The National Park Service is celebrating 100 years of protecting and promoting America’s most awe-inspiring natural resources. When you think of national parks, you may picture the Grand Canyon or the soaring trees of Redwood National Park. But not all getaway spots are that ancient. In the middle of Cuyahoga Valley National Park – where the Brandywine Falls...
Learn MoreThe Cradle of Forestry in America in the Pisgah Ranger District announced that it will hold a nature and educational series titled “Woodsy Owl’s Curiosity Club” every Thursday this summer, beginning June 9, 2016 and ending August 11. Programs are held from 10:30 am to noon and 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm. “The Curiosity Club allows kids, ages 4 to 7, and...
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What would you do with your life if you didn’t need money? It’s a popular contemplation and one that Kevin Massey, at age 45, has realized. He would tie his red hair back in a ponytail, arm himself with maps, hand tools, snacks and Gatorade, and perform backbreaking work to care for the Linville Gorge Wilderness, one of the few truly wild places in the East. But he still...
Learn MoreScientists ringing alarm bells about the melting of Antarctica have focused most of their attention, so far, on the smaller West Antarctic ice sheet, which is grounded deep below sea level and highly exposed to the influence of warming seas. But new research published in the journal Nature reaffirms that there’s a possibly even bigger — if slower moving — threat in the...
Learn MoreLarge parts of the country, primarily in the West, have long harbored anti-federalist attitudes and called for the sale or transfer of U.S. lands to states or private hands. But the antagonism toward collective American ownership has flared dramatically in the last five years, and a new report from the Center for American Progress points to 20 members of Congress as...
Learn MoreThree hundred miles above the Arctic Circle is America’s northern most snow observatory, typically the last place in the nation to see its snow melt. As of today, its snow has melted, setting a new (and terrible) record. NOAA’s Barrow Observatory just confirmed that they’d recorded a snowmelt date of May 13, 2016. It’s the earliest recorded snowmelt ever seen in the...
Learn MoreExecutives of the top coal-producing companies in the country got compensation increases while their companies spiraled into bankruptcy, laid off workers, or tried to slash employee benefits, a new report finds. Most top executives for Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, and Alpha Natural Resources got compensation increases worth in total millions of dollars as the companies...
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The Cradle of Forestry invites the public to a program, “Bogs, Bugs and Beavers,” on Saturday, May 28, 2016. The program begins inside the Cradle’s interpretive center at 10:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. with an introduction about beavers’ adaptations to living in a watery world. Then naturalists will lead walks to boardwalks along the Pink Beds Trail,...
Learn MoreFor 30 years, a handful of special interests has been trying to steal the public’s forests and rangelands. The faces of the Sagebrush Rebellion are shirttail bandits like Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who has spent a lifetime raping public rangeland in southern Nevada and has flouted federal law and court orders for the better part of 20 years, but Bundy and his...
Learn MoreA new study by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Conservation Science Partners (CSP) found that every 2.5 minutes, the American West loses a football field worth of natural area to human development. This project, called the Disappearing West, is the first comprehensive analysis of how much land in the West is disappearing to development, how quickly this...
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Portland, Oregon’s Willamette is no wilderness river. But on a spring day, downstream of downtown, wildness peeks through. Thick forest rises beyond a tank farm on the west bank. A sea lion thrashes to the surface, wrestling a salmon. The 10-mile reach, known as Portland Harbor, became a Superfund Site in 2000. Over the last century, ships were built and decommissioned...
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BioBlitz is an event that focuses on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area over a short period of time. At a BioBlitz, scientists, families, students, teachers, and other community members work together to get an overall count of the plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms that live in a place. In the decade leading up to the National...
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They aren’t wearing white lab coats, but there are already young scientists collecting data at Front Lake at Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, North Carolina. The Kids in Parks program recently opened its first Citizen Science TRACK Trail designed to engage kids in learning and caring for the park’s ecosystem while helping staff researchers and...
Learn MoreA dumping site for fracking fluids long suspected to be leaching into Wolf Creek, a West Virginia waterway with ties to a county’s water supply, has indeed contaminated the creek with multiple chemicals, a new U.S. Geological Survey study has found. The “study demonstrates definitively that the stream is being impacted by [unconventional oil and gas extraction]...
