171 - Earth's tree News

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Formatted for wide margins! If you don't have wide margins use the weblog instead!Today

for you 39 news items about 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---Alaska:

1) Sitka spruce Guitar makers speaking out again --British Columbia: 2)

End of forestry as we know it, 3) Betty Rocks, 4) Western Forest land

scams, 5) Speak out for mountain caribou, --Washington: 6) Old trees among us, --Oregon:

7) Business of logging, 8) Gordon Creek Timber Sale, 9) PNW timber

economy, 10) Clear Dodger Timber Sale, --California: 11) Trying to stop

the logging, 12) Teaching kids how to cut down trees, --Montana: 13)

Community fire protection and restoration--Wyoming:14) Beetles and Bears--Minnesota:15) Superior NF opens 13,000 acres to logging--Massachusetts:16) Residents fighting logging plan settle--USA: 17) End of an Eco-era, 18) Chief of the Forest Service, 19) Feds exempted, 20)Wolverine, --Canada: 21) Greenpeace action, 22) Problem with emissions, 23) $ value of Mackenzie,--UK: 24) Jeremy Bristow, 25) Reproduction of the world's ecosystems--Germany: 26) More biofuel blundering--Hungary: 27) Beech forest illegally cut

--Guyana: 28) Another 400,000 hectares for a Chinese mills--Peru: 29) Protesting oil Houston companies who are using 22 million acres--Brazil: 30) Champions of the Earth award--Argentina: 31) new-age imperialist gringo

--Madagascar: 32) 300,000 hectare for the birds--Nepal: 33) Cardamon economies--Australia: 34) More on appalling records of deforestation, 35) Forest defenders locked down to machinery, 36) Manningham forest, 37) Fighting over who gets the trees,

--Tropical forests: 38) Save trees by reducing debt--World-wide: 39) Algae may save trees, Alaska:

1)

At the present rates of cutting, they say the old growth sitka spruce,

so vital to the sound and performance of their guitars, could be gone

in a decade. " It's time for us to self-govern and take responsibility

to get in there and say these practices have to change, " said Bob

Taylor, president of California-based Taylor Guitars, whose customers

include Bryan Adams and Suzanne Vega. " In reality, we are a small user

[of sitka] but we have a really big voice and that is where it comes

in. People show up when we show up. " Taylor, along with Fender, Martin

and Gibson, are calling on the suppliers of sitka spruce, an

extraordinarily strong, vibrant timber that is used for the sound

boards of acoustic guitars, to apply for certification under the Forest

Stewardship Council (FSC). " We are seeking to partner with people

closer to the forest that are trying to manage these valuable, precious

resources more judiciously, " said Chris Martin, chairman of Martin and

Co. The spruce used comes almost exclusively from the coastal temperate

rainforest of southeast Alaska and Canada where logging over the past

100 years has all but depleted stocks. According to an analysis of the

logging industry in the region carried out by Greenpeace, more than 80

per cent of the timber is shipped to Asia, where it is used mainly for

building homes. The bulk of the remainder is used in the US for door

and window frames. Campaigners say the overwhelming majority of the

timber from southeast Alaska is supplied by Sealaska, a co-operative of

native Alaskans which has more than 17,000 members and which is the

largest private landowner in the region. Greenpeace last summer

arranged a meeting between Sealaska and representatives from the four

guitar companies. They are trying to persuade Sealaska to apply for FSC

certification. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2 & objectid=10421780British Columbia:2)

The Association of BC Forest Professionals (ABCFP) regrets that the BC

Institute of Technology (BCIT) chose to close its two forestry programs

due to low enrolment. " Forestry is a complex and challenging career.

When you work in forestry you have the opportunity to make a difference

for future generations, " says ABCFP's president Bob Craven, a BCIT

alumni. " Unfortunately, young people are not getting this message and

are not choosing to go into forestry programs. " A recent survey by the

ABCFP (completed in December 2006) showed that the workforce is getting

older. Forty-three percent of ABCFP members have more than 18 years of

experience while only 11% have less than five years of experience.

