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Ohio’s sole national forest could be wiped out as Trump targets land for logging

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Sunday, October 5, 2025

In the Appalachian foothills outside Athens, Ohio, more than 20,000 acres of forest land was mined for coal in the early 20th century, destroying miles upon miles of pristine woodlands.By the 1930s, the federal government had to step in, taking it out of private hands and establishing the Wayne national forest in an attempt to prevent further degradation. In the decades since, maple, oak and other hardwood trees have taken over, returning to nature a region previously better known for extraction.Home to important waterways, the eastern hellbender salamander – an amphibian proposed for listing as an endangered species – hundreds of miles of trails and a host of other outdoor recreational activities, the Wayne national forest draws a quarter million visitors every year.“People use the national forest for fishing, hunting, whether they’re trail runners or cyclists or ATV or horseback riders [and] for camping,” says Molly Jo Stanley of the Ohio Environmental Council who lives several miles from its borders.All the while, underneath the forest floor, gob piles – a layer of coal waste material about a foot deep – is kept in place by the roots of millions of trees and plants.But now, with the Trump administration targeting 100m acres of forest across the country for logging, this critical wilderness area – Ohio’s sole national forest – could be wiped out.A man rides his ATV along a trail that runs through the Wayne national forest near Ironton, Ohio, in 2004. Photograph: Howie Mccormick/APTrump’s executive order was followed by a memo in April from the secretary for agriculture, Brooke Rollins, that established an “emergency declaration situation” that specifically identified the Wayne national forest as a site for lumber production. The memo also outlined the government’s intention to remove protections previously established by the National Environmental Policy Act.The US Forest Service manages almost 300,000 sq miles of 154 national forests around the country, of which about one-fourth is suitable for timber management. Tracts of trees are regularly sold to private and other lumber companies often following a bidding process. Staff shortages and a lack of interest from lumber buyers in recent years have resulted in the Forest Service missing its sales targets by around 10% on average over the past decade.But more than 80% of the Wayne national forest is classified as suitable for logging, drawing concern from locals.“This executive order is a sweeping set of rules that does not address the nuances of the forests across the country. [It] stated that it was to prevent forest fires. In Ohio, clear-cutting forests is not the way to prevent forest fires,” says Stanley.“While timbering is not inherently a bad thing, large-scale timbering has a lot of impact on our ecosystems. The roads that have to be built to access the timber cost the taxpayer more money than the revenue generated from these timbering projects.”Unlike the huge forests and wilderness areas of the American west, federal forests where the public can forage and enjoy nature are relatively uncommon in the industrial Midwest.On top of that, the large-scale removal of trees could fuel major leaching of pollutants that have remained in the soil from the mining days but which, without live tree roots keeping it in place, could flow into waterways, poisoning drinking water for local communities.Tens of millions of people depend on drinking water that originates upstream in national forests, say observers. The Ohio River, which has a greater discharge rate than the Colombia and Yukon Rivers, is just miles from one unit of the Wayne national forest.Other major threats resulting from clearcutting logging are increased fire risks and landslides, say experts.“Over and over, we’ve seen in Appalachia and across the country when you log areas, you potentially increase the danger of wildfires because you increase the roads that lead to 90% of wildfires [that occur] within a half-mile. Opening up big areas allows for more wind, leaves behind a lot of slash and tinder – logging companies only take the big trees,” says Will Harlan, a senior scientist at the Center of Biological Diversity, who has experienced firsthand the destruction of forests around Asheville, North Carolina, from last year’s devastating Hurricane Helene.“We saw here that the landslides after Hurricane Helene in the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests, many of those occurred where there were logging projects and logging roads.”Building and maintaining roads and culverts in forests has cost taxpayers billions of dollars over the decades.But advocates of harvesting lumber on public lands say it brings significant economic benefits to rural areas of the country that often find themselves with few other resources or opportunities for employment. In 2020, the Forest Service sold $183m worth of lumber from national forests, fueling tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs.The most recent sale of Wayne national forest lumber was for over 300,000 cubic feet of hardwood and eastern white pine that took place in August. Logging in Ohio is worth over $1.1bn a year, with much of that concentrated in seven southeastern counties including Athens county.Questions sent by the Guardian to the US Forest Service and the Ohio forestry association querying whether logging could imperil drinking water sources for residents were not responded to.In Athens county, where the poverty rate is 11% above the national level and which ranks as the only county in Ohio facing persistent poverty over a period of decades, access to jobs is among the lowest in the state.In August, the closure of a paper mill that used low-grade locally sourced hardwood lumber and employed 800 people in Chillicothe, a town of 22,000 people two counties west of Athens, has sent the region into a tailspin. The mill had provided a ready processing site for local lumber since it was founded in 1847.All the while, conservationists question the need to log areas such as national forests especially as the US exported $3.5bn worth of lumber in 2021.“Ninety-eight per cent of forests in Ohio are privately-owned. Do we really need to be logging in the 2% that belongs to everyone?” asks Harlan.At the same time, Appalachia is set to be among the hardest-hit regions from long-term climate change due to topographical, funding and other challenges.“In Appalachia, we’ve been seeing historic flooding events,” says Stanley.“Without these intact forests, large-scale logging will absolutely impact and increase the potential for major flooding events. Intact forests are the best control that we have against that.”

