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Now that the 2006/2007 school year is done, we will stop updating "Careers in the News". We will continue to maintain and update the rest of this web with more resources for students, families, and educators. Please continue to stop by and check out the links and print resources. Thanks for your support this year!

May 12 - 19

American Forests Urges Increased Funding for Collaborative Forest Restoration. As forest management moves into an era of restoration, federal agencies need to increase their efforts to work with communities to strengthen the ability of local businesses, nonprofit groups, and workers to plan and implement forest restoration treatments, the nation’s oldest citizen group told Congress in recent testimony. Click HERE to read more.

Forestry leaders debate biomass potential as nation's newest energy source. Biomass energy derived from trees could be the short-term answer to the energy crisis for most of America, particularly in regions like East Texas. And then again, it might not. This depends on policy changes, competing with a subsidy-driven market, and overcoming obstacles in bringing the new fuel to the market. Click HERE to read more.

U.S forest growth strong. America’s forests are in good shape, a new report issued by the Society of American Foresters says. The U.S. is covered by 750 million acres of forestland; an amount that has remained largely unchanged over the past 100 years. “The State of America’s Forests reports there is good reason to believe that the positive trends will continue,” the report said. “Most encouraging of all, perhaps, is not what has already been accomplished, but what is likely to be achieved by forestry and natural resources professionals in the future.” Click HERE to read more.

You've read the fire stories; now learn their language. The woods fires threatening communities in Florida and Georgia are grabbing the attention of many people who rarely think about fire dangers. These are some basic terms and things to consider: What does it mean when a fire is contained? Click HERE to read more.

Fire prevention tips. Wildfire Safety Rules - Keep gutters and eaves clear of yard debris, sticks, pine needles and leaves. Click HERE to read more.

Forests critical to preserving water quality. We all know rain falls from the sky, but we may not notice that even on a clear day, pollutants fall from the atmosphere onto the land. The fate of these pollutants depends on where they fall. Do they land in a lake or stream? Or do they wind up falling on a forest or field? Land acts like a sponge, absorbing and modifying what it receives from the sky. Forests can serve as important filters, removing pollutants before they reach nearby lakes and streams. Some of the pollutants that fall on forests are trapped in the trees and soil; in a forest sponge. When this sponge is full, pollutants can leak into ground and surface water. A forest's ability to trap pollutants is influenced by the chemistry of inputs, resident trees and microbes, soil conditions, and where it sits in the landscape-on the top of a hill or in a valley, for example. Click HERE to read more.

Higher Raw Material Costs Continue to Affect Forest Products Industry Earnings. Higher raw material costs continue to hamper the forest products industry, negatively impacting earnings during the first quarter of 2007. Prices for delivered logs and chips increased during the first quarter costing paper, paperboard and solid wood manufacturers $2.4 billion, or an additional $64.7 million for virtually the same volume from the fourth quarter of 2006, according to Forest2Market, Inc. (F2M), a Charlotte-based provider of pricing data for the forest products industry. Click HERE to read more.

Printers do their part to save trees. More businesses want to use environmentally friendly paper, and two Cleveland printers are among a growing number that have been certified by an international organization that sets standards for how trees should be harvested. The demand is coming from people who are conscious of the ravages of deforestation -- lost wildlife habitat, fouled streams, an increase in greenhouse gases -- and don't want to be part of the problem. Click HERE to read more.

May 3 - 11

Random Green Stuff: Virtual Forest. UPM Forest is a website which takes you by the hand and leads you through a virtual forest. Just visiting this flash-generated environment and listening to the woodland sounds will relax you. I've considered opening the site and allowing the birds to chirp in the background. But it's not just relaxing. While walking through the forest, you'll learn about modern forestry, and also be spoiled with loads of information and videos about plants, animals, berries, etc. Click HERE to read more.

Smokey: Our beloved fire prevention representative. Since 1944, Smokey Bear has spread his forest fire prevention message, “only you can help prevent forest fires,” throughout the United States, and as a result, he and his message have served as the longest running public service campaign in U.S. history. Click HERE to read more.