" There is such a small pool of candidates to take over when the baby

boomers retire that BC's forests are at risk, " says Craven. " Safety of

workers is a real concern when there are too many new and inexperienced

people on the job. No matter what sector you're in, you rely on

experienced workers to train the new ones. While there are three other

schools offering forest technology programs in the province (Malaspina

University-College, Selkirk College and the College of New Caledonia),

BCIT is the only one in the highly populated Lower Mainland. http://www.abcfp.ca3)

"The earth, My Lady, is in serious trouble, what does it mean to have a

conscience in response to this? Are our consciences simply stunned and

unable to react? For a long time, the courts didn't listen to the

public who are the co-owners of these forests. But now it's become far

more than that. It's become a matter of life and death in the

not-to-distant future. Vancouver Island has become somewhat of a

wasteland. The courts are the holders of what is going to happen to

British Columbia. I was raised in Louisiana where one race had complete

control over another race. I could not understand why my father

privately saved a black man's life, but would not protest the public

killing of a black man. Then when I had small children the entire

question of apartheid blew open. I joined a small group of white people

who protested to keep those [racially mixed] schools open… Then I saw

what civil disobedience could do." The judge interrupted Betty, saying

her history was not relevant. " You need to explain what your conscience

belief is, that has been infringed. " Betty took back the stand with the

following: "The conscience belief that I am concerned about is one in

which the courts insist that rule of law presides over the conscience

of an individual. If the rule of law and injunctions offends my

conscience it is because it allows the might of corporations to

override and to destroy what is needed by the rest of the people of

British Columbia to live. It offends my conscience that the courts

don't look through the prism of public interest in cases like mine."

She ended by saying: " I'm not leaving this Earth without doing

everything that I can do to leave something, something of our forests,

clean air, clean water on this earth for future generations. " http://bettysearlyedition.blogspot.com4)

DUNCAN - Western Forest Products Inc. today announced that it has

received approval from the BC Minister of Forests and Range to remove

approximately 28,000 hectares of its private lands from its Tree Farm

Licences 6, 19 and 25. Western Forest Products is an integrated

Canadian forest products company and the largest coastal British

Columbia woodland operator and lumber producer with an Annual Allowable

Cut of approximately 7.7 million cubic meters (before temporary AAC

reductions) of timber and lumber capacity in excess of 1.5 billion

board feet from nine sawmills and five remanufacturing plants. http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/January2007/31/c3326.html

With the removal of some of its privately owned lands from provincial

tree-farm licences, Duncan-based Western Forest Products Inc. now has

the right to subdivide and sell wooded properties that in some cases

are within an hour's drive of Victoria. And although those parcels

account for a small portion of the lands freed up under an agreement

with the province this week, they represent by far the greatest value,

the head of the company said yesterday. " Any value in this [removal

from the tree-farm licences] would be in the higher and better-use

properties, " Western Forest chief executive officer Reynold Hert said

yesterday. " Where the land, and the combination of land and timber on

it, is now of much more value than just the timber on it going through

our mills. " http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070202.BCFOREST02/TPStory/National5)

There are only about 1,900 mountain caribou left in the world and the

Cariboo-Chilcotin is home to about 250 of them. Mountain caribou are

only found in B.C. and a small area of Idaho in the U.S. The mountain

caribou are uniquely adapted to surviving winters at high elevations

but they are also particularly vulnerable to human encroachment. Their

dwindling numbers have resulted in them being listed as threatened both

federally and provincially. A 20-year moratorium on logging in the

Quesnel Highland east of Williams Lake was initiated in 1980 to allow

research on the mountain caribou population in this area. In that time

the population dropped from over 350 to about 250 animals, a number

that has remained stable for the past ten years. The Cariboo-Chilcotin

Land Use Plan in the Quesnel Highland allocated 86,836 hectares of no

harvest habitat and 53,509 hectares of modified harvest habitat. The

management plan for the modified harvest areas was to cut 30 per cent

of the trees within a stand every 80 years, giving lots of time for new

trees to mature before the next pass. This way a third of the forest

would always be 160 to 240 years old. Maintaining old growth forests is

critical to mountain caribou survival because the arboreal lichen which

grows on these very old trees is their only source of food in winter.

