Look West: Public lands and energy news from the Center for Western Priorities


** Study finds protected forests are cooler
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Thursday, November 3, 2022
Understory in Mt. Hood National Forest, Oregon; SMcD22/Flickr ([link removed])

A new study ([link removed]) finds that protected forests with limits on human activity are significantly cooler ([link removed]) than neighboring forests that lack protections. The findings suggest the cooling effect is strongest in boreal forests ([link removed]) at high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, which make up about 27 percent of total global forest area.

The researchers attribute the cooler temperatures ([link removed]) to the fact that protected forests have more vegetation and a more complex structure that creates a buffer against heat. An analysis of forest canopies shows protected areas have higher leaf densities, which means more shade and cooler temperatures that help protect biodiversity near the forest floor.

“The cooling effect is very important for life below the tree canopy near the ground,” said co-author Pieter De Frenne ([link removed]) , a climate researcher at the University of Ghent. He added that most forest biodiversity is in that zone, including in temperate, mid-latitude forests.

Oregon State University forest ecologist Matthew Betts said the findings of the study are important but that further research is needed to determine how they hold up in the United States.

“At the moment we don’t have under-canopy data for large tracts of the planet,” he said ([link removed]) . ([link removed]) “Pieter has done a great job of implementing a network of under-canopy climate stations across Europe, but we don’t have anything like that in North America."
Quick hits


** Republicans say Biden slashed oil drilling. The facts say otherwise
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Politico ([link removed])


** Utility abandons plan to build hydropower project in western Colorado canyon
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Colorado Sun ([link removed])


** Groups appeal court decision to reinstate oil lease in the Badger-Two Medicine
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Montana Public Radio ([link removed]) | E&E News ([link removed]) | Flathead Beacon ([link removed])


** U.N. report: Glaciers in Yosemite and Africa will disappear by 2050
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Washington Post ([link removed])


** After transparency protest, BLM to review purchase of 35,670-acre ranch in Wyoming
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WyoFile ([link removed]) | Casper Star Tribune ([link removed])


** After June’s floods, will the Yellowstone River be allowed to roam?
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High Country News ([link removed])


** Concerns are piling up for Utah’s thinning Bonneville Salt Flats
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Associated Press ([link removed])


** TikToker faces charges for hitting a golf ball into the Grand Canyon
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Washington Post ([link removed])
Quote of the day
” The birds are telling us that this is going on and we need to act… start turning things around... If we take care of the birds, we not only take care of birds, we take care of ourselves and we take care of ecosystems that support many other wildlife species.”
—Alison Holloran, ([link removed]) executive director of the Audubon Rockies, on declining bird counts in Colorado
Picture this


** @Interior ([link removed])
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The Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness is a rolling landscape of badlands that offers some of the most unusual scenery in New Mexico. Time and natural elements have etched a fantasy world of strange rock formations made of sandstone, shale, mudstone and silt. Photo by Jessica Fridrich

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