167 - Earth's Tree News

[Guest guest]

Today for you 39 news items about Mama Earth's trees. Location, number and subject listed below. Condensed / abbreviated article is listed further below.Can be viewed on the web at http://www.livejournal.com/users/olyecology or by sending a blank email message to earthtreenews-

--British Columbia: 1) Carbon Market Fantasies, 2) 350-acre forest at Royal Roads,

 

--Oregon: 3) Boney Skull timber sale, 4) Enviro wants a house on forest he saved,--California: 5) Salamander protections, 6) PL Bankruptcy, 7) Yosemite exhibit,--Arizona: 8) Exploiting the Warm Run fire--Wyoming: 9) Chief Kimbell's corrupt stand at Bighorn--Indiana: 10) Bearcat Hollow, 11) Save Harrison-Crawford State Forest, --Pennsylvania: 12) History of Allegheny Forest, 13) logging 23,000 acres,--New Hampshire: 14) Loggers back to work after one month shut down,--South Carolina: 15) Newly created 25,668-acre nature preserve--USA: 16) Urban areas are not forests, but…--Russia: 17) Approved large-scale natural resource extraction--Africa: 18) Large herbivorous mammal research--Uganda: 19) Rainforest destruction crisis, 20) Green Mortgages ruin tribes,--Mozambique: 21) Licenses to log rose by over 50 percent in 2006--Mexico: 22) Friends of Calakmul (FOC) conservation organization--Guyana: 23) More FSC failures, 24) Foreign direct investment (FDI) abuse, --Brazil: 25) Big pipeline plans take shape--India: 26) Goa resistance to tree cutting--Borneo: 27) Playground for wealth 28) 2 million hectares per year, 29) Heart of Borneo,--Malaysia: 28) European Commission (EC) have started formal talks--Indonesia: 29) Coffee growers illegally clearing, 30) Oil palm plans, 31) Corruption,--New Zealand: 32) Tree geek keeps planting,--Australia: 33) Save Helms Forest, 34) Pan European Forest Council caves in, 35) Land cleared at 50 per cent greater rate, 36) Government concedes Tasmanian logging illegal, --World-wide: 37) How good are forests at soaking up carbon? 38) satellite imagery to monitor deforestation, 39) GE TreesBritish Columbia:1) As that system grows and becomes more lucrative, it could undermine the entire forest industry in B.C., said University of British Columbia forestry professor David Cohen. He compared the carbonmarket today to the Internet in 1992, before the first Web browser had been developed. " Fifteen years ago, if you said, 'I'm thinking of this inter-connected Internet where everybody can talk to each other over the computer,' people would have called you crazy. ?But look at the impact it's had, " Mr. Cohen said. " In 2020, if we're going to manage our forest lands in B.C. for the maximum return to the province it's going to be for environmental services. Wood will be an offshoot. " John Allan, president of the Council of Forest Industries, disagrees. Forestry currently accounts for $3.3-billion in annual revenues to the provincial government, a sum that will be hard to replace with carbon credits, he said. Besides, he added, forestry and carbon credits can co-exist. " We leave 99%-plus of the trees standing every year, so I guess what I'm saying is we can have our cake and eat it too, " he said. Old Massett has spent $262,000 over four years in staff and feasibility study costs to develop the plan, which they hope to pilot on a 1,000-hectare plot within the next few months. Clearing alder from that area will cost about $4.5-million, but computer modelling has shown that each hectare will produce about 2,000 carbon credits 35 years out -- the date on which selling certificates will be based. Each credit is equivalent to one tonne of sequestered carbon, and over the past year credits have traded at anywhere from $40 to under $10. At the current $10.50 market, credits from the pilot project could be worth $21-million. Mr. Disney said one of his partners was called to an audience with Pope Benedict XVI to discuss the project, and numerous companies have expressed interest in buying the credits. Still, the project faces one key obstacle: the only way to guarantee that new trees will continue sequestering carbon far into the future is to run the program in areas where logging is banned. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=80ba38c1-40ad-4c2d-8f8f-baabf208f

9d9 & p=22) The 350-acre forest at Royal Roads was logged during early colonial times and bares scars of a fire before that, but for the past 150 years it has remained in pristine condition. That is until hurricane-force winds pummeled southern Vancouver Island mid-December. Colwood's old-growth Hatley Forest lost at least 100 Douglas fir trees, some more than 200 years old. It is the worst natural disaster in the forest's modern history and only the second time it has been closed since Royal Roads University opened it to the public 10 years ago. "We have a hundred or more trees down. It is significant. It is the most damage I've seen occur in this forest," said Dave Rutherford, manager of grounds and gardens, who has worked on the property since 1970. "Some are nice 200 or 300 year-old trees." Like elsewhere on the south Island, heavy rains in November saturated the soil, weakening the root system and leaving trees with wide canopies to the mercy of winds that topped 150 kilometres per hour. It certainly could have been worse. Rutherford said a combination of dense, deep-rooted old growth firs and younger trees kept the majority of the forest intact. The gardens lost a couple of ornamental maple trees, but were otherwise unscathed. A bigger problem could be the heaps of branches and debris spread across the forest floor, which could prove to be a fire hazard in the summer. "Our forest has a few trees that are weak, but nothing critical," Rutherford said. "Over the long term the concern is about the forest debris." The forest and its 15 kilometres of trails were reopened to the public Friday after an arborist inspected the area. The university closed the forest in December after a falling tree injured a jogger in Vancouver's Stanley Park. Oregon: 3) While many federal land management agencies work with the public to develop responsible thinning projects to address forest fuels, the timber planners at the Glendale Resource Area of the Medford BLM are notorious for continuing to log old-growth regardless of the environmental and social costs. Unfortunately, the environmental and social costs of the Boney Skull old-growth timber sale will be huge. The Boney Skull timber sale calls for logging 1,654 acres of native forest in the severely abused Middle Fork Cow Creek Watershed. 858 acres of this logging would be accomplished through " regeneration " (clearcutting) whereby ancient forests are cut down and replaced by even-age fiber plantations for the benefit of the timber industry. Even the remaining " thinning units " could reduce forest canopy down to a paltry 30%. 4.8 miles of new logging roads would be punched into the forest to facilitate the proposed old-growth logging. The Middle Fork Cow Creek Watershed is home to at-risk northern spotted owls and coho salmon. Rather than help recover species under threat of extinction, the BLM plans to log old-growth in U.S. Fish and Wildlife-designated " critical habitat " for the northern spotted owl. Please take a moment to write a letter to the Glendale Resource Area opposing the Boney Skull old-growth timber sale. Your letter will be most effective if you also send a copy of it to Representative Peter DeFazio. Click on the link below for more information, talking points and addresses. http://www.kswild.org/KSNews/ActionAlerts/boneyskulls4) A prominent Lane County environmentalist wants to build a house on forest land southwest of Eugene that the county has long designated for heavy-duty timber production, a driver of the local economy. And he's run into a storm of criticism from fellow environmentalists and some neighbors. Tom Lininger, a Lane County commissioner-elect in 2002 and board member with Oregon Wild - formerly the Oregon Natural Resources Council - said his environmentally friendly plan is right for the land and for the neighbors. Springfield-based Rosboro Timber Co. owned the land and was clear-cutting it in 2004 when neighbors objected to aerial spraying of herbicides, Lininger said. Rosboro opted against herbicides and, after the harvest, sold the property to Lininger, he said. Lininger paid $488,000 in 2005 to buy 242 acres, according to the purchase deed. Then, he formally divided the land into three 80-acre parcels corresponding to their existing zoning. Lininger's critics and supporters filled a hearing on the issue Thursday before a Lane County hearings official. The land in the east and west parcels has long been zoned for heavy timber production, or F-1. The land in the remaining parcel, to the south, has long been zoned F-2, and Lininger could build a house there. But he doesn't want to, citing that parcel's value as wildlife habitat, its wealth of tall trees, the dangers of living on a slope and the expense of building on that parcel, which is farther from the road. Instead, Lininger wants the county to rezone the western parcel from F-1 to F-2, so that he can build there and manage the land through laborious methods that would be easier on the earth and on neighbors, he said. http://www.registerguard.com/news/2007/01/19/printable/d1.cr.lininger.0119.mDPAVfrm.phtml?sect