"Basically after 16 years of research we think this works to maintain

foraging habitat for mountain caribou," Armleder advised the group. The

modified logging research was carried out by harvesting small, medium

and large openings but all less than one hectare in size. Armleder said

the logged areas and adjoining old growth forests were checked at five,

eight and 10-year intervals after harvesting. After 10 years he said

there was no difference between the number of trees that were blown

down by wind in the harvested area and the forest that had not been

logged. http://www.wltribune.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=37 & cat=60 & id=821748 & more=Washington:

6)

"When people see a sign on a tree, they want to read it," Trainer

added. "It'll benefit the community by letting them know the

information on the tree and its part in history will be known forever."

Trainer added that unfortunately, many of these trees lack the proper

recognition and plaques they deserve. Without identification and

historical relevance to the community, Trainer said these trees could

lose their heritage and importance. "There's something about standing

underneath a 1,000-year-old Douglas pine that's awe-inspiring," said

Jim Trainer, a local community forester. "The trees really tell a

story." Scattered throughout Kitsap County, old-growth pines and cedars

can be found in Seabeck, Bremerton and Silverdale with some holding

unique stories that date back to the 1800s. "In general, I've found a

lot of old-growth trees in Seabeck," said Trainer, pointing to an

850-year-old Douglas Fir on the Kitsap Mountaineers property. "There

used to be a time when you couldn't see the sky." Along with touting

some of the tallest old-growth trees in the state, Kitsap County also

is home to two champion Quince and English Hawthorne trees as well.

Located near the mouth of Big Beef Creek in Seabeck, these two

distinguished trees bloom in hues of pink and purple in the spring.

"There is no other place in the state with two champion trees within 50

feet of each other," Trainer said. http://www.centralkitsapreporter.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=93 & cat=23 & id=825268 & more=

Oregon:7)

Few areas on the planet are as amenable to the growth of lush

coniferous forests as the Oregon Coast Range and Cascades. Abundant

rainfall (sometimes exceeding 200 inches annually) and deep winter

snowpacks nourish old-growth forests with softwood trees that often

exceed 200 feet in height and ten feet in diameter. The dominant

species are Douglas fir and, near the coast, Sitka spruce, although

western hemlock and western redcedar are very common. In North America,

only the redwood forests (also found in southwestern Oregon) support

larger trees. If the Oregon Cascades and Coast Range have a tragic

flaw, it can be found in a geology and summer climate that make them

relatively easy to log compared to the precipitous North Cascades or

Olympics of Washington State. Vast areas of the Coast Range are owned

by large timber corporations, the state of Oregon, the U.S. Forest

Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Oregon has long been the

leading timber producer in the U.S., with its timber " harvests" (1)

reaching their historic peaks during the sixties and seventies. The

culminating years were 1968 and 1972, each with harvests of more than

9.7 billion (2) board-feet (BF). Extensive logging continued through

the Reagan years at nearly the same levels, leaving a vast checkerboard

of grotesque, reddish-brown clearcuts across the landscapes of Oregon,

Washington and other western states. During the nineties, timber

production declined markedly for a variety of reasons, including lower

prices, intense international competition (especially with Canada) and

endangered-species litigation related to the spotted owl and marbeled

murrelet. By 2001, production in Oregon fell to 3.4 billion board-feet,

with predictable effects on mills and timber-dependent rural

communities across the state. But, with friends in the White House,

Congress and the state legislature, the timber corporations have been

recovering nicely. Oregon's total harvest reached 4.5 billion

board-feet in 2004, and harvests on corporate timberlands have

increased impressively (see next photo). Federal forest lands have also

increased production. http://runestones.blogspot.com/2007/01/trashing-tillamook.html8)

The Gordon Creek Timber Sale is located five miles due south of Bridal

Veil Falls, along the Larch Mt. Road. Gordon Creek is a small tributary

to the Sandy River, which it meets just upstream from Oxbow Park. Over

1,000 acres of forest are threatened by the proposed logging, which is

occurring on taxpayer-owned land " managed " by the Bureau of Land

Management. The proposal is in its early stages so Bark knows very

little about the project, except for boundaries on a map. We need your

help because right now is the best time to voice concerns about the

timber sale-before the BLM becomes too invested in seeing this project

go forward. What you can do: 1) See the forest for yourself: join Bark

on our monthly Bark-About to Gordon Creek in February (details below);

and 2) Help us gather data from the forest to learn more about the

proposed logging. Contact Bark's Program Director, Amy Harwood, to

learn how you can become a Groundtruther: amy or (503)

