forest management

Northern Arizona University’s School of Forestry has received a federal grant of nearly $270,000 to train Hispanic students who forestry professionals say are underrepresented in the workforce. Department leaders hope it’ll create more diverse leadership in the field.

Many people on the Navajo Nation gather firewood to heat their homes in winter. But the pinyon juniper woodlands they rely on are dying due to drought. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny spoke with University of Utah environmental scientist Kate Magargal, whose work raises the alarm about the future of firewood access on the northern Navajo Nation.

Trees keep a record of the fires they survived. Their rings make a kind of library of a landscape’s history, going back centuries or even millennia—if you know how to read it.

The National Forest Service's prescribed burn program was put on hold in May, 2022, pending evaluation in response to extreme climate conditions and a devastating government-sparked fire in New Mexico.

Environmental groups have turned in more than 122,000 public comments to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Interior Department urging the agencies to protect mature and old-growth forests on public lands from logging.

A new study from Northern Arizona University shows thinning and regular prescribed burns can help ponderosa pine forests survive both drought and wildfire. The work took place at a thirty-year-old research site on the Fort Valley Experimental Forest north of Flagstaff. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny spoke with ecologist Andrew Sánchez Meador about the findings.

The mission was to rescue tens of thousands of invaluable tree sprouts from a research center in New Mexico and to keep safe a vital bank of millions of pine, spruce and other conifer seeds that will be used to restore fire-ravaged landscapes across the West.

A new study from The Nature Conservancy says thinning ponderosa pines can save trees in the long run. The research modeled what will happen to northern Arizona forests as the climate grows hotter and drier. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny spoke with lead author Lisa McCauley about how the results relate to the nation’s largest restoration project, the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI).

A coalition of more than 70 conservation groups are calling on the Biden administration to protect old-growth trees from logging on federal lands. They say the trees are critical in combatting climate change.

A mechanical forest thinning project is set to begin within the Prescott National Forest's Bradshaw Ranger District. Heavy equipment will be used to thin approximately 6,400 acres of national forest lands north and east of Wilhoit, Arizona, south of Copper Basin.