at the Great Salt Lake Institute at Westminster College, cupped his hands in the water and showed off two palms full of water teeming with tiny shrimp. [...] An estimated 10 million birds from more than 330 species migrate through or live at the lake each year, said Max Malmquist of the National Audubon Society's Saline Lakes Program. Half of the North American continent's ruddy ducks stage here while half of its redheads nest here, according to the Great Salt Lake Audubon. Some 90% of the world's eared grebe population stage here, feasting on the brine shrimp. [...] With public awareness and pressure to act growing, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed into law 11 bills related to water conservation and policy in the last legislative session. Longer-term solutions will require the major consumers - agriculture, industry, municipalities - to consume less water and give more to the lake." Read More