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The plan will include more than $350m in funds to improve forest management efforts and to thin out vegetation

California leaders have announced a $536m plan to address the growing threat of wildfires across the state, as a drought threatens to bring on yet another destructive, deadly fire season.

Related: California is on the brink of drought – again. Is it ready?

A target for phasing out its use in gardens was missed last year, and campaigners are right to demand action

Peatlands are a type of wetlands ecosystem comprised of unrotted plant material. Covering 3% of the earth’s land surface and ranging from a shallow surface layer to more than 8 metres deep, they are the world’s largest carbon store, holding 550 gigatonnes of carbon – 42% of all carbon sequestered in the ground. In Europe, where they are concentrated in the north and east, they hold five times more carbon than forests. Yet public awareness of peat’s environmental importance is much lower than, for example, the level of interest in trees. There is no novel about peat to compare with Richard Powers’ prize-winning 2018 arboreal epic The Overstory.

Activists are desperate to change that. Britain’s huge number of amateur gardeners, whose numbers swelled during the spring lockdown last year and show no signs of falling back, are enthusiastic users of peat – which still makes up around 50% of all growing matter sold. Last week, a group of conservationists and gardeners wrote to the environment secretary, George Eustice, pointing to the failure of a planned voluntary phaseout that was supposed to end garden centre sales of peat compost last year, and called for a ban.

In coastal North Carolina, evidence of forest die-off is everywhere. Nearly every roadside ditch I pass is lined with dead or dying trees

Trekking out to my research sites near North Carolina’s Alligator River national wildlife refuge, I slog through knee-deep water on a section of trail that is completely submerged. Permanent flooding has become commonplace on this low-lying peninsula, nestled behind North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The trees growing in the water are small and stunted. Many are dead.

Throughout coastal North Carolina, evidence of forest die-off is everywhere. Nearly every roadside ditch I pass while driving around the region is lined with dead or dying trees.

Related: Bill Gates is the biggest private owner of farmland in the United States. Why? | Nick Estes

Emily Ury is a PhD candidate in ecology at Duke University

This article is republished from the Conversation, a non-profit news organization dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts

Ministers must consider cumulative impact of proposals ‘likely to compromise’ emissions targets

The government must intervene to stop the planned expansion of a number of small airports around the country if it is to meet legally binding environmental targets and avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis, campaigners have said.

Seven regional hubs have devised plans to expand their operations despite fierce opposition from climate scientists and locals who argue the proposals are incompatible with efforts to address the ecological crisis.