ion=cityregionCalifornia:5) A San Francisco Superior Court judge on Friday put a salamander that lives in old growth forests along the Klamath River back on California's threatened species list until the state Fish and Game Commission takes action. The California Department of Fish and Game had stopped giving protection for the Scott Bar salamander under the California Endangered Species Act after new genetic work determined it was a subspecies of the Siskiyou Mountains salamander, which was listed. Taking the Scott Bar salamander off the protected list had allowed some logging to go ahead in old growth forests on private land along the Klamath River in Northern California, but the ruling could put a pending logging plan on hold, said Noah Greenwald of the Centers for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs in the case. " The court's decision was important because it clarifies that only the Fish and Game Commission, and not DFG, after thorough scientific review and public comment can remove protection for species under the California Endangered Species Act, " said Greenwald. The California Fish and Game Commission is considering removing the Siskiyou Mountains salamander from protection after state biologists decided it was not as rare as once thought, and that 90 percent of its habitat is on federal lands. San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Peter J. Busch found that because the Scott Bar salamander had been protected before it was declared a subspecies, it could not be denied protection by the department without formal action by the commission. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/16449447.htm6) Pacific Lumber, a subsidiary of Houston's Maxxam, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, saying it is " facing a liquidity crisis arising from regulatory limitations on timber harvest. " In a release, the company said its annual timber harvest volumes and cash flows will be below the levels needed to meet its debt service obligations. Pacific Lumber, based in Oakland, Calif., reported more than $100 million each in assets and liabilities in papers filed Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Corpus Christi, Texas. Among the company's largest unsecured creditors listed in court papers filed in Corpus Christi were Environmental Protection Information Center, owed $4.3 million, and the United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO, owed $1.8 million, both in disputed court judgments. Pacific Lumber and its business unit Scotia Pacific Co. sued the State of California in December, saying officials violated a 1996 agreement, hurting business by curbing the companies' ability to harvest timber. Pacific Lumber harvests California redwood and Douglas fir trees on 210,000 acres it owns in Humboldt County.. Other subsidiaries that also filed for bankruptcy protection include Scotia Development, Scotia Pacific and Britt Lumber, which makes redwood fencing and decking products. The companies have a combined 586 employees mainly employed in California. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/4483130.html7) This crush of visitors and businesses became a growing problem for those who wanted to preserve the valley from development. In 1864 President Lincoln had signed a bill that set aside Yosemite and Mariposa Grove, under the stewardship of California, for " public use, resort, and recreation ... inalienable for all time. " But the wilderness advocate Muir, after he returned to the area in the 1880s, was so alarmed by the rapid despoliation of the land that he led the movement that transformed it into a National Park in 1890. The curator Amy Scott and her team have assembled a first-rate and representative selection of paintings and photographs to tell this story. " Yosemite: Art of an American Icon, " the exhibition at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, examines with affection and intelligence the process by which this place became a symbol for the majestic potential of the young republic and an international tourist magnet on the northern California-Nevada border that today attracts more than three million visitors a year. Wall texts and catalog essays integrate the art within the history of the technology that abetted the formation in the public mind of Yosemite as sacred ground. The transcontinental railroad brought tourists from the East. Stereographs offered uncanny three-dimensional views of rock-strewn landscapes. The automobile and paved roads opened up the National Park to millions. The show is presented in halves. The first part, which closes Jan. 21, brings together many early awestruck representations, from 1855 through the 1930s, when Ansel Adams and Edward Weston first explored Yosemite in winter with their view cameras. The second part -- now on exhibit concurrently with the first part, and then on its own until April 22 -- offers post-1960 interpretations of the park and its visitors, and a far less reverent perspective. Both parts will travel to the Oakland Museum of Californiaon May 19. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116900320816178492.htmlArizona:8) The North Kaibab National Forest (NKNF) has recently announced that it will be accepting scoping comments for a project that looks suspiciously like the East Rim Timber Sale. A sale that was recently stopped in a lawsuit brought forth by the Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity. The Warm Fire burned over 59 thousand acres in and around the East Rim Sale area from June 8 to July 3, 2006. The NKNF immediately did a survey of the fire area and now claims it is imperative to " Recover the Economic Value from Burned Timber " before it all dies. In September of 2006 the Arizona Daily Sun ran an article in their newspaper of an eyewitness account of the Warm Fire burn area. He states: " To me, the burn area was a hopeful scene. Whatever the political fallout or the most accurate characterization of the Warm Fire might be, clearly a step has been taken back towards a more natural state for the Kaibab. If the powers that be can force themselves to stay out of the way, the plateau will eventually return to the state of nature in which all that lives and grows here originally evolved to best succeed. " http://www.flagstaffactivist.org/home.phtmlWyoming:9) In 1997, Abigail Kimbell, the new Forest Service Chief, ordered a massive reorganization at Bighorn, citing budget constraints. But GAP lawyers alleged the move was nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to purge the whistle-blowers. Eight former and current workers at Bighorn National Forest will now split a $200,000 settlement from the U.S. Forest Service for retaliation they endured after complaining nine years ago about a hostile working environment and questionable forest management practices, but the managers responsible will not be disciplined. The settlement is a result of a complaint filed by the whistle-blowers with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which protects federal employees from the repercussions of whistle-blowing. The Forest Service would not agree to the settlement if it required disciplinary action against the involved managers, OSC spokeswoman Jane McFarland said last week. " They did not want to discipline their managers, " McFarland said. " We decided it was better to settle for corrective action for our complainants rather than not settle the case. " The Forest Service referred calls for comment about the case to the Office of Special Counsel. The whistleblowers raised the red flag about environmental and fiscal missteps by Bighorn Forest Supervisor Larry Keown and other managers, including allowing ranchers to overgraze their animals on public land, failing to meet reforestation plans and allowing timber harvesting without the required environmental impact studies. Nearly half the workforce at Bighorn -- 44 employees -- complained about mismanagement over nine years, according to the Government Accountability Project, which is representing the eight complainants. Thirty of those workers were ultimately forced out because they spoke up, said Tom Devine, legal director of GAP. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13697-2003May4?language=printer

