"President Donald Trump’s administration will move the U.S. Forest Service headquarters out of the nation’s capital to Salt Lake City as part of an organizational overhaul that involves shuttering research facilities in 31 states and concentrating resources in the West, the agency announced Tuesday."
"Medicinal and aromatic plants in the Appalachian Mountains, which have stood for hundreds of millions of years and contributed to biodiversity across the region, are facing threats from poaching, climate change, and more. The multiple national parks dotting the region are often havens for these plants, though even the protections afforded by the parks cannot prevent all threats."
"The Trump administration’s new wildfire agency is taking shape at the Interior Department, coalescing around a mission to prioritize swiftly putting out fires on public lands, even as some experts question that strategy."
"Four doses of an experimental vaccine to protect against Lyme disease reduced the number of tick-borne infections by more than 70 percent, according to Pfizer and Valneva, the pharmaceutical companies developing the shot." "If approved by regulators, it could become the only Lyme disease vaccine available for people — although it would not be the first."
Communities surrounded by forest can be a beautiful place to live … or a wildfire trap. Environmental journalists can readily map and identify these so-called wildland urban interfaces through a federal government resource, writes the latest Reporter’s Toolbox. More on this data mapping tool and how to use it to track your area’s risk, explore historical trends and layer other data.
"At first glance, it looks like nothing more than a charming Spanish-revival, quintessentially Californian home — but this Pacific Palisades rebuild is constructed like a tank."
"President Donald Trump’s sweeping changes at the National Park Service have destabilized the agency and its core missions, critics say."
"The US Forest Service is proposing a massive project in a national forest in Michigan that would log land roughly the size of Detroit, expand gravel mining and build roads."
"Political gridlock has allowed the situation to worsen for decades"
"Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee on Friday released text for the farm bill and announced they will mark up the bill on Feb. 23 — with the framework drawing immediate criticism from the top Democrat on the panel who accused Republicans of filling the package with poison pills."
