"After the fires killed 11 and devastated vast swaths of land in January many are asking if subsidised timber plantations are to blame"

"A decade after the “Save the Rainforest” movement captured the world’s imagination, Cargill and other food giants are pushing deeper into the wilderness."

Land's End Resort was built more than 50 years ago, and during that time, the Homer Spit has changed dramatically. A change in the direction and intensity of winds may be driving the faster erosion.

Dusting of ash reported overnight.

Herschel Island has seen a lot of people come and go. The Inuvialuit have used the place, known as Qikiqtaruk in Inuvialuktun, for at least 1,000 years.

Darren Nasogaluak has an unusual problem.As the mayor of Tuktoyaktuk, a small Inuvialuit hamlet on the coast of the Beaufort Sea, he has had to watch bits of his community wash away over the years.

Unique paleontological sites are facing destruction from gangs seeking to sell prehistoric remains. The hunters are especially active in late summer, when the permafrost retreats leaving mammoth remains more visible.

A recent study estimates permafrost coverage on the peninsula has decreased by 60 percent since 1950. Permafrost is usually associated with Northern and Interior Alaska, but it also occurs in isolated pockets in wetlands on the Kenai Peninsula.

As Alaska warms and permafrost thaws, the chemistry of the Yukon River's water is transforming chemically, new research from the U.S. Geological Survey shows.

The 2007 fire was probably the first for that area in 6,500 years, according to scientific evidence examined later, Higuera said. But the wait for the next big burn won't be nearly as long, according to the evidence gathered in the study.