Over 80% of Wayne national forest classified as suitable for logging, drawing concern from localsIn the Appalachian foothills outside Athens, Ohio, more than 20,000 acres of forest land was mined for coal in the early 20th century, destroying miles upon miles of pristine woodlands.By the 1930s, the federal government had to step in, taking it out of private hands and establishing the Wayne national forest in an attempt to prevent further degradation. In the decades since, maple, oak and other hardwood trees have taken over, returning to nature a region previously better known for extraction. Continue reading...

In the Appalachian foothills outside Athens, Ohio, more than 20,000 acres of forest land was mined for coal in the early 20th century, destroying miles upon miles of pristine woodlands.

By the 1930s, the federal government had to step in, taking it out of private hands and establishing the Wayne national forest in an attempt to prevent further degradation. In the decades since, maple, oak and other hardwood trees have taken over, returning to nature a region previously better known for extraction.

Home to important waterways, the eastern hellbender salamander – an amphibian proposed for listing as an endangered species – hundreds of miles of trails and a host of other outdoor recreational activities, the Wayne national forest draws a quarter million visitors every year.

“People use the national forest for fishing, hunting, whether they’re trail runners or cyclists or ATV or horseback riders [and] for camping,” says Molly Jo Stanley of the Ohio Environmental Council who lives several miles from its borders.

All the while, underneath the forest floor, gob piles – a layer of coal waste material about a foot deep – is kept in place by the roots of millions of trees and plants.

But now, with the Trump administration targeting 100m acres of forest across the country for logging, this critical wilderness area – Ohio’s sole national forest – could be wiped out.

A man rides his ATV along a trail that runs through the Wayne national forest near Ironton, Ohio, in 2004. Photograph: Howie Mccormick/AP

Trump’s executive order was followed by a memo in April from the secretary for agriculture, Brooke Rollins, that established an “emergency declaration situation” that specifically identified the Wayne national forest as a site for lumber production. The memo also outlined the government’s intention to remove protections previously established by the National Environmental Policy Act.

The US Forest Service manages almost 300,000 sq miles of 154 national forests around the country, of which about one-fourth is suitable for timber management. Tracts of trees are regularly sold to private and other lumber companies often following a bidding process. Staff shortages and a lack of interest from lumber buyers in recent years have resulted in the Forest Service missing its sales targets by around 10% on average over the past decade.

But more than 80% of the Wayne national forest is classified as suitable for logging, drawing concern from locals.

“This executive order is a sweeping set of rules that does not address the nuances of the forests across the country. [It] stated that it was to prevent forest fires. In Ohio, clear-cutting forests is not the way to prevent forest fires,” says Stanley.

“While timbering is not inherently a bad thing, large-scale timbering has a lot of impact on our ecosystems. The roads that have to be built to access the timber cost the taxpayer more money than the revenue generated from these timbering projects.”

Unlike the huge forests and wilderness areas of the American west, federal forests where the public can forage and enjoy nature are relatively uncommon in the industrial Midwest.

On top of that, the large-scale removal of trees could fuel major leaching of pollutants that have remained in the soil from the mining days but which, without live tree roots keeping it in place, could flow into waterways, poisoning drinking water for local communities.

Tens of millions of people depend on drinking water that originates upstream in national forests, say observers. The Ohio River, which has a greater discharge rate than the Colombia and Yukon Rivers, is just miles from one unit of the Wayne national forest.

Other major threats resulting from clearcutting logging are increased fire risks and landslides, say experts.

“Over and over, we’ve seen in Appalachia and across the country when you log areas, you potentially increase the danger of wildfires because you increase the roads that lead to 90% of wildfires [that occur] within a half-mile. Opening up big areas allows for more wind, leaves behind a lot of slash and tinder – logging companies only take the big trees,” says Will Harlan, a senior scientist at the Center of Biological Diversity, who has experienced firsthand the destruction of forests around Asheville, North Carolina, from last year’s devastating Hurricane Helene.

“We saw here that the landslides after Hurricane Helene in the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests, many of those occurred where there were logging projects and logging roads.”

Building and maintaining roads and culverts in forests has cost taxpayers billions of dollars over the decades.

But advocates of harvesting lumber on public lands say it brings significant economic benefits to rural areas of the country that often find themselves with few other resources or opportunities for employment. In 2020, the Forest Service sold $183m worth of lumber from national forests, fueling tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs.

The most recent sale of Wayne national forest lumber was for over 300,000 cubic feet of hardwood and eastern white pine that took place in August. Logging in Ohio is worth over $1.1bn a year, with much of that concentrated in seven southeastern counties including Athens county.

Questions sent by the Guardian to the US Forest Service and the Ohio forestry association querying whether logging could imperil drinking water sources for residents were not responded to.

In Athens county, where the poverty rate is 11% above the national level and which ranks as the only county in Ohio facing persistent poverty over a period of decades, access to jobs is among the lowest in the state.

In August, the closure of a paper mill that used low-grade locally sourced hardwood lumber and employed 800 people in Chillicothe, a town of 22,000 people two counties west of Athens, has sent the region into a tailspin. The mill had provided a ready processing site for local lumber since it was founded in 1847.

All the while, conservationists question the need to log areas such as national forests especially as the US exported $3.5bn worth of lumber in 2021.

“Ninety-eight per cent of forests in Ohio are privately-owned. Do we really need to be logging in the 2% that belongs to everyone?” asks Harlan.

