168 - Earth's Tree News

[Guest guest]

Today for you 34 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) Log exports lead to ruin, 2) $30 million for failing GBR

plan, --Oregon: 3) Tim Hermach saves trees, 4) Rough & Ready

biomass racket,--California: 5) End of era of California sawmills--Idaho: 6) Lee Roy Lee (1957-2007)--Missouri: 7) What is inosculation?--Ohio: 8) Fate of forest in Pearson Metropark--Virginia: 9) Old growth cypress and Tupelo cut down

--Maryland: 10) Chesapeake Bay watershed loses 100 acres a day--Pennsylvania: 11) State woodland is largest FSC certified forest in N. America--USA: 12) What's wrong with lots of roads?--Canada: 13) Elizabeth May looking to hug a logger? 14) Afforestation Inventory,

--UK: 15) New Treesit to protest gas pipeline--Sweden: 16) Northern forest history--Albania: 17) End of communism leads to loss of 30% of forests--Nigeria: 18) No more forest by 2010--Brazil: 19) $90 million loan for expanding beef production, 20) Amazon Implications,

--Honduras: 21) The people demand justice for slain forest defenders--Chile: 22) Sanger, attorney for Forest Ethics challenges Chilean loggers--Guatemala: 23) Forest conservation according to Darron Collins

--Colombia: 24) Rare bird lives in remnant forest patches--Peru: 25) Lowland forests of Peru offers essential non-timber sustenance--India: 26) Saving trees with 'tree-walks,' 27) A forest defender named Bharti,

--Cambodia: 28) Found: women missing in the jungle for 18 years, 29) Letter to her,--Philippines: 29) Save the Butterflies of the Cordillesras--Malaysia: 30) European's concerned about illegal logging, --Australia: 31) Tough measures to stop illegal timber trade, 32) Rope bridges and underpasses for stranded critters, --World-wide: 33) Biofuel and clean coal not a solution, 34) WWF adds up deforestation,British Columbia:1)

Western Forest Products will not have to close its Queensborough mill

if the company can get access to more raw timber, says the company's

CEO. But the chances of that happening are so slim, says Reynold Hert,

employees should continue to plan for the mill to close for good on

Feb. 7. Still, that hope – no matter how faint – has the union

representing the nearly 300 workers who stand to lose their jobs, as

well as other union leaders, NDP politicians and New Westminster city

council vowing to keep pressure on the provincial government to change

the forestry policies many say are responsible for the mill's impending

demise. "These jobs and these logs belong to the people of B.C.," John

Peacock, one of the soon-to-be unemployed mill workers, told the more

than 200 people who packed Queensborough Community Centre Wednesday

evening for a meeting about the closure. Those who attended the

community forum were told there's been a dramatic increase in raw log

exports from B.C. in the past 10 years. In 1997, there were 275,000

cubic metres of raw logs exported. (A cubic metre is roughly equivalent

to a telephone pole.) Last year, five million cubic metres was

exported. The Canada-US softwood lumber agreement reached last year is

partly to blame for this, said New Westminster MLA Chuck Puchmayr. So

are the changes made to B.C.'s Forest Practices Code in 2003. As are

export taxes that are too low to make it unattractive for companies to

export raw timber rather than milling the wood in B.C. "My concern is

B.C. will become nothing but a fibre farm," Puchmayr said, noting there

are sawmills closing all over B.C. and Canada. "What it means is

Canadian logs will create American jobs," Julian said. http://www.burnabynewsleader.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=41 & cat=23 & id=815874 & more=

2)

Environmental groups ForestEthics, Greenpeace and Sierra Club of Canada

welcomed the federal government's announcement today that it will add

$30 million to complete a $120 million groundbreaking conservation

management and economic development initiative in British Columbia's

Great Bear Rainforest. "Today we have secured the largest integrated

conservation investment package in North American history" said Amanda

Carr of Greenpeace. "Once again all eyes are on Canada's Great Bear

Rainforest and our innovative, precedent-setting approach to protecting

the environment." The funds have been awaited since last February's

announcement of the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement, which included

protection of over two million hectares of coastal temperate

rainforest. The contribution secures an additional and unprecedented

$60 million pledged by private Canadian and US donors, as well as $30

million promised by the British Columbia provincial government. "The

challenges of our age require innovative approaches that place a

premium on a healthy environment. With today's announcement we're

proving that conservation can attract investment and actually support

jobs that won't threaten the living systems that we depend upon," said

Merran Smith, BC Coast Program Director, ForestEthics. "Today's

announcement completes the holistic model of conservation in the Great

Bear Rainforest," said Lisa Matthaus, Campaigns Director, Sierra Club

of Canada, BC Chapter. "Coastal communities can finally move forward to

create meaningful, sustainable solutions for their people and the

environment they depend upon." The Great Bear Rainforest, encompassing

B.C.'s north and central coasts and the archipelago of Haida Gwaii

(Queen Charlotte Islands), is the world's largest remaining tract of

intact coastal temperate rainforest. It is home to wolves, cougars,

bears and 20 percent of the world's wild salmon population. http://www.savethegreatbear.org/thecampaign/th/Oregon:3)

If you tell Tim Hermach that he is extreme, radical and

counterproductive because of his uncompromising stance on preserving

the nation's public lands, he will tell you that you forgot to mention

" hard to work with. " Hermach, the 61-year-old president of the Native

Forest Council, embraces the disparaging terms that his opponents slap

on him like so many bumper stickers on a hippie van. To Hermach, the

nation's public lands are a life support system, a sacred trust for

future generations that is being liquidated for short-term gain.

Nothing less. The Native Forest Council was the first environmental

group to publicly call for an absolute ban on tree-cutting in public

forests nearly two decades ago. He believes big dreams and a vision of

a better world can empower people to overcome seemingly unstoppable

forces - like big-money corporate influence and consumer habits that

create waste and pollution. Hermach's activism awakened in the

mid-1980s, when he returned to Eugene after working 20 years in Alaska

and Southern California. He says the clear-cuts he saw during a flight

in a small plane over old familiar stretches of the Willamette National

Forest appalled him. Holding fast on the embattled flank of

environmental issues is lonely work, Hermach says. It's no place for

quitters, for anyone who won't embrace conflict bvwith the same

commitment that one would pledge to a marriage - 'til death do us part,

he says. He volunteered with the Sierra Club in the 1980s, but quit

after he was asked to study and recommend club support for one of five

proposed logging plans for the forest. None was acceptable to Hermach,

so he struck off on his own and ever since has been an outspoken critic

of " beltway environmental front groups " who are " kinder, gentler

versions of the deadly corporate parasites that are destroying nature. "

Compromise be damned. " They're robbing our kids' future, " Hermach says.

