Hang on: Berejiklian is widely regarded as a competent manager? How can we overlook land clearing under this government? The Crown casino construction; the stadium and Powerhouse debacles; the sale of the Lands and Titles office; mining under dams; plans to raise the Warragamba Dam wall; people living through winter in caravans after losing everything in bushfires; the proliferation of brumbies in the Snowy Mountains; the decimation of native fauna and particularly the koala population; the neglect of staffing in national parks, which exacerbated the bushfire disaster; the cracking in houses near motorway constructions; hundreds of demountable classrooms and the understaffing in schools; and the freezing of emergency workers pay. These are all failures of this government. Im just warming up with this list. We are so complacent. Why do we accept these failures by this government? No compromise Gladys would be a more appropriate description. Kate Broadfoot, Bulli

I wonder if its possible for our leaders to learn from Jacinda Ardern. Pam Corkery (I want a hug from Jacinda too, October 19) sums up Ms Arderns leadership style this way: She counters false claims with facts and logic and often a devastating smile, but she never humiliates opponents. When asked what the key requirement for leadership is, she says kindness. With positivity a close second. I think that is worth quoting and repeating. We want and need this style of leadership. And, despite those who believe you need to get stuck into your opponents, it wins elections. Philip Fitzgerald, Lapstone

I want what shes having. Kindness for others, a sense of obligation to uplift the standing of others through respect and empathy, co-operation and the need to think ahead should be imprinted on every leader when reaching office. It is time to emulate a new order. It is not only sport where New Zealand shines. Janice Creenaune, Austinmer

How good is Jacinda Ardern! Words like kindness, positivity, respect and empathy are not those usually used to describe the qualities of our politicians or those in the US, who instead choose rudeness, obstinacy, inequality, secrecy and division. New Zealand people have watched her daily COVID briefings, rather than commercial news, to gain information. Here we get political spin. Her wellbeing budget, introduced last year, emphasises happiness over capitalist gain, and their economy is not judged by how well rich people are doing, or the size of their deficit. Her core objectives that everyone deserves a job, somewhere to live, someone to love and something to hope for would be branded as radical left policy here and in the US, but encapsulates the recipe for a unified and harmonious country. Alan Marel, North Curl Curl

The criticisms of Ardern having not delivered are invalid because she consciously aimed at the most difficult, unachievable and beneficial goals. To fail in fully achieving the noblest target is superior to succeeding in achieving anything lower. Failure like that, persisted in, will reach the stars. Bev Atkinson, Scone

Jacinda Ardern has shown that politicians do not necessarily have to make popular decisions to win support. Actions and positive outcomes speak louder than words. Brian Jeffrey, Gunnedah

Reading NZ politics is more interesting than reading US politics. I am fatigued with Trumps stunts every day. Jacinda is providing some solace to people, not just in NZ but around the world. Mukul Desai, Hunters Hill

Your editorial (Victorias missteps created a harder, longer lockdown, October 19) primarily lays the blame for our comparatively larger number of deaths from COVID-19 than New Zealand in the hands of Daniel Andrews, despite the fact that 80per cent of the deaths in Victoria were in aged care homes, for which the federal government is responsible.While quarantine failures in Victoria were part of the problem, the NSW Ruby Princess issue was an equally egregious failure. Despite these transgressions, if one looks at the cases of COVID-19 around the world, there are few countries that have been more successful than Australia and for this we owe a debt of gratitude to all of our governments and health employees. Peter Nash, Fairlight

Congratulations to Daniel Andrews and Victorians for valuing lives over money. Yes, it has been tough, but through grit and determination, they are getting through this outbreak.Shame on federal ministers who criticise this plan because it has an effect on the economy. These ministers should instead support the Victorian economy through direct grants to certain businesses instead of wasting money on such things as $30 million overpayment for land at Badgerys Creek, or at least by re-directing sports grants and other unnecessary grants at this time. Ken Pares, Forster

Over the past 10 days, two national parks have been seriously damaged by failed so-called hazard reduction burning (Rain helps extinguish bushfire, October 19). Why arent those in charge consulting Indigenous experts in the management of small fires? All the wildlife can escape the fires with gentle starts and the land is cleared with trees saved and views protected. Lets stop this careless approach to clearing scrub and weeds and start using an intelligent and age-old approach that we understand works. Molly King, Mosman

North Head scorched, plants and animals damaged, a wedding reception ruined by back-burning getting out of control on a second weekend near Sydney.What, if anything, have the fire services learnt from Aboriginal peoples bush management knowledge and skills? After the last disastrous summer, it is way past time. Four years ago, the Herald published an important article Prevent bushfires the Aboriginal way: Indigenous peoples deep knowledge of the bush and their use of fire to manage the land is the key to modern bushfire management (February 15, 2016). Same again this year. Weve had more than enough time to respect, learn and apply Aboriginal knowledge. Judy Cashmore, Glebe

Bushfire smoke is poisonous. The royal commission into last summers bushfires made that clear. Lets not forget, either, that Sydney had already been cloaked in smoke twice from hazard reduction burns before those genuine bushfires happened.Sydney is a big city with inherent air pollution. Quite apart from the actual dangers of the fire escaping, as has occurred twice in the past 10 days, why are these burns allowed to happen in metropolitan Sydney at all?Surely having mechanically created, compulsory firebreaks around all structures is more sensible, or the closely monitored, Indigenous-style so-called cool burns, leaving the main bush be, except at its perimeter. It seems to me the mega burns the authorities are so fond of are not sustainable, in metro Sydney at least. Tim Egan, Mosman

The Prime Minister doesnt think his government needs to take responsibility for the bursting of the travel bubble when travellers fly on to another state (More New Zealanders could go to Victoria despite objection, October 19). The question here, as with the Ruby Princess, is what does Border Force do? Judy Sherrington, Kensington

Illustration: John ShakespeareCredit:

An approximate haiku for Scott Morrison: PM, you can be sure/travel bubbles will burst/when they hit the ground. Jenifer Nicholls, Armadale (Vic)

If Peter Duttons Border Force cant stop planeloads of Kiwis invading Victoria and Western Australia when it already has their names, addresses and forward travel details, how is it going to stop more boatpeople? Jeremy Cornford, Kingscliff

The Liberal Party has eased up on its koala protection bill (Liberals back down on koala bill, October 17-18), giving their National Party coalition partners what they wanted. The timing is interesting as this has happened when the Liberals would have needed the Nationals support to stave off a vote of no confidence in the Premier from the opposition. It seems keeping the Premier in her political habitat far outways the importance of protecting our native animals in theirs. Tina Butler, Bilgola Plateau

Its terrific that Australia Posts departing executives receive large payouts (Top dollar, CBD, October 19) while an eight-year-old Birchgrove girl waits two and a half weeks for a now-past-the-date birthday card from her grandmother in Lane Cove. Sally Spurr, Lane Cove

