A river flows through a canyon, lined with trees covered in golden leaves.

Love forests and looking for a practical way to help protect them? Adventure Scientists is looking for outdoor adventurers to help combat illegal logging and climate change by volunteering for science.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

A volunteer for Adventure Scientists uses a smart phone to gather photos of leaf samples.A volunteer for Adventure Scientists uses a smart phone to gather photos of leaf samples.

From now through December, volunteer hikers, backcountry skiers, kayakers, trailrunners and more can join the effort to collect leaf, seed, and wood samples of tree species targeted by illegal loggers. The samples will help build databases of the trees' chemical and genetic signatures throughout their ranges. The US Forest Service and others will use those databases to reveal the origin of wood entering the supply chain and to prosecute timber theft. Your efforts will also help scientists understand how to help species survive a changing climate. 

Adventure Scientists still needs almost 400 samples from Alaska yellow-cedars, a species ranging from southern Oregon to Alaska that faces threats from illegal logging, climate change, and wildfire. COVID-19 and fires have prevented volunteers from getting into areas crucial to capturing the full genetic range of the species. If you can hike into the high country of the Central/Southern Oregon Cascades or hike or boat into coastal British Columbia this fall, they especially need your help.

 

Get more information and apply to volunteer at adventurescientists.org/timber. Email for questions: timber@adventurescientists.org.

A volunteer for Adventure Scientists gathers data in a forest.A volunteer for Adventure Scientists gathers data in a forest.