Indiana:10) Bearcat Hollow: Please help us to get the Forest Service to do more detailed environmental impact studies on a project whose Proposed Alternative would have a destructive impact on the native ecology of the area. Foremost among these are broad-scale prescribed burning and oak/pine savannah creation. More than 1,200 acres of vegetation would be poisoned with herbicides whose toxicity is partially negated only by perfect applications with no room for human error or negligence. An Environmental Impact Statement is needed in order to address these issues. http://www.heartwood.org/alerts.php?id=9711) There is a new situation happening in our Indiana State Forests that necessitates quick action on our part. True to Governor Mitch Daniels' promise to increase logging on our state's public forests by 500%, a timber sale is being offered. The proposal is to "salvage" log an area in the Harrison-Crawford State Forest, on a bluff overlooking the Ohio River draining into the Blue River first. This sale includes an oak-hickory stand full of very large trees (some already on the ground, a very important component of a diverse forest ecosystem), and has not been touched in 40 years. That means that it is starting to resemble the characteristics of an old growth forest. It is also habitat for the federally endangered Indiana bat. Roughly 48% of the known population of all Indiana bats are known to hibernate in caves in southern Indiana. Roughly half, or 24% of known Indiana bats overwinter in three caves in Harrison-Crawford State Forest. Almost 5% of the total population hibernates in another cave immediately next to Harrison-Crawford State Forest. That means roughly 28% of the total known population of Indiana bats depend on the area in, and immediately around Harrison-Crawford State Forest. The State Forest, in collusion with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has told us that it is not a "taking" of the federally endangered Indiana bat if they log the trees while the bats are away in their winter homes (caves). They migrate to trees during the warm months. The problem is, when they return in the spring, the trees upon which they depend for maternity colonies, will be gone. http://www.pin-the-tail.com/?p=107Pennsylvania:12) " . . .MacDonald begins his account with the history of the Allegheny Forest. The former old growth forest of beech and hemlock is gone, largely destroyed by the oil and gas industries that began in that same region with Drake's Well in 1859, as well as the wood chemicals industries that felled trees not for their wood, but for their bark, and the tannin that could be extracted from them. When they were done, the massive, old growth forest was reduced to the " Allegheny Brush Heap. " Only pockets of it remain today, most notably in Heart's Content and Tionesta. In his memoirs, Gifford Pinchot, two-term governor of Pennsylvania, personal friend of Theodore Roosevelt, and the man most responsible for the creation of the U.S. Forest Service, wrote of that destruction: The greatest, swiftest most efficient and most appalling wave of forest destruction in human history was swelling to its climax in the United States. Nobody knew how much timberland we had left and nobody cared. We were still a nation of pioneers. The world was all before us, and there would always be plenty of everything for everybody. . . " http://anthropik.com/2007/01/the-agony-of-an-american-wilderness/13) Six years after the Bethlehem Authority conceived of a logging operation, contractors took to the forest in the morning to chop down the first trees on 23,000 acres it owns in Monroe County. Instead of the axes and two-man saws of yesteryear, the modern-day lumberjacks used an industrial vehicle with a large claw that grabs the trees, cuts them at their bases and puts them on the loading area in Tunkhannock Township. The goal is not to clear those 150 acres of all trees, but to cull the less valuable trees, such as beech trees, so that a more diverse forest, ripe with black cherry trees, can have a chance to grow. ''We're going to clean up all this scrub and make it look like a real forest,'' Darwin Hoppes of Backenstoes Lumber Co. said moments after he took down a beech tree with an 18-inch diameter. The job will probably take another four months, but for the Bethlehem Authority, Wednesday was a day to relish. The city, which runs the water system, and the authority, which owns the land, have talked about a logging program since 2000. http://www.mcall.com/news/local/bethlehem/all-4loggingjan18,0,5769797.story?coll=all-newslocalb

ethlehem-hedNew Hampshire:14) Recent cold has frozen the ground on forest roads in some places, leading to log landings and helping restart the state's $2.7 billion wood products industry. Jasen Stock, executive director of the New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association, said the lack of cold idled the forest products industry the past month and is worthy of the governor's consideration for federal disaster aid. " For the past month, they were pulling skidders out of mud holes, more than cutting trees, " he said. Stock attended last week's meeting with the governor and laid out the problems to more than 40 tourism and economic development leaders. " There are many loggers who are taking it on the nose, " he said. " It's been better to park the equipment. " Winter is when most logging occurs. There is no way to recover the lost time, state forester Phil Bryce said. He said most timber harvesting projects on state land were still shut down Tuesday. " We are still waiting to see how the weather works this week, but we are very hopeful. The cold should be helpful. But in southern New Hampshire if you were in the woods this weekend, you know the ground is not frozen up yet. http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Freezing+weather+allows+logging+work+to+resume