At the same time, Appalachia is set to be among the hardest-hit regions from long-term climate change due to topographical, funding and other challenges.

“In Appalachia, we’ve been seeing historic flooding events,” says Stanley.

“Without these intact forests, large-scale logging will absolutely impact and increase the potential for major flooding events. Intact forests are the best control that we have against that.”

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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‘Food forests are everything’: creating edible landscapes helps nature thrive in Afro-descendant lands

Agroforestry systems in Latin America practised by local communities are a boon to biodiversity, according to researchAs a seven-year-old, covered head to toe with only her eyes and nose exposed, Dilmer Briche González used to pick the long, fat fruits from the cacao tree and place them in a big pile. “Imagine a forest where giant mosquitoes abound,” Briche González, now 53, recalls of her childhood on her family’s ancestral farm.Her grandfather, uncle and grandmother would cut each cacao fruit open, and Briche González would join her grandmother in removing the pulp and seeds from the shell, which would then be used as fertiliser.A village in Ecuador where, along with Brazil, Colombia and Suriname, there are formally recognised Afro-descendant lands. Photograph: Conservation International Continue reading...

As a seven-year-old, covered head to toe with only her eyes and nose exposed, Dilmer Briche González used to pick the long, fat fruits from the cacao tree and place them in a big pile. “Imagine a forest where giant mosquitoes abound,” Briche González, now 53, recalls of her childhood on her family’s ancestral farm.Her grandfather, uncle and grandmother would cut each cacao fruit open, and Briche González would join her grandmother in removing the pulp and seeds from the shell, which would then be used as fertiliser.The agricultural landscape where their farm lies, nestled in southern Colombia, had been maintained by Afro-descendant communities since colonial times.Briche González would follow her grandmother around in the forest where her family also grew different trees for timber, medicinal plants, coffee, spices and herbs for cooking. A village in Ecuador where, along with Brazil, Colombia and Suriname, there are formally recognised Afro-descendant lands. Photograph: Conservation International “I just became enchanted with all of that,” she says. Today, Briche González is part of the grassroots organisation Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN), which advocates for the rights and recognition of Afro-descendant peoples in southern Colombia.Afro-descendant communities in Latin America have long cultivated “edible landscapes”, which grow in the midst of natural forests and mimic the surrounding flora. Across the region, Afro-descendant peoples manage about 200m hectares (2m sq km or 494m acres) of these agroforestry systems in biodiversity hotspots, of which only 5% are legally recognised as collectively titled territories.For decades, those communities have argued that they play a critical role in protecting biodiversity and therefore need legal protection over their lands. Until recently, there was little scientific data to support their claims.New research changes that. A paper published recently in Nature Communications Earth & Environment is the first peer-reviewed study quantifying the role of Afro-descendant peoples’ contributions to biodiversity, carbon sequestration and the reduction of deforestation, says Martha Cecilia Rosero-Peña, a co-author and environmental sociologist.Researchers analysed formally recognised Afro-descendant lands in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Suriname, covering about 9.9m hectares. They found that more than half of this land (56%) overlaps with the highest 5% of biodiverse areas on Earth. In Ecuador, the figure is striking: 99% of all Afro-descendant land is in biodiversity hotspots, while in Colombia almost 92% of Afro-descendant lands are in the top 5% of areas for biodiversity.The study also found that deforestation rates in Afro-descendant lands were 29% lower than in protected areas, and 55% lower than land on the edge of a protected area.These forests have co-evolved with the communities that inhabit themJohana Herrera Arango, Javeriana UniversityKlaudia Cárdenas Botero, an environmental anthropologist at the Humboldt Institute in Colombia, who was not involved in the study, says: “This means that practices historically classified as ‘subsistence’ are, in fact, conservation strategies that are as effective – or even more effective – than many state policies for protected areas.”To understand why Afro-descendant communities have preserved the forest so well, Rosero-Peña dug into scientific records dating back to the 1500s. What she found was a hidden side-effect of the European plantation model in the Americas.“Science always focuses on the history of plantations and enslaved people,” Rosero-Peña says. “But it rarely tells us what they ate.”Unlike the Europeans, who did not know how to grow food in the tropics, most of the Africans were taken from one tropical region to another. They were in charge of food production on the plantations, and adapted farming systems from Africa, blending local and African plants such as yams, okra, pigeon peas, plantains and millet, Rosero-Peña says.Agricultural knowledge was also a lifeline to freedom: hidden crops would grow along the escape routes enslaved Africans traversed many times, carrying rice seeds hidden in their braids. Escapers had to imitate the forest to stay hidden, which meant planting diverse crops, minimising land clearing, and avoiding fire. West African women adapted rice farming to drought-prone regions by timing it with river tides.“These forests – and this paper shows it clearly – have co-evolved with the communities that inhabit them,” says Johana Herrera Arango, director of the Observatory of Ethnic and Peasant Territories at Bogotá’s Javeriana University, who was not involved in the study. “Biological diversity is also a human creation.”Once slavery ended, many Afro-descendant communities turned to agriculture and some became powerful cacao producers. Unlike plantations, these farms thrived as edible forests.When Briche González was a child, echoes of the cacao boom remained. The farm’s cacao and coffee beans allowed her grandmother to raise nine children and their offspring. And though many Afro-descendant families lost most of their land during forced land reforms in the 1940s, it was the expansion of sugar plantations in the 1960s and 1970s that caused the biggest declines, Briche González says.Harsh pesticides drifted into ancestral farms, reducing productivity. Many families sold or rented their lands to plantation owners. “When my grandmother died, the sugar mills leased our land,” Briche González says. “Now, the house is completely walled in sugarcane.”Only a handful of ancestral farms now remain among 250,000 hectares of sugarcane plantations. But amid them, researchers have found at least 128 plant species still grow in the remaining array of trees, bushes, herbs and animals. Cárdenas Botero, from the Humboldt Institute, found a similarly astonishing number of species in black communities’ farms in northern Colombia: 272 species of plants and 151 insect species.Efforts to keep that legacy alive are under way. Briche González, who is an ecology technician, helped design a university diploma programme in agro-ecology for those tending family farms. The PCN is pressing Colombia’s culture ministry to recognise their farms as part of the national heritage. Other groups are piloting an “Afro-food corridor” spanning 1,640 hectares.Food forests, Briche González says, “are everything. They are life, no matter where they grow.”Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage

