Guest guest Posted November 2, 2006 Report Share Posted November 2, 2006 144 - Earth's Tree News Today for you 35 news items about Mama Earth's trees. Location, number and subject listed below. Condensed / abbreviated article is listed further below.--British Columbia: 1) Save the Serengeti of the North, 2) Caribou Minister Pat Bell isoff,--Washington: 3) Mount Si trail work, 4) NFPA relocating to Spokane, 5) a silent place,--Oregon: 6) Tillamook forest at crossroads, 7) Recreation vs. logging, 8) Eastern Oregon BLM's wild places, 9) Save Zane Grey Roadless Area from logging,--California: 10) Sunny Brae, 11) Industry professor is a fraud, 12) Tahoe basin fires,--Idaho: 13) Stop Anti-Salmon Rider--New Mexico: 14) History of enviros, 15)collaboration for protection, 16)Valles Caldera --Minnesota: 17) Logger economy unravels with housing slump--Mississippi: 18) Marketing "hurricane blue stain"--North Carolina: 19) study suggests forest roads cause harm--Canada: 20) Slash for bio-refineries, 21) Save the Boreal, --Africa: 22) First International Conference of Parliamentarians on Sustainability--Morocco: 23) Desertification is now threatening all of the country--Ghana: 24) Sawmills not paying loggers,--Peru: 25) Achuar nation celebrates a victory --Philippines: 26) Unmasking of log smugglers and some local officials--Malayasia: 27) Assures Britain it is not exporting illegal timber, 28) against the law to encroach into forest reserves,--Indonesia: 29) Starving wild elephants --New Zealand: 30) buying back Kaingaroa Forest--Australia: 31) Protesters are ready for loggers in Arcadia Forest, 32) Murray River red gum reaches critical stage, --World-wide: 33) Deserts to expand to 1/3 of Earth's surface, 34) rapid diversion of food crops toward production of fuel for automobiles, 35) high-resolution satellite data measures Earth's temperatures,British Columbia:1) Wildsight spokesman John Bergenske calls the Flathead the " Serengeti of the North, " because of the diversity of plant and animal life that is unparalleled on the continent. He also notes the valley is home to the largest concentration of grizzly bears in inland North America, and is an important migration route for many animals. " We feel it would be totally appropriate for British Columbia to be part of the International Peace Park, or at very least to have a wildlife sanctuary that protected values comparable to what a national park does, " he said. Mining companies have applied to extract coal from the valley, and the provincial government is not ready to push to have the area turned into a park. Local MLA Bill Bennett, who is B.C.'s minister of state for mining, says the province can safeguard the valley's environment, while allowing responsible mining. " Everyone knows that it has to be managed very carefully, but not everyone agrees that it needs to be a federal park, " said Bennett. He notes the province is negotiating a joint management agreement for the valley with Montana, which should be finalized this fall. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2006/10/23/bc-flathead-park.html 2) Something was a little off right from the beginning of Lands Minister Pat Bell's mountain caribou announcement. By the end of the day things were even weirder. It became clear that Bell -- a businessman whose main recent interest has been two Wendy's restaurants in Prince George -- was staking the future of an endangered species on his own " preferences " rather than science. The announcement was one of those rush jobs, where reporters get a call telling them to be in the minister's office in an hour. It's not that the idea just popped suddenly into someone's head -- " Hey, let's release that report we've had for months. " The ministry had arranged for supporting players from out of town to be there.The short notice is tactical. Report-ers are even less prepared than usual to ask useful questions. Critics don't get a chance to prepare their responses. But the mountain caribou deserved better. The caribou are endangered. About 1,900 are left in the province, down from 2,500 a decade ago. They favour mature forests and a lichen diet, and they don't mix well with people, whether loggers, snowmobilers or heli-skiers. Logging and other activities have also created conditions that result in increasing populations of deer and, as a result, of predators. The obvious solution is to protect existing caribou habitat while restoring already damaged areas. But we're talking about a big area, with significant portions already protected. The idea of restricting activity on more land irks some people. Forest companies want to keep logging. Heli-skiing businesses don't want to lose out. Snowmobilers complain of having to stay out of protected habitats. So the government wisely asked a 14-person scientific panel to report on the problem. That's the report Bell was presenting, complete with a snappy little PowerPoint show. The scientists said at least 75 animals are needed in a range area to maintain a resilient population. Five of the 11 management areas now have much smaller populations, some with just a few animals. It turned out to be an important distinction. Bell favours writing off any herds below 75 animals. He talks about relocating them, but there's really no point to that. Bell's solution would reduce by one-third the area needing to be managed with the interests of caribou in mind. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=f41d78f9-dd95-4025-9528-6635655a89d6 Washington:3) NORTH BEND – The state's most popular hiking route – the Mount Si trail about 30 miles east of Seattle – has undergone a major renovation. This weekend marked the end of a three-year effort to rehabilitate the trail, which sees about 200,000 pairs of boots every year. Volunteers contributed 13,000 hours of work to fix eroded trail beds and muddied switchbacks, keeping the cost of the renovation to $100,000. They widened the trail for two-way traffic in some spots, added rock steps at steep inclines, and used retaining walls to fortify switchbacks. The trail, just outside North Bend, twists up 3,500 feet of elevation to a stunning panorama of Seattle and Puget Sound. Established by the Mountaineers in 1973 and last renovated in 1990, it is popular with weekend warriors as well as those training for more serious climbs, such as Mount Rainier. The state Department of Natural Resources and the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust coordinated the volunteer work. Many of the volunteer hours were clocked by the Washington Trails Association, and AmeriCorps crews camped for months at a time to do heavy excavation work. The work was all done without closing the trail. "This was just a way to spend a lot of time in the woods, and doing good work," said Kingham, 28. http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/northwest/story/6200869p-5419228c.html4) The Missoula NFPA office is relocating this week to Spokane, WA. It will be housed with The Lands Council (TLC), one of our strongest member organizations. Mike Petersen, TLC Executive Director and former NFPA President, has graciously offered to guide this transition. He can be reached at mpetersen. During the next few months, the board of directors, State Delegates and TLC, will manage NFPA. With this, I would like to introduce you to Rachel Bozaan (rachelbozaan) and Sara Richardson (richardson), who will assist with day-to-day management of NFPA. Ben Prater (ben), NFPA State Delegate Chair and staff ecologist for SABP, will continue his excellent leadership role, including more communications with our supporters. For years, the National Forest Protection Alliance has fulfilled an integral and indispensable role within the forest conservation movement by providing a network, training, tools, and voice for the backbone of the forest conservation moment – small, volunteer based citizens groups, often geographically isolated but unified in spirit. Despite its importance to its member groups, and we believe, to the conservation movement at large, NFPA has found it difficult to articulate its function to potential funders, and its membership base