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Articles by Lyndsie Bourgon
The San Juan sails again
By the time a rising tide swept the San Juan into the Bay of Biscay on a cold day last November, the rain was pelting down in sheets. Hundreds of people, some holding aloft smartphone cameras, stood shoulder to shoulder along a low concrete wall bordering an inlet that connects the small northern Spanish town of Pasaia to the bay. Others clung to trees along the edge of the cliffs that rise steeply above the inlet.
The forgotten eccentric that made America's forests
On a spring day in 1945, Christoph Rhoeneck perched at the edge of his family’s balcony. From the top floor of the brown, wood-clad house, in the middle of the southwest German mountain town of Lindenfels, he watched American tanks rolling up the valley below. Rhoeneck, at the time around five years old, watched the United States Army knock down fences and drive over his neighbors’ gardens, convoying along the village’s medieval road to the town center.
birds | The Walrus
We’ve been at war with the angry birds for centuries. Are they an invasive species, or are we?
Book Review: Inside the Global Movement to Protect Forests from Climate Change
On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. Treekeepers: The Race for a Forested Future by Lauren E. Oakes. Basic Books, 2024 ($30) At the start of , Lauren E.
Inside the world of tree poachers: how a murder shone a light on rural trauma
The last time I talked to Danny Garcia was two weeks before he was killed. In December 2022, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake rattled northern California. Its strength was such that along stretches of Highway 101, which runs north-south through some of the state’s most celebrated forest, the asphalt heaved and cracked. A hundred people were displaced from their homes. That night, Danny Garcia was sitting on his living room couch in Eureka, the seat of Humboldt county.
Unlikely Allies, They Spread the Gospel of Tree-Hugging
Book Review|Unlikely Allies, They Spread the Gospel of Tree-Hugging https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/21/books/review/guardians-of-the-valley-dean-king.html nonfiction In “Guardians of the Valley,” Dean King chronicles the friendship between the naturalist John Muir and the journalist Robert Underwood Johnson. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
Firewood theft: The forests where trees are going missing
In many countries, poachers are stealing trees from forests in the middle of the night – and the problem may be getting worse. Author Lyndsie Bourgon investigates the complex reasons to blame. In the stands of oak, birch and beech that populate Germany's forests, hundreds of trees have been stolen, one-by-one. In one forest alone – Konigs Wusterhausen, near Berlin – poachers took 100 pine trees last winter.
What Is an Old-Growth Tree Actually Worth?
When Mark Andre took the stand in a Humboldt County courtroom on a fall afternoon in 2018, he testified to the financial worth of portions of an old-growth redwood. Andre is a registered professional forester with a forestry firm in Arcata, California. In the spring leading up to his appearance on the stand, rangers from Redwood National and State Parks in northern California were deep into a months-long investigation of burl poaching.
What Is the Financial Value of an Old-Growth Tree?
In setting fines for timber poaching, experts are looking at different ways to calculate the worth of trees When Mark Andre took the stand in a Humboldt County courtroom on a fall afternoon in 2018, he testified to the financial worth of portions of an old-growth redwood. Andre is a registered professional forester with a forestry firm in Arcata, California.
What Is an Old-Growth Tree Actually Worth?
When Mark Andre took the stand in a Humboldt County courtroom on a fall afternoon in 2018, he testified to the financial worth of portions of an old-growth redwood. Andre is a registered professional forester with a forestry firm in Arcata, California. In the spring leading up to his appearance on the stand, rangers from Redwood National and State Parks in northern California were deep into a months-long investigation of burl poaching.
Brett Grubisic reviews Tree Thieves by Lyndsie Bourgon
Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America’s Woods by Lyndsie Bourgon Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2022 $34.95 / 9781771647199 Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic * For many readers, Tree Thieves will surprise, inform, disturb, alarm, and enlighten. This impressive, absorbing, and often riveting debut work of non-fiction introduces a serious issue, as well as cause for real concern.
Ruffled Feathers: How Feral Peacocks Divided a Small Town
It began with a peahen named Pearl. She was the only female in a trio of peafowl that once freely roamed the small town of Naramata, British Columbia. Her chicks had the bright-blue bodies and metallic-green tail feathers that make the male members of her species iconic, but Pearl’s colouring was rare: her entire body and tail feathers were a shimmering white.
The Wood Disappearing from Your Neighbourhood
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Literary Review of Canada
If you own a bike in a city, you know you’re tempting fate when you leave it unattended for a minute without locking it securely. So when you consider the value of all that wood standing unguarded in the wild, it’s no surprise that clandestine loggers are preying on it throughout the United States and Canada.