Forests
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Forests Are Raining Plastic: New Study Reveals Shocking Pollution

Forests store microplastics carried in from the air. These particles accumulate in soils through rain, leaf fall, and decomposition. Microplastics and nanoplastics are not only contaminating oceans, rivers, and agricultural land but are also present in forests. This finding comes from geoscientists at TU Darmstadt, whose study has just been published in the journal Nature [...]

For the study, the research team took samples at four forest locations. Credit: Collin WeberForests store microplastics carried in from the air. These particles accumulate in soils through rain, leaf fall, and decomposition. Microplastics and nanoplastics are not only contaminating oceans, rivers, and agricultural land but are also present in forests. This finding comes from geoscientists at TU Darmstadt, whose study has just been published in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment. How plastic particles enter forests According to a new study, harmful microplastics are not only stored in agricultural and urban soils, but also in forests. The majority of the tiny plastic particles enter the forests from the air and accumulate in the forest soil. “The microplastics from the atmosphere initially settle on the leaves of the tree crowns, which scientists refer to as the ‘comb-out effect’,” explains lead author Dr Collin J. Weber from the Institute of Applied Geosciences at TU Darmstadt. “Then, in deciduous forests, the particles are transported to the forest soil by rain or the autumn leaf fall, for example.” Microplastics and nanoplastics not only pollute oceans, rivers, and fields, but also forests. Credit: Collin WeberOnce in the soil, leaf decomposition becomes a key factor in trapping these pollutants. The researchers found that the highest concentrations of microplastics occur in the upper layers of leaf litter that are only partially decomposed. However, large amounts are also found deeper in the soil, carried downward not only by decomposition itself but also through the activity of organisms that contribute to breaking down organic matter. Sampling and new methods To conduct their study, researchers from the Department of Soil Mineralogy and Soil Chemistry collected samples at four forest locations east of Darmstadt, Germany. They applied a newly refined analytical technique that allowed them to measure the concentration of microplastics in soil, fallen leaves, and atmospheric deposition (the movement of substances from the Earth’s atmosphere to its surface). The team then used spectroscopic methods to chemically analyze the samples. In addition, they created a model estimating atmospheric microplastic inputs since the 1950s, helping them assess how much these inputs have contributed to overall storage in forest soils. The research team developed a customized method for analyzing microplastics on leaf surfaces. Credit: Collin Weber“Our results indicate that microplastics in forest soils originate primarily from atmospheric deposition and from leaves falling to the ground, known as litterfall. Other sources, on the other hand, have only a minor influence,” explains Weber. “We conclude that forests are good indicators of atmospheric microplastic pollution and that a high concentration of microplastics in forest soils indicates a high diffuse input – as opposed to direct input such as from fertilizers in agriculture – of particles from the air into these ecosystems.” The study is the first to demonstrate the pollution of forests with microplastics and the direct link between atmospheric inputs and the storage of microplastics in forest soil, as these issues had not previously been scientifically investigated. The results provide an important basis for assessing the environmental risks posed by microplastics in the air and soil. “Forests are already threatened by climate change, and our findings suggest that microplastics could now pose an additional threat to forest ecosystems,” says Weber. The findings may also be relevant for assessing health risks, as they highlight the global transport of microplastics in the air and thus also in the air we breathe. Reference: “Forest soils accumulate microplastics through atmospheric deposition” by Collin J. Weber and Moritz Bigalke, 26 August 2025, Communications Earth & Environment.DOI: 10.1038/s43247-025-02712-4 Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.

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‘Green’ diesel producer’s supplier linked to Amazon deforestation

A U.S. renewable diesel refiner purchased tallow from slaughterhouses supplied by ranches fined for illegal clearing of Brazilian forests.

