Forests

"On an early December morning last year in the state of Maranhão, Brazil, half a dozen members of the Indigenous Guajajara people packed their bags with food, maps and drone equipment to get ready for a patrol. They said goodbye to their children, uncertain when, or whether, they would see them again. Then, they hoisted their bags over their shoulders and set out to patrol a section of the 173,000 hectares (428,000 acres) of the primary rainforest they call home."

"This 1.3 million hectare forest in Quebec has never been logged or known the incursion of roads. It’s also one of the most carbon dense places on the planet, holding twice as much carbon as the Amazon per hectare — but community members fear ‘the loggers are coming’".

"The wildfires that exploded over the past few days in California and Colorado show clear influences of global warming, climate scientists say, and evidence of how a warming and drying climate is increasing the size and severity of fires from the California coast to the high Rocky Mountains."

"At least four people have died as a result of wildfires fueled by a heat wave and a blitz of lightning strikes in [California's] northern areas. The clusters of fires merged into orange infernos that are creeping up on residential areas, turning neighborhoods into ash and smoldering ruins."

"Coastal mangrove forests help protect communities and habitats from storm surges, but sea-level rise could wipe them out."

"Wildfires raced toward populated areas of Northern California's wine country, as dozens of blazes burned in other parts of the state."

"Renewable energy corporations have launched an eleventh-hour campaign to derail a petition seeking endangered species protection for Joshua trees, saying it could hinder development of the solar and wind power projects California needs to wean itself off fossil fuels."

"Flames are ravaging Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland, approaching the region’s main highway and threatening endangered species amid a near-record number of fires."

"A massive wildfire in Northern California spawned rotating columns of flames Saturday, prompting forecasters to issue a rare fire-related tornado warning."