There are surely Sydneysiders paying more in road tolls than income tax (Where it hurts: tolls drive wedge though city, October 19). High private tolls are trickle-up economics. The toll distribution is quite striking: the better public transport services are, the lower the average toll paid. The figures show that a radial rail structure helps a small proportion of the metropolitan area: well-off Sydney city residents pay the least tolls.The state governments plan foresees decades of expenditure on radial railways, to achieve the same effect for Parramatta. Our transport priority should be a rail grid that allows people to commute east-west and north-south. Peter Egan, Artarmon

Kate McClymont details the convoluted processes undertaken by witnesses to destroy incriminating evidence: a computer program called Evidence Eliminator, plus hammers, shredders and other means (Ex-Newtown cop tangled in USs largest tax evasion case, October 19). So much easier in NSW; just take the tractor for a spin around the paddock. Rob Venables, Bermagui

Its not about direction (Letters, October 19). Its just that one has to be energetic around prepositions in case one is called on, passed over, shut down, railed against or snowed under while roaming around, having pushed through and got over coronavirus restrictions. Megan Brock, Summer Hill

Closed up. Opened up. Tucked up. Should we add signed up? Even signed off on. A document can be approved or signed, but physically, literally and metaphorically it cannot be signed off on. Richard Barraclough, Chisholm (ACT)

English uses lots of phrases that end in prepositions for various reasons. UP is often used to indicate the completion of an action, as in he locked UP the store. Of course we can also lock DOWN, lock IN and lock OUT. These constructions can really confuse people learning English as a second language. Keith Russell, Mayfield West

Not everything ends bottom-side up. Some go out with the bath water, thrown out, put out, shut out, tired out, shout out, sing out, called out, flew out, sent out, etc. And then there are the ins and outs of all the other prepositions. Joy Cooksey, Harrington

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Daryl and the pork barrel are an insult to taxpayers - Sydney Morning Herald

For much of the past few decades, an outsiders image of an explosive ordnance disposal sailor would likely evoke a brave soul conducting the dangerous but vital task of disabling an improvised explosive device, be it a crude fertilizer jug array in Afghanistan or something more complex on a road in Iraq.

But within the ranks, the 1,800-strong community has always been sea-based, and every EOD tech is also a certified diver tasked with clearing the way forward, no matter the domain.

Now, as the rest of the military continues to pivot toward preparing for a conventional war as part of the so-called great power competition, the EOD force has released a new strategic vision for the coming decade, and how it will contribute to that fight.

With the huge demand across the military for their kind of expertise in recent decades, the Navys EOD sailors were called upon to serve the vital role of clearing roads in Iraq and Afghanistan from IED threats, Capt. Richard Hayes, the commodore for Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2, told reporters Thursday.

Now that we have less capacity dedicated to those land missions, we are spending a bit more time in the maritime domain, Hayes said. The water is our primary domain.

At the same time, the mission of clearing the way for other parts of the joint force in Iraq and Afghanistan is informing the EOD community as it again refocuses on the water, and the undersea domain in particular, Capt. Oscar Rojas, the commodore of EOD Group 1, added.

We make sure there is not a single waterway that we are not able to gain access to, Rojas said.

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While new efforts laid out in the strategic plan touch on everything from advancing the communitys cyber capabilities to fast-tracking the acquisition and development of new systems and a bevy of goals aimed at looking after the physical, social and mental well-being of EOD sailors, the pivot largely focuses on the Expeditionary Mine Countermeasures program, where EOD sailors deploy Mark 18 underwater drones from ships in order to clear areas of water.

The EOD force has had unmanned undersea vehicles, or UUVs, dating back to 2001, but the use of such vehicles really took off with the establishment of the ExMCM effort in 2012.

I think its pretty safe to say that no one is operating UUVs to the volume we are, Hayes said. Im talking globally we have elements of our commands putting UUVs in the water every day.

That program is also a big driver behind the EOD forces aim to expand its ranks and bring in new ratings not traditionally associated with the community.

To help beef up those ranks, the Navy announced earlier this month new rating conversion opportunities for sailors ranked E-1 to E-5 who are interested in joining the Navys diver and EOD programs.

The new strategic plan also acknowledges that, like the rest of the U.S. military, the EOD is entering an age of rapidly evolving technology and unknowns.

We can expect to encounter weapons that are more difficult to detect and locate, more dangerous to render safe and recover, more complicated to exploit, and for which we have no EOD technical manuals, the plan states. Meeting the challenge of networked munitions, interconnected sensors, and programmable electronics that can be controlled from anywhere in the world via the internet will require new EOD skills, equipment and procedures.

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After decades of ground war, Navy EODs are getting back to the sea - NavyTimes.com

ROSLYN With a wildfire burning out of control just five-and-a-half miles north of this Central Washington mountain town, Chris Martins neighbor came to him with a seemingly unorthodox proposition: Lets burn your woods. On purpose. Itll be a good thing.

Reese Lolley, whose employer, The Nature Conservancy, owned the parcel next to Martins property, was not proposing the awesome, awful sort of fire then sweeping over 36,000 acres on and around Jolly Mountain and threatening to torch Roslyn in the summer of 2017.

Lolleys fire would be small. It would creep across the dry brush and downed branches packing the understory of Martins woods on a ridge above Roslyn, the 959-person town just over the Cascade crest from Seattle that is best known for standing in for a fictional Alaskan town in the 1990s hit television show Northern Exposure.

Fire gentle, controlled fire is exactly what experts say is needed to address the huge wildfires tearing through parched forests east of the Cascade crest. Filled with dead wood and brush, many forests are growing more combustible by the year because of climate change and a century of misguided fire suppression. Those conditions now put communities at risk of annihilation by fire. This year saw half a dozen towns destroyed in Washington, Oregon and northern California.

In Washington, about 951,000 homes sit near forests threatened by wildfire. The most endangered communities lie in a swath extending from Spokane southwest to the Columbia River, and then running north past Wenatchee into the Methow Valley. Much of Central and Eastern Washington, in other words.

The state says the number of threatened homes is only set to grow.

Washington State Department of Natural Resources

Top 25 places most likely to be exposed to wildland fire in Washington.

Intentional burning of underbrush and dead trees prescribed fire to those who practice it is increasingly regarded as the key tool in making combustible forests fire-resistant and heading off megafires. But the technique is rarely used in the West, and prescribed fire rates actually decreased in the Northwest over the past two decades, one study showed.

Bucking the trend, Martin said yes to Lolley and, as the Jolly Mountain fire smoldered, foresters burned 12 acres of his land. In the years since, Martin has increased that amount ninefold and prompted the city of Roslyn to use fire to clear the underbrush in its municipal forest.

Honestly, that Jolly Mountain fire, to use a technical phrase, it was a change of underwear moment here in Roslyn, said Martin, who serves as Roslyns emergency management coordinator. I think our community had not really thought about fire. It was a big wake-up call.

Dan DeLong/InvestigateWest

Chris Martin sits among charred trees caused by a prescribed burn on his Roslyn property.

