Word: forester
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...DISCOVERED. CALAYAN RAIL, a new species of flightless bird; on Calayan Island, northern Philippines. The crow-sized bird, which has an orange-red bill and makes a sound like a trumpet, was found by Filipino wildlife biologist Carmela Espa?ola during a rain-forest expedition. Conservationists believe the birds number only about 400 and are vulnerable to extinction because they cannot fly. Island locals, who call the birds piding, sometimes kill them for food...
...raft's floor. But we're quickly succumbing to the river's magnificence; its sweet-tasting, clear waters, tinged brown by the tannin leaching off plants, surging and meandering between banks crowded with a jostling throng of trees, tall leatherwoods dropping white blossoms into the foam-covered eddies. Thick forest stretches away in every direction, and there is no sign of a human touch, until the third day, when, exhilarated after a series of simple rapids, we see heavy wires strung high across a narrow gorge. In 1982 protestors began a blockade of the river to stop government plans...
...river's most dangerous section boils and rages for 10 km between steep slopes of impenetrable forest, and seeing it we realize why we were asked to sign such a staggeringly comprehensive insurance disclaimer. Most of the rapids in this treacherous gorge, where water levels surge rapidly after heavy rains, can't be done by raft. But while references to portaging in the trip notes conjured images of carrying the rafts down paths on the river bank, the reality in this boulder-strewn obstacle course is vastly different. It takes us two long days to traverse the gorge, from which...
Consider, for example, the massive forest diebacks occurring across the West. "People tend to think of forests as pretty slow changing," says Craig Allen, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "But once certain thresholds are exceeded, very rapid changes can occur." In some cases, thirsting trees perish because their circulatory systems--the long tubular columns in the trunk that transport water from the roots to the crown--collapse. In other cases, the trees become so weak they can no longer fend off insects and disease...
...strong, says Thomas Swetnam, head of the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. And the most dangerous fires, he says, occur when droughts follow years that are unusually wet. That's because generous rains encourage trees, shrubs and grasses to grow, providing the fuel that stokes forest fires. This pattern of wet preceding dry, Swetnam thinks, helped feed the intense blazes that raged through the Southwest shortly after 1850, taking out huge stands of conifers. So, if a new El Nino materializes later this year, as some experts expect, it may bring rains that temporarily ease...