Parson Branch Road, a bucolic route that runs from Cades Cove to the western boundary of Great Smoky Mountains National Park has been closed since 2016 due to hazardous trees. Now, however, the road could reopen this summer as tree removal work is completed and rehabilitation of the gravel road is tackled.

Two wildfires that burned into Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina forced closures of some backcountry trails and campsites.

National parks protect immense biodiversity, and science is providing the data and graphics to monitor and protect that biodiversity.

As monarch butterflies begin their annual spring migration from Mexico to southern Canada, they face what’s called “landscape fragmentation.” This species-at-risk needs specific habitat for food and shelter but the landscape is being lost or broken up by things like urban development, roads and industrial agriculture.