Scientists from the Missouri Botanical Garden helped convict a Missouri killer. The scientists compared juniper needles near the victim’s remains and on the suspect’s muddy hiking boots, matched them, and tied the suspect to the crime. Their role in the murder trial of Joseph Elledge, convicted in November 2021 of killing his wife in 2019 in Columbia, Missouri, will be outlined in an episode of “48 Hours,” to run 9 p.m. Saturday on CBS. The episode is called “The Tree That Helped Solve a Murder.” …The shallow grave where Ji’s bones were scattered was in an area that included a canopy of juniper trees. …Of the 20 or so needle samples found in the boots, they had five matches to three trees in the area. Three of those samples came from a tree right over the gravesite. Junipers happen to have a lot of genetic diversity, Edwards said. “And we matched their genotypes exactly,”
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Greenville, SC – The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (Endowment) is pleased to announce that Beatriz Da Cunha and Josh Raglin were elected as new directors at the fall board meeting. Da Cunha leads Strategic Planning & Initiatives for the Credit Platform within BlackRock Alternatives in New York City. … Raglin is Chief Sustainability Officer at Norfolk Southern Corporation and has served in that role since 2020. …Adrian Blocker and Soile Kilpi were re-elected to another term on the board and Mark Emmerson was elected to a one-year term as “past chairman,” allowing him to serve a final year on the board. …Chris McIver was elected as Chairman and Mark Reed as Vice Chairman. Kevin Schuyler was re-elected as Treasurer. … outgoing member Jim Farrell served on the board since 2012, originally joining as the Canadian liaison to the board and was later elected as a board member in his own right.
METAIRIE, LA – The Southern Forest Products Association elected its new officers during the board of directors session at the association’s annual meeting October 21, 2022, in Nashville. The 2022-23 SFPA officers are:
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A recent study heightens the importance of trees for keeping cities from flooding. Removing a single tree can increase stormwater runoff by 1,585 gallons, researchers reported in the Urban Forestry and Urban Greening journal. Understanding these numbers is important in the context of climate change and the increase of frequency and severity of storms, said James Kruegler, lead author of the study. Stormwater management solutions are timely in Michigan as Detroit experienced its second 500-year flood event in seven years in June of last year. As the frequency of these storms increases, the aged public infrastructure becomes more prevalent… Using trees to lessen the impact of these storms offer an easy solution. …Results from the research papers help realize the extent of ecosystem services that trees provide, Kruegler said. This allows environment organizations to back up their advocacy with real numbers.
Beavers bring much-needed water back to the land, and their wetlands slow, store, and cleanse water — water that residents need to fill their wells, water plants and crops, and, yes, fight the coming wildfires. …Wildfires are growing worse as climate change brings hotter, drier weather and longer fire seasons. …New England has an overlooked and generally abundant firefighting ally: Castor canadensis, the North American beaver. …The idea that a relatively small rodent could impact a wildfire moving at terrifying speeds seems improbable, but Emily Fairfax, an ecohydrologist at California State University and other researchers published a study in 2020 that documented the extent to which beavers and beaver wetlands had created refugia in even some of the worst of the recent wildfires out West. She and other scientists also documented the ways many beaver damming complexes in those fire-ravaged zones played a critical role in post-fire recovery by cleansing the water of ash.
EDENTON, North Carolina — Enviva is the largest maker of wood pellets burned for energy in the world. The company has, from its inception, touted its green credentials. It says it doesn’t use big, whole trees, but only uses wood waste, “tops, limbs, thinnings, and/or low-value smaller trees” in the production of woody biomass burned in former coal power plants in the U.K., EU and Asia. It says it only sources wood from areas where trees will be regrown, and that it doesn’t contribute to deforestation. However, in first-ever interviews with a whistleblower who worked within Enviva plant management, Mongabay contributor Justin Catanoso has been told that all of these Enviva claims are false. …These findings are especially important now, as the EU considers the future of forest biomass burning as a “sustainable” form of renewable energy.
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BETHESDA, Md. & THE PLAINS, Va.–Enviva, the world’s leading producer of sustainably sourced woody biomass, and GreenTrees, the market leader in reforestation and carbon removal in the U.S., today announced a nine-year partnership agreement that will contribute towards Enviva’s net-zero goals for its Scope 1 carbon footprint, equating to approximately 10,000 metric tons of carbon removal credits annually, or 90,000 metric tons throughout the duration of the contract. …The project will take place in the rural U.S. Southeast, on land formerly used for agriculture but has been deemed no longer suitable for farming and crop growth due to soil erosion and water damage. The afforestation of this land will not compete with lands used for agricultural and food sources, but will serve as permanent carbon removal. This partnership will provide a new source of income for rural landowners in the GreenTrees program who are no longer able to use the land for agriculture.