" I keep doing it because if I don't quit, I keep hope alive for my

kids. " http://www.registerguard.com/news/2007/01/22/c1.cr.peoplehermach.0122.p1.php4)

After nearly 90 years of sawing pine and Douglas fir logs into lumber,

Rough & Ready Lumber Co. is branching into the energy business,

building a $5 million plant to burn logging debris and to produce

electricity that it can sell at a " green tag " premium to the regional

power grid. " It's ripe, " said Rough & Ready President Link

Phillippi, who hopes to have a 1.5 megawatt plant up and running by

this fall. " There are the economic benefits, the benefits of healthy

forests, and the benefit of a country needing renewable energy clean

energy. " The idea of burning wood waste known as hog fuel to produce

energy at wood products and pulp mills is an old one that was going

nowhere as long as fossil fuels were cheap, and logging was cut back to

protect fish and wildlife habitat. But leaders in the timber industry

realize that energy production can help finance widespread thinning of

national forests to combat wildfires and insect infestations. Since

Congress reauthorized a federal energy production tax credit for

biomass, solar and wind power last month, at least two other sawmills

in Oregon are going forward with biomass projects. A report for the

Western Governors Association estimates biomass in the West has a

potential to produce more than 10,000 megawatts about 1 percent of the

nation's production by 2015. About half would come from forest

thinning. The rest from urban waste and agriculture. Environmentalists

are wary. Although they like the idea that biomass generation can help

pay for forest thinning, they want natural fire to take over once the

thinning is done. " One should not consider biomass energy sustainable

or renewable, " said environmental consultant Andy Kerr, who has been

working to help more biomass projects get up and running. " Because for

the most part, after these forests have been thinned, you don't want

them to get thick again, certainly not thick enough to be economically

feasible to cut the trees down and haul them to the biomass energy

incinerator. " http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=2810230 & page=3California: 5)

TERRA BELLA-Inside the cavernous sawmill, a big log thundered across a

metallic platform. Bam! It crashed into position on a cutting track.

Shriek! A band saw sliced it into thick, cream-colored slabs. Another

log rolled into place. The result: more noise, more boards and more

conifer-scented sawdust that hung like a woodsy perfume in the air. The

pace of the action was frantic. But it was also misleading. For by

June, the Sierra Forest Products mill here may be out of business,

stilled by years of dogged environmental opposition that have throttled

the flow of national forest timber from the southern Sierra Nevada. If

that happens, something more may disappear than the last sawmill south

of the Tuolumne River. With it could go the best hope of managing the

forest by thinning the dense stands of smaller trees sapping the health

from the Sierra Nevada and fueling massive wildfires. " Without a mill,

forest management will virtually cease in the southern Sierra, " said

Larry Duysen, the mill's logging superintendent. Two decades ago, more

than 120 sawmills peppered California from Yreka to east of Los

Angeles. But a steep drop in national forest logging has forced many to

shut down. Now only 38 remain and about 8,000 workers have lost their

jobs. None is more imperiled than Sierra Forest Products, a

four-decade-old facility sandwiched between two orange groves along

County Road 234 south of Porterville. " Logging will increase, not

decrease, fire risk, " said Ara Marderosian, executive director of

Sequoia ForestKeeper. " The time for compromise has ended; these forests

are already depleted. " But the Duysens have also found an unlikely ally

in the environmental camp: Craig Thomas, director of the Sierra Nevada

Forest Protection Campaign. " The service they provide, in terms of

helping to reduce the fire hazard, is critically important, " Thomas

said. " All of us have an interest in them not going under. " http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/111464.htmlIdaho:6)

LeRoy Lee, hailed as a " giant " by conservationists for his work in

exposing the overcutting of federal forests, died Wednesday morning at

his home in Santa, Idaho. He was 50 and is believed to have died of a

heart attack, friends said. Although Lee once testified before the

Congress and uncovered what many in the conservation community say was

one of the biggest environmental scandals in recent Inland Northwest

history, he lived a simple, private life and focused most of his energy

for the last decade on teaching science classes in the St. Maries

School District. John Cordell, principal of St. Maries High School –

where the school mascot is a lumberjack – said Lee was beloved by

students for his eccentric style of teaching physics, chemistry and

biology, which included frequent use of a guitar, a harmonica and magic

tricks. " It just ticks me off – he goes to the grave with the tricks

he's never even shown me answers to, " Cordell said. " He was way cool.

He was a great teacher. " Lee assumed an important role in a community

where he was once told never to return. Tension was high because timber

sales were being curtailed in national forests across the nation. Lee,

a California native, was working as a seasonal contract worker for the

Forest Service near Avery, Idaho, in the mid-1980s when he discovered

what he believed were widespread inaccuracies in how the agency tracked

timber harvests. Essentially, the Forest Service records showed tens of

thousands of acres of mature trees where the ground showed stumps.

Using piles of maps, aerial photos and agency computer records, Lee

uncovered massive discrepancies in records kept by national forests

across the region. In northwestern Montana's Yaak Valley, for instance,

three-quarters of clearcuts were listed on paper as mature forest. In

1992, Lee explained his findings before the House Interior

Appropriations Subcommittee. Forest Service managers were exaggerating,

Lee said, because the forest couldn't grow fast enough to keep up with

the pace of harvest, but these large-scale cuts also meant big budgets.

" They've fabricated a paper forest, " Lee told the subcommittee.

Congress investigated and found inaccuracies on 15 national forests

across the West. http://www.s-r.com/tools/story_pf.asp?ID=169862Missouri:7)

First of all, I plead guilty to the theft of this idea from Riverrim,

where I first learned the word "inosculation." In my rambles about

Roundrock, I sometimes come upon such evidence of trees having grown

around rocks and other objects, essentially making the object a part of

the tree. This is common with barbed wire fencing, as everyone knows.

It's not surprising to me that in rocky soil such as we have in the

Ozarks, that stones could be absorbed by a root system so that when the

tree falls, the rock goes along with it. A tree is a live thing, of

course, and it grows, pushing aside what it can and enveloping what it

can't. Over at Shannon's Not So Virtual Homestead, she gives an account

of her husband finding a stone inside the trunk of a tree he is

splitting for firewood. I'm not sure how that stone found its way in

there. I know that loggers tell of finding very strange things inside

trees, often only when their chainsaws are crippled by striking them.