Fire officials offer tips to protect homes. With a hot summer around the corner, the Douglas County Fire Prevention Cooperative encourages home and property owners to prepare for wildfire by increasing their structures’ resistance to fire. Click HERE to read more.

Pine beetles continue to kill millions of trees. Pine beetles have been busy the last few years. State forest officials say they have already impacted 640,000 acres of forest in the Colorado high country. That is roughly the size of Rhode Island. Click HERE to read more.

Abilities of invasive plant species revealed. A recent study in the department of biological sciences has shed a startling new light on the ability of invasive plant species to thrive in foreign environments. The study, which was published in the April 26 issue of “Nature,” showed that invasive plants are more capable of adapting to low-resource habitats than previously believed, heightening the already serious threat that invasive species pose to the planet’s ecosystems. Click HERE to read more.

Forest protection crucial to counter climate change, environmentalists say. Canada's forests are vast carbon reservoirs that store 12 times more carbon than the entire world emits annually from fossil fuels, says a report that calls for a new green business model for the Canadian forest industry. The report, released Wednesday by the environmental group ForestEthics, says the carbon stored in Canadian forests totals 84.4 billion tons. Click HERE to read more.

April 30 - May 2

Students gain insights on forest care. About 100 upper ridge fifth-graders learned a lot about the forest surrounding their community Friday, when they attended the first day of the two-day Trail Days event. Click HERE to read more.

Wisconsin. battles more than 60 wildfires. State forestry officials scrambled Sunday to contain more than 60 wildfires that broke out as low humidity, high temperatures and high winds converged to create the most dangerous fire conditions Wisconsin had seen in the last several years. Click HERE to read more.

Trouble in the forest. Once again, the Lincoln National Forest is in the crosshairs. First, it was reaction to the spreading devastation to trees caused by a new species of looper. Now, it is depredations caused by elk. Click HERE to read more.

Severe Forest Fire Season Predicted for Western U.S. The newest forecasts of summer drought and fire by researchers at Oregon State University and the U.S.D.A. Forest Service suggest the West is in for a fairly severe fire season, brought on by widespread drought conditions and huge fuel buildups in western forests and rangelands. Click HERE to read more.

Ag Dept. to focus on gypsy moths. The Ohio Department of Agriculture will begin aerial treatments designed to slow the spread of gypsy moths in Ross, Pike, Delaware, Franklin, Logan, Union, Madison and Marion counties. Click HERE to read more.

A lack of vigilance: Menards needs to be more watchful about invasive species and about what the home improvement chain is selling. Bought any Taylor's Wood firewood lately at a Menards home improvement store? Burn it. Now. Then send Menards a letter asking why two of its southern Wisconsin stores were still selling the firewood more than a week after state authorities had told the company to remove Taylor's Wood products from shelves. Click HERE to read more.

Invasive species success story: ash borer invasion delayed. When emerald ash borers were discovered in Kalamazoo's Milham Park this spring, long before the pests was expected this far west, the cities of Kalamazoo and Portage went looking to find where else the voracious insects might have struck. Click HERE to read more.

Sweet! Maple producers surprised by bumper flow. Maple syrup producers in the province experienced one of the sweetest seasons in a long time this spring. "Because of the strange winter, I predicted we wouldn’t have a good season, but that isn’t the way it turned out. Instead we probably had the best production season since I started producing maple syrup 20 years ago," producer Kevin McCormick of Rodney, Cumberland County, said in an interview Thursday. Click HERE to read more.

America's Forests in State of Renewal and Re-Growth, but Challenges Remain, Landmark Report Finds. The United States of America is covered by 750 million acres of forestland, an amount that has remained essentially unchanged over the past 100 years, reports a landmark new study released today by the Society of American Foresters (SAF). In addition, forestland in the United States has increased by more than 10 million acres over the past 20 years. The report is available for viewing or downloading at http://www.safnet.org. Click HERE to read more.

Great Lakes loggers in tough shape. Rising fuel prices are just one of the factors pushing loggers in the area to look at curtailing operations, according to results of a survey conducted by the Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association. Some logging contractors in the Great Lakes states are even on the verge of closing up shop, the survey states. Click HERE to read more.