has little funding to spare. It has recently come to our attention that the association model, rather than the campaign or alliance model, might be better suited to refining our program portfolio to better suit our mission and our niche within the conservation movement, as well as to better articulate our role and generate increased support for our activities. NFPA is in the process of hiring a contractor to conduct a feasibility of this idea. The Board and State Delegates will make a decision about the direction of NFPA after the study, which will be complete in early 2007. http://www.forestadvocate.org5) JOYCE -- Gordon Hempton listened all over the world for silence. The quietest spot he found was close to home. A three-mile walk into the Hoh Rain Forest takes him to a place of peace marked with a small red rock, measuring exactly one square inch, given to him by the late David Four Lines, a Quileute tribal elder. It marks a spot atop a moss covered log 678 feet above sea level that Hempton calls the quietest place on earth. From that one spot quiet radiates for hundreds of miles, he said. It is the one square inch center of Hempton's quiet battle against noise. He is working to have airlines agree to detour around the park and to have park management include silence as a natural resource. His One Square Inch project is a means of supporting those goals. Hempton, 53, is one of fewer than a dozen people in the world who could be called acoustical ecologists. He records nature sounds, licenses them to various businesses and museums and gives advice on how to use them in everything from video games and television shows to museum exhibits. In 25 years, Hempton has recorded natural sounds in every continent in the world except for Antarctica. He has collected a huge earful -- some 3,000 gigabits of material. Hempton -- who moved to Joyce from Port Angeles four years ago and from Seattle to Port Angeles in 1992 -- got into the work in his late 20s, he said. ``I love to listen mainly because I was such a bad listener all my life,'' he said.``It wasn't until I was 27 or so that I decided to tune in. ``I decided I wanted to do this at all costs and so designed my life around becoming a better listener.'' Listening well doesn't mean focusing on a particular sound, he said. ``That's contrary to what listening is about,'' he explained. ``That's what seeing is. We study an object and if there's something blocking it, we don't see it. ``To be a listener means to take it all in. There is no frame, and one frame rarely blocks another sound. ``It's a 360-degree experience.'' http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/sited/story/html/264891Oregon: 6) At stake are rich forests given to the state by counties after the massive Tillamook Burn several decades ago. Though their history was defined by logging and regrowth, now the question more than ever is: Do these forests exist to generate revenue through logging or to provide refuge for people and wildlife -- or some blend of both? " This is coming to a head, " said Tillamook County Commissioner Tim Josi, who heads a coalition of counties that stand to get a share of precious logging revenue as more trees fall. " It's taken 70 years to get here. " The less-than-expected logging has frustrated the timber industry and counties awaiting a bigger cash return -- and more logging jobs --from trees reaching prime harvest age. " We've been waiting for these forests to come on line so we could catch up to the rest of the state, and now it's our turn. " Conservationists fear that stepped-up logging, while supplying cash to the state and counties, will erode islands of habitat crucial for the survival of spotted owls, marbled murrelets and other fish and wildlife in Northwest Oregon. The Oregon Board of Forestry is in charge. And it now faces whether to shift the plan toward more logging. It will address this at a meeting Friday. But several key factors make this -- and the governor's race -- an especially decisive time for the forests: Counties with state forest lands are armed with legal opinions, and say the primary purpose of the forests is to generate revenue. They hint at court action if the Board of Forestry does not agree. Four of the seven members of the Board of Forestry are serving in expired terms, and could be replaced by whoever is elected governor next week. A slate of new members could tilt the board -- and the way it steers state forests into the future. Ron Saxton, the Republican candidate for governor, says the state forests' primary role is to produce revenue. Timber companies are major contributors to his campaign funds. Gov. Ted Kulongoski, the Democratic candidate for governor, backs the existing plan and would not favor emphasizing logging over other values, said Mike Carrier, his natural resources advisor. " We're talking about the economic livability and viability of these rural communities for years to come, " he said. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1162355121150050.xml & coll=7 7) Logging today on the 658,000 acres of state forests in Northwest Oregon is more intensive than in national forests with tougher wildlife protections. But it's less concentrated than on industrial timberlands, where rapid cycles of cutting and replanting are the rule. For example, loggers leave more trees standing in state forest clear-cuts than state laws mandate, do less cutting on steep slopes and follow tighter limits along streams vital to salmon. But the Tillamook and Clatsop state forests fell into the middle of a tug of war as soon as it became clear that logging would not reach levels projected in 2001. State lawmakers pushed for more cutting, and foresters opted for more clear-cuts to turn out extra lumber. That pulled state forest staff away from duties such as building trails and maintaining campgrounds for the increasing crowds of Portlanders who use the forests as their playground. It meant that state forests reached some of their highest logging levels in decades, and counties took in more revenue than ever. But the governor finally put a stop to the stepped-up cutting, which will sink to lower levels next year. Bob Rees sees the value of state forests as far more than wood. He is a fishing guide and spends many of his days this time of year leading fishermen -- at $150 a seat -- in search of salmon on Tillamook Bay. The draw of the salmon -- and the money it pumps into local hotels, restaurants and other businesses -- is often overlooked in the debate about state forests, he says. " This fishery is an economic powerhouse, " he said, maneuvering his boat among about 50 other private and commercial boats pursuing salmon. Those salmon spawn in the waters fed by the state forests. But the waters now often are too warm for the fish, a problem Rees blames on cutting. Aggressive logging can remove shade from streams and take away the logs that might someday slide into rivers to provide refuge for fish, he says. " They're not giving the forest enough of a chance to grow the large wood, " he says. Fish species that spend the most time in local rivers are faring so poorly that fishermen cannot keep the wild fish they catch, which discourages them, he said. " The general rule is, if you can't keep it, people aren't interested in fishing for them, " he says. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1162355121150050.xml & coll=7 8) In the summer of 1979, Berry Phelps had a job many might envy. He toured all the roadless Bureau of Land Management lands in Eastern Oregon, camping, taking pictures and noting the natural and man-made features of the landscape. He looked for places where someone could find solitude and places with exceptional primitive recreation opportunities, like hiking or rafting or hunting. " I looked at the naturalness of the area, and I documented reservoirs, routes, fence lines - basically did an overall assessment of, to the average person, does this area look natural or not, " said Phelps, then a district wilderness specialist and now a recreation planner with the BLM. The dozen areas he identified that summer as having potential wilderness qualities would later become the wilderness study areas that are still in the district today. Others were added when the district's boundaries changed. These are areas that the BLM manages to preserve their natural and wilderness characteristics, with more rules than most public lands but less restrictions than wilderness areas. And wilderness study areas are stuck in this kind of limbo until Congress takes action to either designate the land parcels as wilderness, or return it for other uses. " Once it becomes a wilderness study area, only Congress can take that designation off, " Phelps said. There are more than 2.7 million acres of wilderness study areas in Oregon, including Central Oregon's Badlands east of Bend and Steelhead Falls to the west of Crooked River Ranch. The Prineville district of the BLM has about 217,000 acres of wilderness study areas, Phelps said. Although the BLM's recommendations were finalized more than a dozen years ago, Congress has only acted on a handful of areas, including the Steens Mountain Wilderness in southeastern Oregon. As the BLM manages the lands to retain the wilderness values found there when the inventory was done more than 25 years ago, other groups are pushing for Congress to make a decision on the future of the wilderness study areas. http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061031/NEWS0107/610310366/1001 & nav_catego ry=9) With blatant disregard for public opinion, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is scheduled to auction off hundreds of acres of old-growth in the largest forested roadless area on BLM land in nation. On November 16, 2006, the BLM plans to sell the Upper East Kelsey Timber Sale, which is part of the larger Kelsey-Whisky project. Upper East Kelsey proposes to log more than 500 acres within the Zane Grey Roadless Area, virtually all of it old-growth and critical habitat for the imperiled northern spotted owl. Salmon and steelhead that reside in important tributaries to the Rogue River (Meadow Creek, Whisky Creek, Kelsey Creek and Mule Creek) would be impacted. Ignoring the opinions of Congressional representatives, the Environmental Protection Agency, local businesses and citizens across the country, the BLM insists on pushing ahead with this deeply controversial timber sale, rather than spearhead broadly supported projects on public land. KS Wild has worked for years to raise the profile of this unique landscape in the lower Rogue River watershed. We are preparing litigation and will continue to advocate for the protection of this national asset in southwest Oregon. Stay tuned for updates and hikes in the spring of 2007. http://www.kswild.orgCalifornia:10) ARCATA – Friday, Mark Lovelace plunked down $2.47 – the final payment on the $2.7 million Sunny Brae Forest (SBF). The forest, now in escrow, will soon be transferred to City of Arcata ownership, ending a five-year effort to acquire and protect the woodland east of Sunny Brae. Meanwhile, a new Timber Harvest Plan (THP) for a parcel of land contiguous with the SBF is working its way to approval. The 111.5-acre parcel, owned by Robert and Carol Morris of Blocksburg (111 acres) and Tom and Nancy Handgraaf of Arcata (one half-acre), lies adjacent to Grotzman and Beith creeks. The tree inventory is described as mostly 60-year-old young redwood, with Sitka spruce, grand fir, Douglas fir, western hemlock and red alder. The site is habitat for Northern Spotted Owls, a threatened species. THP 01-06-164HUM, prepared by forester Craig Newman of Arcata, was filed with the California Department of Forestry (CDF) on Sept. 18 and returned with questions on Sept. 28. A revised plan was received Oct. 12 and a First Review conducted Sept. 19. Next will come a Pre-harvest Inspection and possible Second Review. The public comment period on the plan is still open. Ninety-four acres are open for logging using a variable retention and selection method. Under the California Forest Practices Act, this calls for "retention of structural elements or biological legacies (trees, snags, logs, etc.) from the pre-harvest stand for integration into the post-harvest stand to achieve various ecological, social and geomorphic objectives." Harvested timber would be used for sawlogs, chips and firewood. Mark Lovelace, president of the Sunny Brae/Arcata Neighborhood Alliance (SANA) which spearheaded the drive to acquire the SBF, said the timing of the harvest is "very, very interesting," coming just as the downslope forest has been paid in full. One of the project alternatives listed in the THP is "public purchase," but the THP deems that "not feasible because it is not consistent with the long-term management goals of the timber and land owners." The document describes public ownership as "very remote and speculative." http://www.arcataeye.com/index.php?module=Pagesetter & tid=2 & topic=3 & func=viewpub & pid=352 & format=full 11) Although Bonnicksen said he was unaware he didn't hold a position at UC Davis, Philip Rundel, an ecology and evolutionary biology professor at UCLA who co-authored the open letter to the media, said he is " 99 percent sure [bonnicksen] knew he didn't have an academic appointment at Davis. " " Nobody has any respect for Bonnicksen, " Rundel said in a phone interview from UCLA. " The approach Bonnicksen uses has no scientific basis. He just really shamelessly exploited his connection to Davis. " In the Oct. 17 letter, Rundel, along with Michael Allan, director of the Center for Conservation Biology and plant pathology and biology professor at UC Riverside; Norman Christensen, founding dean and ecology professor at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences and Jon Keeley, adjunct professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA, said Bonnicksen's academic record does not justify him being regarded as a forest science expert. " There is nothing in his academic record of research or experience to justify such a characterization, " the letter said. " By any major university standard of achievement, his academic record is weak, consisting largely of letters to the editor and op-ed articles.� The opinions he presents are contradicted by all prevailing scientific data. " Rundel, who said he has known Bonnicksen since they were graduate students at UC Berkeley, said Bonnicksen's research " dates back 30 years. " Bonnicksen said he does not know Rundel; the two have never met. " What in the world is wrong with Rundel? I don't even know this man, " he said. Bonnicksen, the author of the 608-page 2000 textbook America's Ancient Forests: From the Ice Age to the Age of Discovery, said the manner in which Rundel and the other authors of the letter approached the situation was unprofessional. The group sent their statement to newspapers across the state of California, a museum Bonnicksen was scheduled to speak at and his personal friends, he said. Ten of Bonnicksen's colleagues authored a second letter to the media Oct. 23, admonishing the first letter's authors. http://media.www.californiaaggie.com/media/storage/paper981/news/2006/10/30/CampusNews/Professors.Q uestion.Forestry.Experts.Credentials-2409280-page2.shtml?sourcedomain=www.californiaaggie.com & MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com12) McMorrow is in charge of putting flames to a productive use in patches of conservancy forest around the Tahoe Basin, and his main focus lately has been 146 acres of conservancy property in Carnelian Canyon. The conservancy burned eight acres last year, and is preparing to burn another 20 acres next year. Some members of the neighborhood have embraced the prescribed burns, realizing the thinned forest will provide an important forest-fire buffer and lead to a healthier environment. " We support their efforts 100 percent, " said Geoff Simcoe, chairman of the forestry committee of the neighboring Carnelian Woods Homeowners Association. Others have complained about the lack of communication before last year's burn and the charred saplings, scorched branches, and other remnants of the fire, said McMorrow. Those complaints led McMorrow to work had informing neighbors about the