& articleId=9d9abc10-fd30-471a-b52f-4fd6a116f5c9South Carolina:15) ONE moment, the paddler was sliding through a narrow passageway between an ancient bald cypress and a towering tupelo gum tree. The next, the upturned yellow hull of his kayak was all any of us could see. "Hey Chris," I called to our outfitter and guide. "Brad's upside down." It wasn't as if we hadn't been warned. We were told about spooky trees and chilly black water a few hours earlier as we planned our route through the Woodbury Tract — a newly created 25,668-acre nature preserve along the Little Pee Dee River in South Carolina, part of a $300 million purchase of timber company lands by conservation groups. "This time of year, the area is a flood zone, and you'll be able to get way back into the cypress swamp," Furman Long, a naturalist and caretaker of the nearby Sandy Island refuge, told our party of four: Brad Strickland, a transplanted New Yorker; Chris Crolley, our guide; Mike Cline, an elementary school teacher; and me. "But be careful," Mr. Long continued. "the river channel is not easy to follow. And don't get turned sideways against any trees in the current, or you'll flip right over." He also warned that if we paddled too far into the forest, we might have to spend the night. "Bring a compass," he said, "and if you're not sure which channel is the right one, just follow the signs from God." The signs from God were, in fact, trail guideposts painted by ordinary mortals. We found the first after paddling down Punch Bowl Landing Road. You would usually drive down Punch Bowl, but it's winter in the Lowcountry wilderness, and vast swaths of rain-soaked timberland lie beneath clear, tea-colored water. http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/travel/escapes/19adventurer.html?pagewanted=print

USA:16) Urban areas are not forests, yet they contain billions of trees. That's right billions. Urban areas in America cover 3.5 percent of the total land area and contain more than 75 percent of the population. In addition, urban areas contain approximately 3.8 billion trees with an average tree canopy cover of 27 percent. [Nowak, David J.; Noble, Mary H.; Sisinni, Susan M.; Dwyer, John F. 2001. Assessing the US Urban Forest Resources Journal of Forestry. Vol. 99 no. 3.. 37-42. (2001).] One may wonder how many more trees these non-forest areas add to defined forests. Fortunately there are a number of studies that have done the research for us. Nonforest plots may have trees on them, but they do not fit FIA's definition of forest because the area covered by trees is too small, too sparsely populated by trees, too narrow (e.g., trees between fields or in the middle of a divided highway), or has a disturbed understory (e.g., mowing or grazing) such that natural regeneration of trees probably does not occur. Recent inventories and associated photointerpretation work showed that 30 to 50 percent of these nonforest plots contained trees and were located in urban, suburban, industrial, and rural areas. Data were collected for trees on traditionally nonforest plots in a five-county area in Maryland that was 30 percent forested in 1999. Nonforest plots added at least 43 percent to the total-tree basal area measured on forest plots. [Riemann, Rachel 2003. Pilot Inventory of FIA plots traditionally called 'nonforest' Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northeastern Research Station. 44 p..] This means that for every 100 trees in an area defined as a forest, the non-forest areas add another 43 trees. Add that to the trees in the 60% forests and we are up to 85% of the number of trees we had 400 years ago. What this means is that we need only one-fifth to one-tenth of previous forest space to have the same number of trees for timber. The plantations produce the same number of trees as do 20% of our forests. For those with a pencil, for every 100 trees in a forest there are 20 plantation trees; bringing our total tree count to 105%; that is, even with 40% fewer forests we have 105% of the trees we had 400 years ago. http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2007/01/liberals_cannot_see.htmlRussia:

17) After the collapse of the Soviet Union and in response to the country's economic crisis, the Russian government approved large-scale natural resource extraction across previously untouched areas of the ecologically rich Russian Far East and Siberia. In response to such ecological degradation, an exceptionally vocal and diverse environmental movement has emerged in the region. Pacific Environment, with two decades of experience in the Russian Far East and Siberia, has been working to strengthen this movement. In 1997, Pacific Environment worked with students from Russia's Pedagogical Institute in Komsomolsk-na-Amure and Northwest Ecosystem Alliance in Bellingham Washington to monitor the impacts of Global Forestry Management Group's logging operations in the Khabarovsk Region. Pacific Environment believes that these student monitoring efforts can become a model for citizens' monitoring in the Northeast Asia. http://www.pacificenvironment.org/downloads/TN57_1.pdfAfrica:18) Removing large herbivorous mammals from the African savanna can cause a dramatic shift in the relative abundance of species throughout the food chain, according to scientists from Stanford University, Princeton University and the University of California-Davis. In the study, the research team used large electric fences to exclude cattle, elephants, zebras and other herbivorous mammals from experimental plots on a ranch in central Kenya from May 2004 to December 2005. During that time, the scientists monitored changes in the populations of trees, beetles, lizards and other plant and animal species. " All of the species studied increased in abundance in the absence of large plant-eating mammals, " said lead author Robert Pringle, a graduate student in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford. These results are examples of what ecologists call cascading effects, he added. Although elephants and zebras do not interact directly with insects, they share plants as a food source, Pringle noted. Previous studies have shown that when elephants and zebras are experimentally removed or hunted out, plant matter accumulates and insect populations increase. " With an increase in insects comes an increase in the insects' predators, such as lizards, " Pringle said. " Thus, the actions of a few dominant species ripple throughout the ecosystem. " The authors also found that the strength of the cascading effects varied considerably across the landscape, and that it was possible to predict where the effects would be weak or strong in terms of " primary productivity " -the transformation of solar energy into plant tissue during photosynthesis. Plants in areas of high primary productivity grow faster, making more energy available throughout the food chain. The study revealed that cascading effects are weaker in places where productivity is high, probably " because more productive plant communities absorb the impacts of herbivory and buffer the remainder of the community, " the authors wrote. http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Big_Vegetarian_Mammals_Play_Critical_Role_In_Maintaining_Hea