Perhaps the most famous inosculated item, at least to have been

photographed, is an entire bicycle that has been eaten by a tree. http://www.arborsmith.com/treeatsbike.html

While some believed this to be a hoax, it has apparently been found to

be genuine. Honestly, this doesn't surprise me about the vigor of

trees. http://www.roundrockjournal.com/?p=1128Ohio:8)

Attempts to rub out one bad actor from the forests of Northwest Ohio

may have opened the door to a mob of other wildlife miscreants.

Constance Hausman, a researcher from Kent State University, is tracking

the fate of the forest in Pearson Metropark after ash trees infested

with the invasive emerald ash borer were cut down and hauled away in an

attempt to stop the advance of the tree-killing pest. Although the

metallic green beetle continues its march through Ohio unfazed by

attempts to cut off its progress, preliminary research suggests beetle

eradication may be providing an invitation for a number of invasive

plants, Ms. Hausman told the crowd of more than 100 gathered yesterday

at the Main Branch of the Toledo Public Library for the fifth annual

Oak Openings Research Forum. Ms. Hausman began tracking changes in a

variety of Pearson Metropark forest plots in 2005. She is comparing

plots where tree harvesting equipment rolled through the forest on

caterpillar tracks and removed ash trees to plots where ash trees were

left standing, regardless of infestation. Forest plots where trees were

harvested show increased soil compaction, and a greater degree of

sunlight reaching the forest floor. The result is an advance in

undesirable invasive plant species into the forest. Those invaders

include the white-blossomed garlic mustard, which can rapidly take over

a forest plot and out-compete more desirable native plants, and the

Canada thistle, a fast-growing European invader that can reach six feet

in height, produce millions of seeds, and easily crowd out native

plants. Drastic changes in plant communities echo through the

ecosystem, robbing insects and other animals of the food and cover they

need, which can in turn mean less food for the animals that eat them.

Like many invasive species, garlic mustard and Canada thistle prefer

disturbed areas - and the emerald ash borer eradication program is

creating disturbance. http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070121/NEWS34/701210367Virginia:9)

SURRY - . A large swath of old bald cypress and tupelo trees in a

swampy Surry County forest have been cut to the ground. And some are

raising questions about the wisdom of clearing trees near the

oft-flooded Blackwater River. Timber is big business in a region home

to large pine plantations. But the sight of logging equipment moving

deep into a Blackwater swamp is catching some off guard even in rural

Surry County. At the request of Congressman Randy Forbes, the U-S Army

Corps of Engineers is now beginning to study why the Blackwater's

flooding seems to be getting worse. But the request was unrelated to

this recent logging and has yet to receive funding. Brian Van Eerden

oversees the Nature Conservancy's Southern Rivers program in Virginia.

He says he understands the financial incentive to log such a piece of

property. Since so much upland forestland has been converted from

hardwood to pine, prices for river bottom woods have increased. http://www.wdbj7.com/Global/story.asp?S=5968109 & nav=S6aKMaryland:

10)

HAGERSTOWN -- The six-state Chesapeake Bay watershed is losing forest

land to development at a rate of 100 acres a day, according to a study

by the USDA Forest Service and the Conservation Fund. The groups

advocate better management of family-owned woodlots, including

selective timber harvesting, to help landowners cash in on their

forests without selling to developers. " Most landowners nowadays own

the land for aesthetic enjoyment -- just sort of the natural beauty of

owning a wooded landscape, " said Eric S. Sprague, formerly of the

private Conservation Fund. " If we can give them some way to derive an

income off their land, they're more likely to keep it for future

generations. " Mr. Sprague coordinated the study and is now with the

District-based Pinchot Institute for Conservation, which is working

with the states to implement the report's recommendations. The 16

strategies for forest conservation in the 114-page report also include

land-use planning to reduce the loss and fragmentation of forests; tax

breaks for paper mills and sawmills that are under financial pressure

to sell their large forest holdings to investors; and encouraging

woodland owners to get certification that their forests are being

managed in an environmentally responsible manner. Forests cover 24

million acres, or 58 percent of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which

spans nearly 65,000 square miles in Delaware, Maryland, New York,

Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District, according to

the report. Forty-five percent of the forest habitat is vulnerable to

development, and 60 percent is fragmented by roads, housing

subdivisions, farms and other human uses, the study found. About

two-thirds of the forest land is owned by families. Their management

strategies, or lack thereof, play an increasingly important role in the

ecology and economy of the watershed, the study found. http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20070122-122423-3470r.htmPennsylvania:11)

More than 136 million acres of forest land in North America, and more

than 208 million worldwide, have been certified by third-party

organizations as being managed in an environmentally responsible

manner. The certification programs were started in the early 1990s to

help counter public perceptions that logging hurts the environment.

Pennsylvania's 2.1 million acres of state woodland is the largest tract

of forest in North America certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Maryland has had nearly 58,000 acres certified by the Sustainable

Forestry Initiative. But private forest owners in Maryland have been

less willing to participate in the programs, mainly because of the cost

of certification, Mrs. Miller said. http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20070122-122423-3470r.htmMaine:What

do forests in Maine and Washington State have in common? They are both

at risk from sprawling development taking place in America's woodlands.

Forests that have long provided wildlife habitat, timber and fiber,

public access for all kinds of recreation, and open natural areas are

threatened. The corporations that own these lands are changing to Real

Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and Timber Investment Management

Organizations (TIMOs) to take advantage of tax breaks. The financial

analysts, who now determine the future of these lands, come from

corporate offices miles away. They have decided it is in the best

interest of shareholders to sell off some of the places that Americans

cherish most. In Maine, Plum Creek is the culprit, with a 421,000-acre

rezoning application to allow the largest development ever proposed in

Maine - 975 lots and two large resorts - scattered in 58 subdivisions

around seven lakes and ponds across the Moosehead Lake region. While

Plum Creek has recently announced that it will be going back to the

drawing board (for a second time), it remains to be seen whether the

company proposes meaningful changes that will protect the unique

qualities of the area.Near Roslyn, Wash., 6,300 acres of former

Plum Creek land is being transformed into the Suncadia Resort. This new

resort offers some clues about what Plum Creek's proposal could mean

for Maine's Moosehead Lake region. In Maine, in addition to 975 house

lots, Plum Creek seeks permission to develop two resorts, an exclusive

one on the pristine Lily Bay peninsula (across from Lily Bay State

Park), and a 2,600-acre resort on Moose Mountain. These lands are

currently zoned for forestry and backwoods recreation. Plum Creek has

acknowledged that currently many local residents, including the

company's own employees, cannot afford to buy homes in the area. Maine

people - and the seven members of our Land Use Regulation Commission -

must answer the question: Is sprawling development and an exclusive,

Suncadia-style resort what is best for the future of the Moosehead Lake

region?http://www.sunjournal.com/story/195619-3/Perspective/Maine_can_do_better_than_Suncadia/USA:12)

The Road to Hell is….well…a Road -- First, cars kill animals. The

impact of roadkill on wildlife populations is well known. In the United

States, a conservative estimate of one million animals are killed a day

on American roads. Deer, elk, bear: you name it. Generally, roadkill

statistics account only for mammals and do not include reptiles,

amphibians birds or bugs. But one recent study recorded more than 625

snakes and 1700 frogs annually road-killed. Nor do they include the

number of animals who drag themselves off the road after being hit,

only to die in the forest beyond the road. Highways, of course, are the

greatest threat to animals. The amount of roadkill increases with the

amount and the speed of traffic. Unpaved roads and roads of

intermediate volume are far from iummune to high numbers of road kill.