Diamond Green Diesel, or DGD, a U.S. leader in renewable diesel production, imports beef tallow from a supplier fed by Brazilian slaughterhouses fined for illegal deforestation. These include a plant that purchased cattle from a rancher described by Brazilian authorities as the “largest destroyer of the Amazon” ever investigated. Repórter Brasil obtained documents about DGD’s supplier chain and identified, in addition to this case, connections to at least two other slaughterhouses that bought cattle from ranchers fined for practices associated with large-scale illegal deforestation. These cases raise a red flag about the potential harmful climate impacts of alternative fuels. Despite biofuels’ image as a ‘green’ fuel, the use of livestock inputs in their production can increase deforestation, warns Tim Searchinger, a senior researcher at Princeton University. “The reason land is being deforested is to meet growing demand for food and biofuels,” he says. Deforestation accounts for around 13 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to United Nations estimates. In Brazil, it is the leading driver of such emissions. On its website, DGD claims its industrial plant can cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80 percent compared to fossil diesel. However, it does not mention any measures to prevent the purchase of tallow sourced from deforested pastures. The company did not respond to requests for comment. In addition to fueling cars and trucks, DGD’s Texas facility produces SAF — short for “sustainable aviation fuel,” a product intended to reduce the climate footprint of the aviation industry. Avfuel Corporation, one of the main independent jet fuel suppliers in the U.S., received the first SAF delivery from DGD in December 2024. From forest destruction to biofuel production According to customs documents reviewed by Repórter Brasil, DGD regularly purchases beef tallow from the Fasa group, a Brazilian company specializing in processing slaughterhouse byproducts. DGD and Fasa belong to the same economic group, as the Brazilian company was acquired in 2022 by Texas-based multinational Darling Ingredients, one of DGD’s owners through a joint venture with Valero Energy. Also headquartered in Texas, Valero Energy is one of the largest fuel producers in the U.S. The Fasa group has subsidiaries in the Amazon called Araguaia and Rio Verde, which source tallow from various slaughterhouses in the region. The supplier’s history, according to official documents obtained by the report, includes Frialto, a slaughterhouse from Mato Grosso identified through GTAs (animal transport guides) purchasing cattle from a rancher arrested by the Brazilian federal police in 2023. He was accused by Brazil’s Federal Prosecution Office of clearing an area of forest equivalent to about 12,000 American football fields and is identified by the agency as the largest Amazonian deforester ever investigated. One month after the arrest, Repórter Brasil revealed that Frialto had bought cattle from the rancher and his relatives. Now, the outlet has obtained an official letter from the government of Mato Grosso, dated October 2023, related to the renewal of Frialto’s operating license. In the document, a Fasa subsidiary is listed as the recipient of residues generated by Frialto. According to customs records, this same Fasa unit sent beef tallow to DGD multiple times between 2023 and 2024. At the time of the arrest, Frialto stated it had suspended business with the rancher’s properties. Repórter Brasil contacted the slaughterhouse again to inquire about its dealings with Fasa and any measures taken to avoid sourcing from illegally deforested areas but received no response. Fasa, Darling Ingredients, Valero Energy, and DGD also did not respond to requests for comment. Read Next How do we feed billions without wrecking the planet? A Q&A about our food systems. Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco Another illegal deforestation case linked to DGD’s supply chain involves the LKJ slaughterhouse. Cattle movement records accessed by Repórter Brasil show that in July 2023, LKJ purchased animals from a ranch in Brazil’s Cerrado biome — called Apucarana Farm — which had 381 hectares embargoed after environmental authorities confirmed illegal deforestation. The Cerrado is another native biome in Brazil facing rapid destruction and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. A Fasa subsidiary in Pará state regularly received residues from LKJ between 2022 and 2023, according to corporate documents obtained by Repórter Brasil showing truck routes for raw material deliveries. That same subsidiary also supplied beef tallow to DGD from 2023 to 2024, according to customs records. When contacted, LKJ attributed the cattle purchase from Apucarana Farm to a failure in its internal procedures, stating that it has a policy of not buying from embargoed areas. (See the full response here.) The company claimed it has since blocked both the farm and another property from the same supplier from future sales. LKJ did not comment on its business relationship with Fasa. Like other slaughterhouses, LKJ is a signatory to an agreement with Brazil’s Federal Prosecution Office — known by its Portuguese acronym, MPF — that requires adopting anti-deforestation criteria in cattle procurement in the Amazon. In May of this year, the MPF released audit results focused on LKJ’s operations, revealing that roughly 2,700 animals slaughtered by the company in 2022 — about 8 percent of the audited sample — did not meet the agreement’s criteria. It was the worst result among the six audited slaughterhouses in the state of Tocantins, where LKJ is located. In 2023 and 2024, in addition to sourcing tallow from Fasa, DGD also imported tallow directly from Minerva, Brazil’s second-largest beef company, customs data show. Last year, a study by the organization Mighty Earth identified the company as one of the clients supplied by the largest deforester in the Brazilian Pantanal, who was fined the highest penalty ever imposed by the Mato Grosso State Department of the Environment. The individual was held responsible by the state’s Civil Police for the destruction of 81,200 hectares of native vegetation — an area larger than the island of Manhattan — through the aerial spraying of pesticides containing chemicals also found in “Agent Orange.” At the time of the publication, which used data gathered by Repórter Brasil, the company reported that it had blocked the rancher from future business. Minerva’s plant in Araguaína, in the state of Tocantins, is among those listed in customs documents exporting tallow to DGD. A 2021 Repórter Brasil report showed that this facility had purchased cattle from a rancher fined for illegally clearing 198 acres of Amazon rainforest. Another investigation that same year revealed that the plant’s indirect supply chain included a farm where Brazilian authorities rescued workers from conditions analogous to slavery. Minerva was contacted to comment on its cattle procurement policies and its relationship with DGD, but did not respond. Brazil is exporting more tallow to the U.S. In 2022, Brazil exported 63,000 tons of tallow to the U.S. In 2023, that number jumped to 202,000 tons. And in just the first five months of 2025, Brazil had already shipped 111,000 tons, according to data from the Brazilian Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade, and Services. The increase coincides with the acquisition of the Fasa group by Darling Ingredients. Last year, the U.S. was the destination for 90 percent of all Brazilian tallow exports. Beef tallow is derived from bovine tissue waste and has a relatively low production cost, as it is extracted from less valuable parts of the animal, such as the carcass. Its use is often described as “animal recycling” and is commonly promoted as a solution for disposing of slaughterhouse residues. Read Next Can Lula still save the Amazon? Joaquim Salles Because it is considered a byproduct, tallow is not subject to the same traceability requirements as beef. However, according to Searchinger, tallow is a valuable commodity for the food industry — it is, for example, widely used in animal feed. When diverted to fuel production, he explains, it increases the demand for vegetable oils and other fats to replace it. “This, in turn, increases pressure on land,” he says. Searchinger argues that the growth of biofuels is only viable because of public subsidies. He believes that instead of supporting the sector, rich countries should fund environmental conservation in the Global South. “A $100-per-ton CO2 tax on airline tickets could generate a $100 billion annual fund. That money could be used to pay countries like Brazil to conserve their forests and boost livestock productivity in already cleared areas,” Searchinger suggests. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline ‘Green’ diesel producer’s supplier linked to Amazon deforestation on Sep 16, 2025.