lthy_Ecosystems_999.htmlUganda:19) Let the Ugandan President and Parliament know rainforests and their ecological services are invaluable The rainforest destruction crisis in Uganda, which we first informed you of in December, has worsened considerably. The Ugandan President now proposes to degazette over nine additional municipal forest reserves, presumably to spur industrial and agricultural development. This is in addition to two existing proposed large agricultural plantation projects in an important protected rainforest, and another forest that buffers Lake Victoria, to grow palm oil and sugar cane crops. Destruction of Uganda's surviving forests will have grave ecological consequences, changing the country's climate including more frequent droughts and floods, threatening hundreds of rare species, sparking soil erosion, and further reducing the health and water volume of Lake Victoria. Please contact the Ugandan government to insist these projects be abandoned and that existing protected forests maintain their status, informing the government that Uganda needs more not less intact protected and restored rainforests if they are to develop in an ecologically sustainable manner and have any hope of alleviating poverty in the long-term. http://www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp?id=uganda20) The Co-operative Bank found itself under attack over allegations that its 'green mortgages' - under which a percentage goes to a carbon offsetting scheme in the Kibale rainforests in western Uganda - were ruining the lives of indigenous tribes people. This claim followed a report from the World Rainforest Movement saying that 8,000 other people in eastern Uganda had been evicted from their land to make way for a Danish re-forestation scheme, again in the name of carbon offsetting. While the Co-op insists that its scheme, run by the Ugandan Wildlife Authority, is boosting the " health and wealth " of Ugandan villagers, the BBC programme 'Inside Out' said it was, in fact, doing exactly the reverse. The programme said that, in the heart of the Kibale rainforest, around 500 employees are paid about £15 a month to work the new plantation. " But even working for 20 hours a week it would still take them two months just to fill a tank of petrol at their local garage in Uganda, " it was claimed. Villagers also complained that they no longer had easy access to the rainforests to gather firewood, water and traditional medcines. " Now, everything must be bought, " said one local environmentalist. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/15/ngreen315a.xmlMozambique:21) Maputo - Requests for logging licenses in Mozambique rose by over 50 percent in 2006, rising from 462 in 2005 to 790 last year, according to Mozambican daily newspaper, Notícias. Henrique Cruz, head of the Forest Department of the National Directorate for Land and Forests, cited by the paper, said that the overall trend in previous years has been for the number of requests to fall but, due to the big demand for wooden logs, there had been an increase in operators of that type. Licenses are valid for a year and their holders can cut trees of up to 500 cubic meters. The growth in number of operators did not mean, according to Cruz, that there had been a rise in internal processing of wood, or factory jobs or even growth in the national industry. Recently the government decided to reclassify four species of tree – known locally as mondzo, pau-ferro, muanga and chanate – making them 1st class tree species, whose export is only permitted after processing. Cruz said that this measure aimed to reduce pressure on forest resources as well as to encourage the national wood industry in order to create jobs. According to Cruz the government had also been focusing on granting concessions, with the aim of promoting rational use of resources and creating conditions to benefit local communities, namely setting up local processing industries. Cruz said that this approach had had positive results as it dealt with the issue in the long term (fifty years). So far, a total of 114 concessions have been granted, located in the provinces of Cabo Delgado, Zambézia, Nampula and Sofala. The other provinces with concessions,, of a reduced number, are Tete and Manica. http://www.macauhub.com.mo/en/news.php?ID=2667Mexico:22) After months of searching through the jungle towns of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Friends of Calakmul (FOC) conservation organization will be re-uniting a community of Mayan farmers on Jan. 20 to help them protect some of the country's last remaining jaguar habitat. The farmers, part of a communal group known as the Chan-Yaxhe ejido, are the last surviving owners of nearly 20,000 acres of rainforest in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. Given the parcel in the 1940s during land reforms following the Mexican Revolution, the community initially used it for traditional subsistence farming. However, it wasn't long before new settlers began arriving in growing numbers, encouraged by a government campaign to populate the region. Chan-Yaxhe community members watched as the area's natural resources and wildlife were increasingly exploited by non-native loggers. After struggling for years against the destructive changes to their homeland, Chan-Yaxhe members eventually tired of the fighting and gradually dispersed throughout the Yucatan. Local authorities lost track of them. Many members died of old age, leaving rightful landownership to descendents far and wide. Now, after extensive efforts by Friends of Calakmul to track down former community leaders, the Chan-Yaxhe ejido will be reassembling for the first time in decades. The community plans to elect new officers, re-establish their legal status and sign a partnership agreement with Friends of Calakmul to guarantee long term protection of their rainforest. http://www.planetsave.com/ps_mambo/The_News/Current_News/Innovative_Agreements_Will_Complete

_Protection_of_Mexico's_Largest_Tropical_Forest_200701178345/Guyana:23) It was announced today that FSC's largest certificate for tropical forest management, had been suspended. The certificate, issued by SGS-Qualifor to the Barama company, the Guyanese subsidiary of the controversial Malaysian-based logging transnational, Samling, was put on hold following an investigation by the FSC's Accreditation Service International (ASI) in November 2006. The announcement will come as a particular embarrassment to WWF. In March 2006, when Barama received their certificate, WWF proclaimed it as a " record-setting accomplishment for tropical forest conservation in South America " . The company had received " technical and financial support from WWF " , which included " training forestry staff in reduced impact logging practices, improving factory safety operations, and reviewing the company's performance against the rigorous standards " set by the FSC. Sadly, as FSC's investigations have now revealed, WWF were as misguided in these claims as were SGS, who had issued the certificate. Only 9 months later, WWF have been forced to admit that they are " deeply disappointed " by Barama's failures to comply with the certification. Clearly, WWF's 'support' to Barama was missing certain key elements. Finally, SGS was condemned for issuing a certificate to a company which appeared not to even have a forest management plan. According to FSC's report, " At the time of the ASI audit, the certified company did not have a management plan for the certified compartment 4 (378,596 ha). This lack of appropriate evaluation against FSC Principle 7 has resulted in a systematic major nonconformity at principle level. " Importantly, the FSC found that SGS had also failed to take into account the views of independent 'peer reviewers' who are supposed to provide advice before a certificate is issued. http://www.fsc-watch.org/archives/2007/01/18/FSC_audit_of_SGS_leads_to_suspension_of_largest_t