Planned burning down as wildfires rage

Aggressive firefighting has left forests across the western United States primed for megafires like those that devoured 1,600 square miles of Washington timberland in 2015, leaving an ashy gray moonscape where they flourished. Prescribed fire starves those apocalyptic burns while returning combustion to a biome built for it.

Following the U.S. Forest Services lead, land managers spent most of the 20th century extinguishing as many wildfires as they could, as fast as they could. On the dry slopes east of the Cascades, brush, branches and snags that wouldve burned then are burning now in forests packed too tightly for trees to stay healthy.

Dry forests like those surrounding Roslyn used to be seared every five to 10 years. Low-intensity fires, those that dont reach the crowns of trees, found ample tinder in the underbrush, saplings and fallen trees littering the forest floor. An ecosystem grew up around fires set by lightning and Native people, who used fire to cultivate staples like camas and to clear hunting ground for elk and deer.

Bold plans put forward by state leaders in late 2017 call for the intervention in 1,950 square miles of Washington forest. Prescribed fires would be set on hundreds of thousands of acres annually. The state governments leading evangelist for prescribed fire, Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz, has been pushing state lawmakers for years to create a dedicated tax to fund the plan.

Dan DeLong/InvestigateWest

A firefighter watches a prescribed burn as it approaches a forest road that will be used to contain the fire in Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest near Liberty in May 2019.

But Washington, like the rest of the West, has been slow to invest in prescribed burning. Trained fire workers are in short supply in the region, which has seen the acreage intentionally burned shrink even as a consensus for prescribed fire has formed. Ardent proponents note that, while burning could immediately protect towns and homes, decades will pass before prescribed fire has a meaningful impact on the growth of large fires.Returning to something approximating a natural fire cycle where less destructive blazes prune fire-prone forests would be the work of generations.

Prescribed fires burn low to the ground, removing combustible debris. It is a matter of physics: if flames can be kept short enough, fire on the forest floor doesnt climb the branches to the top of the trees and destroy them. Thinning treatments, which see people cut down, carry away or chop up detritus to clear the forest floor, have a similar impact at a significantly higher cost.

Dan DeLong/InvestigateWest

Savannah Herrera of the Roslyn Fire Departments Fuels Crew cuts the lower branches of a tree in the Roslyn Community Forest in August 2020. Herrera was part of a crew thinning the forest for wildfire management.

Whether that current political will and shift in public sentiment will succeed in returning fire to the forest, though, remains an open question.

Support for prescribed fire is climbing, but the actual practice is not, said Crystal Kolden, an assistant professor at University of CaliforniaMerced specializing in fire science. Reviewing fire records for a study published in April 2019, Kolden found the use of prescribed burning in the West hadnt increased from 1998 to 2018 and actually fell in Washington and Oregon.

Trends aside, the total number of treated acres remains tiny compared to the apparent need and proffered goals. According to the National Interagency Coordination Center, the federal governments fire hub, only 191 square miles in Washington and Oregon were treated with prescribed fire in 2019. While state-specific tallies were not available, experts agreed most of that fire burned in Oregon, where the state leaders recently relaxed restrictions on smoke created by prescribed fires.

When were talking about the forest that needs treatment and the amount of forest that weve treated, theres an order of magnitude difference between those numbers, Kolden said. Land managers, she continued, are struggling to keep up, and every year they fall farther behind.

At present, Washington lacks the capacity to return fire to the forest in force.

The state, like its West Coast neighbors, is short on trained fire practitioners and burdened with regulations formed decades ago when forest management almost always meant fire suppression. Regulators can deny a burn permit even after the crew has gathered on a remote site, making prescribed burns a chancy, expensive proposition.

Dan DeLong/InvestigateWest

A downed tree is engulfed in flames during a prescribed burn in Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest near Liberty in May 2019.

Extreme fire seasons becoming the norm

Climate change is expected to intensify the frequency and severity of megafires across the United States, particularly in the dry western interior. Widely relied upon estimates predict the average summer will resemble extreme fire seasons like 2015, 2017 and 2020, when Seattles smoke-soaked air was at least briefly among the worst on the planet. By the 2080s, the acreage of Washington forest burned annually is expected to quadruple from the 20th century average as temperatures rise and snowpack shrinks.

The climactic shift will find Washingtons forests filled with debris left to pile during a century that saw naturally occurring fire heavily suppressed on most lands. With fire gone, a fire deficit deepens each year in the dry pine woods east of the Cascades.

In a recent study, Nature Conservancy researchers found that in Washington and Oregon just one-tenth of the forestland that should see fire each year does. Forest Service researchers estimate that the debt in unburned acres grows 140 square miles annually in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, which blankets 2,711 square miles on the eastern slopes of the Cascades. At current restoration rates, it would take 53 years to revive Washingtons federal lands, which comprise about 44% of Washington forestland.

Were trying to fix issues that took 100 years to get there, said Steve Hawkins, a fuel program manager now in his 40th fire season with the Forest Service. Its going to take a while to get that rectified.

Prescribed burning coupled with thinning createsconditions that can better accept fire, which is inevitable, said Paul Hessburg, aresearchlandscape ecologist with the Forest Services Pacific Northwest Research Station.

For five years, Hessburg has been traveling the Northwest giving talks onwildfirescience. He describes the effort as an experiment, a successful one, to determine whether a better understanding might encourage people to address the problem.

Hessburgs takeaway was that public perceptions around fire are changing for the better but tragically not fast enough to get ahead of the changing climate. His hope is that targeted interventions may prevent the worstoutcomes.

As Hessburg explains it, the question isnt can we regulate the size of the fires? Any influence will be modest the climate and weather mostly determine how much land is burned.

The question is, he said, Can we moderate the severity so that we can maintain more forest or habitats for the future? I think the answer is prettysolidthat we can.

Washington beginning to burn

Washingtons advocates for prescribed fire see the megafires that swept Washington in 2014 and 2015 as catalysts for the shift in public opinion they hope will enable them to do their work. Taken together, the fires burned 2,330 square miles of forest and rangeland and, along with fires in British Columbia, blanketed the Puget Sound in smoke for weeks. The cost in firefighting expenses alone topped $527 million.

The fires drew a vigorous, if standard, response from policy makers and shapers in the state. Committees coalesced, studies aimed at driving future legislation and funding launched. Training for so-called burners who conduct the prescribed fires, as well as community engagement initiatives, were created or expanded.

And, in a limited way, prescribed fires started being set.

Kara Karboski caught what she calls the fire bug setting fires for the Defense Department at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Karboski, now a coordinator with the Washington Resource Conservation & Development Council and a leading booster for prescribed fire, learned how burners go about their work while clearing brush on the military installations ample open spaces.

Before a fire, burners draw up a prescription a set of judgments on what weather and forest moistness is required for the burn to be safe and effective, as well as a staffing and equipment list, and detailed emergency plans. Hose lines are set and test fires lit before a crew of 10 or 20 workers set the fire in earnest.

Ive seen burns called off because its just not burning well enough, maybe theres too much moisture, Karboski said. Ive also been there where fire behavior has been too high, too much, too hot, and theyve said, Wow, this is too much for us to handle.

