Why do some forest fires spread rapidly over large areas, destroying and damaging many homes, while others are contained with minimal damage?

Enjoying your August vacation? Well, (as they say in the summer movies) there’s a killer in the woods. Its strike has been consistently quiet, sudden, and deadly. Unknowingly, we have all been playing into its hands… But put down that rock -- you personally are not in any danger. It’s the woods themselves that are getting axed and you may be an accomplice.

A new regional study shows that land-use policies in Peru have been key to tempering rainforest degradation and destruction in that country. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology led an international effort to analyze seven years of high-resolution satellite data covering most (79%) of the Peruvian Amazon for their findings.

An expedition led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to a remote corner of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has uncovered unique forests which, so far, have been found to contain six animal species new to science: a bat, a rodent, two shrews, and two frogs.

In Central Siberia alone, fires have destroyed 38 000 km2 in the extreme fire year of 2003. In that year the smoke plumes were so huge that they caused air pollution as far as in the United States. An international team of scientists believes that Siberian fires are influenced by climate change. The study was led by the Professor Heiko Balzter of the Department of Geography at the University of Leicester.

A new study of bottomland hardwood forests in the southeastern United States suggests that the increased growth of vines may change the landscape of these forests.

A new study reports that community forest enterprises represent an invisible investment of US$2.5 billion in management and conservation in some of the planet’s richest forest habitats. This is more than governments in tropical regions spend directly on forest conservation.

China’s paper industry has built-up a massive recycling capacity that is shielding forests worldwide from destruction by supporting a strong international market for wastepaper as an alternative to pulpwood, according to a new report released today by Forest Trends, a leading international forestry organization.

Ancient Greenland was green. New Danish research has shown that it was covered in conifer forest and, like southern Sweden today, had a relatively mild climate. Eske Willerslev, a professor at Copenhagen University, has analysed the world’s oldest DNA, preserved under the kilometre-thick icecap.

Human-caused nitrogen deposition has been indirectly "fertilizing" forests, increasing their growth and sequestering major amounts of carbon, a new study in the journal Nature suggests.

Forest scientists at Oregon State University have used genetic modification to successfully manipulate the growth in height of trees, showing that it's possible to create miniature trees that look similar to normal trees - but after several years of growth may range anywhere from 50 feet tall to a few inches.

A United Nations agency today urged countries to invest more in fire preparedness and prevention. "Countries need to enhance collaboration, share their knowledge and increasingly target people, who are the main cause of fires, through awareness-raising and education," said Peter Holmgren, FAO's Chief of the Forest Resources Development Service.