By Bryce Oates for The Daily Yonder. Broadcast version by Chance Dorland for North Carolina News Service, reporting for The Daily Yonder-Public News Service Collaboration.

In Western North Carolina's Nantahala-Pisgah National Forest, a committed group of outdoor recreation enthusiasts, conservationists, hunting and fishing groups, forest product businesses and forest ecology advocates has been working closely with the U.S. Forest Service for years to update the agency's regional forest management plan.

But the Nantahala Pisgah Forest Partnership now is formally objecting to the plan the agency issued earlier this year, saying that the plan will lead to "more conflict and less collaboration" in several categories.

"One of our main objections is that the plan doesn't abide by the collaborative goals we set for progress toward ecological, social and economic sustainability," said Hugh Irwin, a Partnership participant and Landscape Conservation Planner for The Wilderness Society, in an interview with the Daily Yonder. "This group has been working together for years to avoid potential conflicts between harvest, old-growth, recreational goals, the needs of wildlife and carbon storage in forests."

The USFS plan expands timber harvest into more than 100,000 acres of known old-growth, state-recognized Natural Heritage Natural Areas, and largely undeveloped, inaccessible wilderness tracts, Irwin and other conservationists stated in official comments on the plan as part of a formal objection.

The Partnership's alternative, which included consensus agreement from timber harvesters and loggers, would have protected those same areas from logging and development.

In many cases, these forest collaboratives like the Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Partnership have successfully prevented potential conflicts in rural communities between the timber industry, environmental advocates, public land employees and a growing rural outdoor-recreation economy.

Irwin said that input into the planning process generated more than 14,000 public comments, among the largest response rates ever for a forest management issue in the eastern United States. "The Nantahala-Pisgah is at the heart of the Southern Appalachians in a lot of ways. It's the center of the Southern Blue Ridge area of the region. It represents some of the most consolidated areas of National Forest and ownership in the East, and is also adjacent to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, another center of public lands and biodiversity," Irwin said, explaining why so many citizens commented on the plan.

Among the most critical objections to the agency's plan is the role of old-growth forests in storing carbon as a means of climate-change mitigation. "There is an explicit link between old-growth and carbon storage, between old-growth and adapting to climate change. One of the major ways we have carbon stored on the landscape is through our forests. When you do scientific carbon modeling, it's obvious that there are many, many times more carbon stored in mature and old-growth forests than there are in young forest," Irwin said.

Old-growth forest protection and management issues on federal lands are likely to see increasing attention in the coming months. On Earth Day, President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order on Strengthening the Nation's Forests, Communities, and Local Economies, committing to conserve and restore forests, including old-growth forests, their assessment and cataloging, and the analysis of mature and old-growth forest contributions to climate change protections.

Old-growth forest advocates largely cheered the White House order and attention to the issue.

"Just to hear the words 'old-growth forests' come out of the mouth of the President of the United States is a big thrill for us," said Dr. Joan Maloof, executive director and fdounder of the Old Growth Forest Network, in an email to Daily Yonder.

"Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is an important step in what we hope will be an eventual moratorium on any logging of old-growth forests from our federal forests. With their large trees, complex biodiversity and rich soils, these are the most crucial forests for carbon storage and they should be left untouched by the impacts of logging."

OGFN, along with 135 climate and natural resource experts, recently sent a letter making the case for federal old-growth forest protections. "There are so many reasons to protect our nation's oldest forests, from climate to biodiversity to beauty, we have been saying this for years, and we are thrilled to be making political progress toward this. It is a great Earth Day to celebrate, indeed," Maloof said.

Some climate-action advocates were not pleased with Biden's Earth Day actions.

"The Administration had a real opportunity to show leadership on Earth Day this year and failed miserably," said Jim Walsh, policy director of Food and Water Watch. "We will never offset our fossil-fuel usage by planting more trees. What we need to do is actually get to the root of the problem, and the major sources of emissions are coming from our energy and transportation systems. We've got to stop burning fossil fuels."

Walsh added that additional reductions in climate emissions can be had in the agricultural sector. "Factory farming is continuing to grow and thrive, producing significant amounts of greenhouse gases through giant livestock operations and massive fertilizer usage. We simply cannot phase out fossil fuels or cut agricultural pollution while the administration continues to pump billions of dollars in subsidies [to fossil fuels and industrial agriculture]. . . while ignoring the real work that needs to be done to address the climate crisis," Walsh said.

Back in North Carolina, Irwin hopes that the renewed attention to old-growth forest issues at the federal level can help to both address climate change and support needed management improvements to the local Nantahala-Pisgah forest region.

"I'm really excited about the president's order," Irwin said. "This is the most obvious climate mitigation we should be doing in our public forests - saving the existing old-growth, but also preserving the existing forests that are in great shape that could become old growth in the future."

A new study raised red flags about respiratory health in Pennsylvania, particularly for those living near oil and gas activity.

The study by GeoHealth said nationwide, oil and gas venting and flaring exacerbate asthma in 73,000 children, including nearly 12,000 in Pennsylvania.

