‘Continuity over novelty’: why environmental science needs to rethink its focus

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Long-term research in forests, such as the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon, is vulnerable when funding is episodic.Credit: Lina DiGregorio/OSU/Andrews Forest Program

This year, the US Department of Agriculture will close its office of forest-service research in Portland, Oregon — and similar ones nationwide. For a century, this office and its research station have managed wildfire prevention, scientific research and conservation across the Pacific Northwest.

Ecologists: don’t lose touch with the joy of fieldwork