Forests

"Wildfires are ravaging the West Coast, burning homes and prompting evacuations. Responding to wildfires has proven costly and now the Obama administration is reevaluating how it pays to fight them.""

"Federal land managers on Wednesday banned exploding targets used by shooting enthusiasts from 12 national forests in four Western U.S. states, saying the devices could spark wildfires and are a threat to public safety."

"For the past few weeks, dry and warm weather have fueled large forest fires across Canada’s remote Northwest Territories. The extent of those fires is well above average for the year to-date, and is in line with climate trends of more fires burning in the northern reaches of the globe."

"A proposal by House appropriators to carve out $442 million of the Interior Department and U.S. EPA budgets to pay for rural county services has raised concerns among lawmakers of both parties that it could sap money from other important agency functions, including land conservation, wildfire prevention and clean water."

"It was a decision that had positive implications for the ability of Goldcorp Inc and other companies to continue to mine on land that natives had ceded to Canada under treaty. Goldcorp operates Canada's largest gold mine in the same region as the tract in the forestry dispute, and had intervened in the court case."

"A fast-growing wildfire in south-central Oregon has forced more than 100 people to evacuate their homes and destroyed structures, officials said on Monday."

"In recent months, as California officials started to calculate the fire danger posed by the state’s prolonged and historic drought, they tucked an extra $23 million into the Cal Fire emergency wildfire budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, bringing its total to $209 million."

"The California drought is helping save the state's signature tree - the mighty oak - by slowing down the spread of the plague-like disease scientists call sudden oak death."

"An environmental campaigner is killed every week in Brazil."