331-0374. To learn more about the sale, visit our Timber Sale Database

and click on " Gordon Creek. " http://www.bark-out.org/index.php9)

" It's a new stable industry, and it's growing, " said Richard Haynes, an

economist with the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research

Station in Portland. " The region has recovered from what happened in

the 1990s. " The state continues as the nation's largest producer of

lumber: 31 percent more in 2004 than Washington, its nearest

competitor, according to the Western Wood Products Association. " In the

early '90s, people talked as if the industry was going to go

completely, " Haynes said. " What happened is it went through a severe

transition - we have less workers, but we're producing more wood than

before. " Oregon Department of Forestry data shows that overall timber

harvest in Oregon - from private, tribal, state and federal land - fell

from a high of 8.74 billion board feet in 1986 to a low of 3.44 billion

board feet in 2001. Annual cutting figures have risen since then, with

4.35 billion cut in 2005. Gary Lettman, an Oregon Department of

Forestry economist, said an annual harvest of 5 billion board feet is

sustainable with current levels of environmental protection. " The west

side (of Oregon) is very healthy, lots of timber, productive land

base, " he said. " If lumber prices go up again, we could increase

production. " But in recent months a national housing slowdown has led

to lower lumber prices and translated to fewer jobs at Oregon mills. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OR_OREGON_TIMBER_OROL-?SITE=ORMED & SECTION=HOME & TEMPLATE

=DEFAULT10)

Every acre of forest that Bark has ever saved has been because of our

amazing members and volunteers. The Clear Dodger Timber Sale is no

exception. When the sale was announced in 2002, Bark Groundtruthers

immediately began collecting data that ultimately led to 22 acres of

forest including ancient western red cedars and lush streams being

dropped from the proposal. Now Bark has one last chance to stop the BLM

from logging the remaining 143 acres of Clear Dodger. Last week we

filed an appeal with the BLM to drop the proposal. Following years of

work by volunteer botanists, surveyors and lawyers, as well as

countless hours leading the public out to the project, Bark filed a

legal brief with six copies (100% tree free, kenaf, of course) sent via

certified mail, costing $14.50. This may seem like a small price to

protect our public forests...and it is! Please do you part to support

citizen action! Want to become a Forest Sustainer and help protect

forest like Clear Dodger from being cut down every month? Simply click

here to become a Forest Sustainer today! http://www.bark-out.org/index.phpCalifornia:11)

Aerial photos and a detailed computer analysis show that the water

company owns at least 2,754 acres of timberland containing redwood and

Douglas fir trees, opponents said outside a public forum Wednesday.

That's a key number, because California law sets 2,500 acres as the

maximum amount of forest land containing commercially viable trees that

any landowner can own while remaining eligible for the kind of

open-ended logging permit for which the water company has applied. ``We

did aerial photography of every piece of land in the watershed,'' said

Google engineer Rebecca Moore, a Summit Road-area resident opposing the

plan. ``We used the absolute strictest definition of what timberland

is, and they have too much.'' The findings could form the basis of a

lawsuit against the California Department of Forestry and Fire

Protection if it approves the logging plan in the months ahead. At the

very least, it sets up a battle of dueling computer mapping studies in

an ``only in Silicon Valley'' kind of eco-showdown. Matt Dias, a

forester with Big Creek Lumber of Davenport, which San Jose Water has

hired to log the property, said he has conducted his own exhaustive

survey of the water company's property holdings. The company owns about

6,000 acres, with 2,002 acres of timberland, Dias said. ``I haven't

seen their methods,'' Dias said. ``But we have digitized the property,

we have spent weeks walking every single parcel, and we made a

conservative estimate.'' The water company said it hopes to reduce fire

risk on 1,002 acres of watershed lands it owns between Lexington

Reservoir and Summit Road along the east side of Highway 17 near Los

Gatos. The company has applied for a ``non-industrial timber management

plan,'' to cut 20 percent of redwoods and Douglas fir trees under 12

inches in diameter and 40 percent of those trees over 24 inches in

diameter during a 15-year period. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/16598865.htm12)

