Southwest

On a warm morning in August, several local community members from Ramah, New Mexico gathered at the Old El Morro School Art Gallery for a workshop on Women and Wildfire Home Defense. This beautiful area near the Cibola National Forest in western New Mexico is home to a small artists community, beautiful mountain vistas, and fire adapted ecosystems. Some of the women that showed up included a local restaurant owner, artists, and a local volunteer fire fighter.

Income Tax Deduction on Timber and Landscape Tree Loss from Casualty

Timber or landscape trees destroyed by the hurricane, fire, earthquake, ice, hail, tornado, and other storms are “casualty losses” that may allow the property owners to take a deduction on their federal income tax returns.

Ponderosa pine forests of the Southwest are home to the native bark beetle. However, human influence, denser forests, and increased temperatures and drought events have led to recent bark beetle outbreaks that threaten the health of ponderosa stands. Where dead trees stand, fire can move as much as three times more rapidly, creating dangerous conditions for firefighters and residents. Restoration treatments can be used to help restore the balance needed in ponderosa pine ecosystems.

Forester and woodland owner Barrie Brusila of Mid-Maine Forestry in Warren, ME shares some of her lessons learned in a simple handout entitled "Timber Harvesting Do's and Don'ts."

In The Open Space of Democracy , Terry Tempest Williams focuses poetically on personal engagement that is possible within a democracy, while artist Mary Frank’s images are woven throughout this small, beautiful book.

Eric Rutkow’s "American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation" focuses on trees, weaving a fascinating history of our nation through the foundation of our American relationship to trees. By seeing the historical lens of American formation through trees, Rutkow’s breadth includes a conservation, historical, and philosophical focus on trees as the foundation of our communities, laws, and civic virtues and vices. Rutkow writes, “How easy it is to forget that much of American history has been defined by trees.”