By Greg Pilchak On June 23rd, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a hearing to receive testimony on the recent discussion draft entitled “Wildfire Budgeting, Response and Forest Management Act of 2016.” The hearing on the bill focused on three main issues: 1) the need to end “fire borrowing”; 2) the growing [read more]
The U.S. Forest Service announced that it has identified an additional 26 million trees dead in California since October 2015. These trees are located in six counties across 760,000 acres in the southern Sierra Nevada region of the state, and are in addition to the 40 million trees that died statewide from 2010 to October [read more]
Together with its partners in fire prevention, NASF is pleased to announce the launch of the new and improved smokeybear.com. Go ahead - click on over and check it out! Nearly nine out of every 10 wildfires in the United States are human-caused, which demonstrates one staggering fact: most of our nation's wildfires can be [read more]
By Greg Pilchak On Wednesday, May 25th, leaders on the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee released draft legislation whose goal is to improve wildfire budgeting and forest management. The bipartisan legislation is the culmination of recent Committee efforts to examine and find solutions to problems such as “fire borrowing,” the speed of environmental reviews, and fire suppression [read more]
By Greg Pilchak This Tuesday, May 24th, the House Appropriations Committee released the fiscal year 2017 Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill (see page 84). This draft legislation includes funding for the USDA Forest Service and various other independent and related agencies. The Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee marked up the bill on Wednesday, May 25th. [read more]
The Colorado State Forest Service is now accepting Forest Legacy Program proposals from Colorado landowners. The program authorizes the CSFS or USDA Forest Service to purchase permanent conservation easements on private forestlands to prevent those lands from being converted to non-forest uses. The purpose of the Colorado Forest Legacy Program is to protect environmentally [read more]
Members of the National Association of State Foresters’ executive committee held Congressional briefings on May 4 to introduce decision makers to state Forest Action Plans and convey the importance of consulting these important documents when making forest management decisions. In attendance were key staff members from the House and Senate Agriculture Committees and member offices, USDA Forest [read more]
By Jessica Hernandez A healthy urban forest can provide numerous benefits to the communities in which they flourish. Trees are a part of community green infrastructure and provide environmental, social and economic benefits to all urban residents. To conserve, protect and enhance America’s urban and community forests and the benefits they provide, state forestry agencies [read more]
By: Jessica Hernandez On Wednesday April 20th, Congressman Bruce Westerman (R-Arkansas) and a bipartisan group of members of Congress launched the Working Forests Caucus. The caucus, which is co-chaired by Rep. Westerman and charter members Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Washington), Sanford Bishop (D-Georgia), and Collin Peterson (D-Minnesota) was created to promote the benefits of America’s working [read more]
The National Association of State Foresters provided written testimony in support of fiscal year 2017 appropriations levels for priority USDA Forest Service State and Private Forestry (S&PF) programs. State and private forests make up more than two thirds of our nation’s forests and provide a host of public benefits including jobs, clean air and water, wildlife habitat, [read more]