Jackson Zeiler, public health analyst for the Environmental Health Project, said energy developers do flaring and venting on a regular basis to remove excess gas. He explained the study looked at the potential health risks associated with the practice.

"There's adverse birth outcomes, there's cancer outcomes," Zeiler pointed out. "Volatile Organic Compounds are a big part of these emissions, which have a whole host of health effects, including respiratory health issues, different neurological effects like headaches and dizziness for people who are working in those facilities, and people who live really close by."

Zeiler noted flaring also contributes to an increased risk of hospitalizations, emergency room visits, worsening asthma and even premature death. But the energy industry said flaring is needed to minimize pressure at well sites, for testing and other reasons.

The study used satellite images and gas-imaging techniques to visualize emissions. Zeiler added companies are required to report their emissions to regulatory authorities and the data is compiled into a National Emissions Inventory through various sensors.

"They looked at the National Emissions Inventory numbers and compared it to the actual imaging that they looked at," Zeiler emphasized. "They found that the imaging saw way more emissions than was accounted for in the National Emissions Inventory. They're able to conclude that companies are underreporting, essentially, what they're flaring and what they're emitting."

He suggested Pennsylvanians could work with lawmakers on stricter reporting guidelines and transparency requirements for oil and gas operators. He also recommended advocating for greater setback distances between well sites and residential areas to minimize exposure.


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Balancing the needs of the many with those who have traditionally reaped benefits from public lands is behind a new rule issued Thursday by the Bureau of Land Management.

A quarter-million acres of public lands, including 13 million in New Mexico, now fall under the Public Lands Rule. The BLM is charged with managing multiple uses but has historically prioritized extraction, such as oil and gas drilling, along with cattle grazing, over conservation and outdoor recreation.

Jesse Duebel, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, believes the new rule is more fair-minded.

"I really feel like this new rule doesn't minimize those other things," Duebel asserted. "The other uses are still going to be allowed to continue but now, decisions are going to be made with conservation in the forefront. And of course, conservation by definition, is the 'wise use' of our natural resources."

The rule requires BLM managers to prioritize designating more "Areas of Critical Environmental Concern" in their land use planning. Right now the number is small, but they help protect cultural sites and wildlife habitat.

The rule also allows BLM managers to issue conservation leases to nonprofit and community organizations, including tribal communities, for landscape restoration work on public lands.

Keegan King, executive director of the Native Land Institute, believes in the face of climate change, the long-term health of public lands must be a priority.

"I'm a conservationist but I'm also a hunter, and it's important that we protect these places for a variety of different uses," King explained. "There are ranchers and other people that utilize federal lands and it's important that all of it is maintained for future generations."

According to the Commerce Department's 2022 Bureau of Economic Analysis data, outdoor recreation generated $2.4 billion in added value for New Mexico and created almost 28,000 jobs.

During the BLM's public process on the issue, more than 90% of comments were in favor of elevating conservation for a more balanced approach to public land management.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.


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By Max Graham for Grist.
Broadcast version by Alex Gonzalez for Arizona News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

Below the red-tile roofs of the Catalina Foothills, an affluent area on the north end of Tucson, Arizona, lies a blanket of desert green: spiky cacti, sword-shaped yucca leaves, and the spindly limbs of palo verde and mesquite trees. Head south into the city, and the vegetation thins. Trees are especially scarce on the south side of town, where shops and schools and housing complexes sprawl across a land encrusted in concrete. 

On hot summer days, you don’t just see but feel the difference. Tucson’s shadeless neighborhoods, which are predominantly low-income and Latino, soak up the heat. They swelter at summer temperatures that eclipse the city average by 8 degrees Fahrenheit and the Catalina Foothills by 12 degrees. That disparity can be deadly in a city that experienced 40 straight days above 100 degrees last year — heat that’s sure to get worse with climate change. 

The good news is there’s a simple way to cool things down: Plant trees. “You’re easily 10 degrees cooler stepping under the shade of a tree,” said Brad Lancaster, an urban forester in Tucson. “It’s dramatically cooler.”

A movement is underway to populate the city’s street corners and vacant lots with groves of trees. Tucson’s city government, which has pledged to plant 1 million trees by 2030, recently got $5 million from the Biden administration to spur the effort — a portion of the $1 billion that the U.S. Forest Service committed last fall to urban and small-scale forestry projects across the United States, aiming to make communities more resilient to climate change and extreme heat. 

But in Tucson and many other cities, tree-planting initiatives can tackle a lot more than scorching temperatures. What if Tucson’s million new trees — and the rest of the country’s — didn’t just keep sidewalks cool? What if they helped feed people, too?

That’s what Brandon Merchant hopes will happen on the shadeless south side of Tucson, a city where about one-fifth of the population lives more than a mile from a grocery store. He’s working on a project to plant velvet mesquite trees that thrive in the dry Sonoran Desert and have been used for centuries as a food source. The mesquite trees’ seed pods can be ground into a sweet, protein-rich flour used to make bread, cookies, and pancakes. Merchant, who works at the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, sees cultivating mesquite around the city and surrounding areas as an opportunity to ease both heat and hunger. The outcome could be a network of “food forests,” community spaces where volunteers tend fruit trees and other edible plants for neighbors to forage. 