conservancy's plans and soliciting input from local homeowners. After 400 mailed notices about a Nov. 8 public forum on the conservancy's plans, McMorrow hopes the word is out. " They are doing an outreach that they possibly did not do a good enough job of in the past, " said Simcoe. " And that is a step in the right direction. " Fire is one of several tools that the state agency uses to tackle the enormous task of managing 4,700 diverse parcels of land around the Tahoe Basin. " It's a huge management responsibility, " said McMorrow. http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20061030/NEWS/110300060Idaho: 13) Stop Anti-Salmon Rider in upcoming 'lame-duck' session of Congress! Salmon recovery in America's mighty Columbia and Snake Rivers is the shared responsibility of our Northwest states and our nation. Reports from Washington, DC, however, indicate that Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) is preparing an anti-salmon legislative 'rider' to exempt Idaho from its obligations to restore salmon. Recent court decisions supporting real recovery have driven Sen. Craig to seek new ways to assail salmon recovery efforts and to protect special interests. Instead of working to craft real solutions for our salmon and fishing communities, like removing the four lower Snake River dams, Sen. Craig appears more interested in misusing the legislative process by attaching a last-minute anti-salmon 'rider' to undercut salmon recovery, the Endangered Species Act, and our nation's legal system. Please write your senators today! Urge them to protect Northwest salmon and the Endangered Species Act! http://ga0.org/campaign/antisalmonrider/explanation New Mexico: 14) When Bryan Bird drives up the winding road near this northern New Mexico village, he remembers the effigies he saw one stormy evening. The eerie figures swayed ominously from the forest's ponderosa pines. Made of someone's cast-off clothes, they represented environmentalists Sam Hitt and John Talberth — " and their wives, " Bird adds, " which wasn't very nice. " It was 1995, and Bird had just begun working with Hitt and Talberth at Forest Guardians, a hard-nosed environmental group based in Santa Fe. He was headed to a campsite to join activists protesting the proposed La Manga timber sale on the Carson National Forest. Vallecitos is little more than an hour's drive north of Santa Fe, but culturally it's a long way from the state's cosmopolitan capital. In the mid-'90s, times were hard. Logging had slowed dramatically since the 1940s and '50s, when there were 72 lumber mills in New Mexico's upper Rio Grande Basin. A large timber mill was in the middle of a drawn-out shutdown. Then, in August 1995, a federal judge halted all logging on national forest land in New Mexico and Arizona, in response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the threatened Mexican spotted owl. Rural residents throughout the state were outraged, but nowhere more than in traditional Spanish-speaking villages like Vallecitos. The Southwest's logging industry was dying for many reasons, including past overcutting, increased global competition, and mills that failed to retool to handle smaller trees. But people needed a scapegoat, and the uncompromising rhetoric of Hitt and his cohorts made it easy to point accusatory fingers at environmental groups full of urban Anglo newcomers. One day, a pipe bomb appeared in the Forest Guardians mailbox. " When the rhetoric gets heated, " Bird says, " the extremists on all sides come out. " Bird and his compatriots lost their battle against the sale, but they may have won the war. For economic reasons, the La Manga area was never logged, although sawyers cut down a few big yellow pines " just to spite us, " Bird says. But there are no effigies swinging in New Mexico's forests today. " Everybody has taken a deep breath and stood down, " Bird says. " Things have calmed down quite a bit since then. " http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=1665415)An innovative federal program known as the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program (CFRP) has made at least part-time allies of former foes in New Mexico's environmental wars. Peace has broken out where violence once threatened, and, in small communities like Vallecitos, a few loggers are once again working in the woods. The new program has hatched a new forest industry in the state, but no one is sure whether it will grow into a truly sustainable logging economy. Like most of the trees in the Southwest's tangled and fire-ripe forests, the program is young and green. So far, it has yielded more good vibes than treated acres. Still, in a land where historic animosities often simmer just below the surface, good vibes are worth a considerable amount. The logger Bird is here to meet is Alfonso Chacon. He runs cattle on the forest, thins trees for the Forest Service, and for a little extra cash, sells firewood and latillas — the slender posts used in Southwestern architecture and fencing. " I make 100 percent of my living out of the woods, " he says. It's a life that, if not quite hardscrabble, is certainly hard work. It is also traditional. Chacon's family has lived in the Ojo Caliente area for generations. Much of today's Carson National Forest was once part of large land grants managed in common by Hispano communities. Some locals still deeply resent the federal government's acquisition of these lands. Chacon has been thinning small conifers here from 260 acres, where pines, firs and aspens intermingle with grassy meadows. The project is designed to reduce wildfire danger and promote the growth of the remaining trees, along with grasses and other understory plants. Chacon likes to boast that he's never cut a big tree, and his handiwork today bears no resemblance to the old days of industrial-scale logging, when Southwestern logging sites were rife with big stumps and churned-up soil. The stand is open and sunny, rich with mid-sized ponderosa pines, white-barked aspens, and — thanks to this summer's plentiful monsoon rains — verdant grasses. " This is the best the forest has ever looked, " he says. Indeed, it's hard to believe it's been logged, until Chacon points out the many small stumps, about the diameter of cups and saucers. His crew cut those trees with chain saws, lopped the branches off, and carried the wood out of the forest by hand. Chacon sold some of them as latillas and others as firewood. But that wasn't nearly enough to pay for the necessary equipment, gasoline and labor. That's where the CFRP grant comes in. It provides Chacon $120,000 a year — minus taxes — to do the work. http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=1665416) SANTA FE - The Valles Caldera National Preserve will never be self-sufficient, as called for in the law that created it, because of " the federal overhead, " the former head of the Valles Caldera Trust says. Congress bought the 89,000-acre former Baca Ranch west of Los Alamos for $101 million in 2000. The northern New Mexico preserve includes mountain vistas, miles of trout waters and forest trails, elk herds and a vast ancient collapsed volcano known as the Valles Grande. A unique management arrangement calls for the preserve to remain a working ranch and to be self-supporting by 2015. But Bill deBuys, the trust's first chairman, said federally imposed costs should be paid for by the federal government. Such things as higher standards for employee insurance, federal requirements to do environmental analyses and obligations to work with and educate the public are expenses no working ranch could afford, he said. " We should cost that out, and that's what Congress should pay for every year, " deBuys said. A report by the U.S. General Accounting Office last November said the preserve lacks a plan to ensure steady revenue and annual financial audits, and that a management plan published by the trust in 2005 did little to provide concrete, measurable goals. A grazing program on the property in 2004 turned out to be a money loser. Critics also have said the preserve's progress has been hamstrung by the lack of a business