For a decade, employees from Sierra Pacific Industries and Blue Ridge

Forest Management, working with various school districts in Shasta

County, have brought students to the mountains near Shingletown to

teach about the county's timber history and present a logging

demonstration. Blue Ridge Forest Management logger Jim Antos was one of

the representatives helping in the demonstration. With chain saw in

hand, he showed students the proper way to fell a tree. " When

determining a safe way to bring down a tree, you need to know where it

wants to fall, where I can put it and know which way the wind is

blowing, " Antos said. The teenagers spent Thursday morning in the

forests near Viola watching loggers fell trees, talk about the history

of timber production in eastern Shasta County and describe the career

opportunities in the logging industry. http://www.redding.com/news/2007/feb/03/class/Montana:13)

When it comes to building trust between the environmental movement and

rural communities in the West, old ways die hard. Each side is

interested in pushing their own issues and protecting their own turf;

lately however, there are some indications that the long-standing

stalemate over U.S. Forest Service management is ending. While a full

reconciliation is still a ways off, a number of the more assertive

environmental groups in this country are sitting down with local

elected officials, industry representatives and community members to

discuss areas of agreement on natural resource issues, community fire

protection and restoration. The WildWest Institute is a good example of

such an organization, and is now an active participant in a couple of

collaborative efforts on the Kootenai and Salmon-Challis National

Forests, as well as a member of the steering committee of the newly

formed FireSafe Montana. We also serve on a national restoration

working group with community based forestry advocates with one of our

shared goals being increased funding for the Forest Service to do

bona-fide watershed and road restoration work. The Lemhi County Forest

Restoration Group, which is the focus of this article, started last

year and grew out of the efforts of a local non-profit, Salmon Valley

Stewardship, to bring diverse interests together to solve natural

resource conflicts. From the standpoint of WildWest, we saw an

opportunity to better protect communities adjacent to the

Salmon-Challis N.F. from wildfire while also moving forward a

restoration agenda on this Forest that provided tangible economic

benefits. In April, 2006, Jeff Juel, WildWest's Ecosystem Defense

Coordinator, and I attended the first meeting of a new collaborative

group based in and around the Salmon-Challis National Forest. Convened

by Salmon Valley Stewardship and Sustainable Northwest, the meeting

took place in Salmon, Idaho to assess the potential of forming a forest

alliance that would focus on fuel reduction and forest restoration

projects. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/WildWest/blog/comments.jsp?key=333 & blog_entr

y_KEY=21949 & t=Wyoming:14)

Jesse Logan retired in July as head of the beetle research unit for the

United States Forest Service at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Utah.

He is an authority on the effects of temperature on insect life cycles.

That expertise has landed him smack in the middle of a debate over

protecting grizzly bears. You just never know where the study of

beetles will take you. Dr. Logan seems, in fact, to be on a collision

course with the federal government, in the debate over whether to lift

Endangered Species Act protections from the grizzly bears in and around

Yellowstone National Park. The grizzly population in the greater

Yellowstone area is estimated to be at least 600. The population is

centered in the park proper, federal scientists say, where it has

reached its likely natural maximum and has leveled off. But in

adjoining stretches of national forest, the number of grizzlies is

continuing to go up by 4 percent to 7 percent a year. Their resurgence

in the past 50 years is why the federal government announced in 2005

the start of proceedings to take them off the endangered or threatened

species list. Dr. Logan enters the fray on the question of what grizzly

bears eat, how much of it will be available in the future, and where.

All that, he says, hinges on the mountain pine beetle and the whitebark

pine. The tree (Pinus albicaulis) has no value as commercial timber.

But gnarled and bushy whitebark pines anchor the timberline in much of

the West. They hold the soil for other vegetation to get a foothold,

and they trap snow, prolonging the spring runoff. They are slow-growing

trees and may not even bear cones until they are a half-century old. In

the late 19th century, the naturalist John Muir counted rings in a

weatherbeaten example high in California's Sierra Nevada. Its trunk was

just six inches across. To his astonishment it was 426 years old. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/science/30bear.html?_r=1 & hp & ex=1170133200 & en=c1c03d50a1b4643f &

ei=5094 & partner=homepage & oref=sloginMinnesota:15)

This large management project is intended to create a forest with less

aspen and birch than today, and more pine. The plan opens almost 13,000

acres to logging, much of that within a half dozen miles of the

Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Superior National Forest

officials say much of the logging is to remove overly mature trees.

