By Gary Lovett, Senior Scientist and Forest Ecologist, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY Tis the season when many Americans welcome trees into their homes. For millions of us, fresh-cut evergreens are at the heart of Christmas celebrations – a symbol of hope and joy. Sadly, the situation facing America’s trees is neither hopeful nor joyous. The Fraser fir, one…

Margaret Kosmala, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, shares this Frontiers Focus on assessing data quality in citizen science. Have you ever wanted to do scientific research, even though you have never trained as a scientist? Citizen science gives people with no science background the chance to get involved in…

We are keeping you up-to-date with a new Federal Agency Transition Tracker. In This Issue ESA 2017 Graduate Student Policy Awards Application period is open. Read More President-elect Transition Update Trump appointees at odds with basic mission of appointed agencies. Read More COMPETES Reauthorization COMPETES fails, but may provide template for new Congress. Read More Legislative Update Continuing Resolution –…

Kaitlyn M Gaynor, a PhD candidate in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California–Berkeley (Berkeley, CA), shares this Frontiers Focus on the effects of war on wildlife. When people make war, wildlife often becomes a casualty. Explosives and war materials kill living things that are not their targets. Valuable wildlife products, like ivory, finance…

Koenraad Van Meerbeek, a researcher in the Departement Aard- en Omgevingswetenschappen (Earth and Environmental Sciences) at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, shares this Frontiers Focus on the potential of Natura 2000 preserves to contribute biomass for bioenergy, without losing  biodiversity. Renewable energy from biomass, i.e. “bioenergy,” holds promise for climate change mitigation, but converting big tracts of land to bioenergy crops…

ESA Joins with Science Societies and Urge Trump to Name a Science Advisor ESA joined with 29 leading scientific societies and sent a letter requesting that President-elect Trump appoint a science advisor with the title of Assistant to the President for Science and Technology who is a nationally respected leader with the appropriate engineering, scientific, management and policy skills necessary…

ESA joined with 29 leading scientific societies and  sent a letter requesting that President-elect Trump appoint a science advisor with the title of Assistant to the President for Science and Technology who is a nationally respected leader with the appropriate engineering, scientific, management and policy skills necessary for this critically important role. November 23, 2016   Mr. Donald Trump Office…

By Cliff Duke, ESA’s director of Science Programs Americans are deeply divided about the proper uses of federal and private lands and the goods and services they supply us. Recent events, including the acquittal of the occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, protests of the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline, and the potential reopening of debates about the Keystone XL…

By Jacob Phelps, lecturer in tropical environmental change and policy at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. https://youtu.be/-I9cWe5N4-M My co-authors and I study and think about wildlife trade in a wide range of contexts, from the actions of wildlife harvesters imprisoned in Nepali jails, to orchid traders at Thai markets, to criminal groups poaching South African rhinos. In the context…

How Will A New Administration Affect Science This is a developing story and some statements in this article will change. With the elections behind us, many in the academic and scientific sphere are bracing for the next administration’s policy platforms and subsequent implementation. Congress and the Executive Branch now share the same political party and federal funding for scientific research…

The U.S. Forest Service is revising the policies and guidelines governing the management of federal forests in the Pacific Northwest. Two decades of ecological research and monitoring data have accumulated since the adoption of the Northwest Forest Plan in 1994. To inform revisions, the Pacific Northwest (which includes Oregon and Washington) and Pacific Southwest (which includes California) Research Stations instigated…

The following statement is attributable to Ecological Society of America President David M. Lodge. ESA is the world’s largest community of professional ecologists. “Although the US election promises great changes, the laws of nature will  remain unchanged. These include the dependence of human welfare on clean water, clean air, well managed fish populations, abundant bees to pollinate our crops, and…