Weather conditions are assessed to attempt to ensure the fires smoke clears. Practitioners point out that prescribed fires rarely smolder for weeks or months like wildfires, and that the smoke is lighter and less hazardous. Research has shown prescribed fire also helps tamp down climate change. Thats because thinned forests with fewer, larger trees sequester more carbon dioxide, and are less likely to burn to ash if a wildfire reaches them, releasing all that CO2.

On the prescribed fire line, workers building black with drip torches char a box of burned ground around the area slated for fire, Karboski said. Once the fire is set inside, they keep watch for any embers that cross that line.

Dan DeLong/InvestigateWest

A firefighter uses an ignition tank to set underbrush on fire during a prescribed burn in Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest near Liberty in May 2019.

Afterward, its not like its a blackened wasteland, Karboski said. The intention is to leave most of the trees still standing, so those are still there. And youll have spaces where the fire can get into, so you get more of a mosaic.

To Karboskis eye, prescribed burns in Washington have been kept too small.

Hundred-acre burns, she said, arent really getting us where you want to be.

Smoke regulations barriers to controlled burning

One of the few tangible actions taken following the 2015 firestorm, the worst fire year in state history, was a $1.7 million pilot project meant to assess Washingtons ability to use prescribed fire.

While proponents describe the project as a learning exercise crucial to expanding the use of fire in Washington, those lessons were hard won.

In the fall of 2016 and spring of 2017, fires were planned for 15 sites, 13 of which were in national forests. Tellingly, no privately held lands could be found to include in the pilot; private landowners have been put off prescribed fire by the bureaucratic hurdles, cost and liability concerns. Bringing fire to private lands is seen as a significant challenge to reviving Washingtons forests.

Although land managers selected the easiest spots, just one-third of the 13 square miles slated to burn during the project actually saw fire. One that did demonstrated a key argument against prescribed fire smoke.

For a week in the fall of 2016, smoke from prescribed fires hung in the semiarid, V-shaped valleys north of Leavenworth, the faux Bavarian tourist town west of Wenatchee that has moved into the forest, where glassy, loudly rectangular second homes increasingly share sight lines with the squat chalets built a generation before. Air quality fell to levels hazardous to people who are particularly susceptible to smoke.

Controlling smoke rivals containing the fire itself for the top spot on the to-do list of any prescribed fire manager, known as the burn boss. Washington law requires that a state meteorologist sign off on any burn the morning it is set to begin; crews gathered for the burns are sent home if that permission doesnt arrive.

The aging regulatory scheme governing smoke was drawn up at a time when industrial forestry filled Western Washington with smoke. The Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Ecology and the federal Environmental Protection Agency have been working on more permissive framework for years, but it is unlikely to receive a federal review until 2022 at the earliest.

Drawn up in the 1970s to satisfy requirements of the federal Clean Air Act, the smoke regulations last revised in the 1990s did not weigh the benefits of prescribed fire against its costs, said Lolley of The Nature Conservancy.

It really was focused on the reduction in emissions, but didnt really consider forest health, Lolley said.

Washington smoke regulations limit even the Forest Services prescribed burning. Though Oregons forests draw federal attention because they are more primed for intense, destructive fire, its also simply easier to burn in Oregon.

In the final report drawn from the pilot project, Department of Natural Resources researchers concluded that the regulatory framework keeps prescribed fire small and expensive by making larger burns impractical. Its a view shared by Karboski.

The system itself, she said, is set up to disincentive using fire.

Adam Bacher

Close-up image of Ponderosa pine bark burned in a 2015 megafire south of John Day, Oregon.

Incremental progress as concerns mount

Karboskis tempered frustration, one shared by many concerned for the forests and their neighbors, stems in part from fear.

While the intersection of urban areas and wildlands has long been a concern for those who worry about fire full time, the 2018 fire that destroyed Paradise, California, a town of 26,200 before it burned, laid bare the danger. Embers thrown miles by an intense fire in the neighboring forest set the town ablaze.

That the same could happen to Leavenworth, Roslyn or a host of other Washington mountain towns is beyond question. In Washington, homes and wildlands mix across more than 4,500 square miles, an area almost the size of Connecticut. Millions of acres of privately held timberland could be converted into subdivisions.

In Olympia, state land managers are drawing up watershed-centered plans to prioritize forest restoration in areas where fire is most likely, and most likely to be destructive. The idea is to shape the landscape and secure better options for firefighters when fire does break out.

State Forester George Geissler, of the Department of Natural Resources, describes the forthcoming plans as a granular examination of each watershed, looking at land ownership to find areas where intervention would be most successful.

The Forest Service, too, is considering a new targeted approach to prescribed fire. Prescribed burning would be used to create spaces that would slow large wildfires, increasing the likelihood that some could be allowed to burn while providing firefighters a safer space to work from when they intervene.

In an interview, Geissler ticked through the efforts underway. Assistance programs for landowners. Training initiatives to build a workforce. Changes in law to reduce restrictions on prescribed fire. The dialogue with the EPA to revise the smoke rules. His own appointment; Geissler, who had been serving as Oklahomas state forester, said he was hired two years ago specifically for his background in burning.

With each incremental change, we are making the opportunity to utilize prescribed fire greater, Geissler said.

Acknowledging that prescribed fire has been underused in Washington, Geissler cautioned that it is not a magic Band-Aid that can immediately fix what generations of fire suppression broke. He said he believes the public supports the work, and hopes Washingtonians including those in the Legislature will stay engaged.

We live in a society that if you cant get [something] done in two years you probably failed at it, and yet in forestry I was taught that 30 years is a short time, Geissler said.

The Nature Conservancys Lolley offered a similar view.

Were moving in the right direction, said Lolley, whose organization has been instrumental in training fire practitioners and bringing fire to privately owned lands. And I think we are getting smarter about how to prioritize the investments of money to have bigger gains.

But, Lolley allowed, at our current rate of treatment, it will make a difference, but its not near what we need.

The costs are substantial, and the benefits distant.

Advances in plywood manufacturing and heaters that burn pelletized scrap wood could conceivably make thinning less costly in some forests, but the forest restoration wont pay for itself. And while proponents contend restoration will save millions over the long run, firefighting costs will continue to rise even as the restoration work takes shape.

Behind the curve

Fire gently burns in the hills above Roslyn again, this time on the city-owned land bordering Martins property. The fire makes the town an exception, frustratingly so in Martins view.

Martin is enthusiastic about fires effect on his forest, which he bought to visit and protect from development. Since the fire, elk have returned to the newly open forest, as have turkey and bear. Hes proud that it may protect Roslyn the next time fire rises in the forests that surround it.

And yet he stops short of encouraging others to burn. The bureaucratic roadblocks, he said, are still too large for landowners without an abundance of money and energy to overcome.

In Washington state, we are far behind the curve on this stuff, Martin said.

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With nearly 1 million homes at risk, Washington is losing the wildfire fight - InvestigateWest

A Loveland man was trapped by the roaring fire in the Roosevelt National Forest until a helicopter whisked him away to safety. Fort Collins Coloradoan

Colton McDonald will be hard pressed to top his 30th birthday.

