SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
Wood is Good-Wood products build the way to healthy forests of the futureMuch like a garden, forests need to be meticulously maintained. Thinning, for instance, is when trees are harvested from a dense, crowded forest. Loggers remove certain trees in places where the competition for light and nutrients is intense. Like weeding a garden, thinning leaves a population of healthy, vigorous trees that will grow healthier and stronger as a result. It also reduces the risk of a catastrophic wildfire. In turn, the trees that are harvested in thinning can be used to make valuable wood products. Read more… |
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| The USDA Forest Service is working with Tribal Nations, state and local partners to protect the pristine natural springs of the Ocala National Forest. (Courtesy photo Florida Springs Institute) |
Florida springs: saving Florida’s significant and scenic springwatersLegend has it that explorer Ponce de León set sail to Florida in 1513, leading a Spanish quest for gold and riches. But the legend also follows tales of seeking sacred, restorative waters known as the ‘fountain of youth.’ The conquistador would eventually land upon the coast of Florida near what is known today as St. Augustine. And though he never found any ‘fountain of youth,’ Florida is home to approximately 1,000 artesian springs offering a modern-day fountain of youth that heals the soul through the miraculous touch of the great outdoors. Read more… |
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| Utah Conservation Corps employees Jake Oakden and Ben Borgmann-Winter reassess their cut plan with a crosscut saw. (USDA Forest Service photo by Sabrina Kohrt) |
Making the Cut-The Forest Service Saw Program Works with Partners to Foster a Community of SawyersA rip of a chainsaw and slice of a thin metal blade wedged through a tree interrupted the crisp and quiet bluebird morning, a mile from the striking Stanley Lake in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. Sawyers in training, dressed in hardhats, gloves, ear plugs, chaps, and eye protection, began to receive direction from instructors. There was a buzz of nervous energy from those who had never picked up a saw. The Stanley Workshop had begun. Read more… |
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| On the Superior National Forest, the roughly six-mile North River flows into Seven Beaver Lake, which borders the 5,518-acre Big Lake-Seven Beaver Research Natural Area. The floodplains are dominated by extensive rich fens, or peat-forming wetlands that rely on groundwater and require thousands of years to develop and cannot easily be stored once destroyed. The recently designated research natural area will remain in its natural condition and where researchers can study the evolution of the land and compare the natural changes to managed land elsewhere. (Photo courtesy of Ethan Perry, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources) |
Learning from NatureMost forests in the U.S. are affected – directly or indirectly – by human activity. But what do forests look like without human activity? How do they thrive or recover naturally, when left untouched? A vast, largely untouched landscape on the Superior National Forest is a petri dish of sorts. The difficult-to-reach area holds Minnesota’s largest peatland and the most unfragmented, mature upland forest outside the nearly 1-million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Read more… |
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| This Gila trout ignites learning opportunities when visitors stop by the Gila National Forest Visitor’s Center in Silver City, NM. (USDA Forest Service photo by Preston Keres) |
Where Solitude and History Thrive-Gila National ForestAre you frazzled by the hectic pace of life? Between cell phones and office phones buzzing, virtual meetings, juggling the logistics of life and kids’ activities, do you find yourself longing to take your close family or friends away from it all to find a place of beauty, solitude and peace? The Gila National Forest is such a place. Located at the southern end of the Rocky Mountains and the north end of the Sierra Madre Mountains, as well as the confluence of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts, the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico is a unique blend of forest and desert, where you can have ponderosa pine forest with yucca, agave, and cacti growing beneath them. Read more… |
