Hard-to-control threats, such as invasive pests, disease and climate change, are rapidly eating into populations of trees, like whitebark pines, pictured here, in the western part of the country. Photo Credit: Elizabeth Pansing / American Forests

Thirty percent of tree species globally are at risk of extinction

According to a recent report from Botanic Gardens Conservation International, almost a third of all tree species — 17,500 in total — are at risk of disappearing from the wild, largely due to tropical deforestation and forest degradation. Though tropical forests have the highest numbers of at-risk species, temperate areas are not exempt, with many species of maple and oak struggling to survive. Due to comparatively robust forest protection and endangered species laws, the United States has few trees in imminent danger of extinction. Hard-to-control threats such as invasive pests, disease and climate change are, however, rapidly eating into the populations of trees, ranging from ashes and beech in the eastern U.S., to whitebark pines in the western part of the country.

The Dixie Fire scorched nearly 1 million acres, making it the largest single fire in California history. Photo Credit: CalFire / Flickr

2021 drought and wildfire season underscore urgent need for forest health projects

This year saw record-breaking drought across much of the western U.S. And the climate crisis subsequently ignited another unparalleled wildfire season, with California again bearing the brunt of the flames. The Dixie Fire scorched nearly 1 million acres, making it the largest single fire in the state’s history, while the 221,000-acre Caldor Fire came within miles of the thousands of homes and business in South Lake Tahoe. The KNP Complex Fire, though comparatively small, menaced General Sherman and other famed old- growth sequoias in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Foresters staved off flames through back burns, brush clearing and by wrapping the sequoias’ bases in heat-resistant foil. The size and ferocity of these fires underscores the urgent need to scale up “fuel reduction” projects that address dense, dry underbrush and small, sickly and overcrowded trees. The Caldor Fire offered yet more proof of the value of these projects. Patches of forest with completed fuel reduction work saw modest flames that left behind living trees and patches of grasses and shrubs.

Children who are less exposed to nature in their neighborhood from 0 to 5 years old have an increased risk of receiving an ADHD diagnosis. Photo Credit: Amorn Suriyan / Shutterstock

Risk of ADHD may be lower for children who grow up around nature

Researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark investigated whether having green space around a child’s home affected the likelihood of receiving an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis. The reason why some children develop ADHD is still not entirely understood, but researchers found an association with access to green space. Children who are less exposed to nature in their neighborhood from 0 to 5 years old, have an increased risk of receiving an ADHD diagnosis when compared to children who have been surrounded by more natural features, according to the study. The researchers’ findings are a result of examining data on more than 800,000 people born between 1992 and 2007. These findings seem to support results from previous studies of the potential role of nature in ADHD risk.

As part of a study, hundreds of vacant lots across Philadelphia were randomly selected to receive one of three interventions, with the neighborhoods surrounding greening and trash cleanup interventions experiencing reductions in gun violence. Photo Credit: Jukie Bot / Flickr

The connection between cleaner, greener neighborhoods and crime reduction

We do not hear enough about how environmental design reduces crime. In big cities throughout the U.S., neighborhoods with fewer trees or unkept green spaces often have higher rates of crime. One of those cities is Philadelphia. But the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania is exploring the role place-based investment plays in improving community safety. Hundreds of vacant lots across the city were randomly selected to receive one of three interventions: clean and green intervention, trash cleanup only or no intervention at all. The researchers found that the neighborhoods surrounding both the greening and trash cleanup interventions experienced reductions in gun violence, with the greatest drop in crime being in poorer neighborhoods. People living around the greened vacant lots also reported feeling less depressed, showing that making neighborhoods cleaner and greener improves mental health. The results indicate that communities with the highest need may benefit the most from green investment.

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Rita Hite, a well-seasoned forestry leader, has been appointed president and chief executive officer of the American Forest Foundation. Photo Credit: American Forest Foundation

IT’S NEVER BEEN a more exciting time to lead a forestry organization in the United States. That’s because America’s forests have never seen such robust legislative and financial support as they are getting right now. This support comes from the November passage of the infrastructure package, containing more than $8 billion in forestry provisions for mostly public lands, and pending legislation that would provide billions more to advance reforestation, forest maintenance, wildfire suppression, green jobs creation and more. That includes incentives for private forest landowners who implement climate-smart practices.

These investments make Rita Hite’s ascension into the role of president and chief executive officer of the American Forest Foundation (AFF) in January extremely timely. AFF advocates on behalf of, and empowers, the nation’s 21 million family forestland owners to tackle critical conservation issues by taking action in their 290 million acres of woods.