That's because it involved his first helicopter ride, being trapped in the Cameron Peak Fire and receiving a warm hug from his father when he returned to his Loveland home.

I was elated that I was out of there, for sure,'' McDonald said Thursday from his home. "But on the way home driving down the (Poudre) Canyon, I was processing the whole experience. I had set out to reconnect with nature. I had set out to catch a bunch of fish and have an adventure. And at the end I accomplished all that stuff.

Barely.

McDonald was the sole recreationist rescued via helicopter from the Cameron Peak Fire and is believed to be the last person in the fire that is raging in the Roosevelt National Forest west of Fort Collins.

He set out on a 10-day solo backpacking trip into the ruggedly beautiful Rawah Wilderness on Aug. 13, the day the fire started. He parked his vehicle at the Blue Lake Trailhead offColorado Highway 14 around sunrise and reached Blue Lake about noon.

He left the lake and was nearBlue Lake Pass around 1 p.m when he saidhe "distinctly heard a gunshot discharge.'' He said about a half hour later, he saw smoke from the area where the fire is believed to have started. He had not seen smoke before that time.

I initially thought the smoke was from another camper with a campfire,'' he said. "Then a half-hour later, that smoke got pretty significant and then I knew it wasnt just a campfire, that it was awildfire.

More: Cameron Peak Fire grows to nearly 16,500 acres; additional resources requested

Despite the fire, hecontinued heading north as planned, skirting the east face of the Medicine Bow Range to avoid the worst of the fire smoke,traveling about five or six miles a day, fishing lakes and camping. He said he had no idea how large the fire had gotten because he could only see one large plume of smoke.

Then the wildlife tipped him off.

After the first couple of days, I noticed an odd amount of deer, moose, bighorn sheep and lot ofbirds kind of following me,'' he said. "And so I kind of knew I was in the right area because all of the wildlife was fleeing to where I was, and wildlife knows where to go when there is a fire.''

"It was definitely on the back of my mind the whole time that it was probably developing, but I didn'texpect it to move as fast as it did, as wide as it did.''

On his fifth day, he figured his last camp was about 15 miles north of the fire. He thought if the fire made the Blue Lake Trail impassable that he would hike out the West Branch Trail to the Laramie River Road.

More: Wildfire map: Track smoke, fire from Cameron Peak Fire

At Blue Lake Pass, he was able to see he was in trouble the West Branch and Blue Lake trails wereboth blocked by fire.

"I could see flames coming from the trees, so I sat there thinking about my options,'' he said. "I had enough supplies to last another week or two, but I figuredthe fire was only going to get worse and that I was pretty much trapped.''

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So he reached for his Garmin Tracker GPS device, which he only started packing in December, and pushed the SOS button. An emergency team responded, and he explained his situation.

That definitely helped quench my fears,'' he said. "I was certainly a little anxious about the situation. But they had it under control and I knew I was in a good spot for the helicopter to land in an open field.''

He said on the second day of his trip, a helicopter flew over him at Island Lake, around 11,000 feet, likely searching for him after crews spotted his vehicle at the Blue Lake Trailheadparking lot.

"Im up there and this helicopter comes closer than Ive ever had a helicopter come to me,'' said McDonald, who saw planes and helicopters fighting the blaze almost daily."They do a couple of passes and Im like, 'I think they are checking me out.' The guy in the helicopter waves and I wave back. That was the only person I saw fromthen until they came and picked me up.

More: Fire investigators seek info on vehicle seen near small fire Friday near Cameron Peak Fire

But on Tuesday, the helicopter didn't fly away. It circled a couple of times before landing in anearby clearing.

They outfitted him with a helmet, ear plugs and maskand whisked him back to Colorado 14, where they landed so he could retrieve his vehicle, which had been towed a mile away because of the fire.

"I had never been in ahelicopter before, so it was pretty wild,'' he said. "The perspective of the fire up in the helicopter was incredible. It was both really terrifying and beautiful at the same time.''

He received an escort through the section of Colorado 14 that was blocked off because of the fire then made his way home where his father, CharlesMcDonald, was waiting.

"There was a big hug and then the humor kicks in,'' said Charles, who credited his son's Garmin Tracker for saving his life."I had confidence in Colton's skills and that he knew what he was doing. But it was a hell of a birthday present to have a helicopter bring him home.

Colton McDonald, who has lived in Lovelandfor three years and is a Colorado State University graduate,is an avid outdoorsman and has summited a dozen of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks. He said despite his recent anxious moments that he has plans to hike the 3,100-mile Continental Divide Trail from Mexico to Canada someday.

"I could tell that my situation could be dangerous,'' said Colton McDonald, who works as atattoo artist and at Biochar Now in Berthoud. "At the same time, it is so freeing and sobeautiful just being in tune withthe natural system. A lot of people never experience that feeling. But there is a lot in those experiences.''

Reporter Miles Blumhardt looks for stories that impact your life. Be it news, outdoors, sports you name it, he wants to report it. Have a story idea? Contact him at milesblumhardt@coloradoan.com or on Twitter @MilesBlumhardt. Support his work and that of other Coloradoan journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.

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Backpacker tells of harrowing rescue from Cameron Peak Fire - Coloradoan

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It is normal for farmers to burn off the land for pastoral use at this time of the year.

A bush fire has been spotted in the hills near St Arnaud, but a regional fire boss says it isnt something to be worried about.

Stuff received a tip-off just before 4pm on Monday afternoon about the fire which was on the hill 45km south-west of Wairau Valley township on SH63.

Fire and Emergency NZ Marlborough principal rural fire officer John Foley said it was a controlled burn off and this was normal at this time of the year.

When the weather permits, August and September is the time for the controlled burn, Foley said.

A number of high country farmers will be undertaking land clearing burns to bring the pasture back, he said.

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Controlled burn off near St Arnaud raises heart-rates, but is nothing to worry about - Stuff.co.nz

Belgium shocked by police brutality footage, which shows cop doing Nazi salute

BRUSSELS Belgium is in shock after a video emerges showing a Slovak man being violently pinned down by airport police officers in images that recalled the fate of George Floyd in the US.

The CCTV images, seen by AFP, date to February 2018, when Jozef Chovanec was taken off a plane in Charleroi, Belgium, after refusing to show his ticket as he boarded.

Chovanec, who died in the wake of the incident, was taken to a holding cell where he is seen in harrowing footage banging his head against the wall until his face bleeds heavily.

Several police officers are later seen entering the room to handcuff Chovanec. When this fails to calm him, they return to hold him down, with one sitting on his chest for 16 minutes.

During this particularly shocking sequence, a female officer is seen in the cell dancing and making a Nazi salute.

Chovanec was afterwards taken to hospital where he died the next day, officially of a heart attack.

According to her legal team, widow Henrieta Chovancova chose to make the video public against their advice as she had grown frustrated with the investigation, which has dragged on for two years.

