Forests Vanishing in Wake of Megafires (start time: 7:55) Increasingly large and hot wildfires are turning many conifer-dominated forests in the western U.S.and Canada into shrublands or grasslands, largely by making it impossible for ponderosa and other pines to reseed themselves. The stakes are high, for flora and wildlife, as well as humans. For instance, charred conifer forests are causing winter snowpack to melt earlier, changing the timing of water availability and threatening future water supply for the 40-plus million people who live in the Colorado River Basin states and on tribal lands. In this week’s How On Earth, host Susan Moran interviews Dr. Jonathan Coop, a fire ecologist at Western Colorado University. He’s been monitoring shifts in dry-conifer forests in the western U.S. and Canada for many years. Dr. Coop is the lead author of a study, published recently in the journal Science Advances, about how pine seeds aren’t able to regenerate after super intense wildfires. He also co-authored another recent study, in PNAS, which projects a major further erosion of remaining conifer forests in northern New Mexico if current wildfire patterns persist. Dr. Coop was featured in a recent New York Times article on wildfire trends and impacts.
Action Resource: Fix Our Forests Act
Hosts: Susan Moran, Joel Parker
Show Producer: Susan Moran
Engineer: Joel Parker
Headline Contributors: Beth Bennett, Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett
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