The Forensic Scientists Fighting Timber Theft
By June 23, 2022 11:53 am ET Thirty percent of the world’s wood trade involves timber that was poached—illegally harvested from public or private land. The World Bank and Interpol have estimated that the global scale of illegal logging generates up to $157 billion annually, some of which goes to fund large-scale crime networks. The terrorist network Al-Shabab is known to traffic in poached wood and charcoal from Somalia.
The Pervasive Problem-and Far-Reaching Impact-of Tree Poaching
The first case of tree theft I ever encountered occurred within the stands of ancient old-growth on the southwest shores of Vancouver Island, in Ditidaht territory. One day in the spring of 2011, a hiker in British Columbia’s Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park noticed the smell of fresh sawdust in the air, and as he walked he spotted felling wedges—tools used to guide a tree’s fall in a particular direction—thrust into the body of an 800-year-old red cedar.
New Releases Tuesday: The Best Books Out This Week
It’s Tuesday, which means it’s time for new book releases! Here are a few of the books out today you should add to your TBR. This is a very small percentage of the new releases this week, as well as a few others you may have missed from recent weeks. Make sure to stick around until the end for some more Book Riot resources for keeping up with new books. The book descriptions listed are the publisher’s, unless otherwise noted.
Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America's Woods
by Lyndsie Bourgon Ships in 1 to 3 days QtyStore 3 Burnside 2 Cedar Hills 2 Hawthorne 20 Local Warehouse Synopses & Reviews A gripping investigation of the billion-dollar timber black market "and a fascinating examination of the deep and troubled relationship between people and forests" (Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts) There's a strong chance that chair you are sitting on was made from stolen lumber.
Timber poaching: The secretive crime decimating North America’s forests
Since then, I have watched a spate of wood poaching sweep North America; in the Pacific Northwest, the lush forests of Alaska, and the timber stands of the eastern and southern United States. Timber poaching happens everywhere, on vastly different scales, throughout the seasons—one tree taken here, another there.
Review: A sobering look from both sides at Northwest timber poaching
It’s a classic Northern California travel experience: the drive on Highway 101 north through Humboldt and Del Norte counties, coast redwood country. On either side of the highway, Sequoia sempervirens, tallest trees in the world, form curtains of deepest green. Then, inevitably, you stop at some rustic roadside shop that calls itself Bob’s Burls. You admire a redwood burl coffee table and wonder: Can we squeeze this into the back of the SUV?
Tree Thieves: Crime And Survival In North America's Woods
Earn 175 plum® points Buy Online Ship to an address Pre-order online.Free shipping on orders over $35 Pick up in store To see if pickup is available, Prices and offers may vary in store This fast-paced, riveting look at timber poaching reveals why stealing trees has become a billion-dollar industry. Deep in the thickets of North America’s most ancient woodland, timber poachers are felling some of the last remaining old-growth on our continent.
Uncovering Inequality’s Roots in Timber Poaching
The author, Lyndsie Bourgon, at right, interviewing community leader Ruhiler Aguirre Mishaja at the site of illegal logging in the Peruvian Amazon. Click to enlarge. FEJ StoryLog: Uncovering Inequality’s Roots in Timber Poaching By Lyndsie Bourgon I have been researching and reporting on timber poaching since 2012, when news spread of an ancient cedar tree that was poached from Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park in British Columbia. The story hooked me.
Why Women Boxers Shouldn’t Have To Wear Skirts
During the 2010 Women’s Boxing World Championships in Barbados, the sport’s governing body (the International Amateur Boxing Association, or AIBA) handed out athletic skirts to semifinalists and finalists. Many boxers and sports commentators felt the move tacitly implied the women should be wearing more feminine garb in the ring, instead of the customary shorts and tank tops.
Whales Are People Too
Last summer, the plight of the southern resident orcas—which migrate along the craggy Pacific shoreline between southeastern Alaska and central California and are icons of the Salish Sea—turned dramatic and inescapably anthropomorphic. A new mother , J35, carried her deceased calf draped over her nose throughout the coastal waters, buoying it for seventeen days. The public outpouring in response was swift. How could you not cry?
A Brief History of Smokey Bear, the Forest Service’s Legendary Mascot
How the beloved figure has become a lightning rod in a heated environmental debate Last year, the deadliest wildfire season in state history swept across California. More than 8,000 fires burned nearly two million acres and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to suppress.* In a matter of minutes, a town named Paradise was engulfed in flame and almost completely destroyed; 85 people died.
Stolen Timber is Funding British Columbia's Opioid Fix
Updated on June 5 at 12:57 p.m. Minutes after Luke Clarke turned his white patrol truck off the highway and onto the Forest Service road, we came upon a spot that, to most people, would be unremarkable: The blur of greens and browns along the roadside looked like any other patch of forest detritus on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. But Clarke looked closer. Green fir boughs, bright under the morning sky, were strewn across the highway.