Our client wanted to show these images to the world because she has no faith in the criminal investigation, says Lennert Dierickx, a member of the legal team that is led by Ann Van De Steen.

She felt the case was not being taken seriously, he adds.

Chovanecs death has been likened to the case of George Floyd, who died in May after a police officer knelt on his neck during his arrest in the United States.

I am just sad, widow Chovancova tells De Morgen newspaper.

It makes me feel even more that they tried to sweep my husbands death under the rug, as if he were garbage that had to disappear, she says.

The video was first reported by Het Laatse Nieuws, a Belgian daily.

AFP

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Thousands protest in Tel Aviv, elsewhere over suspected gang rape of 16-year-old - The Times of Israel

A proposed development called The Gardens whichhas stirred local controversy ever since acontentious communityhearing last July now has the county planning boards initial approvaland will be considered by the Flagler County Commission.

The proposed community would straddle John Anderson Highway south of State Road 100 with a golf course and 335 homes. Its a dramatic reduction from an earlier proposal for 3,996 homeswhich had prompted the July2019 outcry during a community meeting at the Hilton Garden Inn and spurred the creation of an opposition group calledPreserve Flagler Beach and Bulow Creek.

Proposals for the land have been in play for more than a decade.

A versionof the community was first proposed in a 2005 Planned Unit Development, or PUD,for 453 homes, but the recession foiled former developer Bobby Ginns plans for the land, which was sold andisnow owned bydeveloper Ken BelshesPalm Coast Intracoastal, LLC.

"This deal has already been done its already been signed, sealed and delivered so I dont think we need to make a new one.

MARK LANGELLO, Planning and Land Development Board chairman

At an Aug. 11 meeting, theFlagler County Planning and Development Board faced two decisionsconcerning The Gardens: Determining whether the proposed development was similar enough to the 2005 planned unit developmentthat it could proceed under an amendment to the earlier PUD, as opposed to requiring a whole new PUD application; and, second, approving or denying a preliminary plat for the development.

It approved both, voting 5-1 to approve the PUD amendment, with board member Mike Goodman dissenting;and 6-0 to approve the preliminary plat.

I find that this application is considerably similar to the 2005 PUD, board Chairman Mark Langello said. This deal has already been done its already been signed, sealed and delivered so I dont think we need to make a new one.

The boards decision followed comments by community members who opposed the project.

A number of residents said they were concerned about increased traffic and flooding: The area already has adrainage problem, they said, and the addition of so much concrete would worsen it.

Resident Barbara Revels, a former Flagler County commissioner, said she understood that the developer has engineers who will say that theyve studied the drainage and that their project wontfloodother peoples homes.

"There will be nothing left absolutely nothing left, and I defy you to say that that's good development."

BARBARA REVELS, former Flagler County commissioner, on the land clearing and retention pond creation she believes the project will require in order to prevent flooding

But to do that, she said, theyll have to convert wooded areas into fields and create lakes to store the water. Thats what happened with a nearby land development proposalthe commission signed off on when she was on the commission, she said: Developers took a gorgeous piece of property in what became theBulow Shores developmentand bulldozed it, then used fill to raise home sites.

There will be nothing left absolutely nothing left, and I defy you to say that thats good development,she said.Im ashamed to say, as chairman of the Flagler County Commission,my name is on that plat on John Anderson. ... You sit there and you think youre relying on your staff, your engineers, your planning people, and then something gets put in place and its very poorly done. Dont let that happen this time.

Representatives of Preserve Flagler Beach and Bulow Creek told board members that the organization doesnt dispute the developers right to build.

Instead, they said, itbelieves the current proposal is inconsistent with the 2005 PUD.

They pointed to four areas in which the new proposal, they said, differed substantiallyfrom the 2005 one: The earlier one required a golf course whereas the new proposal doesnt include design for the golf course, leading the group to suspect it might not be built; the earlier proposal didnt include direct access to John Anderson Highway, while the new one does; the earlier proposal spread 453 lots over 1,305 acres, while the new one clusters home sites together; and the earlier proposal spread homes across both sides of the road, while the new one groups 335 on the east.

Attorney Michael Chiumento, representing the developer, said those aspects of the 2005 plan werent binding. They came from a 2005 siteplan, he said, while what the new proposal needs to be consistent with is not the 2005 PUDs site plan, but its concept plan.

As to traffic and the golf course, he said, the developer has had transportation studies conducted showing that John Anderson can handle the increased traffic, and the developer is planning to build the golf course in stages. The course is intended to provide the city of Flagler Beach with a location to distribute the city's reuse water, rather than emptying it into the Intracoastal.

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Gardens project earns Planning Board's approval, will advance to County Commission - Palm Coast Observer

Rattan Lal, an Indian-born scientist, has devoted his career to finding ways to capture carbon from the air and store it in soil. Ken Chamberlain/OSU/CFAES hide caption

Rattan Lal, an Indian-born scientist, has devoted his career to finding ways to capture carbon from the air and store it in soil.

More than 40 years ago, in Nigeria, a young scientist named Rattan Lal encountered an idea that changed his life and led, eventually, to global recognition and a worldwide movement to protect the planet's soil.

Lal was fresh out of graduate school, recruited to join the newly established International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, and given an assignment that, in hindsight, seems ridiculous in its ambition. "I was 25 years old, in charge of a lab, given the mandate of improving quality and quantity of food production in the tropics!" Lal says.

He struggled. The problem was the soil. Because of climate and geological history, it was more fragile than what he'd seen in India, where he grew up, or Ohio, where he'd received his Ph.D. Lal cleared parts of the forest for his research plots, but when the soil lost its vegetation and was exposed to sun and rain, it quickly deteriorated. What Lal calls the "life blood of the soil" the so-called organic matter, made of microbes and decomposing roots, which holds moisture in the soil and provides a fertile bed for growing seeds vaporized or washed away, leaving behind gravelly dirt as hot and hard as a road.

One day, a famous scientist named Roger Revelle came to visit. Revelle was one of the pioneers in the field now known as climate science. Lal told Revelle about his problems; about how the organic matter kept disappearing. Revelle pointed out that it was escaping into the air in the form of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Then Revelle asked a question: "Can you put it back?"

"That simple statement, 'Can you put it back?' was my introduction to climate and soil," Lal says.

Rattan Lal was awarded the World Food Prize this year. He previously won the Japan Prize. John Rice/OSU/CFAES hide caption

Rattan Lal was awarded the World Food Prize this year. He previously won the Japan Prize.

Lal, now a professor at Ohio State University, is courteous, polite and soft-spoken. But that can be misleading. "I am by nature competitive," he says. "You're either going to be in the top one, two, three, four or you are not going to survive."

It's a lesson from childhood. He grew up poor, in a village in India. He and his family were refugees from present-day Pakistan. His ticket out of poverty was a government stipend a few dollars each month to study at university. To earn that money, his grades had to be in the top five in the class, and he was haunted by fear that he'd lose it. "That insecurity never really left me," he says.