ropical_logging_certificate24) More serious is the illegal logging undertaken by the foreign-owned companies which are receiving subsidies from Guyana through foreign direct investment (FDI) arrangements agreed by the Cabinet, for local industrial processing and value adding. These subsidies are then abused to support the huge expansion in export of unprocessed logs; exports happily documented month by month by the Guyana Forest Products Marketing Council. This illegal logging is being carried out in forest harvesting concessions sub-let by members of the Forest Products Association. The sub-letting is against the National Forest Policy (1997, part I, B3(d)). The GFC Board of Directors should rescind such abused concessions and return the forest areas to the pool available for re-allocation under the Strategic Plan (National Forest Plan, 2001, NFP300) and National Forest Policy (1997, part III, B3). The widespread practice of landlording forest harvesting concessions to foreign contractors makes a nonsense of GFC strategic allocation of State Production Forests. The GFC should not be permitted to condone this practice, which is against the law without explicit Presidential app-roval (Forest Regulations 1953, Article 12) and specific clauses in the concession licences (for example, TSA clause 13). Through this sub-letting, four foreign-owned logging companies have extended their legal 38 per cent control of allocated State Production Forest by 14 per cent (more than 870,000 hectares), so that Asian loggers now control well over half the forest allocated by the GFC for harvesting. This amounts to rampant illegal logging, on a scale that dwarfs the infractions of the national chainsaw logging sector. http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article_letters?id=56511818Brazil:

25) URUCU — In theory, the issue is a simple one: Brazil needs more sources of energy to keep its economy humming, and huge reserves of gas and oil are in the Amazon jungle. Problem solved. Over the years, Petrobras, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, has, in fact, invested more than $7 billion in Amazon exploration and development, and in 1986 it made a major find here. But only now — after a seemingly endless sequence of geographic, logistical, environmental and political challenges were overcome — is the first in what is intended as a series of pipelines finally being constructed, this one to carry gas the 400 miles from here to Manaus, a port city of 1.5 million at the junction of the region's two biggest rivers that is emerging as an important industrial center. "Everything in the Amazon requires preparation that is big, long and complicated, especially a pioneering effort like this one," explained Joelson Falcão Mendes, the company's regional director here. "You've got a harsh climate that limits you to working only four months a year in some places. You're working in mud and crossing rivers that are not navigable, and there are 47 tropical diseases to worry about." In the past, the construction of large energy projects in the Amazon, such as the mammoth Tucuruí dam, typically led to the migration of thousands of peasants seeking work and the creation of slum settlements in the jungle. When a project is finished, the workers will often remain, with no jobs, swelling social and environmental problems that are already intractable. Small jungle settlements along the path of transmission lines have also complained that no provision is made for them to be supplied electricity. That alienates local residents and has even provoked some incidents of sabotage. Urucu, however, is being built with a requirement that two-thirds of the labor force be hired from the population already in the region. That has created about 10,000 jobs, a significant advance in a region with fewer than 500,000 people, as well as job-training programs. "The idea is not only to avoid repeating the errors committed in the past, but also to change the energy sources here in the north of the country," Mr. Braga said. "More than 90 percent of this state is forest, and I want to keep it that way." http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/world/americas/21pipeline.html?_r=1 & oref=slogin

India:26) The best I could do was sit under the tree. That's the only thing that came to my mind. Save it at any cost, I said to myself and that they can have me along with the tree if that's what they want for Panjim, says General Secretary, Save Goa Movement, Patricia Pinto. It's a moment that nudged Goa's conscience and inspired the otherwise easygoing Goan community to form the Save Goa movement where they took to the streets to protest the Government's Regional Development plan. When the water reaches till your neck, you're only cribbing and complaining. But when it reaches till your face, you've got to shout, you've got to make a noise. And I think the water had reached till our faces,†says Convener, Save Goa Movement, Oscar Rebello. But the transition from armchair activist to a hands on one is not an easy one. Especially for Oscar Rebello, who is a doctor with a busy practice. http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/newsarticle/stocksnews.php?cid=1 & autono=31546 & source=ibnlive

..comBorneo:27) Malaysian Borneo, in the northwest, includes the province of Sabah, a wonderland of ancient rainforests, white-water rivers, long sandy beaches and South-East Asia's highest peak, the granite-topped Mount Kinabalu. Sabah's eco-diversity is superb, including more than 275 species of birds and fabulous sea life. Malaysia's first World Heritage Site, Kinabalu National Park is home to rare orchids, and elsewhere in Sabah orang-utans, gibbons and pygmy elephants live in protected areas. Despite this, Malaysia has long played second fiddle to the tourist hotspots of Phuket and Bali, but plans are under way to change that. This year is Malaysia's 50th anniversary of independence from British rule, and to mark the occasion the government has launched a drive to increase tourism and encourage overseas property buyers. " High-end tourists want seclusion and space, " says Dobson. " They look for unspoilt locations that are environmentally sensitive. " Which is just what he aims to create at Kudat Riviera. On 18 acres of untouched Sabah, alongside Borneo's northern tip, he plans to build 38 luxury houses, some a stone's throw from the seven-mile beach and some on the lush hillside with sea views. http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/805372/rainforest_riviera_a_new_law_now_allows_property_bu

yers_to/?source=r_science28) Since 1996, logging, forest fires and forest conversion for plantations across Indonesia have increased deforestation to an average of two million hectares per year, slicing in half Borneo's original rainforest cover. " WWF considers the Heart of Borneo to be one of the planet's top global conservation priorities, " WWF International's Director General James Leape said. " It is hugely important to maintain a large enough area of Borneo's forests for the survival of the natural ecosystems and the people that depend on them, " he added. " This is critical for sustainable development. " Leape said with the commitment of the governments of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, WWF was confident the Borneo rainforests would be " effectively protected " by 2010. The Heart of Borneo programme is also considered a flagship programme of the East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA), a special sub- regional economic zone made up of the territories of Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. " We believe that successful conservation and preservation of the Borneo rainforest would be a great boost in our efforts to attract move investments for BIMP-EAGA, " said Jesus Dureza, a Philippine presidential adviser. http://www.playfuls.com/news_10_8794-Greening-ASEAN-To-Boost-Borneo-Rainforest-Project.html

