How healthy are our forests? How vulnerable are they to fires, erosion and invasive flora and fauna?   Well, consider that it’s early June and Western wildfires are already burning forests to a crisp. Just down the road from my house, in east Arkansas’ St. Francis National Forest, invasive kudzu has overtaken huge swaths of towering trees. On some hillsides, tree carcasses still stand, swallowed up by a choking tide of the vines.

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