plan, poor financial record-keeping and turnover among top administrators. DeBuys, in an essay in his book, " Valles Caldera: A Vision for New Mexico's National Preserve, " said he has some concerns about requirements on the preserve. A report said economic gains on the preserve " should not be won at the cost of 'unreasonable' diminishment of scenic and natural values, but just what would 'reasonable' diminishment be and how might future boards interpret so vague an idea? " he wrote. http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/51173.htmlMinnesota:17) Most experts agree Minnesota loggers could cut more and still sustain viable forests. But for various reasons, Minnesota's forests have not been providing the state's paper and wood products plants as much wood as they need. Until the recent slump in home construction, that mismatch between timber available and timber consumed had pushed up the price of what is cut in Minnesota. Way up. Wayne Brandt is Executive Vice-President of the Minnesota Timber Producers and Minnesota Forest Industries. He says it's the classic problem of supply versus demand. " For a number of years there has not been as much wood on the market in Minnesota, particularly from public sources, as there is demand for the wood, " Brandt says. About half the state's forest lands are publicly owned. Generally, just less than half the annual wood harvest comes from state, county and federally owned forests combined. Timber producers think public lands should be providing more. Brandt says the state's two Federal Forests, the Chippewa and Superior National Forests, have been hamstrung by cuts in funding and people available to put up logging sales. It's a time consuming and costly process. Brandt says stringent federal environmental rules make it even costlier. The harvest from the two national forests has been on a downward slide for years. Some of the slack has been taken up by a significant increase over the past decade in harvesting from state forests, but it hasn't been enough to fill the gap. Sales from county and private woodlands have held fairly steady - although in the long term private sales had been on a slow decline. Mike Kilgore is an Associate Professor with the University of Minnesota's Department of Forest Resources. Kilgore says people who own their own chunk of the state's forests often don't have logging in mind. " And studies after study have demonstrated that the reason people own forest land is not for timber production, " Kilgore says. " It's for wildlife. It's for hunting purposes. " Kilgore says the privately held woods could often be improved by logging, but that's a hard message to get to 150,000 different landowners. And now the situation is even more complicated, because the prices have collapsed. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/10/27/timbercosts/ Mississippi:18) A Corvallis timber consultant is helping the U.S. Forest Service with a special kind of hurricane recovery on the Gulf Coast. Along with devastating the communities, Hurricane Katrina downed much of the timber in the region. It includes an estimated 3.2 billion board feet of pine in Mississippi alone. Catherine Mater, a Corvallis timber industry consultant, is trying to find creative ways to market the lumber from the Gulf Coast. The tracts of timber, enough to build 300,000 homes, might seem like a boon for the forest products industry. But many of the trees used have been infected by a fast-spreading fungus called blue stain that leaves the logs sound but sends ribbons of blue through the normally clear white grain of the wood. " I think it has a very elegant look, " Mater said. " It's a matter of taste. " Mater is trying to find a way to convince potential buyers that it's a good thing too. Because it's a new kind of wood, some lumber manufacturers won't know how to grade blue-stain pine and might simply reject it as unsaleable. But Mater Engineering has made a specialty out of finding new markets for wood products that were once discarded as waste. Mater's company did some market studies in Canada a few years back, after the same fungus attacked pine forests there. Those studies led to the formation of a trade group to promote the blue-stained wood called the Denim Pine Association, which has enjoyed some niche success, particularly in the log home industry. But she is pursuing a slightly different strategy for hurricane pine: approaching companies that have a personal stake in speeding the Gulf Coast's recovery from the Katrina disaster. " It's not just blue stain - it's blue stain with quite a story behind it, " Mater said. " I believe we can sell that to them and in doing so, frankly, give them higher visibility in terms of providing financing for the cleanup. " " Mississippi probably got hit the hardest of any of the states down there, " said Gee, whose team was already working with Mater on a project to inventory potential logging, thinning and pruning projects in the southern part of the state. http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-17/1162225460207930.xml & storylist= orlocalNorth Carolina:19) A U.S. study suggests forest roads used for such activities as logging or mineral removal can negatively affect wildlife for long periods of time. " The problem we revealed points to a potential failure of forest managers and policy makers to realize the effect of roads reaches well beyond their boundaries and that abandonment or the decommissioning of roads does not mean detrimental ecological effects disappear, " said University of Missouri-Columbia biology Professor Ray Semlitsch, who led the research. The study monitored salamander populations in the southern Appalachian Mountain region in North Carolina. Investigators found salamander populations were affected for approximately 115 feet on both sides of both current and abandoned, relatively narrow, low-use roads. " Extraction of timber 80 years ago has created a significant ecological 'footprint' ... that supersedes regeneration of the forest itself, " said Semlitsch. " Assuming current timber management practices harvest trees at intervals of 80 to 100 years, footprints of logging roads from past harvests will not be gone before a new footprint is laid down, and effects will accumulate over time, eventually fragmenting forests into ever-smaller patches of suitable habitat. " The research has been accepted for publication in the journal Conservation Biology. http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20061031-121717-9684rCanada: 20) It was fall 2004, and Ramsay, Ontario's minister of natural resources, was flying in a small plane over an area of northern Ontario. Curious about the smoke, he asked his pilot to fly in for a closer look. What he saw was indeed fire, though nothing like the wildfires currently ravaging southern California. " It was a normal operation in which the forest industry, in cooperation with the ministry, burns the tops of trees, " recalls Larry Skinkle, biomass co-ordinator for the forests section of the ministry. " It was roadside slash being disposed of. " Slash is the unwanted branches, stumps, tops and leaves of trees that are removed during logging. The standard industry practice is to burn slash at the side of logging roads. It's estimated that about 15 per cent of wood resulting from logging activities is biomass from forest slash, though in Ontario the issue is still being studied. Ramsay asked his staff to hunt around for technologies that could put slash to better use. A government team visited Sweden, Finland and Germany and came to realize there was potential to convert biomass into usable energy, and at the same time create new revenue for the struggling forest sector. Last summer, the ministry decided to invest $771,000 to construct a prototype biorefinery that's capable of converting slash into a carbon-neutral " bio oil. " http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1 & c=Article & cid =1162162209833 & call_pageid=968350072197 & col=96904886385121) There are still a lot of old trees in Canada's boreal forests, with a quarter of them more than 200 years old. But they