Unless logged, they say, the older jack pine stands will be taken over

aspens and maples. " Sometimes we need to actually do some active

management on the ground, " says Kris Reichenbach, with the Superior

National Forest in Duluth. " To maintain the kind of conditions and the

kind of diversity that we want out there for wildlife species, for

recreation, and to maintain ecological types. " Most of the logging

would be clear-cut, with a small number of trees left behind in those

cuts as reserves. For almost every acre logged, an acre will be planted

or regenerated with a focus on pine. " I guess my first blush take is

that I think the Forest Service has improved the plan from the draft,

addressing some of the conservation concerns that were raised during

the draft plan, " says Kevin Proescholdt, who directs the Izaak Walton

League's Wilderness and Public Lands Program. But Proescholdt says even

the final plan targets some trees in areas with roadless qualities. Two

of those regions were identified since the Clinton roadless rule.

However, as is often said, the devil is in the details. These details

are laid out in a quarter inch thick record of decision, and an

environmental impact statement the size of a Twin Cities phone book.

Conservation leaders like Proescholdt, say it will take time to absorb

it all. " We'll keep poring through the plan and trying to understand it

better, as we discover more and more about what's inside, " Proescholdt

says. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/02/02/echotrail/Massachusetts:16)

BECKET — Residents who have been fighting a state logging plan for the

Buckley Dunton Lake area have settled their dispute and secured a

less-invasive cutting strategy from the state Department of

Conservation and Recreation. " It is the opinion of abutters that DCR

failed to take into account the impact of its logging operations on two

of the Berkshires' most important economic engines — home building and

tourism, " Becket resident Carl Rosenstein said. " I'm very upset that

DCR is cutting around Buckley Dunton, but I think we accomplished

something by exposing the flaws in their plan, " he said. Rosenstein and

two other neighbors in the Tyne Road area, Lee Blatt and Perry

Rosenstein, hired Williamstown attorney Elisabeth Goodman to challenge

the forest-cutting plan they claimed would have eroded steep-sloped

areas, eliminated numerous trees from the wooded buffer zone around the

lake, and impacted vistas and property values. The settlement agreement

limits tree removal in steep sloped areas, and also states that: 1) On

the eastern shore of the lake, no trees will be removed within 150 feet

of the shoreline. 2) Any trees removed within 300 feet of the eastern

shoreline must be left where they fall; no equipment can be brought in

to remove the timber. 3) All timber machinery must remain on designated

skid trails. 4) On the dam road leading to the pond, no cutting will be

visible 100 feet from the road, so as not to impact the scenic value of

the road itself. Machinery size will be kept to a minimum to prevent

damage. http://www.berkshireeagle.com/localnews/ci_5123582USA:17)

Unfortunately, the antidote isn't as simple as merely filing a new

lawsuit in the morning or skipping that PowerPoint presentation to join

a road blockade for the day. No, something much deeper may be called

for: a rebellion of the heart. Just like in the good old days, not that

long ago. What is it, precisely, that's going on? Was the environmental

movement bewitched by eight years of Bruce Babbitt and Al Gore? Did it

suffer an allergic reaction to the New Order of Things? Are we simply

adrift in a brief lacuna in the evolution of the conservation movement,

one of those Gouldian (Stephen Jay) pauses before a new creative

eruption? Environmentalism has never thrived on an adherence to

etiquette or quiet entreaties. Yet, that became the mode of operation

during Clinton and it has continued through the rougher years of Bush

and Cheney. Direct confrontation of governmental authority and

corporate villainy was once our operation metier. No longer. None

aggression pacts have been signed, an unofficial détente declared. Once

highly regarded (and deeply reviled) as fierce advocates of the " public

interest, " environmentalists now are largely dismissed in the living

rooms of America as merely another " special interest " group (weaker

than most), peddling its meager influence on the Hill, angling for

access to the anterooms (never the control room) of power, or, at

least, a line item in the federal budget.What's worse, our best efforts

these days hardly seem to even raise a hackle on the hierophants of

industry. After okaying the logging of ancient forests, signing off on

anti-wilderness legislation in Oregon, Idaho and Montana, pampering the

whims of Bruce Babbitt (and Dick Cheney), endorsing NAFTA and GATT, the

failure to stand up for high level whistleblowers like former BLM head

Jim Baca, the mainstream environmental groups don't scare anyone

anymore. Except maybe their own members. Yes, they may scare them a

great deal, indeed. http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair02032007.html18)

Why am I not surprised that you have been selected to succeed Dale

Bosworth as the next Chief of the U.S. Forest Service? It's clear to

most thinking Americans that Bush has no regard for the environment.

