What happens to trees that are logged? Around the world, about half of removed trees are used for fuel, either burned as fuelwood or processed into charcoal and pellets. The other half goes into forest products: 37% paper products, 32% wood products, 16% wooden furniture, 10% pulp and recovered paper, and 5% non-wood forest products…

Who owns the forest? Today, forests cover 800 million acres of the US, over a third of the landscape. About 60% of US forestland is privately owned, two-thirds by families and a third corporate; 3% is tribal; and 40% is publicly owned federal, state, and local forests. Ownership in the East and South is mostly private,…

Boreas, the Greek god of the North, gives his name to the northern boreal lands, mapped between 50° and 70°N latitude, that include forest, interspersed peatlands, and treeless tundra. The largest boreal forest is the Russian Taiga, extending into Scandinavia. The term ‘taiga’ (not capitalized) can also mean boreal forest or just the northern fringe…

[revised 6/30/25] Humans have been chopping down and burning trees for a long time, and deforestation is ongoing. Sometimes forest grow back on their own (“natural regeneration”). In the US, most of New England is forested again, after the farms that once replaced trees were abandoned. Humans also plant trees. “Reforestation” is planting trees to…