Under Trump, the Forest Service is gutting labs that cost ONE DOLLAR in rent so they can cram scientists into a Fort Collins office that costs taxpayers a million a year.
As reported by NPR, Trump's 2027 budget zeroes out Forest Service research entirely. Three hundred and nine million dollars, gone. Fifty-seven of the agency's seventy-seven research stations are on the chopping block.
These are the forests generations of Americans have hiked, hunted, camped, and prayed in. Sacred ground for almost anyone who's ever stepped outside in this country.
And the "efficiency" pitch? A scam.
The research station in Hilo, Hawaii sits on 30,000 acres the federal government rents for a one-time fee of ONE DOLLAR, locked in until 2067. The Michigan Tech lease? One dollar paid in 1963, free ever since. Another site costs the agency $600 a month for two rooms.
The destination they want everyone shipped to in Fort Collins runs taxpayers a million a year.
Read that again. They're closing dollar leases to expand a million-dollar lease.
Scientists in Baltimore have spent years planting white oak saplings that need three decades to mature. You can't FedEx a forest to Colorado. You can't manage a Hawaiian ecosystem from a cubicle in Utah.
Researchers told NPR they'll quit before they relocate. Which is the point.
Meanwhile, Trump has openly pledged to ramp up logging on federal land. Gut the scientists who document the damage, and there's nobody left to sound the alarm when ancient forests get clear-cut for profit.
These are the people who tell us when wildfire season turns deadly. Who track invasive beetles eating through pine. Who teach cities how to recycle dead trees instead of dumping them in landfills.
You don't dismantle the world's largest forestry research network because you're worried about a maintenance bill. You dismantle it because somebody plans to take a chainsaw to what the public owns and doesn't want a paper trail.
The forests don't belong to Tom Schultz. They don't belong to Trump. They belong to every American who has ever stood quiet under a hundred-year-old tree and understood, for one second, that some things are not for sale.
Defend them now, or explain it to your grandkids later.
Albania has officially drawn the
line, Sazan 'lsland is being cleared. In an stunning turn of events, Albanian authorities have
launched an active enforcement operation to kick
out foreign developers and private security
personnel occupying Sazan Island. The decisive
action marks a total collapse of the controversial €1.4 billion luxury real estate deal that aimed to turn the protected national marine reserve and
former military base into an exclusive private playground for global elites,
The eviction comes after four consecutive weeks of historic
hundred-thousand-strong protests that completely
shut down the capital city of Tirana, refusing to allow their native coastlines and ecologically sensitive wetlands to be privatized by foreign
investors, the Albanian public unified under a
single, unyielding demand: "Albania is not for sale, the courts faced with a historic political crisis, mounting
domestic fury, and a widening anti-corruption
investigation by special prosecutors (SPAK), the
government was forced to pivot, by deploying state forces to reclaim Sazan lsland, Albania has
sent a clear message to international billionaires
and foreign developers trying to bypass environmental protection laws, This historic victory for citizen-led activism proves that the collective voice of a nation can successfully overpower backroom corporate deals and protect sovereign land.
The people spoke, and the
government had to listen.
ALBANIA RESIDENT DESTROYS PM'S LIES ABOUT KUSHNER RESORT
Jessica Greenwood, an American living in Albania who sees Sazan Island from her balcony daily, released a video dismantling Prime Minister Edi Rama's CNN claims that the Kushner-Trump project is "fake news."
Very informative video from the ground.
⛔️Power to Albanians who have taken to the streets in protest against what they see as growing Israeli influence in the country and a land seizure project linked to Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law.👏🏻👏🏻
Este bebé palestino se llamaba Sam, tenía 7 meses de vida, el ejército de "Israel" le asesinó hoy de un disparo en la cabeza en Cisjordania... pero no hay indignación mediática.
Solo imagina que vas con tu bebé en tu coche, después de venir de cenar de la casa de la abuela.... de repente, ves soldados en una calle, abren fuego contra tu coche y le disparan en la cabeza a tu bebé... solo porque eres palestino.
Si este bebé fuese blanco y europeo y lo hubiese asesinado un musulmán a tiros, saldría en todas las portadas de la prensa racista occidental... pero como es palestino, ni existe.
Y’all need to check this out, the Albania situation is getting more intense by the day. Apparently, Saudis entered the chat!!
This is top-tier reporting.
No intelligent species destroys its only home for profit. Yet 111 top companies caused $28 trillion in climate damage since 1990,with just 10 fossil fuel giants responsible for over half. Every 1% of greenhouse gas emitted since 1990 = $502 billion in heat damage alone.
Researchers have discovered 5.6 million ground-nesting native bees living under a single 1.5-acre cemetery.
Rachel Fordyce was parking at a plaza near East Lawn Cemetery in Ithaca to save on parking fees, walking through the cemetery on her way to a Cornell entomology lab. In spring 2022, she noticed bees nesting in the ground.
The bees turned out to be Andrena regularis, a native solitary species called the "regular mining bee."
The team estimated 853 mining bees nesting per square meter at the site, scaling to roughly 5.6 million bees in the 1.5-acre cemetery. That's more than 200 honeybee hives worth of bees, in a plot smaller than a strip mall parking lot.
Older cemeteries are accidentally some of the best-preserved native pollinator habitat in eastern North America. The same conditions chosen for grave digging (sandy, well-drained soil) are exactly what ground-nesting bees need. No tilling. No pesticides. No development.
East Lawn Cemetery, founded in 1878, has hosted these bees since at least 1935.
About 70% of native bee species in the US nest in the ground. They're the actual pollinators of New York's apple crop. The 5.6 million bees Rachel found walking to work are some of the most important agricultural laborers in the state, and no one knew they were there.
The next time you walk past an old cemetery, consider what else might be under the ground.
Peace activist Rachel Corrie, crushed to death in Gaza in 2003 by an Israeli army bulldozer destroying sections of Rafah city, wrote in her diary:
“I just want to write to my mom and tell her that I’m witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I’m really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature.”
Rafah, like the rest of Gaza's cities and villages, is now gone – laid waste in that genocide Rachel Corrie saw unfolding 20 years earlier.
🌍 The arrogance of humanity in our pursuit of development often blinds us to the consequences of our actions. We must recognize that our planet is fragile and requires our respect and care. #Sustainability#EarthCare
The fluffy and rare Woolly Flying #Squirrel 🦦🌳 glides 100s of metres in forests of #Pakistan 🇵🇰 and #India 🇮🇳They’re #endangered by #deforestation and human persecution 😿 Help them to survive and #Boycott4Wildlife industries destroying their home https://t.co/msNJwbWYVo