Sophisticated models and supercomputers allow researchers to create a high-fidelity map of the Earth’s trees – and show that we’re losing billions of trees a year.
There are a lot of trees on Earth. But there used to be many, many more.
Clara Rowe
James Whitmore, The Conversation e Eliza Berlage, The Conversation
There are more than three trillion trees worldwide, but that’s only half as many were around at the start of human civilisation according to new research.
The US West – suffering one of the most damaging wildfire seasons this decade – needs to break with current practices to avert more costly and dangerous wildfires in the future.
Trees remove carbon dioxide naturally: can we do better?
Coconino National Forest
The fact that we have embraced the notion of emailing a tree is no surprise. We have been passionate about trees in cities for a long time.
The Separation Tree in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, marking where Victoria’s separation from New South Wales was celebrated in 1850, is dead after two attacks by vandals.
Gregory Moore
Tree vandals after better sea views or with political goals deprive everyone of the benefits trees provide. Despite costing local councils thousands in replacement trees, they are rarely caught.
Trees are more like us than you might think. They even have a pulse. They just operate over much slower timescales.
In the 1920s and 1930s crews surveyed much of California, collecting information about vegetation. This photo was taken in 1936 by Albert Wieslander.
Marian Koshland Biosciences Library
Scientists in my native state of California were handed a gift: a trove of detailed information about the state’s forests taken during the 1920s and 1930s and digitized over the past 15 years. When we…
The inner suburbs of Melbourne are surprisingly more leafy than the outer suburbs.
Andrew
When you look out of your window in the morning, how many trees do you see? Your answer might depend on what suburb you live in. As you go further from the city centre, the amount of tree cover in a suburb…
Enjoy the color while you can before climate change makes a mess of this too.
chensiyuan
One of nature’s most spectacular events occurs every autumn, when the leaves of hardwood trees burst into brilliant color before falling to the ground. These autumnal displays in the eastern United States…
Research shows exposure to nature can relieve symptoms of ADHD in children.
Tatters:)/Flickr
We know that trees have many benefits. In forests they provide habitat, wood, biodiversity and ecosystem services. In cities, they can mitigate the urban heat island effect by cooling the air and reducing…
The threat to Britain’s ancient woodland has been much discussed recently, the suggestion being that where they are lost to housing development they might be replaced with new woods through biodiversity…
Using tree measurements by Papua New Guinean villagers such as Daniel and Jackson, scientists can estimate that this tree stores about one tonne of carbon in its trunk and branches.
Michelle Venter
While hugging a tree sounds relaxing, it’s harder than you might think - especially when the tree is 20 storeys high and 3 metres wide, it’s hot as hell, and you’re swatting away swarms of sweat bugs…
Everyone can contribute to scientific research, whether by exploring far-flung galaxies from the comfort of their computer, or by checking how clean the air is in their street by examining lichens growing…