Welcome! You’re listening to Good News from Planet Earth.For this Spooky Season of Good News, we’re venturing to some of the eeriest places along the U.S. coastline: ghost forests. Imagine rows of pale, lifeless trees standing knee-deep in saltwater, their trunks bleached and skeletal, branches bare, rattling in the wind like a forest of bones. Creepy, right?Ghost forests form when rising seas or storm-driven saltwater push into coastal woodlands. The salt poisons trees that once thrived in freshwater soils. Their leaves drop, bark peels, and the trees die standing — sometimes for decades. You can spot these haunting landscapes along the mid-Atlantic coast, from North Carolina’s Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula to New Jersey’s Pine Barrens.At first glance, it doesn’t sound like good news. Ghost forests mean lost habitat for birds and mammals, less carbon stored in living wood, and fewer roots stabilizing the shoreline. For nearby communities, it can feel like the land itself is vanishing.But here’s the hopeful twist: ghost forests are nature in transition. When freshwater forests die back, salt marshes often move in. Fiddler crabs dig their burrows, herons and egrets find new feeding grounds, and juvenile fish get nursery habitats. Salt marshes store carbon deep in their soils, buffer coastlines from storms, and support countless species of life. What looks like death can quietly become a cradle for new life.Researchers at North Carolina State University and the U.S. Geological Survey are using satellite data to track stressed forests and predict transitions before trees die. Communities can then act strategically — whether planting salt-tolerant Atlantic white cedar, letting marshes advance naturally, or restoring former wetlands. In New Jersey, for example, there’s a plan to restore 10,000 acres of Atlantic white cedar wetlands on land that was once drained for farming.Ghost forests are haunting — but they also remind us that ecosystems are resilient. Even in the most ghostly-looking landscapes, life adapts and continues.So next time you see a stand of silvered, lifeless trunks against the horizon, remember: you’re witnessing nature’s ability to shift, transform, and give new life — one eerie, beautiful step at a time.This has been another story from our Spooky Season of Good News. Share this one with a friend who loves a ghost story — especially one with a hopeful ending.Narrated by Kenita Hill from Voiceover for the PlanetSupport the showGood News from Planet Earth is brought to you by Voiceover for the Planet, proud members of 1% for the Planet. Produced by Ally Murphy and Anne Cloud Sound Designed and Mixed by Brandon Perry at Sound Nectar Studios If you'd like a member of Voiceover for the Planet to narrate your project, email [email protected]

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