As the number of roads increase, so does the amount of roadkill. In

Denmark, about 36,000 badgers are run over every year, a number

corresponding to 10-15% of their population. Why are some animals

attracted to roads? The American biologist Reed Noss points out that:

" Animals are attracted to roads for a variety of reasons, often to

their demise. Snakes and other ectotherms go there to bask, some birds

use roadside gravel to aid their digestion of seeds, mammals go to eat

de-icing salts, deer and other browsing herbivores are attracted to the

dense vegetation of roadside edge, rodents proliferate in the

artificial grasslands of road verges, and many large mammals find roads

to be efficient travelways. Songbirds come to dust bathe on dirt roads,

where they are vulnerable to vehicles as well as predators. Vultures,

crows, coyotes, raccoons, and other scavengers seek out roadkills,

often to become roadkills themselves " . But to understand the true harm

of roads, you must first understand what biologists call " edge " and the

consequences of " edge-effects " . A forest criss-crossed by roads may be

only " edge habitat " . There may be little of conservation value left to

such a forest. A heavily roaded forest may be biologically dead. http://www.unbossed.com/index.php?itemid=1297Canada:13)

Green party leader Elizabeth May was looking to hug a logger Friday.

She said that in the face of climate change, the environmental

interests of Green party supporters and those of the forestry industry

are more closely aligned than they may have been in the past. " We want

to ensure the forest has as few industrial stresses as possible,

because it is going to have so many climate stresses, " Ms. May told

members of the Forest Products Association of Nova Scotia in Halifax.

Although the environmental spotlight is currently on the need to reduce

gas emissions, she said there is also a pressing need for the forestry,

agriculture and fishery sectors to adjust to climate change. " We need

to figure how to adapt to levels of climate crisis that are now

inevitable, " Ms. May said. Among other things, the former executive

director of the Sierra Club of Canada said the forest industry in Nova

Scotia can lessen the impact of climate change by eliminating

clearcutting and using selective logging. " In order to avoid dramatic

damage from the climate crisis we need to ensure the logging that's

done allows the forest to recover, " Ms. May said. The Green party

leader said in an interview that some of the larger forestry companies

across Canada are applying to forest stewardship councils for

" eco-logging " certification to allow them to charge more to the

consumer. " People want to know the forest products they are using come

from a sustainable forest, " Ms. May said. http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/553898.html14)

The web-based National Afforestation Inventory is the country's first

standardized Canada-wide system for reporting tree-planting activities

that convert non-forested land into forest. No mechanism existed prior

to the database's development for Canadians to report such activities.

"We really had no ability to report how much afforestation was going

on," says Pacific Forestry Centre scientist Thomas White. "It's not a

core activity of the forest industry, so neither it nor the provinces

track it consistently. If they measure it at all, it's typically rolled

up with other activities." Funded by the Forest 2020 Plantation

Demonstration and Assessment program, a federal initiative to encourage

industry, local governments, First Nations and other landowners to

establish plantations of fast-growing trees on unforested land, the

database also ties in with the Canadian Forest Service's Forest Carbon

Accounting program. When the Kyoto Protocol became law in February,

reporting by Canada of land-use change activities such as

afforestation, deforestation and reforestation became mandatory. The

National Afforestation Inventory conforms to scientific and technical

reporting requirements developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change (IPCC). "Trees take atmospheric carbon dioxide, which is

a greenhouse gas, and convert it into fibre," says Research Scientist

Werner Kurz, the leader of the Canadian Forest Service Carbon

Accounting Team. "Afforestation enlarges Canada's forest carbon sink by

increasing the area of trees that are taking up and storing carbon." http://www.pfc.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/news/infoforestry/april2005/planting%5Fe.html

UK:15)

Environmental protesters are occupying trees in woods near Brecon in

the fifth protest against an 190-mile (306 km) gas pipeline. Despite

demos, almost 90% of the work has been completed on the first phase of

the pipeline which will run from Milford Haven to Gloucestershire.

Protesters said they were building tree houses in an attempt to stop

work beginning on the second phase. The pipeline will carry about a

fifth of the UK's gas supplies Campaigners have raised safety concerns

and claim it will damage the environment. In November work on phase one

was halted by demonstrators who climbed inside the pipe at Trebanos in

the Swansea Valley. We've been working for many months consulting on

the most suitable route which we believe we have found National Grid

spokesman Local people have joined environmental protesters at the

latest demonstration a few miles from the village of Sennybridge.

Around 20 people are taking part with some putting up tree houses and

others remaining on the ground. One protester said the demonstration

would go on indefinitely. " This site is now occupied by us, and we'll

be living there basically, " said Nick, who has also been involved with

protests at other locations. Environmental group the SafeHaven Network

said the aim was to stop the " destruction of yet more ancient

woodland " . A spokesman said: " Phase 2 of this route is set to run

through some of the most beautiful areas in the whole of the UK. This

should not happen. " But National Grid is hoping the Department of Trade

and Industry (DTI) will give the go ahead for the second phase from

Velindre to Gloucestershire by the end of this month. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/6288367.stmSweden: 16)

Northern Sweden was very sparsely populated until the beginning of the

19th century. At that time an accelerating agrarian colonization took

place, and later during that century a large-scale exploitation of the

virgin forest began. The first forest resources to be exploited were

those close to the Bothnian coast, and subsequently exploitation moved

further inland. This exploitation affected almost all forest land in

northern Sweden during the period 1850-1950. In many areas of northern

Sweden forest inventories preceded exploitation. They were often

carried out as tree counts, i.e. measurements of large diameters trees

as well as an estimation of their saw-timber quality. This inventories

can, together with more accurate inventories carried out at a later

time, be used to estimate the standing volume as well as tree diameter

distribution in the unexploited forest. In some cases the number of

dead standing trees was also recorded. The exploitation of the forest

meant that in most areas the average standing volume of trees was

drastically lowered before any forest cultivation and stand treatment

began. In two areas in the southern part of the boreal forest the

standing volume of today is 25% to 40 % lower than it was before any

exploitation had taken place. Forest surveys, from 1870, of northern

Sweden show a similar pattern, although this material also includes

forests that had already been exploited to some extent when the first

inventories were made. The standing volume of today is less than it was

120 years ago despite the more intensive forest cultivation and

management practices of the latest decades. http://www.borealforest.org/world/world_sweden.htmAlbania:17)

Under Hoxha's rule, Albanians all had to take part in communal

activities. After communism people turned against this, keeping their

own private places spotless and caring far less about the public areas.