“Thinking about the root causes of hunger and the root causes of health issues, there are all these things that tie together: lack of green spaces, lack of biodiversity,” Merchant said. (The food bank received half a million dollars from the Biden administration through the Inflation Reduction Act.)

Merchant’s initiative fits into a national trend of combining forestry — and Forest Service funding — with efforts to feed people. Volunteers, school teachers, and urban farmers in cities across the country are planting fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, and other edible plants in public spaces to create shade, provide access to green space, and supply neighbors with free and healthy food. These food forests, forest gardens, and edible parks have sprouted up at churches, schools, empty lots, and street corners in numerous cities, including Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, and Miami. 

“It’s definitely growing in popularity,” said Cara Rockwell, who researches agroforestry and sustainable food systems at Florida International University. “Food security is one of the huge benefits.” 

There are also numerous environmental benefits: Trees improve air quality, suck carbon from the atmosphere, and create habitat for wildlife, said Mikaela Schmitt-Harsh, an urban forestry expert at James Madison University in Virginia. “I think food forests are gaining popularity alongside other urban green space efforts, community gardens, green rooftops,” she added. “All of those efforts, I think, are moving us in a positive direction.”

Researchers say food forests are unlikely to produce enough food to feed everyone in need of it. But Schmitt-Harsh said they could help supplement diets, especially in neighborhoods that are far from grocery stores. “A lot has to go into the planning of where the food forest is, when the fruits are harvestable, and whether the harvestable fruits are equitably distributed.”

She pointed to the Philadelphia Orchard Project as an emblem of success. That nonprofit has partnered with schools, churches, public recreation centers, and urban farms to oversee some 68 community orchards across the city. Their network of orchards and food forests generated more than 11,000 pounds of fresh produce last year, according to Phil Forsyth, co-executive director of the nonprofit.

Some of the sites in Philadelphia have only three or four trees. Others have over 100, said Kim Jordan, the organization’s other executive director. “We’re doing a variety of fruit and nut trees, berry bushes and vines, pollinator plants, ground cover, perennial vegetables — a whole range of things,” Jordan said. 

The community food bank in Tucson started its project in 2021, when it bought six shade huts to shelter saplings. Each hut can house dozens of baby trees, which are grown in bags and irrigated until they become sturdy enough to be planted in the ground. Over the past three years, Merchant has partnered with a high school, a community farm, and the Tohono O’odham tribal nation to nurse, plant, and maintain the trees. So far they’ve only put a few dozen saplings in the ground, and Merchant aims to ramp up efforts with a few hundred more plantings this year. His initial goal, which he described as “lofty and ambitious,” is to plant 20,000 trees by 2030.

The food bank is also organizing workshops on growing, pruning, and harvesting, as well as courses on cooking with mesquite flour. And they’ve hosted community events, where people bring seed pods to pound into flour — a process that requires a big hammer mill that isn’t easy to use on your own, Merchant said. Those events feature a mesquite-pancake cook-off, using the fresh flour.

Merchant is drawing on a model of tree-planting that Lancaster, the urban forester, has been pioneering for 30 years in a downtown neighborhood called Dunbar Spring. That area was once as barren as much of southern Tucson, but a group of volunteers led by Lancaster — who started planting velvet mesquite and other native trees in 1996 — has built up an impressive canopy. Over three decades, neighborhood foresters have transformed Dunbar Spring’s bald curbsides into lush forests of mesquite, hackberry, cholla and prickly pear cactus, and more — all plants that have edible parts.

“There are over 400 native food plants in the Sonoran Desert, so we tapped into that,” Lancaster said. “That’s what we focused our planting on.” 

The Dunbar Spring food forest is now what Lancaster calls a “living pantry.” He told Grist that up to a quarter of the food he eats — and half of what he feeds his Nigerian dwarf goats — is harvested from plants in the neighborhood’s forest. “Those percentages could be much more if I were putting more time into the harvests.” The more than 1,700 trees and shrubs planted by Lancaster’s group have also stored a ton of water — a precious commodity in the Sonoran Desert — by slurping up an estimated 1 million gallons of rainwater that otherwise would have flowed off the pavement into storm drains.

Another well-established food forest skirts the Old West Church in Boston, where volunteers have spent a decade transforming a city lawn into a grove of apple, pear, and cherry trees hovering over vegetable, pollinator, and herb gardens. Their produce — ranging from tomatoes and eggplants to winter melons — gets donated to Women’s Lunch Place, a local shelter for women without permanent housing, according to Karen Spiller, a professor of sustainable food systems at the University of New Hampshire and a member of Old West Church who helps with the project. 

“It’s open for harvest at any time,” Spiller said. “It’s not, ‘Leave a dollar, and pick an apple.’ You can pick your apple, and eat your apple.”

Merchant wants to apply the same ethic in Tucson: mesquite pods for all to pick — and free pancakes after a day staying cool in the shade.


Max Graham wrote this article for Grist.


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