Learn MoreFor a brief, shining moment, renewable power output in Germany reached 90 percent of the country’s total electricity demand. That’s a big deal. On May 8th, 2016 at 11 a.m. local time, the total output of German solar, wind, hydropower, and biomass reached 55 gigawatts (GW), just short of the 58 GW consumed by every light bulb, washing machine, water heater and personal...
Learn MoreSea level rise isn’t a distant threat: It’s already swallowing islands, according to a recent study. The study found that sea level rise and coastal erosion has caused five low-lying coral atolls in the Solomon Islands to disappear into the ocean. These islands were vegetated — once densely-so with palms, oaks, mangroves, and other trees — but weren’t populated. The...
Learn MoreCome celebrate the 23rd anniversary of National Trails Day in the Smokies on the Appalachian Trail. This fun workday only comes around once a year, and you don’t want to miss it. Please get your registration in as soon as possible. Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Southern Regional Office of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, Smoky Mountains Hiking...
Learn MoreAs the sole law enforcement officer for 192,000 acres of the Grandfather Ranger District of the Pisgah National Forest, U.S. Forest Service Officer Wade Keener of McDowell County, NC covers a lot of territory. Now he’s doing it carrying the title U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer of the Year for the entire nation. “I never thought I would win,” Keener told The...
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A huge Montana nature reserve added a 47,000-acre historic ranch to its patchwork of lands along the Missouri River on Friday, a significant step in a privately funded effort to stitch together a Connecticut-sized park where bison would replace livestock and cattle fences give way to open range. The PN Ranch north of Winifred sprawls across rugged badlands, tall grass...
Learn MoreOfficials unveiled the new National Park Service Collections Preservation Center in Townsend, Tennessee during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday, May 6, 2016. “We’re all excited to announce the completion of this new facility that will enable us to better protect and preserve the cultural treasures in our care,” Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Cassius...
Learn MoreFor the past 65 years, if someone — or some company — was illegally polluting in South Carolina, you could sue. The law was put on the books so that if South Carolina’s enforcement agencies didn’t have the time, money, or political backing to go after a polluter, the average citizen could step in. Now, with only a month left in its 2015-2016 session, the South Carolina...
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2016 has the hottest four-month start (January to April) of any year on record, according to newly-released satellite data. The Arctic continues its multi-month trend of off-the-charts warmth. So it’s no surprise that Arctic sea ice continues to melt at a record pace. New research, however, finds that warming-driven Arctic sea ice loss causes high-pressure systems to get...
Learn MoreHealthy forests are especially important at a time of climate change — they’re an incredible tool to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Dead forests, on the other hand, can light the spark for wildfires, which are already showing a long-predicted uptick in activity. In California’s coastal forests, health is anything but good. Since 1995, a fungal pathogen that...
Learn MoreDevelopment of natural areas in the United States, coupled with expected changes in climate, have increased the importance of migration corridors that connect protected natural areas. Large, connected wild lands reduce the isolation of animal and plant populations and allow for migration and movement that can help preserve populations of wild species and enhance genetic...
Learn MoreThe Cradle of Forestry invites the public to learn about the Cradle’s gardens on Saturday, May 7, 2016 and lend a hand preparing them for the growing season. While working alongside interpreters, visitors will have the opportunity to ask questions and discuss goals, successes, and challenges to which all gardeners in Western North Carolina can relate. The...
Learn MoreRangers at Utah’s Arches National Park were investigating large graffiti Thursday that was carved so deeply into a famous red rock arch that it might be impossible to erase, officials said. The carvings discovered earlier this month measure about 4 feet across and 3 feet high, park Superintendent Kate Cannon said. The vandalism is part of a “tidal wave of...
Learn MoreAs part of the National Park Service centennial, the Centennial Volunteer Ambassadors program, established in 2015, will be expanding to over 100 ambassadors during the 2016-17 season in an effort to connect people of all ages to their national parks and public lands. Multiple volunteer opportunities are available at national parks, national recreation areas and national...
Learn MoreIn the outpouring of media coverage after Prince’s death at the age of 57 last week, fans around the globe began to learn more about the notoriously private star — including that he gave away a lot of money. Van Jones — the activist, author, former Obama administration official, and current CNN commentator — revealed that Prince had secretly supported Green For All, a...
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I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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