Albania's beautiful countryside has also suffered. It is a country

blessed by a mixture of towering mountain peaks, dense forests and a

long coastline along the Adriatic and Ionian seas. Since the end of

communism around 30% of the forests have gone, and erosion is now a

serious problem in many parts. But despite poverty and the scrabble to

make ends meet, there are signs that changes are under way. Around a

third of Albanians earn their livings abroad. When they return they

bring outside influences to what was for almost half a century a very

closed society. Campaigners say that cleaning up Albania is vital if

the country is to make the most of its potential as a tourist

destination. Hopes are high that areas like the Ionian coast, which

borders Greece, could be the next cheap holiday hotspot. Part of making

this happen is getting the environment right. " This is not only a

problem of flowers or birds or plants, " says Dzemal Mato. " The

environment can be a big cost economically. The government and people

now realise that getting it wrong means they have to pay. " http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6274189.stmNigeria:18)

President, Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), Chief Philip Asiodu,

has warned that Nigeria might be left with no forest by 2010, owing to

the present level of deforestation activities. Asiodu gave this warning

at the 5th Chief Samiu Lawal Edu memorial lecture for 2007, titled " an

environmental agenda for Nigeria in the next two decades " , held in

Lagos. According to him, " with so much illegal logging activities going

on across the country, coupled with the very little replanting

programmes, there may be no forest left by 2010 " . He said contrary to

the recommendation of the FAO that 25 per cent of the land area should

be under forest, adding that " Nigeria has only 4.9 per cent of its land

area under forest " . Asiodu, a former Minister of Petroleum Resources,

said " an FAO country report of 2003 gives total area under forests in

Nigeria, natural and planted, at 4,456,000 hectares out of a land area

of 92,400,000 hectares, which is about 4.9 per cent " . He said because

of several decades of forest exploitation, mainly for timber, " you will

observed that in 2003, there was only 325,000 hectares of planted

forests " . This, he explained, was why land area covered by forest was

30 per cent in 1960 and about 75 per cent at the start of the 20th

century, was now less than five per cent. " What we know as high forest

with the very valuable hard woods covers only just about two per cent

of the land area " , he said. He maintained that " more than 70 per cent

of the nation's population depend on fuel wood, which is used

efficiently without fuel stoves " . " Today, our dependence on fuel wood

has not changed, while it has largely ceased in the two other West

African countries. " Apart from its destructive environmental impact,

this is a sad measure of poor standard of living " , he said. He said an

" estimated 484 plant species in 112 families including many medicinal

and fruit trees, are also threatened with extinction because of habitat

destruction and deforestation " . " More than 13 million tonnes of soil

are washed away into the sea annually, aggravating poverty in the rural

area " , Asiodu said. http://allafrica.com/stories/200701220067.htmlBrazil:19)

SAO PAULO -The International Financial Corporation, the private lending

arm of the World Bank, is close to making a final decision on a $90

million loan that would help one of Brazil's top beef exporters double

beef production capacity at its facilities in the Amazon region of Para

state. For the IFC, this is a controversial and unprecedented

investment, according to the bank's own assessment. Although the loan

is controversial for the IFC, it would serve as a "certificate of

confidence" that Bertin is a good steward of the environment and abides

by fair labor practices. That's good news for Bertin because the view

of Brazilian beef overseas is often one of a sector living large off

cheap labor as it wipes out swaths of rainforest. "No other lender is

going to demand, monitor, and follow through on social and

environmental policies like the IFC," Douglas Oliveira, the company's

chief financial officer, said at the IFC's offices in Sao Paulo

recently. "They are the only lender around that is going to prove to

the world that we are following sustainable environmental practices. If

you want to sell beef to Bertin, you can't deforest illegally. You

can't have horrendous labor conditions on your farm," Oliveira said,

naming some of his prerequisities. To foreign eyes looking at a

Brazilian map, Para is smack dab in the heart of the Amazon.

International environmental groups like Greenpeace have had their eyes

on that mass of land for years. Talk to a farmer in Brazil and he is

likely to say that these groups want to stall Brazil's agricultural

expansion and use environmental protection as a tool. Yet it is

becoming more likely that the Amazon has grown in cache as climate

concerns increase. Rainforests regulate climate and burning rainforests

releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous

oxide into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is believed to be responsible

for approximately half of global warming, and deforestation contributes

23%-30% of all carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to the

Rainforest Alliance Network. http://www.cattlenetwork.com/content.asp?contentid=9962620)

What happens to the Amazon rainforest in South America will affect the

planet and all its inhabitants. Widespread secret logging there should

be stopped and ways found to encourage sustainable timber harvesting

practices that preserve the forest. The Amazon often has been called

the "lungs" of the planet because it creates as much as 20 percent of

the earth's oxygen from carbon dioxide. It also has been dubbed the

"world's pharmacy." An estimated 70 percent of the drugs that fight

cancer are found only in the rainforest. Some plants and animals in the

rainforest are found nowhere else. Yet every year, the Amazon loses

more than 100 plant and animal species due to clear-cutting and

destruction of the rainforest for timber or other products. http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/opinion/16514924.htmHonduras:

21)

Eleven environmental groups, with millions of members worldwide, are

demanding action from the President of Honduras following the alleged

murder by state police of two Honduran activists. On the eve of the

first anniversary of his inauguration, President Jose Manuel Zelaya

Rosales faces an international outcry over the shootings of Heraldo

Zuniga and Roger Ivan Murillo Cartagena on December 20, 2006, in the

town of Guarizama in central Honduras. The men were local leaders in

the Environmental Movement of Olancho (MAO), a grassroots organization

that fights illegal and unsustainable logging by commercial timber

companies in their community forests. Their police killers were

allegedly acting under the influence of the country's powerful timber

interests. Zelaya took office on January 27th, 2006, voicing strong

commitments to crack down on the logging these activists were fighting.