Hite, AFF’s first female president and CEO, is well-suited for the task: not only did she serve as AFF’s executive vice president of external relations and policy prior to her presidency, she also co-chairs and co-founded the Forest-Climate Working Group (FCWG) with Jad Daley, American Forests’ president and CEO. FCWG is a coalition of more than 80 entities from across the forestry sector, united to advocate for the role of forests within climate change mitigation.

“What I’ll be doing over the next couple of years is scaling AFF’s work with landowners to make a meaningful difference on climate change, wildfire resilience and biodiversity protection by empowering family landowners to take action in their woods,” Hite says. “We have to change how we’re doing our work with landowners to get beyond the current landowners that we’re serving. We have to serve the underserved landowners, those that haven’t been at the table and haven’t been supported in doing this important conservation work.”

Hite has also helped build the Forests in the Farm Bill Coalition, a 100-plus member coalition that is gearing up to work on its fifth farm bill together, and says she’s proud of how the bills have evolved to recognize forests as critical rural infrastructure.

“At the end of the day, what’s going to make us successful as a sector is that we connect the work we do with people, whether that’s the landowners we serve or the people that are impacted by the efforts of landowners around climate or wildfire or watershed restoration,” Hite says. “What I see is a sector that’s positioned to have an incredible impact on really important issues we’re facing as a nation and as a world. We’re stronger and better together.”

Forest owner Susan Benedict, of Pennsylvania, meets with a forester to discuss how she can meet her personal goals and help with conservation. Photo Credit: American Forest Foundation

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In October, many of them will gather in Minneapolis for the multi-day Women’s Forest Congress, an event led by and for people who identify as women and open to all allies to attend. The event will dive into issues related to equity and inclusion, women as catalysts for change, recruitment and retention of women, and the biggest challenges related to the forest sector. It will be the first time since the first Forest Congress was held in 1882 that women’s perspectives will be front and center.

There are many ways to get involved in this network. You can join one of the four working groups, which focus on planning virtual events and the Minneapolis gathering, promoting the network, engaging stakeholders and creating content. Between working group meetings, you can join the conversation on social media, using #womensforestcongress. Last, but certainly not least, you can come to the Congress this fall. We hope to see you there.

To learn more visit https://womensforestcongress.org/

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But it was while investigating one of these megaliths in Japan that she had an earthly epiphany. The stone grouping, chiseled more than 5,000 years ago to chart the course of the sun with incredible precision, was framed by soaring Japanese cedars. Not far was a stream, the source of life for these trees and the ancient people who predicted the summer and winter solstices. Natsuyama became fascinated with the forests and rivers she saw through the train window on her twice-yearly research journeys to the mountains of central Japan.

Two Japanese sugi (cryptomeria Japonica) trees flank the Kanayama megaliths. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Harriet Natsuyama

“It was then that I realized how important trees are,” she says, recalling that first trip to the Kanayama Megaliths site a decade ago. “They give us pure water, pure air, they keep the temperatures cool.”

Back in her Los Angeles home, Natsuyama was already concerned about the climate crisis. So she decided to donate to American Forests, which believes creating healthy forests is essential to slowing climate change. She is now a member of American Forests’ Sequoia Circle, individuals who make annual donations of at least $1,000.

Natsuyama grew up and went to school in Hawaii, where her grand- parents had immigrated from Japan. Eventually, her career in astrophysics took her to California and Japan, where she taught and wrote more than 200 journal articles and seven books.

Since retiring, Natsuyama has co-authored a book exploring the Kanayama Megaliths, discovered in the 1990s, and the people who created them. One thing she’s sure of: They cared for each other and the world around them.“You have this wonderful feeling of being in a nurturing environment,” she says of the natural surroundings that have inspired her. “Being in these forests, you can’t help but feel spiritual. It’s everywhere.”

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But in college she realized not everyone was familiar with the bounty and beauty of the natural world that had nourished her childhood, especially people from urbanized areas. Now Braunskill is a leader in a national movement to create healthy urban forests that provide myriad benefits for city-dwellers. As Delaware’s urban community forestry state coordinator, she coaches residents on the value of planting and taking care of trees, which absorb carbon, reduce storm water runoff, filter pollutants and cool neighborhoods.

Kesha Braunskill, Delaware’s urban community forestry state coordinator, helps schoolchildren plant a tree outside St. Anne’s Episcopal School in Middletown, Del. Braunskill is a national leader in creating healthy urban forests and is the former co-chair of 1t.org US Chapter’s urban forestry work group. Photo Credit: Delaware Forest Service

“We’re talking about an awesome resource, something sometimes people never have even thought about,” says Braunskill, who stresses that every person and tree can have an impact. “Trees are essential.”