Indigenous people battle squatters and timber poachers in Peru's Amazon
This article was created in partnership with the National Geographic Society. On March 14, 2018, an alarm sounded in the ears of Jose Vargas, who was sitting at his desk in this Peruvian Amazon city. Embedded in the amber wood of a cedar tree, a small tracking device developed to spring to life at the whir of a chainsaw or crunching of boots on earth sent an alert via satellite to the offices of the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA), where Vargas works as a GIS specialist.
Unfound Islands | Hazlitt
Sandy Island does not exist; this we now know for sure. Sandy Island died—it has an obituary. Sandy Island lived for more than two hundred years, appearing first on a 1908 British admiralty map at 19°S, 160°E. In 1876, the whaling ship Velocity reported a fifteen-mile long sliver of land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, about five hundred kilometres northwest of the French colony of New Caledonia. The captain named it Sandy Island.
The last whalers: commuting from the North Sea to Antarctica – Lyndsie Bourgon | Aeon Essays
Where the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean merge, a small Scottish archipelago sits barren and bald, hundreds of clumped islands of grey and green rock. Shetland is a 12-hour ferry ride from the granite port city of Aberdeen, and its population of about 23,000 stretches across one larger island and a few smaller ones that dot its shores. Even in the dead of summer, it is a cold and reclusive place. The most consistent weather is wind, which howls day and night.
5 must-read tips for keeping baby safe during bath time
Photo: iStockphoto Bathing your baby can be a special part of the day—you can sing songs, enjoy your babe’s sweet coos and smiles and marvel at how much she’s grown. But bath time can also be scary because a wet baby is very slippery! These five tips will help keep your baby safe. 1.
How to use a nasal aspirator (aka a baby snot sucker)
It’s a tiny tool, but a nasal aspirator and rubber bulb syringe can provide sweet relief for your congested baby. Here's exactly how to use one—just prepare yourself for a few tears. Any parent will tell you that a nasal aspirator or rubber bulb syringe is a medicine cabinet must-have. These tiny tools help parents clear their newborn’s sensitive nasal passages of mucus, helping relieve congestion in a fussy baby that might be having a hard time feeding and breathing.
6 Accessible Adventures Near Global Airports
Adventure doesn’t have to mean inaccessible destinations or complicated planning sessions. If you’re craving some time off the beaten path but want the convenience of easy-to-reach transportation, try one of these transit-friendly outdoor experiences. They’re all reasonably close to an airport, so you can focus your energy on enjoying the beauty of these spots and revelling in your intrepid accomplishments.
How Forest Forensics Could Prevent the Theft of Ancient Trees
Northern California’s redwoods tower majestically above the forest floor, protected and cherished by all. All, that is, except tree poachers, who lurk in the shadows waiting to hack into some of the world's oldest organisms and extract valuable chunks of knotted burl. Theirs is an unlikely prize: a heavy, knotted chunk of rust-red wood, nestled near the base of older trees and reminiscent of a large hornet's nest. In the right hands, these chunks of ancient wood can prove infinitely valuable.
Why Women Are Using Birthing Hotels In Canada
Three years ago, Melody* stepped off a plane from Beijing in Vancouver and breezed through customs. “The official didn’t ask [if I was pregnant] so I didn’t tell,” she says through a translator. At 32 years-old, she was four months pregnant with her son David. Her husband waiting at home, Melody had entered B.C. on a visitors’ visa, intending to stay for months, for the sole purpose of having a baby on Canadian soil — thereby guaranteeing that baby citizenship.
How Thousand-Year-Old Trees Became the New Ivory
I. The Case of the Missing Cedar It was a local hiker who noticed, during a backwoods stroll in May 2012, the remains of the body. The victim in question: an 800-year-old cedar tree. Fifty meters tall and with a trunk three meters in circumference, the cedar was one of the crown jewels in Canada’s Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park. Now all that remained was a minivan-sized section of its trunk, surrounded by shards of wood and dust, with broken heavy equipment chains lying nearby.
How Thousand-Year-Old Trees Became the New Ivory
It was a local hiker who noticed, during a backwoods stroll in May 2012, the remains of the body. The victim in question: an 800-year-old cedar tree. Fifty meters tall and with a trunk three meters in circumference, the cedar was one of the crown jewels in Canada’s Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park. Now all that remained was a minivan-sized section of its trunk, surrounded by shards of wood and dust, with broken heavy equipment chains lying nearby.
Brexit Has Brought the Idea of Scottish Independence Back From the Dead
On March 16, Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, stood before reporters on a stairwell at Holyrood, the home of the Scottish Parliament. Theresa May, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, which includes England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, had just dismissed Sturgeon’s public appeals for a second independence referendum, the first of which had failed in 2014.