Up to 50% of timber in Honduras is illegally harvested; the U.S. is the

primary market for its pine and mahogany products. Zuniga and Cartagena

are among eight environmental activists killed since 1995 in Honduras.

Although MAO's guiding force, Father Andres Tamayo, has brought

international attention to his cause (including a prestigious Goldman

Environmental Prize), he and fellow leaders continue to be subject to

death threats and intimidation. The letter calls on Zelaya's government

to " give this case the thorough attention and due process it requires

to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice, and do

everything in your power to prevent this from ever happening again. "

Coalition members voiced serious concerns about Honduras's

environmental commitment in light of the killings. Said Patrick Alley, of Global Witness, which has conducted an Independent Forest

Monitoring program in the country: " These terrible murders shine a

spotlight on the forest sector of Honduras. The sector suffers from

grave mismanagement. " http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104 & STORY=/www/story/01-22-2007/0004510461 & EDA

TE=Chile:22)

Aaron Sanger is an attorney working for environmental NGO Forest

Ethics. In 2003 he forced an environmental agreement with the Arauco

and CMPC logging companies after initiating a U.S.-based boycott on

Chilean wood products. The issue sparked a series of debates between

environmentalists and loggers, leading to a "new deal" in the

relationship between the seemingly opposite arguments for the

protection and exploitation of the native forest. Sanger's first job

was to research the impact of launching a campaign in the U.S. to

defend Chilean native forests. A couple of years earlier he had met

Malú Sierra, from Defenders of the Forest (Defensores del Bosque), to

whom he explained the work that several NGOs had carried out in British

Columbia, Canada. Due to intense pressure from activists, in April

2001, loggers, big business, indigenous communities and NGOs signed an

agreement - the first one of its kind worldwide - to protect hundreds

of hectares in the Big Bear Forest. Sanger's idea was to apply the same

strategy in Chile. It took him two years to prepare the campaign,

during which time he first came to Santiago. Together with local NGOs

Greenpeace, Defensores del Bosque, and Instituto de Ecología Política,

among others, he sent hundreds of letters to businesses, government

agencies, distributors and importers. Meanwhile, he called upon the

environmentalists: Forest Ethics was in charge of striking in Chile;

Rainforest Action Network in Indonesia; and others in Canada. " They

centered their efforts on Home Depot because they thought this

corporation could bring about the necessary changes, " remembers one of

the executives involved in the campaign. Sanger's influence in American

public debate is noticeable. He writes columns, gives speeches at

universities and has written several books. In February 2006 he taught

a class at MIT called "Collaboration between NGOs and Industry: Trap or

Opportunity?" He also participated in a forum in Portland that gathered

the planet's forestry leaders and dealt with the objectives of

environmental pressure campaigns. http://www.tcgnews.com/santiagotimes/index.php?nav=story & story_id=12770 & topic_id=15

Guatemala:23)

Darron Collins, an "ethno-botanist," lived for two years with the

Q'eqchi', a Mayan speaking people of northern Guatemala. Now with the

World Wildlife Fund, Collins is responsible for the implementation of

forest conservation programs throughout Latin America. Earth &

Sky's Jorge Salazar spoke to Collins about where we are now in our

effors to save the tropical rainforest. "There's been significant

progress over the past few decades, but the tropical rain forest

problem hasn't been solved. It's an issue that came to the forefront in

the 1980s. It was an issue that was on a lot of people's minds in the

1990s. But it's tended to fade in relevance in recent years. And that's

a shame, because we haven't solved the problem. We've made good

progress in terms of more and better managed protected areas. That's

one tool in a conservationist's toolkit for looking at tropical forest

deforestation, but it's only one. And we've got to understand that

people will always play a large role in shaping tropical rain forests.

There are ways of doing it sustainably, and there are ways of doing it

unsustainably. Certainly, timber management has improved significantly

over the past decade. There are ways to harvest tropical timbers that

can bring local benefit in terms of economies, and that are

ecologically sustainable. There are methods of doing agroecology that

are more sustainable than others. So, there are toolkits that are out

there that are useful in improving the situation. But, clearly, the

problem hasn't gone away. The bottom line is that for conservation to

work over the long term, it involves working from the most local to the

most global scale, and integrating those two often disparate sides of a

coin to affect long-term sustainability on the ground.http://www.earthsky.org/article/44526/darron-collins-interviewColombia:24)

The chestnut-capped piha is an unassuming robin-sized bird restricted

to a few tiny remnant forest patches in the Antioquia Department of

Colombia, in the Central Cordillera of the Andes. It is so restricted

in its distribution that it evaded discovery until 1999, and has been

identified by the Alliance for Zero Extinction as a priority

conservation species ( see http://www.zeroextinction.org

). Affectionately called Arrierito Antioqueño or " little herdsman of

Antioquia " by the locals for its call, reminiscent of the whistles made

by horsemen herding cattle, this Endangered species hangs on in an area

devastated by gold mining in the early 20th Century and subsequently by

broad scale deforestation for pasturelands. Only 370 acres of the

bird's habitat previously had been in any way protected, but even this

limited sanctuary is at risk from timber extraction clearing the last

subtropical forest fragments surrounding it. Now, support from the

American Bird Conservancy ( ABC ) and partners has allowed for the

purchase of further habitat area in a crucial move to protect the

chestnut-capped piha and other Endangered species. " Thanks to the

generous support of Conservation International, the IUCN/SSC Amphibian

Specialist Group, Robert Wilson, and Robert Giles, ABC has funded the

purchase of an additional 1,310 acres, to be owned and managed by

Colombian partner Fundación ProAves, " said George Fenwick, the ABC

president. The reserve is also critically important for globally

threatened frog species, whose last remaining habitat is diminishing

rapidly within the Central Cordillera. http://presszoom.com/story_123087.htmlPeru:25)

