On the last Friday in April, the U.S. celebrates National Arbor Day. First held in 1872, Arbor Day is a meant to honor all of the sky-high sentinel...

It's the 75th annual National Wildlife Week this week, hosted by the National Wildlife Federation. This year's theme is "Branching Out for Wildlife" and we're celebrating trees and their importance to wildlife and people.

As much as my sons delight in the tree, sometimes I daydream about less bedraggled alternatives. Instead of accidental, what if our view had been planned and purposeful? In its place could be something more pleasing. Imagine the space of a single street tree transformed into a small-scale woodland.

The disruption of entire eco-systems is harmful to the people who depend upon them for their economic survival. Poaching in developing countries may temporarily enrich the poachers, but posterity is inevitably impoverished.

Some people don't love trees as much as they used to. After the severe storms we have had this year, including Hurricane Sandy, city trees can seem like a dangerous liability. Are urban trees worth the risk they pose to houses, cars and people when a violent storm comes through?

According to a disturbing new report, the world's oldest and largest trees may be dying off -- and fast. The study determined that trees between 10...

Climate change is a citizen's issue; each of us is required to lend a helping hand. That means taking ownership of our urban trees including watering them during the drier summers, forthcoming.

One of the most visible and unintended consequences of global warming are bark beetles. Drought beget beetles. The U.S. is experiencing its worst drought in more than 50 years.

Stand at your kitchen sink and fill up a glass of water from the tap. Can you guess where that water comes from? Or how far it traveled to get to your tap? What about how adequately -- or not -- the land at the source is protected?

A little-understood but devastating beetle is infesting trees in commercial avocado groves, botanical gardens and backyards in Southern California.

Though I am about as far as possible from being a rural Kenyan woman, Wangari changed my life as well by the beauty and brilliance of her words and deeds, and by taking my hand saying, "Come to Kenya. You will love it."

How did Isaac stack up against past hurricanes? The slow-moving storm, with its rain and strong winds, damaged power grids across Louisiana, according to Entergy. Hall said "for New Orleans, Isaac was the second biggest storm in terms of customer outages after Katrina."

The giant sequoias are direct descendants of the enormous trees that once covered North America and loomed over dinosaurs in vast forests of fern and evergreen. Now they survive in just one small redoubt -- the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada.

The issues we face concerning trees and the health of our urban forests are extremely complex and have to be considered from a variety of angles. Everyone needs to work together to learn to care for our environment in a responsible, manageable way.

Being a part of helping these children smile and learn about something so important to our communities, trees, was the most fitting end to our journey.

Before the STIHL Tour des Trees, if I had fallen asleep and dreamed of what it would be like to go cycling through Oregon, today would have been it.