Bush's staff and their corporate allies spend an incredible amount of

time and money to seek-out people who will carry on Bush's

anti-environment legacy long after Bush is gone from the White House in

January of 2009. I knew you Abigail on a day-to-day basis at Oregon

State University from 1978 to 1980. We were both pursuing our master's

degree in logging engineering. I could not understand at the time why

you were never able to envision a tree as anything other than several

logs. To you, a tree was a " piece " that weighed so many " kips " to be

hauled to a " landing. " It never occurred to you that these trees you

wanted so desperately to log were part of a forest ... or a favorite

picnic site for a family ... or a critical piece of wildlife habitat

.... or that these trees might shade a blue ribbon trout stream. I never

said anything to you at the time. I felt you might grow out of it. I

thought once you left academia and actually started walking alone in

the forest you would see the majesty of the natural world without human

tinkering. I was wrong. Based on your history (shown below) it's

obvious that your skewed sense of values stayed with you and became

even more bizarre after you left college. http://lowbagger.org/dontfireus.html19)

The Bush administration has exempted federal forest managers from a

federal law requiring them to consider the environmental impacts of

their forest management plans, prompting Defenders of Wildlife to file

suit challenging the move. " Federal forest managers should be held to

the same standard as employees of other federal agencies, " said Rodger

Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife. " This exemption

eliminates vital opportunities for the public to understand and weigh

in on forest management decisions which profoundly affect wildlife,

water, natural resources and the local communities that depend on

them. " Forest management plans govern all activities, including

logging, drilling, hunting and development, on the 192 million acres of

national forests and national grasslands managed by the U.S. Forest

Service. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) dictates that all

federal agencies must consider the environmental impacts of any major

federal actions and offer the public an opportunity to comment on those

actions. By exempting forest management plans from NEPA, the Bush

administration has eliminated the only opportunity that forest managers

and the public have to adequately consider the overall, cumulative

impacts of individual management actions on Forest Service lands. http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0129-12.htm20)

Today the wolverine is known to exist only in the northern Cascades of

Washington and the Rocky Mountains of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

There, the remaining wolverines face growing threats. Despite their

scarcity, wolverines continue to be lawfully trapped under Montana

state law. Expanding snowmobiling and helicopter skiing are impairing

wolverine denning habitat in high alpine basins. And the wolverine's

wilderness habitat continues to be chipped away by logging, mining, and

associated roadbuilding Recognizing these threats, the groups submitted

a petition to the service in July 2000 asking that the wolverine be

added to the Endangered Species Act's list of endangered and threatened

species. However, in October 2003 the Fish and Wildlife Service

rejected the groups' request for a full scientific review of the

wolverine's status, which is the first step in the listing process,

citing a lack of conclusive data. The Montana federal court's ruling

overturns that decision. http://salaswildthoughts.blogspot.com/2007/01/wolverine.htmlCanada:21)

QUEBEC - Dressed as trees, and spread out over a giant map of the

province of Quebec, Greenpeace activists today fell to the ground to

the sound of chainsaws symbolizing the ongoing logging in the Boreal

Forest. Activists gathered in order to draw attention to Greenpeace's

demand that Jean Charest adopt an immediate moratorium on logging in

intact areas of the Boreal Forest. " There is a real urgency to protect

Quebec's Boreal Forest, " said Melissa Fillion, Greenpeace forests

campaigner. " If the government does not immediately impose a

moratorium, Quebec runs the risk of losing its last intact forests. "

The Coulombe Commission stated in 2004 that Quebec forests were being

overexploited and that there was only 15% of the Boreal Forest in

Quebec left intact. Today's action drew attention to the meager 3.4%(1)

of Quebec that is currently protected from industrial logging. In 1992,

while federal minister of the environment, Jean Charest signed the

Convention on Biodiversity, which called on Canada to create a network

of protected areas by 2010. Fifteen years later, the failure to meet

this objective is clear to all. " Mr. Charest, while you are far from

reaching the timetable you committed to in 1992, you are close, very

close, to your electoral timetable! " added Fillion. Greenpeace is

calling on the government to adopt a moratorium on industrial logging

in areas of intact forest, or an area of 113 000 km(2) of Boreal Forest

and 180 000 km(2) of the northern logging limit. Greenpeace is calling

for independent scientific studies to determine which areas need to be

protected before they are logged. http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/January2007/31/c3193.html22)

Canada is poised to admit that reducing greenhouse emissions will

actually force us to reduce greenhouse emissions. This is not a typo.