Forests
Animals
Chemicals

Contributors to Scientific American’s October 2025 Issue

Writers, artists, photographers and researchers share the stories behind the stories

September 16, 20254 min readContributors to Scientific American’s October 2025 IssueWriters, artists, photographers and researchers share the stories behind the storiesBy Jen Schwartz Chris Gunn The Lives of Dead TreesFor almost 25 years Chris Gunn (above) worked as a contract photographer for NASA, where he shot precious objects such as moon rocks brought back from the first Apollo landing and, as lead photographer for the project, captured three years of the James Webb Space Telescope’s construction. That often meant working in clean rooms, with their rigid protocols and highly controlled conditions. So when Gunn entered the dense forests of Oregon to take pictures for journalist Stephen Ornes’s story about a long-term study of decaying logs, it was an entirely different experience. “Having shot in locations with such stark geometric patterns for so long, going into the forest, initially I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, some of the trees are not straight,’” he says, laughing. “They are messing up my photograph!”Gunn, who has lived in the Washington, D.C., area most of his life, had been seeking assignments that would both bring him closer to nature and communicate environmental change. “In so much of my previous work, I’ve been an outsider looking in on something, and this time I was really inside it,” he says. Gunn likes his images to be super sharp, so he observed how light was falling through the canopy; controlling the exposure gave depth to his photographs. Although the subject was dead trees, “there was still so much life,” he says. “It was magical from an imagery perspective.”On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Cassandra Willyard Decoding BloodAlzheimer’s disease has touched almost everyone’s life in some way, says freelance journalist Cassandra Willyard, whose article in this issue’s special report on Alzheimer’s is about a recently approved diagnostic blood test for the disease. “It’s a complicated subject because there’s still controversy in the field about how it should be used correctly,” she says. But Willyard, who has worked as a science writer for two decades, deliberately pursues stories with a lot of complexity. Sorting through nuance and presenting clear takeaways to readers is a satisfying challenge. For her entire career, “I’ve been very focused on medical topics like drug development and infectious diseases because I find it so fascinating and so relevant to what everyone goes through.”Watching federal funding for research get dismantled has been especially dismaying to Willyard because she’s reported on the long trajectories of certain tests and treatments, such as the development of gene therapies and a possible vaccine for Lyme disease. “But talking to scientists helps me stay engaged and hopeful for the future,” she says, “because they are excited about what they are learning.”Lauren N. Wilson The Dawn of Polar Bird Migration“Most kids go through a dinosaur stage,” says paleobiologist Lauren N. Wilson. “I just never grew out of it.” Wilson co-authored a feature with Daniel T. Ksepka in this issue about their discovery of the oldest known evidence for polar migration in birds. She says she found it fun to write about their research for a popular audience because she finally got to talk about what delighted her most: “The baby-bird fossils were so cute. Most of the bones I worked on were two millimeters or smaller.”When Wilson, who is now a Ph.D. student at Princeton University, went to Alaska for graduate school, she thought she’d spend her first summer identifying and describing bird fossils alongside Ksepka. “We started to get a good sense that some of this stuff was pretty significant,” she recalls. “I e-mailed [Ksepka] nonstop for the next three years, saying, ‘Wow, this is weird, look at this, what do you think?’” The result of their fieldwork was a “holistic study not just of the birds but of the whole ecosystem,” she says.Stories like this one are important, Wilson says, because we wouldn’t be able to understand how abnormal the rate of global warming is today if we didn’t know how things happened in the past. “We learned that birds have been nesting in the same area in Alaska for 73 million years,” she says. “Then humans show up, and in the blink of an eye we’re endangering that.”Rebecca Gelernter The Dawn of Polar Bird MigrationIllustrator Rebecca Gelernter loves doing paleoart, “and I don’t get to do it very often,” she says. For this issue, she illustrated 10 ancient birds for a cladogram in the feature by Lauren N. Wilson and Daniel T. Ksepka about the dawn of bird migration. As Gelernter talks about skeletal reconstructions, it’s easy to feel her joy at bringing fossil birds back to life. “I really like A Field Guide to Mesozoic Birds and Other Winged Dinosaurs [by Matthew P. Martyniuk] because it’s structured like a bird guide, with notes on proportion and wingspan,” she says.Gelernter has been a “bird person” since she was 10 years old, and she studied ornithology in college. Then she discovered science illustration and enrolled in a graduate program, “which was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”The most fun part of the work is when Gelernter gets to problem-solve the gaps in knowledge, such as by designing plumage colors for dinosaurs. “I like adding a little crest here, some fun soft tissue there,” she says. “Birds are just weird. They have all kinds of bizarre display structures, so it’s hard to come up with something that’s really unreasonable.”It’s Time to Stand Up for ScienceIf you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.If you subscribe to Scientific American, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can't-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world's best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you’ll support us in that mission.

