California can’t replant its forests fast enough to keep up with wildfires

California's forests are burning faster than they can be replanted, CalMatters reports. Over the past quarter century, two point three million acres have burned so severely that trees are unlikely to return on their own. The state operates a seed bank holding forty-two thousand pounds of seeds, but would need to triple its capacity just to replant private lands — federal forests, which account for more than half of California's woodlands, face an even steeper deficit. Since twenty twenty, only sixteen percent of severely burned forestland has been replanted. The U.S. Forest Service, diminished by decades of budget cuts, lost twenty percent of its staff last year. Without sustained funding and workforce investment, the state risks losing its forests permanently to brush and scrub.

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