29) A historic agreement to conserve the "Heart of Borneo" was officially endorsed today by the heads of the three Bornean governments — Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia. "We congratulate the three governments of Borneo for the groundbreaking conservation pledge they have made," said Dr Mubariq Ahmad, WWF-Indonesia's Executive Director. "The Heart of Borneo harbours up to six per cent of the world's total biodiversity," said Dr Dino Sharma Executive Director of WWF-Malaysia. "The highlands and adjacent foothills along the borders of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia are vital for the people of Borneo. The Heart of Borneo is the source of 14 of the island's 20 major rivers and conserving this precious region is essential for safeguarding the water and food security for the people of Borneo." Borneo is home to 13 primate species, more than 350 bird species, 150 reptiles and amphibians and around 15,000 species of plants, and continues to be the source of many new discoveries — three species have been found every month over the past ten years alone. "WWF considers the Heart of Borneo to be one of the planet's top global conservation priorities," said James Leape, WWF International's Director General. "It is hugely important to maintain a large enough area of Borneo's forests for the survival of the natural ecosystems and the people that depend on them. This is critical for sustainable development, and WWF stands ready to assist Borneo's three governments in realizing the commitment they have made today." http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/index.cfm?uNewsID=91420Malaysia:30) Malaysia and the European Commission (EC) have started formal talks to verify and certify tropical timber under the scheme, which would ensure the legality of Malaysian exports. Malaysia is the first country outside the European Union to start such talks on the voluntary partnership agreement scheme on the EU Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) A delegation from the European Commission was in Kuala Lumpur on Jan 15 to initiate formal negotiations with Malaysia. The head of the delegation Thierry Rommel said FLEGT was crucial due to the illegal logging which had serious social, economic and ecological consequences. The director of Malaysian Timber Council, S K Tham said the voluntary partnership agreement was necessary due to rising demand for Malaysian timber in the EU. He said the agreement was crucial since only one licence would be needed to verify Malaysian timber exports to the EU. For 2005, Malaysia's exports of timber and timber products to the EU amounted to RM2.8 billion representing 13% of Malaysia's global export. http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=66907Indonesia:

29) Indonesian coffee growers are illegally clearing an important nature reserve, according to conservation group WWF. The Bukit Barisan Selatan reserve, on the southern tip of Sumatra, has already lost nearly 20% of its area to illegal coffee growing, the group says. The park is one of the few areas where endangered Sumatran tigers, elephants and rhinos still co-exist. Indonesia is the world's fourth largest coffee exporter. The robusta bean it grows is often used in instant coffee. " About 17% of the national park area is being cultivated for coffee, " Nazir Foead, from WWF Indonesia, told reporters. " If this trend of clearing park land for coffee isn't halted, the rhinos and tigers will be locally extinct in less than a decade, " he said. http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=6702430) According to The Wall Street Journal, one million hectares (2.5 million acres) have been reserved for the eight-year plan, which would convert tropical forest for oil palm, sugar, and cassava plantations. China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), Indonesia's Sinar Mas Group, and Hong Kong Energy (Holdings) Ltd. are funding the project. The development will occur in two remote provinces in Indonesia: Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, and Papua, on the island of New Guinea. Both provinces have significant forest cover, though rainforest in Kalimantan has steadily declined over the past twenty years due to logging and agricultural expansion. Mounting deforestation has brought pressure from conservation groups, especially WWF, for the Indonesian government to take steps to better protect forests in the region. Last year the three countries that control Borneo -- Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei -- to agree to protect some 84,000 square miles (220,000 square kilometers) of mountainous rainforest in the center of the island. WWF says that more than 450 previously unknown species have been discovered in Borneo since 1994. The new announcement was met with criticism by Palm Oil Watch, an environmental lobby group that monitors biofuel development in Indonesia. " We are also worried about the impact these vast monoculture plantations will have on the environment, particularly as the Chinese don't have much experience in the sector, " The Financial Times quoted Achmad Surambo of Palm Oil Watch (Sawit Watch) as saying. http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0118-borneo.html31) The former director general of management of productive forests at the Forestry Ministry, Waskito Suryodiprodjo, was arrested late Thursday after undergoing a 12-hour questioning session by the KPK's investigators. KPK spokesman Johan Budi S.P. said that Waskito, together with East Kalimantan Governor Suwarna Abdul Fatah, former East Kalimantan forestry division head Robian and former local forestry office head Uuh Alyudin, was alleged to have been involved in the issuance of illegal logging permits to PT Surya Dumai Group (SDG) from 2000 to 2002. " With the license, SDG managed to amass some 700,000 cubic meters of logs from local forests, causing state losses of up to Rp 386 billion (US$42 million), " Johan said in a statement made available to The Jakarta Post on Friday. Johan said the commission would detain the suspect for 20 days at the South Jakarta Police office from Friday. Waskito was charged under the anti-corruption law. Speaking after the questioning session Waskito maintained that he was innocent. The East Kalimantan Governor has been indicted for allegedly granting permission to SDG's illegal logging scam, which left a million hectares of land cleared for an oil plantation project. The company allegedly carried out illegal logging activities using land concession permits. Suwarna, a supporter of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), has been charged with enriching himself and 10 companies and with abusing his power while in office. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has suspended him as governor while he is under investigation. Suwarna has challenged his detention by filing a petition with the Constitutional Court. He demanded the court scrap an article in the Criminal Code that allows law enforcers to detain suspects they are concerned could flee justice or destroy evidence. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20070113.H04 & irec=3