Forests
Nature
Science

Zone zero' rule could be California's wildfire savior — or its environmental undoing

The state's proposed 'zone zero' rules are commonsense fire safety, proponents say, but opponents fear they will decimate Southern California's urban forest.

Depending on whom you talk to, the proposed new defensible space rules for “zone zero” will help save homes in very high fire hazard severity zones, or decimate much of Southern California’s urban tree canopy without really deterring the types of wildland fires that destroyed much of Altadena, Pacific Palisades and Malibu earlier this year. Either way, the state Board of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Zone 0 Advisory Committee will likely get an earful of comments during its public meeting Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Pasadena Convention Center. The committee will be presenting its proposed rules for creating “fire defensible spaces” or “ember-resistant zones” within five feet of buildings in very high fire hazard severity zones protected by city and county firefighters as well as all areas protected by state firefighters. These five-foot-wide buffers are now widely known as “zone zero.” The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection was initially tasked with creating specific zone zero regulations in 2020, after the Legislature passed Assembly Bill 3074, said Yana Valachovic, a technical adviser to the board who wears many hats as the county director and forest advisor for both the UC Cooperative Extension in Humboldt and Del Norte counties, as well as for the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network. But on Feb. 6, in the wake of the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires, Gov. Gavin Newsom gave the board until Dec. 31 to finalize the regulations. Here are the main points in the proposed zone zero regulations, published in August and now up for public comment:“No landscaping materials that are likely to be ignited by embers are permitted within zone zero.” (That is, within five feet of a structure). “This includes, but is not limited to grass, ornamental or native plants, shrubs, fallen leaves and tree needles, weeds, and combustible mulches including bark and wood chips.”Trees within zone zero can be maintained, according to the proposed rules, as long as dead or dying branches are removed and all live tree branches are five feet above the roof and away from sides of the structure, and 10 feet away from any chimneys or stovepipes. Two exemptions are listed. The first allows potted plants under 18 inches in height in noncombustible containers no larger than five gallons, and “not directly situated beneath, above or in front of a window, glass door, or vent.” The second exemption is less clear: “Single specimens of trees that are well-pruned and maintained so as to effectively manage fuels and fuel ladders.” The committee is still working to define this exemption more specifically, Tony Andersen, the board’s executive officer, said. For instance, he said, the committee could clarify the exemption to read that well-pruned trees (i.e. trees whose branches are five feet away from roofs or walls) are permitted as long as they don’t have overlapping canopies that act as fuel ladders, permitting the fire to spread.Roofs and rain gutters must be kept clear of needles and leaves and “the areas under decks, balconies and stairs must be kept free of vegetative material and combustible items.”Other proposed zone zero rules would forbid “combustible items that are likely to be ignited by embers,” including outbuildings not meant for habitation. Combustible gates cannot be directly adjacent to or attached to a building or structure. Fences that are directly attached to a building or structure must have a five-foot noncombustible span at the point of attachment, and after the rules go into effect, no new combustible fences or attached decks will be permitted within five feet of a building or structure.The requirements for zone zero will go into effect immediately after approval for all new construction and within three years for existing buildings. In areas protected by city, county and state firefighters, jurisdictions may “choose to develop alternative practices for zone zero compliance that take into account local variations” as long as an authority in the local jurisdiction finds that the alternative practice “provides for substantially similar practical effects as those stated in the regulations.” Andersen said he doesn’t know if the committee will further clarify the “substantially similar” language, “but the full draft rule plead continues to be considered and discussed.” Proponents argue that the proposed regulations are needed to keep communities safe, given the recent increases in wildfires in Southern California. “As a society, we’ve thought of fire and fuel issues as somebody else’s problem, and we’ve been entirely dependent on firefighters to save our homes,” Valachovic said. “But is business as usual protecting us? “We’ve lost 57,000 structures [to fire] in this state in the last decade. Two hundred people have died in wildfires and one out of every seven acres in the state have burned in the last decade,” she said. “It takes time for people to understand the new environment we’re living in and change is hard, but what these zone-zero regs do is give people a chance to better understand what’s constituted as fuels that might pose a risk to their home and family, and these are things that are within a homeowner’s control.” The rulemaking has gone through many revisions and stalls, Valachovic said, as the board and then the committee sifted through hours of testimony, dozens of studies and hundreds of comments. Opponents say the rules are being pushed by insurance companies trying to limit their exposure and don’t take into account research that indicates urban fires are spread more from house to house than plants to house, and many irrigated trees and other plants can actually protect structures from fire. Indeed, Valachovic notes that lobbyists and researchers for insurance companies have been frequent contributors to the testimony about the proposal, arguing strongly in favor of removing all combustible materials near homes.Furthermore, opponents say, neighborhoods in very high fire hazard severity zones such as Silver Lake, Beachwood Canyon and Eagle Rock could see a huge loss of greenery since their homes are often built close together on small lots, with trees and other landscaping well within five feet of buildings and structures. “They’re talking about destroying our urban canopy, hundreds of acres of trees for uncertain benefits,” said Cyndi Hubach, a member of the City of Los Angeles’ Community Forest Advisory Committee. Hubach, who lives in Silver Lake, wrote CFAC’s report for the council outlining the problems with the proposed regulations, and what the organization believes should change.Basically, the report (approved by CFAC on Sept. 4) argues that cutting down irrigated, healthy vegetation around homes will cause more problems than it solves by eliminating shade, increasing the risk of erosion and destroying habitat, among other things. The report recommends that the regulations move away from a “one-size-fits-all approach,” allow for an appeals process and exempt “healthy, hydrated and well maintained vegetation ... not likely to be ignited by embers,” as well as protected native trees and shrubs, historic and heritage trees and living municipal street trees if well-pruned and maintained.The state has done a poor job of getting the word out about these regulations, Hubach said. “Most people don’t know this is coming their way, and when they find out about [the proposed rules], they don’t think it will make them safer. They think it will make their neighborhoods hotter, dryer, uglier and less safe.”As word has spread this summer about the proposed regulations, opposition has swelled around Southern California. In a recent online talk, Travis Longcore, an environmental scientist and former president of the Los Angeles Audubon Society, laid out a detailed online analysis of the proposed regulations.In his talk, Longcore agrees with Valachovic that certain parts of the proposed regulations make sense, such as removing wood fences connected to buildings and pine needles and dead leaves from roofs. “But we should continue to request that healthy live vegetation be permissible if it’s not likely to be ignited by embers, so it’s not lumped in with plants that accumulate dead wood like junipers and cypress trees that always have accumulated dead matter in them.”Longcore also said it’s unclear how the proposed regulations will be enforced and what kinds of penalties will be applied to people who don’t comply.Former State Fire Marshal Ruben Grijalva has similar concerns about enforcement, given that inspectors are already overtaxed. Grijalva objects to what he calls the “one-size-fits-all approach” of the proposed regulations because they don’t recognize differences between houses constructed before 2008 and those built after. Newer houses must comply with changes he helped implement in Chapter 7A of the California Building Code, including requiring ignition-resistant materials for roofs and decks, dual-pane glass for windows and vents that keep embers out. Grijalva currently works with large developers to make master plan communities with thousands of dwellings — such as Rancho Mission Viejo in the hills above San Juan Capistrano — as fire-resistant as possible, while also including the aesthetic and cooling benefits of trees such as oaks and sycamores. Members of the state Board of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Zone 0 Advisory Committee will also be speaking at an informational town hall meeting Sept. 17 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Ventura County Fire Headquarters in Newbury Park. Visitors are requested to RSVP with the organizer of the event, Ventura County Supervisor Jeff Gorell. The following day, Sept. 18, anyone can listen in to the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection’s public meeting, but public comments may be limited to people appearing in person because of the sheer number expected to speak, said Marcie Yates, the board’s land-use planning program manager. This is the committee’s first public meeting in Southern California and could be its last, since, according to Andersen, it plans to discuss the comments it receives Sept. 18 at its regular meeting in Sacramento on Sept. 22, and then decide whether to further tweak the proposed rules or forward them to the full board for consideration.