won't be there much longer under current forestry management practices. And the forests, their wildlife denizens, and all Canadians will suffer as a result. That was the stark message delivered last week in Ottawa by University of Quebec boreal forest researcher Yves Bergeron to MPs, federal science administrators, and representatives from national science bodies. Holder of a Canada Research Chair in sustainable forest management, Bergeron was addressing these key decision-makers in one of the regular " Bacon and Eggheads " breakfasts held on Parliament Hill. He used the opportunity to argue that our vast boreal forests would best prosper under management that closely mimics natural forest dynamics. That's actually a claim made for the current approach of clear-cutting — felling every tree except for cosmetic fringes around lakes or along roads. It's touted by the forestry industry as being just like a natural forest fire. But extensive study by Bergeron shows that claim is a myth. Clear-cutting is more damaging than fire in two ways: It removes every tree from an area, whereas fire leaves large patches untouched, promoting biodiversity. It doesn't burn the organic matter on the forest floor, which would actually be beneficial since it frees potassium and other nutrients used for plant growth.Management by clear-cutting would eventually produce boreal forests with trees averaging 50 years in age and none older than 100 years. Contrast that to today's natural boreal forests with trees averaging 140 years in age. Still, clear-cutting has some advantages, Bergeron told the science movers and shakers. " It makes it easier to hunt moose and hares. " http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1 & c=Article & cid= 1162034471454 & call_pageid=970599119419Africa:22) The First International Conference of Parliamentarians on the Sustainable Management of Central African Forest Ecosystems convened from Tuesday, 24 October, to Friday 26 October, in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Attended by more than 400 parliamentarians and issue experts from inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the conference focused on good forest governance and poverty alleviation, with the objective of further defining the role of the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC) and subregional parliaments regarding sustainable forest management (SFM). Throughout the week, delegates convened in plenary sessions to hear country case studies from the Central Africa region and explore the conference's three sub-themes: Harmonization of Forest Policy and Laws, and Sustainable Management of Transboundary Areas; Working Out Strategies for Monitoring and Evaluating the Implementation of Subregional Biodiversity Policy; and Financing Mechanisms and the Fight Against Poverty. Delegates also met in smaller working groups and parallel sessions to discuss: forest taxation; partnerships; national legislation, subregional initiatives and international agreements; forest governance; forest certification; women's participation in natural resource management; and innovative tools for forest management. On Thursday morning, participants took part in field trips to an agroforestry research station and a forestry school in Mbalmayo, Cameroon. On Friday morning, parliamentarians met in a closed session, and in the afternoon, plenary reconvened to adopt the Yaoundé Declaration, postpone the revision of the draft action plan, and attend the closing ceremonies. The Declaration, inter alia; encourages the Network of Parliamentarians for the Sustainable Management of Central African Forest Ecosystems (REPAR) and the Parliament of Cameroon to organize subregional meetings on good governance of forest resources, and to present the results at the next Parliamentarian Conference, to be held in Equatorial Guinea in 2008. The draft action plan contains three priority actions: institutional development of REPAR; enhancing REPAR involvement in forest sector monitoring; and combating transboundary forest crime. Both national and subregional level activities are proposed to contribute to each of these actions. http://www.iisd.ca/ymb/psmcafe1/html/ymbvol129num4e.htmlMorocco:23) Desertification is now threatening all of the country. The Ministry of the Environment has said that almost 93% of Morocco is affected by aridity. Date palms are the most ravaged by desertification. At the end of the 19th century Morocco had an estimated 15-million date palms, according to a study by geographer Ahmed Harrak. That number has now slipped to 4,5-million. In losing date palms the local population " loses the main source of income, and is consequently forced to abandon the land and leave " , says M Achlif, a member of the independent Moroccan Association for Development and Solidarity. Many Moroccans believe they can do little because the main causes of advancing desertification appear to be natural. " North Africa is mostly an arid or semi-arid region, " geographer Bouazza Zahir says. " For every 1 000 square kilometres, Morocco has 700 square kilometres of arid land. " Land could now be lapsing into arid conditions more rapidly as sources of water are getting reduced, Zahir said. Nature cannot, however, be blamed entirely. " Exaggerated pastoral activity and the misuse of land are significant factors, " Zahir says. And population demands on the disappearing green areas are increasing. " The average annual population increase in the arid regions is 3,5%, " Zahir said. " Therefore land is overused because the population seeks maximum benefits for itself in the minimum time possible. " A national plan against desertification was launched in 2001. The plan aims to strengthen the political, legislative and institutional framework of the government and other bodies to come together to contain desertification. It seeks to limit the government's role and involve more agencies. Under the plan the government agreed " to anticipate new autonomic and decentralised forms of organisation " . Projects to fight desertification " should be fulfilled within a contractual framework that would define obligations of all intervention " . The conceptual agreements are making little difference on the ground at most places. http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=288307 & area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/ Ghana:24) Members of the Ghana Timber Association (GTA) have appealed to saw millers for prompt payment of logs supplied to enable them discharge their financial obligations to the Forestry Commission and other stakeholders. They contended that long delays or failure by saw millers to pay for logs supplied had resulted in their inability to pay royalties to the Commission, compensation for farm produce destroyed, salaries of their workers and repayment of bank loans. Mr Alexander Dadzie, National First Vice President of the association who was briefing the Ghana News Agency at Takoradi on the outcome of their recent meeting in Kumasi, said court action had been instituted against some of them by their creditors. New national and regional executive officers were elected at the meeting. Mr Dadzie said most of their operations were collapsing because of the failure of saw millers to pay promptly for logs supplied and their working capital locked up. He therefore, advised saw millers who owed loggers to arrange for payment without delay to save them from a " Very difficult situation. " Mr Dadzie however, advised loggers to endeavour to settle debts owed to the Commission to ensure that their operations were not interrupted. He said the association would soon set up a task force to monitor payment of logs supplied to saw millers, check illegal logging and chain saw operations. http://www.myjoyonline.com/businessarticle.asp?p=4 & a=30649Peru:25) The Achuar nation today celebrated a historic indigenous triumph over the oil industry after blockading Peru's largest oil facility in protest over the devastating toxic contamination of their Amazon rainforest homelands. More than 800 determined Achuar elders, women and children joined the peaceful