Urban trees are having a moment, one that Braunskill has witnessed on a national scale. She is a founding member of the stakeholder council of the 1t.org US Chapter, which aims to increase the number of trees on the planet and prevent the loss of trees already in the ground. The global initiative has set a goal to conserve, restore or grow 1 trillion trees by 2030, in both large landscapes and urban areas.

In the United States, cities, states and other entities have already pledged to plant a total of 1.2 million trees. Braunskill’s Delaware was the first state to make a pledge, followed by others including Hawaii and Washington.

Meanwhile, growing support for the concept of Tree Equity has fueled the urban forestry movement as well. Tree Equity aims to bring the benefits of trees to communities at greatest risk of climate impacts, many of which lack trees because of historical discriminatory investment practices.

“There’s a realization that trees are more than a nice-to-have, they’re a need-to-have,” says Kevin O’Hara, the lead for 1t.org US Chapter for American Forests, which co-leads the group. “The impact of trees is something people can measure and feel.”

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She felt an instant bond with these women, due in large part to the common personality traits they shared, like listening with empathy and not being competitive.

Mary Wagner pauses to take a selfie along the trail to Cliff Lake in August 2020, while on a camping trip in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest in her home state of Utah. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Mary Wagner

“They were my sounding board, my rock, my confidantes,” says Wagner. “And it was good to have a network of people who see the world like I do and challenge me when they see it differently…Being associate chief could be lonely at times. But they gave me courage.”

With that type of support, combined with her forestry smarts and experience, Wagner was able to accomplish a lot during her five-year stint as associate chief, the Forest Service’s number two position. For example, she helped write the Forest Service’s five-year strategic plan, a document known for clearly explaining the role of the agency in sustaining forests nationally. She traveled to places like China and Brazil to advance partnerships related to saving forests worldwide. She introduced safety as a core value at the agency and helped create a more diverse workforce.

Wagner retired from the Forest Service in 2016, after 34 years of service. But she hopes that the agency’s trend of being more inclusive — in part by letting women and people of color rise in the ranks and be heard — will continue. They bring new perspectives to the agency and the forestry sector, she says.

“Peoples’ backgrounds and wiring impact how the agency approaches things.”

And she hopes these women will be as lucky as she was in being supported almost from the moment she started her decades-long career in forestry. It began in a small office in a small Idaho town, where most of her co-workers were men. But they welcomed her, as well as the opinions she voiced at meetings. They added her to the leadership team when she worked in the Sawtooth National Forest. One of them even organized a women in leadership conference for foresters. In the 1980s, that was an anomaly.

“It was a formative experience,” says Wagner, who had “director” and “deputy” in her title several times, before becoming associate chief. “I did not realize the importance of it until years later. Those men gave me opportunities most women in forestry did not have at the time.”

Wagner is still active in forestry, even though she is no longer a government employee. In September, she was elected as the chairperson of the American Forests Board of Directors. She has served on the board since 2017.She says she is excited about the opportunity to work with another cadre of strong women leaders, like fellow board member Ara Erickson of Weyerhaeuser and American Forests Senior Director of Urban Forestry Maisie Hughes.

“They will confront issues like sustainability and equity,” she says. “They will move the ball down the field. That’s what we need now in forestry.”

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The Congress is the brainchild of American Forests’ Board Secretary Ara Erickson, a respected leader in forestry who envisioned this landmark event by drawing on our organization’s proud history of leading American Forest Congresses since the 1800s.

From this inspiration, an organizing committee of women leaders, which includes Rebecca Turner from American Forests, has held successful preparatory events and developed a powerful Congress program that will help consolidate women’s progress in forestry, break down remaining barriers, and project women’s unique leadership voice and perspective at a vital moment for America’s forests.

Along with a piece on the Congress, this issue of our magazine features many other stories highlighting the leadership of women in the forest movement. Such stories were not hard to find because the field of forestry and forest conservation, once dominated by men, has seen an incredible flourish of female leadership and participation at all levels, from governments to Girl Scouts.

This is great news: We urgently need women’s unique skills and perspectives in the forest movement. Women are bringing a new kind of collaborative and inclusive perspective and a fresh spirit for innovation. Whether building coalitions and organizing events like the Congress, or inventing new approaches to forest-climate science, the women in our field are pairing outstanding technical expertise with the kind of community-building energy that makes anything possible.