Jesus Take the Reins | Hazlitt
The first thing you should know about Bryn Thiessen is that he’s the type of person your hip barber is trying to be. Thiessen wears a wool vest and black felt hat whose brim is wide but still narrower than the waxed, twirled moustache that protrudes at least 12 inches past his cheeks. He has a leather satchel and brown leather boots and a collection of brightly coloured silk scarves, and is usually wearing suspenders.
In Scotland, Canada’s National Animal Is Wearing Out Its Welcome · The Walrus
In recent months, a pack of rogue beavers, provenance unknown, have been turning up dead along Scotland’s River Tay. Most of them have been shot—allegedly murdered at the hands of landowners and farmers. After autopsies at Edinburgh’s Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (freezers had to be purchased to store the carcasses), experts found that two of the twenty-one killed were pregnant. It’s not illegal to shoot a beaver in Scotland, but it is certainly frowned upon.
How to Train a Ukrainian Soldier
In Ukraine’s so-called Anti-Terrorist-Operation (ATO) zone, in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, soldiers are fighting a war of attrition. Along the 250-kilometre front line, regular shelling and firefights feed a war that has killed 10,000, wounded 21,000, and displaced 3 million people.
How to organize your diaper bag
You don’t really comprehend how much you have to lug around once you have a kid, so it’s essential to make the most of your diaper bag space—and cut down on all those extras you really don’t need for the sake of your shoulders. Professional organizer Wendy Hollick raised three children, ran her own daycare and is now a grandma, so she’s familiar with the black hole of lost items and missing necessities that a diaper bag can become.
National | Clerking at Canada’s highest court
The key to tapping into your creativity starts with thinking differently. San Persand, a former lawyer and creative coach in Montreal, says you need to physically train your brain to be creative. Your thought processes need to move away from the methodical left brain, towards the right. In an era of billable hours, lawyers feel pressured to constantly be working efficiently — not creatively. Focus, focus, focus, and eventually a solution will come to you.
National | Clerking at Canada’s highest court
Once the legal industry’s most prominent buzz-phrase, knowledge management (KM) has become so ubiquitous, it’s a must-have aspect of the day-to-day running of Canada’s legal firms. Lawyers deal with so much information and they’re constantly looking for ways to manage it. While that used to mean in-house libraries and binders stuffed with years’ worth of internal knowledge, now it means so much more. KM is now a huge industry, offering options for firms of all sizes, structures and focus.
National | Clerking at Canada’s highest court
The key to tapping into your creativity starts with thinking differently. San Persand, a former lawyer and creative coach in Montreal, says you need to physically train your brain to be creative. Your thought processes need to move away from the methodical left brain, towards the right. In an era of billable hours, lawyers feel pressured to constantly be working efficiently — not creatively. Focus, focus, focus, and eventually a solution will come to you.
National | Clerking at Canada’s highest court
• Think of your problem in pictures, as opposed to words. • Make connections. Force yourself to search for connections between two unlikely mediums. When Steve Jobs at Apple connected calligraphy and computer science, he started a home computing revolution. Architects connect the natural sciences to art. Creative coach San Persand recommends crafting arguments after watching a movie. • Stop looking for an answer.
National | Clerking at Canada’s highest court
About 10 years ago, Taylor McCaffrey LLP in Winnipeg decided to do something for its sleep-deprived staff: It opened a nap room. Nobody used it. The firm eventually gave up on the idea, says the firm’s managing partner, Patricia Lane, and put extra couches in the staff room instead for employees who needed some down time.
National | Clerking at Canada’s highest court
About 10 years ago, Taylor McCaffrey LLP in Winnipeg decided to do something for its sleep-deprived staff: It opened a nap room. Nobody used it. The firm eventually gave up on the idea, says the firm’s managing partner, Patricia Lane, and put extra couches in the staff room instead for employees who needed some down time.
National | Clerking at Canada’s highest court
• Think of your problem in pictures, as opposed to words. • Make connections. Force yourself to search for connections between two unlikely mediums. When Steve Jobs at Apple connected calligraphy and computer science, he started a home computing revolution. Architects connect the natural sciences to art. Creative coach San Persand recommends crafting arguments after watching a movie. • Stop looking for an answer.
National | Clerking at Canada’s highest court
Once the legal industry’s most prominent buzz-phrase, knowledge management (KM) has become so ubiquitous, it’s a must-have aspect of the day-to-day running of Canada’s legal firms. Lawyers deal with so much information and they’re constantly looking for ways to manage it. While that used to mean in-house libraries and binders stuffed with years’ worth of internal knowledge, now it means so much more. KM is now a huge industry, offering options for firms of all sizes, structures and focus.
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