Forests
Agriculture
Health

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Where Do They All Go?

Join us on an quiet trip into the woods and see all the sites, big and small, that you may not have noticed before. There are critters, birds, deer, trees, and great bodies of water that will capture your eye for you to gaze upon. But be forewarned, some day these great sites may disappear in place for something more modern. So enjoy what time you have to gaze on such sites, it may be your last.

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Some teenagers kidnap a kid in the forest and take him to their boss in a cottage.

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Ever wonder what trees think of us now that we have created a climate disaster? This 2-minute film answers that question. As Bill McKibben recently tweeted about the film, “Who speaks for trees? In this short and elegant video, the trees themselves.” It has been screened at Green Fest (Serbia), The Colorado Environmental Film Festival, The Wildlife Conservation Film Festival and Winner of Merit at the Nature Without Borders Film Festival.

Forests
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LEAVES

An academic woman in Texas becomes concerned when a massive red oak in her backyard seems to be ailing, though she isn’t sure why it bothers her so much. At the same time, in her small cottage, her attention to her work is distracted by news reports she sees and hears. They tell in graphic terms of the out-of-control forest fires up and down the West Coast. Her attention is further pulled in the direction of other stories about the worsening conditions of the world’s rainforests which she discovers are disappearing at the astounding rate of 200,000 acres a day. Suddenly such stories are all she seems to hear and see on the radio or television or on her computer. But when she hears/sees a science report about how trees actually communicate with each other, she begins to realize there may be a connection between her tree and what she is learning from the news. She begins to recall a strong connection she herself has with that tree and allows that connection to regrow…..

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Inspirational

Talking Trees

Yes, trees can talk. They communicate through their roots. Please listen to what they have to say in this short film.

Forests
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