Tag: Forests

  • Nation & World

    Finding new land-management lessons in old ways

    A new study overturns long-held beliefs about the role humans played in shaping the landscape pre- and post- European colonization.

    4 minutes
    Two people in a paddleboat on a pond.
  • Nation & World

    Study of African trees goes public

    A postdoctoral fellow has launched a citizen-science project that aims to digitize thousands of pages of detailed observations on the life cycles of African trees.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Climate test for forests

    New research on northeastern forests is examining how the earlier arrival of warm weather might clash with genetic programming tuned to lengthening days and the duration and depth of winter cold.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Seeing the forest for the trees

    Harvard Forest researchers, together with state officials and representatives of conservation groups, are proposing a Massachusetts forest plan that increases both conservation and logging, while carefully focusing development to conserve as many large tracts as possible.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Efficiency in the forest

    Spurred by increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, forests over the past two decades have become dramatically more efficient in how they use water, a Harvard study has found.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    When it’s best to do nothing at all

    A new study by Harvard University researchers, soon to be published in the journal Ecology, yields a surprising result for large woodlands: When it comes to the health of forests, native plants, and wildlife, the best management decision may be to do nothing.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    An invasion of New England

    While new species naturally expand to other places and sometimes disrupt the scene when they arrive, the pace of introduction of invasive species has picked up enormously over the past century and a half, stressing and transforming New England forests.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    When plants may not help

    Large-scale increases in forest cover in North America and Eurasia — proposed by some analysts as a way to cut climate change — could hurt the environment by shifting rainfall patterns across the globe, Harvard study says.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Growing strong

    Steven Wofsy and Andrew Richardson discuss New England’s still-growing forests and their role as a buffer against the effects of climate change.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Rolling back the forest canopy

    A new report led by researchers at the Harvard Forest says New England woodlands have reached a tipping point, declining in all six states for the first time in 150 years. The report calls for conservation of 70 percent of the forestland.

    4 minutes