Forests in the western U.S. are burning in wildfires faster than new trees can be planted — and the trend is likely to worsen despite a recent surge in federal spending to address it.
That’s one conclusion of a study on the nation’s reforestation needs, which outlined the financial and logistical challenges of helping forests recover from climate-driven fires.
“The changing patterns and scale of wildfire in the western U.S. is increasing the imperative to plant more trees, yet the challenge of scaling and sustaining this effort looms large,” the authors from universities, forest agencies and other contributors said in the paper, published May 29 in the journal Frontiers in Forest and Global Change.
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They added, “Time is not on our side.”