Salazar: "Can you tell me some of what has worked in Peru, and

elsewhere, in terms of forest conservation?" Collins: "In the lowlands

of Peru, it's critical to work with local people, because local people

make a living off the forest. They do it through timber, and for

non-timber forest products, for medicinal products. The forest is how

people live. Their local economy is all based on forest resources. So,

clearly, we have a lot to learn in the conservation community from

local indigenous people about how to manage forests, and about proper

and potential uses of forest products. We are not saying that we all

need to live like indigenous people, because the world is rapidly

changing. It needs to be a two-way street. Just as we can learn a lot

from indigenous people, there are certain capacities that can be built

among indigenous communities, like mapping, GIS technology, the concept

of a GIS-based management plan. So, there's a lot of learning that

needs to go both ways at the very local level if we're going to be

successful in the long run. We should also talk about national

strategy, and national governments. There has been a certain trend

toward decentralizing national governments. The trend has been toward

giving local authorities more and more power to decide for the future

of the landscapes that they're managing. So, not only does the

conservation community have to work with national government, but we

also have to pay a lot more attention to local, or district level

governments if we're going to look out for the ecological integrity of

lowland forests over the long-term. And then, at a greater scale, there

are regional and international treaties. There are multinational

corporations whose footprint can be felt on the lowland tropical

forests. So, only by looking at those three levels, and even the many

more levels, only by focusing on the international, the regional, and

the local, will we affect any long-term sustainable changes in the

Amazon basin and worldwide." http://www.earthsky.org/article/44526/darron-collins-interviewIndia:26)

A few tree-lovers came together to form an NGO called 'Nizhal' which

means 'shade' in Tamil. They have organised tree-walks for about a year

teaching people about the species in their area. They hope this

education will lead to conservation and ultimately make Chennai a

greener city.'Nizhal' has encountered a high level of ignorance about

the importance of greening amongst the middle class. So they have had

to start with the basics. " Every normal adult would require about

130,000 litres of oxygen every year and two good trees can provide this

amount of oxygen. Otherwise we would all be inhaling carbon dioxide

perhaps, " said Professor G Dattatri, Former Chief Urban Planner, CMDA.

If there should be two healthy trees to every normal adult then this

city of more than six million certainly has something to worry about.

There are only a little more than 20,000 trees within the Corporation

limits. 'Nizhal' has placed recommendations before the government to

help change that figure. Till then, tree-walks are helping in their

small way to make more neighbourhoods green and friendly. http://www.ndtv.com/features/showfeatures.asp?slug=Chennai+NGO+spreads+awareness+on+trees%0D & Id=

157627)

In the 1970s, grassroots protest against the destruction of the forests

famously found its most visible expression in the Chipko struggle,

which began in Gopeshwar in Chamoli district. Bharti was then in

college in Gopeshwar and was an active participant in the movement,

even forming a college group called Daliyon Ka Dagda (Friends of the

Trees) to spread the word on conservation. After his studies, when he

returned to Ufrain Khal, he found the same sorry tale of destruction

there as well. "Around that time, the forest department decided to cut

down a stretch of silver firs near Dera village. Coming from the Chipko

movement, I knew how to tackle this and I started a campaign and

mobilised the villagers," says Bharti. Thanks to his efforts, hundreds

of firs were saved from the official axe — a small success which laid

the foundation for big changes and, most importantly, helped give the

people of the area a sense of their rights and the importance of unity.

But, as deforestation spread out of control, not only did the villagers

have to deal with severe resource scarcities, but the animals of the

forests became a menace, driven by the vanishing tree cover toward

human habitation. Instead of killing the animals off, as happened

elsewhere, villagers in Dera began building walls around their fields

and settlements, on Bharti's suggestion. Around this time, Bharti also

took up teaching at a local school. His long-time friend and doctor,

Dinesh, says this was the single-most important reason for the success

his projects later had as he was able to reach out directly to the

young with his conservationist message. In 1980, Bharti tried a

different approach. With the help of the forest department, he

established a nursery of indigenous mountain species — oak, fir, cedar

and alder. This effort later grew into the Dudhatoli Lok Vikas Sansthan

(dlvs), which undertakes indigenous tree plantation across the range

and holds annual environmental awareness camps in the 150 villages that

are part of it. After the first plantation drive, the villagers who

took part made a collective decision to enforce a 10-year ban on forest

activity. Through the Mahila Mangal Dals, it was the women who took on

the task of posting a lookout for trespassers, with patrols working in

shifts to keep the vigil. Within a decade, the people of Dudhatoli

regained a large part of their lost forest cover. http://www.tehelka.com/story_main26.asp?filename=Cr012707FromDeadRock.aspCambodia:

28)

PHNOM PENH - A Cambodian woman who went missing in the jungle for 18

years before being found last week is struggling to adapt to life as a

human and wants to return to the forest, police said on Friday. " She

prefers to crawl rather than walk like a human, " said Mao Sun, a

district police chief in the jungle-clad northeastern province of

Rattanakiri where the girl's family live. " Unfortunately, she keeps

crying and wants to go back to the jungle, " he said. " She is not used

to living with humans. We had to clothe her. When she is thirsty or

hungry she points at her mouth, " he told Reuters by phone. The girl,

called Ro Cham H'pnhieng, went missing as an eight-year-old along with

her cousin when they were sent to tend cows near the border with

Vietnam. Villagers believed they had been eaten by wild animals until a

girl was caught last week by a logging team as she was trying to steal

some food they had left under a tree. With blackened skin and hair

stretching down to her legs, she was unrecognizable apart from a scar

across her back that allowed her father to pick her out. After 18 years

in the wilderness, police said she was able to say only three words:

father, mother and stomach ache. Villagers from the Phnong ethnic

hilltribe minority believe the girl is still possessed by evil spirits

of the forest. They have brought in Buddhist monks to bless her and set

up a round-the-clock watch on the family hut. http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=22380529)

An open letter to the woman who is back home after 18 years lost in the

jungle by Michael Bywater: My dear Rochom P'ngieng, If it's true that

you spent 19 years in the Cambodian jungle, you'll have realized by now

that changes are like assumptions: we don't know we're making them, and

they creep up on us while our back is turned. It's also said (though in

the Information Age we take nothing for granted) that you're thinking

of heading back to the wild. There's plenty for you to think about.

Plenty for the rest of us, too, because it's only when we step back and

look afresh that we spot the changes all around us. Everything beeps!

Everyone is earplugged, nodding! And the Commies have gone! Then we

start to notice. GM food, rucksack bombs, rows about stem cell

research, global warming, iPods, email burnout, anti-depressants,

obesity, the Middle East, spam, porn, the iPhone... These things

probably don't mean that much where you are. But the world has changed.

You turn your back for two decades and things are different. People

know more and more and understand less and less, and in the face of

this (among other causes) religion is back, and this time it's armed.

The world's divide, from where I am standing, is no longer Communism

vs. capitalism (such a shame; how Communism would have loved the

surveillance opportunities offered by the internet) but Islamism vs.

