Wildfire Prevention – What’s Working and What Needs Improvement?

KTLA | Dr. Chad Hanson is in the studio discussing state and federal wildfire prevention efforts–what’s working and where improvements are needed. He compares traditional wildfire management approaches to the John Muir Project’s focus on community-driven fire prevention, emphasizing strategies like home hardening and defensible space to help protect homes from wildfires, making them more fire-proof.

Read More

WORLDFIRE – Chapter 16, Part I: A Green Fire Rising

Coming Home to Gaia, Tom Weis | As explained by one of the world’s top wildfire authorities, Chad Hanson, in his eye-opening book, SMOKESCREEN (which should be on every forester’s bookshelf): “[F]ire-adapted forest ecosystems evolved with fire and depend on it. Excluding fire from these ecosystems is like trying to keep rain out of a rainforest.” Hanson reminds us that mixed-intensity forest fires are natural and have been occurring since time immemorial.

Read More

Logging Industry’s Wildfire Claims are Misleading the Public

August 12, 2024
By Chad Hanson
The Hill Op-Ed

The Park Fire in northern California has reached approximately 400,000 acres in size, and already logging industry advocates are pushing out misinformation about the fire in an attempt to promote their deceptively-named Fix Our Forests Act logging bill. The timber industry’s political apologists tell us that the Park Fire grew so big, so fast ostensibly because public forestlands are “overgrown” and in need of “thinning.”

Read More

Upcoming Webinar Series: Discover Nature’s Phoenix

Discover the Wonders of Nature’s Phoenix Second Edition! We are thrilled to announce the release of the extensively updated 2nd edition of Nature’s Phoenix. This new edition is once again co-edited and authored by Wild Heritage’s Chief Scientist, Dr. Dominick DellaSala & John Muir Project’s Director and Principal Ecologist, Dr. Chad Hanson, with contributions from…

Read More

Controversy Erupts Over Biden’s Old Growth Forest Protection Amid Increased Logging Activity

By Ryner
Weather News Point

The US Forest Service, responsible for managing national forests and a significant portion of the country’s old growth, has not included mature trees in its new conservation strategy. Conservationists argue that the plan has loopholes that permit continued logging of centuries-old trees and that required reviews of logging projects are not being properly conducted, endangering the remaining old growth forests.

Read More

US Forest Service Failing to Protect Old Growth Trees From Logging, Critics Say

The Guardian

“The largest logging projects I’ve ever seen are targeting the last, best remaining old growth trees left in the country,” said Chad Hanson, a forest ecologist and co-founder of the John Muir Project. “We have a rogue agency in the Forest Service that is trying to benefit the logging industry before reforms take place,” he said. “The situation is rampant as far as I can tell and it risks squandering a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect these incredible forests.”

Read More