Examples of this leadership are everywhere. Vicki Christiansen just wrapped up a successful run as chief of the U.S. Forest Service, and Lisa Allen recently finished her term as president of the National Association of State Foresters. Women are leading august forest organizations such as the Council of Western State Foresters, International Society for Arboriculture, Sustainable Forestry Initiative and Hardwood Federation. And at the start of this year, Rita Hite, my decade-long collaborator in leading the Forest-Climate Working Group, took over as president and chief executive officer of American Forest Foundation — the nation’s largest association for family forest owners and a vital partner for American Forests.

I am extremely “forest proud” that American Forests is playing a role in fostering this stronger role for girls and women, including in our own organization. Here at American Forests, women occupy a majority of staff positions, touching every department and level of leadership. This is the result of an intentional effort to recruit women and create a supportive environment within our organization for women’s leadership at all levels.

It’s particularly exciting that women’s participation and leadership is not just occurring in the professional ranks, but in a range of contexts. Women’s participation in college and community college forestry programs is at record levels. We are helping to foster this trend: Eboni Hall, our senior manager of urban forestry education, is taking the lead in expanding forestry education programs at historically black colleges and universities.

In 2020, American Forests partnered with Girl Scouts of the USA to support the launch of the Girl Scout Tree Promise program, an initiative that is empowering scouts — like the Girl Scout Brownie with Girl Scouts of Nation’s Capitol pictured here — to help plant 5 million trees over the next five years. Photo Credit: Girl Scouts of the USA

Youth are also getting involved. In 2020, American Forests partnered with Girl Scouts of the USA to support the launch of the Girl Scout Tree Promise program. This exciting initiative, which grew up organically from Girl Scouts’ environmental concerns, is empowering scouts and volunteers across the country to plant 5 million trees over the next five years as a way to help combat climate change.

American Forests is helping make sure that the Girl Scout Tree Promise is a high-quality learning and career-exploration opportunity. We have developed an age-appropriate tree planting guide to encourage good forestry techniques and helped identify diverse tree-planting opportunities for the scouts, including partnerships with government agencies.

We need the benefits of forests everywhere for everyone, and we need to create opportunities for everyone to help make this happen. We are not done yet with removing barriers, but I am proud that we are becoming a country where women are leading in the White House, the boardroom, the woods or anywhere else they want to be. Our forest movement is immeasurably better for it.

For more news and updates from Jad, follow him on Twitter.

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It’s an “absolutely fantastic” sight, says biologist Cuauhtémoc Sáenz-Romero, researcher at University of Michoacán. Not only do these forests harbor 99% of the world’s monarchs, they’re doubly valuable as a source of tourism income for local communities. These days, however, a pall is hanging over this vision in orange. The region’s climate is rapidly becoming too hot for the oyamel firs, which can only survive in cool, moist conditions. By the end of the century, Sáenz-Romero says, heat, droughts, storms and pests will have wiped out all oyamel in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve — along with their cloaks of oyamel- dependent monarchs.

Biologist Cuauhtémoc Sáenz-Romero showcases one of the best oyamel fir seedlings, emerging from the shade of a mountain juniper. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Cuauhtémoc Sáenz-Romero

To save the firs and the butterflies, Sáenz-Romero wants to do something once considered unthinkable: plant a new forest somewhere else. To see the future of Michoacán’s oyamel, all you have to do is look up. The mountains’ peaks will remain cool and wet, perfect weather for oyamels. In fact, the trees are already reproducing upslope, but Sáenz-Romero estimates they’d have to increase their pace by a factor of 10, or even 100, to keep up with the speed of climate change.

In partnership with local towns and land collectives, including the non-governmental organization “Fondo de Conservación del Eje Neovolcánico,” Sáenz-Romero is stepping in to pick up the slack. Last July, his team planted oyamel seedlings across five sites of varying altitudes, four of them on Nevado de Toluca, a higher mountain than the Monarch Biosphere Reserve, and will study their survival over the next few years.

“The challenge is how much we can move the seedlings to a higher altitude without killing them,” he says. The hope is that the firs will thrive on even the highest slopes, and that the monarchs can eventually alter their ancient migration routes to follow the oyamel uphill.

This is a first-of-its-kind study in Mexico, and similar research is just beginning to gain ground in other countries. Planting trees at higher elevations or to the north of their natural range a process called assisted migration — was long taboo in conservation circles. Now, as climate change advances at a breakneck pace, it’s swiftly becoming clear that many species will go extinct without active relocation.