Western materialism. Which, of course, is immaterial to you and to the

majority of the world's people, who still live much as they have for

centuries: in relative poverty, from day to day. But not for much

longer, because while you've been away, we discovered we seem to have

buggered up the planet. Now it's turning against us, probably

irrecoverably. Sorry about that. Still, your experience in the forest

may stand you in better stead in the years to come than a 60Gb iPod and

a working knowledge of Web 2.0 design. However, if you do decide to go

back, we'll know about it. Because there's nowhere to hide any more. http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2171581.ece

Philippines:30)

BAGUIO CITY: Some species of butterflies indigenous to the Cordillesras

face extinction due to deforestation and other forms of environmental

degradation. This was learned from a study done by two researchers of

the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Cordillera

Administrative Region (CAR) office. DENR researchers Imelda Ngaloy and

George Tomin had determined that the presence and abundance of the

beautiful winged insects are indicators of a good and well-preserved

environment. Ngaloy and Tomin, however, observed that some species of

butterflies indigenous to the Cordillera region have dwindled, their

numbers no longer as profuse as before. http://wowbaguio.com/?p=808Malaysia:31)

MIRI: An independent body will be set up to ascertain whether timber

exported from Malaysia to European Union countries are legally

extracted. Malaysia is the first country to decide on such a move. This

decision was reached following formal talks between the EU

commissioners and Malaysian authorities here over the past two days.

Malaysia exports some RM2.8bil worth of timber and related products to

Europe annually. The EU delegation, led by the European Commission

director of international affairs, Directorate General for Environment

Soledad Blanco, is in Malaysia to start negotiations for a partnership

agreement to allow Malaysian timber to gain entry into EU countries.

Malaysia now has to negotiate with individual EU countries to export

its timber and timber by-products to EU markets. Plantation Industries

and Commodities Minister Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui represented Malaysia

in the negotiations with the EU team. The Malaysian delegation is made

up of senior ministry officials, forestry department representatives

and timber company representatives. Blanco said the EU wanted a third

party to play the role of assessing whether timber products were from

legal sources. "EU countries will favour timber that has legal status

certified by an independent body. This third party will function as the

auditing body. Malaysia is the first country to engage in such

negotiation. http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/1/21/nation/16637605 & sec=nationAustralia:

31)

Australia and the UK have agreed to work together to develop tough

measures aimed at stopping the illegal timber trade. Barry Gardiner,

Minister for Biodiversity, Landscape and Rural Affairs met Australian

Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation Minister Senator Eric Abetz this

week to discuss how they can work together to combat illegal logging

and protect forests worldwide. Senator Abetz agreed to stronger

cooperation between the UK and Australia on forest certification and

efforts to reduce illegal logging, consistent with Europe's Forest Law

Enforcement Governance and Trade action plan. The Ministers agreed that

the UK timber procurement policy could be a powerful tool among a range

of demand and supply measures available to governments and forest

managers as a means to fight illegal logging and encourage greater

global acceptance of sustainable forest management practices, and that

its effectiveness would be enhanced by consistent application of public

procurement practices internationally. Illegal logging costs developing

countries worldwide around $15billion a year in lost revenue, according

to the World Bank. Barry Gardiner said: "I am tremendously encouraged

by Senator Abetz's agreement that Australia and the UK should work

together to promote policies that combat illegal timber. Australia is a

key player in the Asian and Pacific region and can influence many

countries. http://media-newswire.com/release_1041769.html32)

Rope bridge overpasses and faunal underpasses were effective in

restoring rainforest habitat connectivity for many tropical rainforest

species that suffer high levels of road mortality or that avoid large

clearings, such as those for roads, and, therefore, suffer barrier

effects. Faunal underpasses furnished with logs and rocks to provide

cover were constructed in 2001 at a hotspot for tree-kangaroo

mortality. The narrow road and 120-m-wide strip of abandoned pasture

divided two blocks of rainforest severing an important highland

wildlife corridor through an agricultural landscape. Many terrestrial

rainforest species use the underpasses, including medium-sized and

smaller mammals and terrestrial birds, together with two confirmed

passages of the rare target species, Lumholtz's tree-kangaroo. Road

mortality near the underpasses has remained low, whereas road kill

rates are much greater along the narrow rainforest highway without

underpasses. Community composition of rainforest birds within the

corridors is approaching that of edge rainforest nearby, demonstrating

effectiveness at this early stage of growth. However, although

rainforest small mammals reside in the corridors, feral and pasture

species still dominate, emphasizing the need for longer growth periods

to encourage greater use by rainforest specialist mammals of the

connectivity afforded by corridors and underpasses. Several rope

bridges erected 7m above narrow roads and designed for use by rare

arboreal rainforest mammals have also proven effective and are

regularly used by the obligate arboreal Lemuroid ringtail possum, which

will not cross roads on the surface or via underpasses. Several other

possums that rarely venture to ground level are also regular crossers.

Structures also provide safe crossing routes for arboreal species that

otherwise suffer road mortality. http://repositories.cdlib.org/jmie/roadeco/Goosem2005a/World-wide:33)

Two of the biggest, most dangerous lies being promoted in response to

global warming are that clean coal exists and the world's forests are

adequate to provide biofuel. Dirty coal and industrial forest harvest

for energy only accelerates the root causes of looming Doomsday for the

Earth - that is destruction of the biosphere's atmospheric and

terrestrial ecosystems. Coal burning and forest loss have been the

leading culprit in climate change to date, and should their continued

use at any scale be pursued as the solution to climate change and

energy security, it will prove the death-knell for the Planet. We need

less fossil fuel use and more forest regeneration, not the reverse. http://earthmeanders.blogspot.com/2007/01/clean-coal-forest-biofuel-and-other.html

34)

Up to 65 per cent of WWF's Global 200 forested ecoregions are

threatened by illegal logging. In some countries in South East Asia,

Africa and Latin America up to 80 per cent of all trees are cut

illegally. In Russia, it's up to 50 per cent, and the country loses

US$1billion in revenue annually due to illegal logging and the

associated trade. Half of all the world's original forest cover has

already disappeared and much of that destruction has taken place over

the last 50 years. WWF defines illegal logging and forest crime as the

harvesting, transporting, processing, buying or selling of timber in

violation of national laws. It lies within wider forest-related crime

which includes both large- and small-scale theft of timber, breaking of

licence agreements and tax laws, as well as issues of access to and

rights over forest resources, corruption, and poor management. Since

illegal logging and trade activities tend to be concentrated in forests

rich in plant and animal diversity, the environmental costs are also

high. Unlicensed timber extraction, for example, is responsible for the

loss of habitat vital for tigers, rhinos and elephants in Asia, leading

to local extinctions of these and other species. http://www.wwf.us/about_wwf/what_we_do/forests/problems/illegal_logging/index.cfm