Nastiness in the Woods.

MICHELLE ROBBINS

Bugs, blights, and wildfires by the score. Mother Nature is sending us a wake-up call. Is anyone listening?

What's on your schedule this summer? A Well-deserved vacation, some outdoor time? If you live in the woods and haven't planned how you'd make a fast dash in the face of a wildfire, you've got some thinking to do. Love eastern hemlocks or live along the coast of California in the company of some live oaks? Better spend that free time checking your trees.

We hate to sound alarmist at the start of the slow-down season, but there's some nasty stuff going on in our woods. From hugs and blights to fuel-laden, tinder-dry forests, Mother Nature is sounding a wake-up call that we'd all do well to heed.

Inadvertent or otherwise, we humans have affected the forests, and not always for the better. While science has helped us keep trees healthier, sprawl and a "shrinking" globe have given us endangered ecosystems and non-native ills. Loss of habitat has driven deer into our backyards and migratory songbirds from our feeders.

But the problems are not just urban. In our eastern woodlands, tiny hemlock wooly adelgid are spinning disaster for the lacey, shade-yielding hemlock. Author Mary Woodsen explores the danger it portends for our watersheds and offers a sobering list of other invasives, both flora and fauna.

As if that weren't enough, we're keeping a worried eye on the situation along California's coast, where a blight called sudden oak death is knocking off California's signature coast live oak and other species at a rapid clip.

Then there's fire. Last year's jaw-dropping wildfire season burned more than 7.3 million acres and cost close to $1 billion. This year. authorities warn, could be even worse. Last fall AMERICAN FORESTS launched Wildfire Re Leaf, a campaign to help restore those damaged ecosystems by replacing the burned trees with native species. We're pleased to now announce the U.S. Forest Service has joined us in this effort, pledging to match tree-for-tree the donations we receive to heal these scorched lands.

Healing means caring for all parts of the ecosystem, and we're attempting to bring a new dimension to the process: Getting local communities involved in restoring and maintaining forests with an emphasis not on what comes out but on the condition in which the forests are left.

This new approach is called community-based forestry, and it's caught the eye of Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Larry Craig (RID), who announced at a recent Capitol Hill press conference that they'll issue a bipartisan call for legislation to expand these collaborative efforts. That's based in part on a new book issued by AMERICAN FORESTS, Understanding Community-Based Forest Ecosystem Management.

Lynn Jungwirth, who started the Watershed Research and Training Center in Hayfork, California, after watching closing timber mills wreak havoc on her hometown, attended the press conference and brought home the relevancy of this concept. Environmentalists saved woods from loggers as habitat for the spotted owl, she said, only to watch it burn later in a wildfire.

The point is well taken. With our forests threatened from all quarters, it's time to find common ground from which to move forward. Tree planting seems like a good place to begin that healing process, both in our woodlands and in our cities.

Speaking of cities, we'd be lax if we didn't plug our September National Urban Forest Conference. There's a registration form in this issue for the biennial meeting, which offers innovative ideas for making urban life more liveable. One focus this year is "low-impact development," and you'll want to read Courtney Leatherman's look into ways to minimize the effect development has on the landscape.

Have a look, glean some ideas, get involved. This "easygoing" summer season, it sounds like there's plenty of work for us all. AF