New Zealand: 32) For 50 years, Scottish-born Ian was a property consultant doing rural valuation work. In 1968 he came to Marlborough to do valuation work for some forestry companies. " Their forest people were absolutely rabid about trees and they set about getting disciples. I fell into the trap of listening. " Then 14 years ago, in the course of his valuation work, he came across a block of land that he liked the look of. He liked the lay of the land, and there was an old stock dam. " Which has now become my 'loch'. " The loch has been the centre of Ian's native plantings. The native patch is expanding outwards and so is the bird life. Ian has become increasingly interested in his native plantings, after initially planting about 11ha of the block in pinus radiata and the rest in macrocarpa. But canker struck the macrocarpas, which caused them to die back. He started replacing them with the cypress lusitanica. " And in the meantime I discovered some areas were too wet for timber type trees. " At one stage he planted about 250 eucalyptus trees, but they didn't like the frost, and there are only about five left. The quality of the land varied a lot, and it wasn't sensible to plant a single variety of tree. He planted poplars, which also offered a change in autumn foliage from the dark green of the pine trees. He also planted kahikatea. " I forgot about them. And about five years later I was looking at nothing in particular and I realised I had some 1.5m kahikateas in front of me. " I put in an order for 80 more, and in the end I planted about 100. " In the drier, more problem areas, Ian has planted black, red and silver beech trees, and there are about 400 Tasmanian blackwoods. Native trees include kowhai, a few totaras and Ian's eyes light up when he says: " I have one surviving rimu. " Ian is glad he didn't stick entirely with pines. " With pine trees, by year seven or eight you should have all the silviculture attended to, and you run out of work, and at that point they grow very, very fast and there is no huge joy in looking at that. " http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/marlboroughexpress/3926616a19810.htmlAustralia:33) Conservation groups and forestry officials will meet in Nannup tomorrow to discuss concerns over the logging of the area's native forests. The groups are concerned that logging and prescribed burning in the Helms Forest near Nannup is killing rare native wildlife like the black cockatoo. The Department of Environment and Conservation and the Forest Products Commission say their actions in the forest are well managed and have little impact on the native flora and fauna. Greens' MLC Paul Llewellyn says it is important both sides have their say. " What we would like to see is CALM's evidence that they can continue logging without impacting that species and having to give that evidence in front of the conservation movement, " he said. http://abc.net.au/news/items/200701/1829315.htm?southwestwa34) The Pan European Forest Council (PEFC) recently gave in to pressure from the Australian government to accept the Australian Forestry Standard (AFS) as a legitimate certification for sustainable forestry. AFS was intentionally designed to provide a legal loophole for the lumber company Gunns, Ltd, so that it can continue clear-cutting Tasmania's 200-year-old trees and wrecking a landscape that is truly a natural treasure. Send a message to PEFC Chairman Michael Clark that he must renounce the AFS policy and stand up for real sustainable certification policies, not those engineered by the logging industry to greenwash their destructive practices. http://www.easyvegan.info/2007/01/17/ran-will-pefc-support-real-sustainable-forest-practices/

35) The Australia Institute says Queensland government data suggests land in the state is being cleared at a rate about 50 per cent greater than federal government figures show. If the data is correct, Australia's greenhouse emissions rate could be as much as 20 per cent higher than 1990 levels, far greater than the 8 per cent increase which Australia was allocated under the Kyoto Protocol, the world scheme to reduce greenhouse emissions. The institute has called for an urgent, independent review of the national carbon accounting system (NCAS), responsible for generating the land clearing figures. Land clearing is an important component in calculating Australia's rate of greenhouse emissions, which are claimed to be responsible for global warming. Australia has not ratified Kyoto but was involved in its negotiation and regularly compares the country's progress on emission rates with its allocated Kyoto figure. During negotiations, Australia was allowed to include the benefits from reductions in land clearing in calculating its emissions. The institute report, The National Greenhouse Accounts and Land Clearing: Do the Numbers Stack Up?, argues the state government estimates of land clearing in Queensland between 1990 and 2001 are about 50 per cent higher than the federal Government's. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21078436-30417,00.html

36) The Howard Government has conceded logging in Tasmania's native forests may be illegal, but is refusing to act against it. The admission follows a landmark court judgment setting a tougher hurdle for land use affecting endangered species. It throws doubt on the legality of logging in native forests if it affects the habitats of endangered species. " The court, in the case of Wielangta, has decided (Forestry Tasmania) is not (operating legally), but I have got to work on the basis that as a sovereign government, that they are acting within the law. I take the undertaking of sovereign governments at face value. " However, Forestry Tasmania declined to give an assurance that it was logging legally. And Premier Paul Lennon confirmed there was now " great doubt " about the industry's legal footing. " Unless the commonwealth agrees to act with Tasmania to make the (legal) changes necessary, then there will be great doubt over the timber industry in this state, " Mr Lennon said. Asked how he could allow logging to continue when its legality was in question, Mr Lennon said: " Not all logging is conducted in the areas that might be subject to dispute. " But logging in the Upper Florentine region, in the state's southwest, is said to have occurred since the December 19 ruling by Federal Court judge Shane Marshall which referred to the Wielangta state forest, northeast of Hobart. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21051373-30417,00.html

World-wide:37) How good are forests at soaking up carbon, and how much will they buffer greenhouse gas emissions and save us from climate change? It's an extremely knotty question — and so this review (open access) of the issue just published in New Phytologist is extremely welcome. Increased CO2 should be a fertilizer, and things grow quicker in warm weather, but as temperature increases, the rate of respiration rises more quickly than the rate of photosynthesis, so the rate at which trees release more carbon rises more quickly than the rate at which they soak it up (this also has implications for metabolic ecology: by understanding these effects, via metabolic rate, you can build a bridge between cellular and individual metabolism and the workings of the global carbon cycle). Also, plant growth is limited by other things, so a lack of nitrogen, for example, may limit trees' ability to respond to higher CO2, or warmer temperatures. The review, which looks at studies in boreal and temperate forests, concludes that we don't really know what's going to happen. Here's what they say… It is not in doubt that newly established young forests will continue to be C sinks for the foreseeable future. The key question is whether the mature forests that are C sinks today will continue to be sinks as the climate changes. … http://gentraso.blogspot.com/2007/01/feed-trees.html38) Lots of groups have been using satellite imagery to monitor deforestation in the Amazon, including the Brazilian government. Google " Amazon deforestation " and see what pops up. Another great source for images showing all kinds of things, both beautiful and disturbing, is the Earth Observatory run by NASA. And when it comes to deforestation, let's not forget about the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, or the hardwood forests of the southern Appalachians which have the highest biodiversity in North America (and are being hit by a one-two punch of logging and mountaintop-removal mining for coal). See here for a great video and Google Earth project on that topic. http://www.grist.org/comments/interactivist/2007/01/08/amos/index1.html?source=daily

39) The Western Hemisphere's forests may soon suffer permanent damage due to the looming threat of commercial release of genetically engineered (GE) trees in the Americas within the next three years. Trees engineered to kill insects have already been planted in China and it appears that Brazil, Chile, and the US may not be far behind. GE trees threaten catastrophe for the world's remaining native forest ecosystems and forest-dwelling communities. Unlike GE crops such as corn and cotton, trees live for decades and can spread their pollen for hundreds of miles, making the threat of escaped altered genes from GE trees into the environment significantly more serious. The inevitable contamination of native forests by genetically engineered trees may cause destruction of wildlife, depletion of fresh water and soils, collapse of native forest ecosystems, cultural genocide of forest-based indigenous communities, and serious effects on human health. Global Justice Ecology Project co-Director Orin Langelle and I have been campaigning since 2000 to stop GE trees. http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/preview/geTrees.html