blockade, which lasted nearly two weeks, shutting down power to most of the region's oil production facilities and blocking airport, river and road access to the region. The protest came after two years of failed talks with Peruvian government officials over the daily discharge of more than one million barrels of "formation waters," an untreated toxic by-product of the oil drilling process, directly into the rainforest. The dumping has been going on for three decades and the Achuar have unsafe and illegal levels of a range of toxins in their bodies, including lead and cadmium, as a result. It has also poisoned local waterways to the point where the fish and game populations on which the Achuar depend for survival are no longer fit for human consumption. Initially, the Peruvian government sent in more than 200 members of the national police with orders to disperse the peaceful demonstrators and restore oil production. However, the Achuar convinced the police to refrain from using force and to respect their picket. After a weekend of intense negotiations, both the government and the oil company currently running the concession, Argentina-based Pluspetrol, gave in to nearly all the Achuar demands. "We have achieved 98% of our demands, and won recognition of our rights" said Andres Sandi, President of FECONACO, the representative organization of the Achuar people of the Corrientes River. "This victory is the result of the strength of our people who came together and pressured hard and would not abandon our demands." For background on the Achuar's struggle to protect their lands and communities, visit www.amazonwatch.org. http://lowbagger.org/achuartriumph.htmlPhilippines 26) The unmasking of log smugglers and some local officials linked to illegal logging came about after the Aliwagwag Bailey Bridge accident in Cateel town where several people were killed. The Aliwagwag incident also led to the discovery of illegal logging operations in the province, said a Church leader who requested anonymity. The owners of the vehicles used in the allegedly illegal logging activities in Cateel are also in hot water. The identities of the local officials and the log smugglers were temporarily withheld pending results of the investigation on the extent of their illegal activities. An all-out campaign launched against illegal logging by a multi-sectoral group in the province is determined to pin down the people behind the illegal operations. Of four illegal logging cases, three reportedly involved some elected officials in the municipality and nearby towns. The owners of the seized vehicles turned out to be some barangay captains and even some council members in nearby municipalities, it was learned. Fr. Darwey Clark, parish priest in Cateel town, is leading in the religious group in the fight against illegal logging in the province. http://www.mb.com.ph/PROV2006110178593.htmlMalaysia:27) Malaysia has assured Britain's Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott that it is not exporting furniture made from illegally logged timber to Europe, news reports said Monday. Prescott, who arrived Friday for a four-day official visit, had raised European lobbyists' concerns that Malaysian furniture imported by Europe was made from wood obtained by illegal logging in neighboring Indonesia, The Star newspaper said. Malaysia's Natural Resources and Environment Minister Azmi Khalid noted that manufacturers must show a certification of the timber's origin and state the type of wood used, the report said. " I told him we have a very strict system and that the furniture requires a logo that guarantees the wood is not sourced from illegal logging, " Azmi was quoted as saying. Europe is a big market for exported Malaysian furniture. The newspaper said Prescott, who visited the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia on Sunday, also raised claims by lobbyists that Malaysia's oil palm industry was endangering wildlife. Azmi denied the allegations, saying they were made by lobby groups promoting soya oil and soya products that compete directly with palm oil, it said. Apart from its own forest reserves, Malaysia has agreed with Indonesia and Brunei to designate a two-million-hectare area — almost the size of England — as a wildlife reserve on Borneo island, Azmi said in the report. Malaysia and Indonesia have territory on Borneo, which is also home to the sultanate of Brunei. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/30/asia/AS_GEN_Malaysia_Britain_Timber.php28) He said it was against the law for anyone to encroach into forest reserves and build structures as well as fell trees without permission from the State Forestry Department. Speaking after opening the Sabah Meat Technology centre, in Kinarut, near here, he said: " Under the Forest Enactment, people are not allowed to encroach into the forest reserve including erecting structures. Even to enter the reserves is prohibited, what more if they fell trees. " The State Forestry Department will follow all existing procedures before taking necessary action against those who do so. " He was commenting on a statement by Sabah Forestry Director Datuk Sam Mannan on Saturday that the destruction of 28 " huts " in the Paitan Forest Reserve was justified as it complied with Section 21 of the Forest Enactment Act. The owners of more than 20 houses in the Reserve claimed that an enforcement team from the Department torched their houses on Oct. 3, after they refused to vacate the land they were occupying. Based on Sam's explanation, Musa stressed that the " huts " burnt down were not real homes with long-term occupants but just 'sulaps' (huts) for the occupiers to use on a temporary basis. He added that the occupiers/owners of these " huts " were not indigenous people of Paitan area but local outsiders and illegal settlers. " The burning of the 'huts' was in accordance with the existing law as the department had repeatedly issued eviction notices to them but refused to comply. " We also feared they will be cutting down trees within the forest reserve as well. In fact, I think there is nothing wrong in destroying the illegal structures as the 'huts' were not residential homes but just structures for them to use temporarily when they entered the area, " he said. According to Musa, the State Government would always be considerate in alienating state lands to accommodate deserving locals but not forest reserves, as they are prohibited areas. http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=45267Indonesia:29) PEKANBARU, Indonesia -- Starving wild elephants trampled a farmer to death and destroyed several houses in a rampage in a village on Indonesia's Sumatra island, witnesses said Tuesday. The people of Lubuk Embut, a village on Riau province 600 miles northwest of the capital, Jakarta, have been terrorized by a herd of around 20 elephants in search of food, said Jayok, a village chief who goes by a single name. Sumatra's elephant habitats are quickly shrinking due to illegal logging and land clearing. About 2,500 are believed to live in the wild on the island, Indonesia's largest. " We cannot sleep at night and are scared in the day by the sound of trumpeting elephants, " Jayok said. The head of the Riau province's nature reserve, Nafsir Siregar, said scores of wild elephants have also vandalized the nearby villages of Siak and Balairaja, about 90 miles northwest of the regional capital, Pekanbaru. Siregar said there were insufficient funds to relocate the endangered Sumatran elephants to a protected area where they won't pose a threat to people. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1104AP_Indonesia_Elephant_Rampage.htmlNew Zealand:30) Taxpayers are buying back part of the Kaingaroa Forest in a $300 million deal, a decade after Jim Bolger's National government sold the whole thing for $2 billion. The New Zealand Superannuation Fund, known as the " Cullen Fund " , is buying a share in the giant Kaingaroa Forest estate in the central North Island, from United States Ivy League university Harvard. While the super fund is not saying how much of the forest it will get for $300 million, the government sold for a high price in 1996 just before a collapse in world timber prices during the Asian financial crisis. Harvard's endowment fund bought the forestry cutting rights to about 170,000 hectares of trees for about $1 billion three years ago. Harvard will keep a majority share of the forest. NZ Super Fund chief investment officer Paul Dyer would not confirm the percentage holding the fund will get in the forest, nor say if the deal included any rights to buy more. Kaingaroa rated as a " world-class forest asset " , with high growth rates, flat land, good roads and near many timber mills, so it was cheap to get timber out, Mr Dyer said. " It is about as good as it gets as a timber estate, which is why Harvard bought it. " The forest was profitable, but only producing about a third of its " steady state " potential for harvest. Harvard bought the forest from the failed Central North Island Forest Partnership, which went into receivership in 2001 with debts of almost $1.5 billion. The partnership – including Fletcher Forests and the Chinese Government-owned company Citic – bought the forests from the government in 1996 in what was seen as the forestry deal of the century. That went wrong because of the collapse of timber prices in the 1997 Asian crisis and a rise in debt because of the big fall in the Kiwi dollar when the partnership had borrowed heavily in US dollars. Harvard and the super fund own the rights to the trees, but the land is subject to Waitangi Treaty claims by many Maori groups. http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3846129a13,00.htmlAustralia:31) Western Australia's Forest Products Commission is set to start its logging operation in the Arcadia Forest near Collie in the south-east today. The commission is going to log parts of the forest, but environmentalists say that will destroy the area and its wildlife. About 20 protesters are camped in the area and have vowed to stay, despite being warned by police they will be issued with move-on notices and risk arrest if they do not leave. The commission's Kevin Haylock says he will meet police and protesters in the forest to see if the situation is safe enough for contractors to start work in. " It'll be a fairly small-scale operation to start with, it will probably be one person using [a] chainsaw commencing tree felling and then in a couple of days of that we'll start to introduce machinery, " he said. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200610/s1776663.htm32) Friends of the Earth say an environmental assessment of Murray River red gum forests has reached a critical stage. It says the public has just over a month to comment on a discussion paper by the Victorian Environment Assessment Council, which shows up to 75 per cent of Murray river red gums downstream of Swan Hill are stressed, dead or dying. A Friends' spokesman, Jonathan La Nauze, says the situation could be just as bad in and around the Barmah forest, but studies are concentrating on sustainable red gum logging. He says a public meeting tonight in Bendigo will hear from a panel of speakers. " Speakers from Indigenous communities, the environmental community and also river red gum scientists to bring to regional communities some key viewpoints on the values of red gum forests because currently the Victorian community have a once in a probably 20 or 30 year opportunity to address some of the key threats to our red gum forests, " he said. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200610/s1776790.htmWorld-wide: 33) Deserts could expand to cover almost a third of the world's surface by the end of the century under climate change, a study of future global drought conditions has found. The developing world will be hardest hit by man-made drought The Met Office study, the first of its kind, predicted an increase in the area affected by the most extreme drought from 3 to 30%, areas of severe drought up from 8 to 40% of total land area, and up to half of the earth's surface affected by moderate drought at any one time. Scientists from the Met Office used the IPCC's medium high emission scenario to drive a climate model, simulating the complex processes of regional rainfall, evaporation and run-off. They classed the results using the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), a common method on which the US and other countries base their drought alerts, with extreme drought defined as the top 1% of the PDSI scale and severe drought as the top 10%. Looking back on the increasing degree of desertification across the world over the last 50 years, scientists found strong evidence to suggest this was caused by man-made global warming. A control run of the model simulating the evolution of a climate free of human emissions showed almost no change to drought conditions. Dr Eleanor Burke, who carried out the research together with colleagues from the Met Office's Hadley Centre, said: " These results are very sobering but it must be pointed out that further research is required to substantiate what is the first look at this issue. http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=1218434) Several well-respected analysts have raised serious concerns about this rapid diversion of food crops toward the production of fuel for automobiles. WorldWatch Institute founder Lester Brown, long concerned about the sustainability of world food supplies, says that fuel producers are already competing with food processors in the world's grain markets. "Cars, not people, will claim most of the increase in grain production this year," reports Brown, a serious concern in a world where the grain required to make enough ethanol to fill an SUV tank is enough to feed a person for a whole year. Others have dismissed the ethanol gold rush as nothing more than the subsidized burning of food to run automobiles. The biofuel rush is having a significant impact worldwide as well. Brazil, often touted as the the most impressive biofuel success story, is using half its annual sugarcane crop to provide 40 percent of its auto fuel, while increasing deforestation to grow more sugarcane and soybeans. Malaysian and Indonesian rainforests are being bulldozed for oil palm plantations—threatening endangered orangutans, rhinos, tigers and countless other species—in order to serve at the booming European market for biodiesel. Are these reasonable tradeoffs for a troubled planet, or merely another corporate push for profits? Two new studies, both released this past summer, aim to document the full consequences of the new biofuel economy and realistically assess its impact on fuel use, greenhouse gases and agricultural lands. One study, originating from the University of Minnesota, is moderately hopeful in the first two areas, but offers a strong caution about land use. The other, from Cornell University and UC Berkeley, concludes that every domestic biofuel source – the ones currently in use as well as those under development – produces less energy than is consumed in growing and processing the crops. http://www.counterpunch.org/tokar11012006.html35) The research team explains, " In a warming world where extreme [land surface temperatures] are predicted to occur more frequently ... high-resolution satellite data provide the means of keeping track of where things are heating up. " This will help water-resource and land- management planning. The maps also illuminate the influence of land use on regional climate. The study finds, for example, that maximum temperatures in forested areas tend to be some 86 degrees F. (30 degrees C) cooler than neighboring unforested regions. Areas as disparate as the Congo's rain forest and a northeast Oregon tree farm show this effect. The satellites measure the temperature of whatever surface they see - bare ground, vegetation, or treetops. Bare ground acts like a hot plate. In a forest, trees use some of the solar heat to release water vapor, so there's less direct heating of the air from the ground. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1102/p16s01-sten.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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