This map of Mexico indicates the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (red contour), a mountain range with the highest peaks in all of Mexico and the only option for assisted migration for oyamel fir. This region includes the current planting sites at Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve and at higher altitudes in Nevado de Toluca. Photo Credit: Erika Gómez-Pineda / Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental

Sáenz-Romero is boosting his seedlings’ odds by interplanting them with native shrubs in the aster family. Research has found that the shrubs’ particularly bushy shape casts shade that protects young oyamel from harsh sun, improving their four-year survival rates from roughly 10% to 90%. This project marks the first time these shrubs have been grown in nurseries or used in reforestation work adding another layer of complexity, as there is essentially no information about when these plants set seed or even how fast they grow.

American Forests has worked with local partners in Michoacán since 2006, and has planted more than 1 million trees to restore monarch wintering grounds. Because the organization has already started planting trees at higher elevations both in Mexico and in the United States, funding Sáenz-Romero’s research was a natural fit. According to Austin Rempel, American Forests’ senior manager of forest restoration, “he’s doing the basic science that could make all other monarch plantings better, not to mention assisted migration work elsewhere in North America.”

Watching climate change upend the natural cycle of forest regrowth has “been hard to swallow as a biologist,” says Sáenz-Romero. What he learned as immutable fact in his university classes is fast becoming out- dated as atmospheric CO₂ levels creep ever upwards. For Michoacán’s forests, the only way to avoid tragedy is to push the oyamel to their limits and hope that they, and the monarchs, can adapt. “Our responsibility as researchers is to find ways to plant seedlings today that will be healthy trees in the future,” Sáenz-Romero says. “The trees will otherwise die where they are because they cannot walk.”

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The November educational workshop was part of a new reforestation program founded by a group of community members — including Breniman and her business partner Julianne (Juli) Stewart — in response to the devastation of the Creek Fire, which swept through the Big Creek drainage area 50 miles northeast of Fresno, Calif., in the fall of 2020. The blaze was one of the largest wildfires in the state’s history, burning almost 380,000 acres and destroying 853 structures.

The Creek Fire was one of the largest wildfires in California history, burning almost 380,000 acres and destroying 853 structures. Photo Credit: Britta Dyer / American Forests

Many of the burned-down structures were homes in Shaver Lake, a town known as a destination for mountain sports, and in Auberry, a rural community down the hillside. Breniman’s house survived, as did Stewart’s — though only barely. Both registered professional foresters, the two co-own the forestry consulting company Vermilion Resource Management, Inc., based in Shaver Lake.

They knew the area’s history had helped create a tinder box. Logging industry practices and long-term mismanagement of the forest on local federal lands, including fire suppression, created lots of fodder for forest fires and increased the forest fire risk over the past century. In the wake of the Creek Fire, Breniman and Stewart wanted a way to do things differently.

“There were like-minded people who within a week had already started conversations about ‘How are we going to fix this as a long-term effort?’” remembers Breniman. Entities were already in place to help with housing assistance, insurance claims and other logistics of rebuilding. But the community also needed reforestation and erosion control. “People had just lost their homes, and the last thing we needed was for the rest of their properties to wash down the hill or for them to rebuild despite fear of the next wildfire that will come through,” Breniman says.

The solution was the Central Sierra Resiliency Fund (CSRF), a restricted fund under the Central Sierra Historical Society, which Breniman, Stewart and a group of others started as soon as the fire had died down. Jakki McDonald Pucheu, an owner of Shaver Ranch and a descendent of lumberman C.B. Shaver, Shaver Lake’s namesake, was a driving force in establishing the CSRF Council, which administers the fund.

CAL FIRE, the state’s fire-management agency, donated about 4,000 seedlings to jump-start the Fund’s “Seedlings of Hope” program, which provides free seedlings and planting tools to landowners in the area. Breniman and Stewart — sometimes with young children in tow — educate participants on how to plant to ensure that the trees can take hold and grow. American Forests also became a donor to the program. The organization had just gotten Intermountain Nursery under contract to produce 40,000 trees for reforestation efforts. Teaming up with CSRF allowed those seedlings to find a home in private landowners’ forests — an option that American Forests is eager to embrace.

CSRF’s long-term goal is to focus more on-site preparation for replanting — that is, clearing away dead forest matter to make way for new growth — and eventually on programs that help landowners thin that new growth to manage future fire risk. These efforts will contribute to long-term sustainable forest management for the local community.

In the meantime, its members plan to continue planting new trees and growing a sense of community among area residents who are moving back after the devastation.

“What pushed the resiliency fund through that entire season was knowing that we had the community on our side,” says Breniman. With that support in place, she says, “we’re here for the long haul.”

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