Soybeans growing at Ohio State's Waterman Agricultural and Natural Resources Laboratory. It's part of an experiment aimed at measuring the effects of farming practices on soil quality. Dan Charles/NPR hide caption

Soybeans growing at Ohio State's Waterman Agricultural and Natural Resources Laboratory. It's part of an experiment aimed at measuring the effects of farming practices on soil quality.

When Lal returned to Ohio State as a professor of soil science in the late 1980s, the insight from that conversation with Revelle became his calling card. He pushed a new view of soil, arguing that it's more than a simply a place where farmers grow crops. It's also a vast global reservoir of carbon that has been a major source of carbon dioxide emissions. Until the mid-20th century, cultivating the soil released more carbon dioxide than burning fossil fuels. Even today, farming and clearing forests for agriculture is responsible for roughly a quarter of global greenhouse emissions.

Farmers control that reservoir; they can continue to mine the soil by tilling it, spilling carbon into the air, or they can refill it, restoring some of the carbon that was previously lost. Soil that's rich in organic matter also is healthier in many other ways. It acts like a sponge, holding water, and it also contains nutrients like nitrogen.

In the American Midwest, for instance, the undisturbed soil of the prairie once was incredibly rich in carbon. Much of it was lost after settlers began plowing it to plant grain. Deforestation and land clearing continues in parts of Latin America and Africa.

Lal began experimenting with farming practices to see how they affect the level of carbon in that reservoir, and he discovered that it's actually possible to refill it at least partially by capturing carbon from the air. Some of those experiments are still ongoing. Nall Moonilall, a Ph.D. student at Ohio State, shows me one of them, an array of square plots at the university's research farm. For the past 30 years, Lal has been monitoring the effects of covering the soil with mulch. Some of the plots have been covered with different amounts of straw mulch every year. Others remained bare. Those bare soil plots now contain less than 1% carbon, but "the carbon content in plots that receive the maximum amount of mulch is probably upwards of 4%," Moonilall says. That's a healthy amount of soil carbon, close to what Midwestern soils contained before they were first plowed.

It also adds up to to tons of carbon in a single acre of soil, simply from adding mulch to the surface each year. Researchers also have found that farmers can enrich soil by leaving it undisturbed. Instead of tilling the soil before planting, which releases stored carbon into the air, farmers can deploy equipment that opens up a narrow slice in the soil and inserts the seeds. Such "no-till" practices have been widely adopted by American farmers in recent decades. Even better, at least from an environmental point of view, farmers can stop growing crops altogether, returning the land to permanent pasture or wetlands.

Soon after he returned to Ohio State University in the late 1980s, Rattan Lal laid out these research plots to study the capacity of soil to store carbon. Dan Charles/NPR hide caption

Soon after he returned to Ohio State University in the late 1980s, Rattan Lal laid out these research plots to study the capacity of soil to store carbon.

Lal was not the only scientist exploring this field. In fact, some of his colleagues and rivals in soil science privately criticize him for spreading himself too thin, publishing articles at a ferocious pace yet not always breaking much new ground. Few of them, though, were the equal of Lal when it came to bringing soil to the attention of policymakers and the general public.

Just in the past few years, dirt has turned trendy. Books have appeared, many of them featuring Lal. There's a TED talk about soil health. Agricultural industry giants like General Mills and Bayer are offering to pay farmers to adopt practices that restore carbon to the soil. There's a catchy new name for it: regenerative agriculture. A startup company called Indigo Carbon released a video calling this "the most promising technology we have to address climate change."

Last year, Lal received the Japan Prize, which many consider second only to the Nobel in scientific prestige. In June, he won the World Food Prize, and former Vice President Al Gore and Senator Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, both called to congratulate him.

There are critics of regenerative agriculture who say the movement has become a fad, promising more than it can possibly deliver. According to the World Resources Institute, no-till farming is unlikely to capture enough carbon to make much of a difference for the climate. And more dramatic changes, such at converting fields back into permanent grasslands, aren't likely to happen on a large scale because there's a growing demand for food, and farmers probably won't stop growing profitable crops.

Lal agrees that rebuilding soil won't stop global warming, but insists that it can make a difference for carbon emissions and for a variety of other environmental problems, from reducing water pollution and expanding habitat for wildlife. He's mostly happy that soil is finally getting the respect it deserves. He even wants it written into law. The U.S. has a Clean Air Act and a Clean Water Act, he says; there should be a Healthy Soils Act, too.

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The Ideas Of A Pioneer In The Environmental Movement Are Finally Recognized : Goats and Soda - NPR

Bees pollinate about one-third of the worlds food supply, according to Sustain, a nonprofit agriculture policy organization. Bees pollinate all manner of fruits, vegetables, crops, and even some of the wild grasses used to feed cattle and other livestock.

Their impact to the U.S. economy are valued at about $15 billion per year, according to Scientific American. During the winter of 2018-19 bee keepers across the country lost an estimated 38% of their honeybee colonies mostly due to an Asian parasitic mite that is resistant to some pesticides that kill mites.

The bee population in Arkansas is in decline and it could have a devastating impact on the states agriculture industry. Neelendra Joshi, assistant professor of entomology for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, uses the research tools of his discipline to understand the greatest threats to the states hundreds of bee species and learn how to protect them.

There are an estimated 25,000 species of bees that provide pollination services to the world, Joshi said. Our research has identified more than 100 species in Arkansas, and we estimate that there may be as many as 300 to 400 native bee species in the state.

Using various sampling techniques, Joshi has determined that different species of bees are distributed to different areas of the state, mainly based on local resources like habitat and food sources.

Bee populations, both managed and wild, are in decline everywhere, Joshi said. Extensive research is underway nationwide to fully understand the causes, but the known threats are many.

Interactions among many stressors have created colossal maladies hitting bees at one time, Joshi said, and in many cases, the combinations have caused additive impacts. Also, he said, the factors causing distress in wild bee populations tend to be different from those harming domesticated honeybees.

Managed bee populations often suffer from restricted diets when they are moved from location to location to pollinate specific monoculture crops, where they forage on only one kind of flowering plant. Joshi said these bees are not getting the balanced nutrition necessary to maintain good health.

Also, the breeding and handling practices for managed beehives tend to make the bees vulnerable to rapid spread of disease pathogens or parasites and other pests.

The biggest threats to wild bee populations are loss of nesting habitat and loss of native flora that are primary food sources, Joshi said.

Most people think of bees living in hives, either in managed, human made hives or wild hives in trees or, on occasion, attics. But wild bees live in many different kinds of nesting sites, most of which are vulnerable to loss because of human development.

Seventy percent of bees are ground-nesting, Joshi said. Many others live in tunnels and cavities.

Bees can be quite industrious, rivaling human developers in creating living space. Joshi said they may occupy or even build cavities in the ground, tunnels in trees either moving into abandoned beetle galleries or, as in the case of carpenter bees, creating their own or live on the ground. Mason bees use mud, sand, leaf particles and other materials to build nests.

