A bear hitched a lift on top of a rubbish truck in New Mexico.

RUSSIA: A portly politician who somehow managed to get himself stuck inside a tank reportedly threatened to shoot bystanders who were standing around watching.

Residents have fled from thousands of homes as a wildfire pushed toward southern California mountain communities.

Thousands of residents have been evacuated and dozens of homes destroyed by three Colorado wildfires fuelled by hot temperatures, gusty winds and thick, bone-dry forests.

Forest owners are being urged to attend a series of public information meetings on the ash disease over the next 10 days.

Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney has warned of extreme danger of forest fires in some parts of the country after scores of outbreaks in Galway, Mayo, Dublin and Donegal.

Official figures released by the Forest Service show an increase in the number of applications for forestry approval.

Official figures released by the Forest Service show an increase in the number of applications for forestry approval.

Forestry owners are being placed on high alert for signs of Chalara fraxinea, the Ash Dieback disease which has destroyed forests across Europe.

New forest plantations require several years of active management to become well established.

Critical firefighting aircraft have been grounded during one of the busiest and most destructive wildfire seasons to hit the US west after a military cargo plane crashed battling a South Dakota inferno.

Rocker and gun rights advocate Ted Nugent has pleaded guilty to transporting a black bear he illegally killed in Alaska, saying he was sorry for unwittingly violating the law.

Bruce Willis has said that he is willing to give away his central Idaho ski resort to a non-profit making organisation.

FARM training body Teagasc is on a drive to train landowners on how to maximise their profits from forestry.

CLARE 2011 is a series of forestry events in Co Clare up to October 19.

TEAGASC will focus on forestry felling licences and stack measurement at this year’s Tullamore Show.

SOME 46 European ministers have agreed common political goals for the long-term protection of the continent’s woodlands at the sixth Forest Europe conference in Oslo, Norway.

BROADLEAF trees planted in the 1990s are now paying dividends to landowners, according to Teagasc forestry experts.

IN spite of a promise of long-awaited action by state agencies and farming organisations against illegal burning on mountains and upland areas, such burning is continuing unabated.

STRATEGIC thinning of forestry plantations gives farmers greater flexibility to sell at peak prices, according to Teagasc experts hosting a nationwide series of advisory workshops next week.

THE timing of the restructuring of a key forestry scheme could not come at a worse time for farmers who are beginning to thin forests and produce timber for wood energy markets, according to the IFA.

THE redeveloped Guagán Barra Forest Park in Co Cork was launched yesterday by Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Minister Éamon Ó Cuív.

AGRICULTURE Minister Brendan Smith is to seek the approval of the Dáil for a supplementary estimate for his department of €195 million this year to provide additional funding for the Farm Waste Management Scheme.

As many as eight firefighters and a pilot are presumed dead after a helicopter crashed just after picking up workers battling a blaze in a Northern California forest.

AS we come to the end of another tree-planting season, it is now estimated the forestry programme will be less than 5,000 hectares this year.

TEAGASC, the agricultural development, advisory and research authority, is planning to appoint an economist to examine the returns from forestry.

A VIRUS carried by the grey squirrel, which is dramatically increasing its numbers, poses a serious threat to the survival of the country’s native red squirrel population.

MUNSTER landowners will bear the brunt of forest planting restrictions introduced last week by the Government for protection of the hen harrier bird.

Firefighters were battling two raging wildfires in Southern California that forced nearly 2,000 people to evacuate.

TWO consignments of timber from Canada were found to be infested with harmful forestry pests, it was revealed yesterday.

Efforts to tame a raging wildfire that has destroyed 200 homes near the Californian resort of Lake Tahoe suffered a setback when a backfire set to control the blaze jumped a fireline, forcing a new round of evacuations.

A CONFERENCE in Portlaoise on July 11 will reveal how much our forests are worth.