"Consider events in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire. There, in the aftermath of a long civil war, the government is currently zoning its forests — which cover as much as 316 million acres, an area nearly the size of France, Germany and Spain combined — in preparation for their mass allocation to logging companies. Old European timber conglomerates want to reactivate their concessions, some dating back almost to the brutal days more than a century ago when the entire country was run by King Leopold of Belgium. Logging newcomers from Malaysia and China also want a slice of the action."

"Stretching from New York to Minnesota, this belt's defining feature is how near most people are to their friends, implying they don't move far. In most cases outside the largest cities, the most common connections are with immediately neighboring cities, and even New York only has one really long-range link in its top 10. Apart from Los Angeles, all of its strong ties are comparatively local."

"We asked the city of Ann Arbor for all the electronic deliverables from Davey. And we provide the following data with a caveat: On Monday evening, city staff stressed that they were still doing some quality control work on the initial data set – so the data provided to The Chronicle is a snapshot of the city’s trees as assessed by the Davey Resource Group. The city’s inventory will presumably be maintained as a frequently updated data set that changes as trees are pruned, removed, or planted."