Bees lose habitat to human development like urban expansion, road building, logging, land clearing and tilling for agriculture, forest fires, and other natural or human-made reduction in wild land and forests.

Urban spread and monoculture agriculture contribute to loss of wildflower food sources for wild bees, Joshi said.

Bees require nectar and pollen from diverse floral resources to meet their nutritional needs, he said. Popular garden plants and the sameness of monoculture farming systems do not provide dietary balance.

Many other things also contribute to population decline, Joshi said, including pesticide use.

Joshi and his lab have conducted studies to measure the effects of common pesticides and biological alternatives on bee species. The studies included determining what levels of exposure are fatal, and those from which bees of different species can recover.

While its easy to point the finger at agriculture for pesticide use, Joshi said homeowners and gardeners use precisely the same pesticide chemicals, and often with less restraint.

Global climate change also is likely contributing to bee decline, though scientists are still collecting data. While Joshi said he had not seen evidence of it in Arkansas, there is much concern that rising temperatures may cause flowering cycles and the beginning of seasonal bee activity to get out of sync.

Solitary wild bees could emerge early and not find any food, he said.

Managed bees and wild bee populations have to compete for ever-shrinking resources, compounding the problem.

Beekeepers who maintain managed populations for breeding, honey or pollination services are already looking to researchers for the answers they need to restore health and stability for their hives.

Joshi said everyone can make changes to help wild bee populations recover.Homeowners and gardeners should be careful about pesticide use, he said. Farmers use the least amount necessary to protect their crops for economic reasons. Homeowners use pesticides for comfort to keep insects out of their homes and gardeners use them for aesthetic purposes, to keep their gardens pretty. Joshi recommends using pesticides that are less toxic to bees or natural alternatives, if possible, and to time their use for when bees are not active or present.

Maintaining non-compacted, well-drained soils offers suitable nesting substrates for ground-nesting bees, Joshi said. He suggested drilling holes in scrap pieces of wood and hanging them in trees at least 5 to 6 feet off the ground for tunnel-dwellers.

To provide food sources, Joshi recommended planting a variety of native wildflowers.

Many exotic garden plants will not be suitable, Joshi said. Its best to use a mix of colors and plant heights, as well as a sequence of plants that bloom at different times of the year while bees are active, usually from April through about mid-October, he said.

Joshi is conducting a study now to correlate specific pairings of bee species to plant species in Arkansas. Were looking at different flowers to identify which bee species are using them, he said.

Different species have different preferences, Joshi said. We want to learn what those are.

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Scientists try to stem the tide of bee losses - talkbusiness.net

Image via Peter Parks / AFP (L) and Flickr user Harley Kingston,CC licence 2.0 (R)

Conservationists and wildlife experts have expressed grave concern that Australian state governments are continuing to log unburned forests that are home to vulnerable koala populations.

Estimates suggest that at least 5,000 koalas were killed and over 2 million hectares of habitat was destroyed in the state of New South Wales during the 2019/20 bushfiresa devastating blow to a species that is already facing the compounding risks of climate change, urban development and deforestation.

In light of these threats, a recent government inquiry found that the states koalas could become extinct by 2050 unless there is urgent government intervention to prevent habitat loss.

Yet despite a number of clear recommendations from that same inquirythat the NSW government urgently prioritise the protection of koala habitat in urban planning, for example, and that they ban the opening up of old growth forests to loggingthe state-owned logging agency Forestry Corporation is continuing to cut down trees in increasingly rare koala habitats.

Its a scandal that the government isnt doing whats required to prevent the extinction of one of our most iconic species, James Tremain, from the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, told Vice News over the phone. Theyre schizophrenic on the issue. They say they have a koala strategy and an ambition to increase the population of koalas, but theyve introduced laws that have made it much easier to destroy koala habitat.

The recent bushfires destroyed millions of hectares of native bushland, but the NSW government has largely maintained the intensity of its logging operations: pledging to maintain wood supply at the same rate as before the disaster. As Tremain explained, that effectively means more intense logging operations across the state as corporations try to yield the same volume of timber from a significantly reduced area of bushland.

Forestry Corporation documents released through parliamentary processes showed that 85 percent of forest previously designated for logging on NSWs south coast was burned in the bushfires, along with about 44 percent on the north coast. In response, the Forestry Corporation increased its logging intensity to keep up with the demand for timber.

The Nature Conservation Council of NSW previously asked the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) to investigate the logging, but was told that operations could not be halted when Forestry Corporation was not in breach of its approvals.

Unfortunately for koalas, they tend to like the same kinds of trees that loggers likeso theyre in direct competition, he said. The main extinction pressure thats placed on koalas is habitat loss, primarily from logging for timber production or land clearing for agriculture. And although there is a desire for the government to do the right thing, there are powerful industry interests to prevent it from doing what has to be done.

Video footage recorded by arborist and conservationist Kailas Wild reveals that logging operations are continuing in some of the last remaining koala habitats in NSW, in the Lower Bucca State Forest on the states north coast. Wild, whos worked in koala conservation since 2010, understands the ramifications that deforestation can inflict on biodiverse ecosystemsand he fears the governments business as usual approach could be devastating to already vulnerable wildlife populations.

The fact that theres just been no pause or stocktake from the NSW Government to be like lets just see whether this is going to cause impact is worrying, he told Vice News. These bushfires completely changed the game. I've seen with my own eyes the old growth forest that fires completely obliterated, and the habitat that no longer exists, and its really shifted and increased the value of these native forests.

Wild further noted that hes worried the remaining koala populations in NSW and Australia are even less than we thinkand that if the NSW government and state premier Gladys Berejiklian continue to neglect meaningful action on wildlife protection and habitat preservation, the extinction of koalas in the state could come even sooner than current projections suggest.

The fear is that 2050 is an optimistic estimate, he said.

Associate Professor Mathew Crowther, from the University of Sydneys School of Life and Environmental Sciences, said that although it is unlikely the whole koala species will go extinct in the near future, continued logging, habitat loss and fragmentation in areas where koalas live could increase the probability of localised extinctionthat is, the loss of koalas from certain areas.

It all depends on the amount of koala habitat that is to be logged, and what appropriate mitigation has been applied to maintain koalas in the area, he told Vice News over email. The Berejiklian government unfortunately has a very poor record regarding habitat and threatened species protection, and weakening of environmental legislation has led to greatly increased land clearing.

Professor Crowther said that in order to effectively mitigate risks to koala populations, governments need to stop the fragmentation of their habitats, reduce developments near areas of koala populations, invest in research addressing threats to koalas, and implement policies to target some of those other threats, such as climate change.

In the short-term, though, with Australia still reeling in the aftermath of the most devastating fire season on record, he suggested that logging corporations should refrain from wading into potentially fragile ecosystems.

Any logging of koala habitat at this time, when the full extent of the bushfires on koala and other species populations has yet to be ascertained, is short-sighted and potentially very damaging to the species, he said.

Vice News approached the NSW Forestry Corporation for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

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Koala Habitats that Survived Australias Bushfires are Now Being Logged - VICE