The original plan was to say the forests will do much of the work for

us. We pushed and bargained hard and made ourselves no friends,

demanding that other countries recognize the role of our forests.

Forests soak up carbon, we argued. They do this so well that they do

the whole emission-reducing thing for us. We can keep on burning gas

and oil because trees will do the hard part. Now the Canadian Forest

Service has done the numbers and insiders say it is ready to announce

that this isn't true after all. Forests aren't much good -- in Canada's

case -- at reducing our emissions. They aren't expanding enough, and a

forests that just sits there isn't taking in more carbon. And here's

another bit of bad news: Climate scientist Jim Bruce tells me that once

they add up all the damage from the mountain pine beetle in the west,

they'll find we're losing trees faster than we're growing them. That

will mean our forests are actually a source of MORE carbon emissions. http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=cf826045-960e-4087-a2ac-856b8974dff9 & k=24

17423)

The report, The Real Wealth of the Mackenzie Region, authored by two

ecological economists Sara Wilson and Mark Anielski, estimates the

ecological goods and services provided by nature in the Mackenzie

watershed region to be 10 times the total economic value generated by

natural capital extraction industries and other activities within the

watershed. " With this new study we have a stronger basis for

demonstrating the value of Boreal conservation in efforts to combat

climate change " , said Larry Innes, acting Director of the Canadian

Boreal Initiative. " Climate change is one of the most pressing global

challenges of our time. Maintaining natural cycles and enhancing this

huge carbon 'bank account' in the Boreal region should be seen as a

part of the solution. The value of the Boreal forest as a sustainable

storehouse of carbon shows that Boreal conservation is critical to the

fight against global warming. " The study considered 17 ecosystem

services, including the value of carbon uptake and storage. The

Mackenzie region is part of the Boreal Forest, the world's largest

terrestrial storehouse of carbon, making it one of the world's best

defenses against global climate change. " This report is the first

watershed-based natural capital review in Canada, if not the world " ,

said Mark Anielski. " Canadians want sustainable development, but we

also value clean air, clean water, and the countless other services

that nature provides. Our country has been richly endowed, but these

ecological services do not count towards our Gross Domestic Product

(GDP) - the traditional measure of economic progress. We need to start

counting the value of our natural capital so we can make informed

stewardship decisions that balance broader ecosystem and cultural

values with sustainable economic growth. " The executive summary and

full report are available on the CBI website: http://www.borealcanada.caUK:24)

Jeremy Bristow is the Senior Producer for the BBC Natural History Unit

where he specialises in making films relating to the environment. His

career at the BBC began in 1988 and was predominantly focused on

current affairs, with work for Newsnight, Correspondent, and Panorama.

After witnessing the deforestation during a filming trip to Cambodia in

1995, he decided to concentrate on environmental issues. Since then his

films, including Kings of the Jungle 1998 and Warnings from the Wild

2000, have won 18 national and international awards. The Price of

Salmon 2001 highlighted the environmental and health implications of

salmon farming, while The Price of Prawns 2004 controversially

questioned the role of environmentalists and activists and their

influence on consumers. During 2002 he produced two films for BBC2 and

4: Ape Hunters, on the imminent extinction of the great apes and Whale

Hunters. Current projects include a film on Spanish wildlife, involving

Michael Portillo, which will be screened in January 2006 and a film on

global warming featuring David Attenborough, for May 2006. In autumn

2006 a three-part series called Saving Planet Earth will be aired. http://www.srcf.ucam.org/ivorytower/2007/02/01/jeremy-bristow/25)

Although Stonehenge is a mecca for busloads of tourists, Salisbury is

often missed. A pity. A more modern, thriving destination is drawing

crowds further south still. And if you're interested in plants and the

interdependency of the world's environments, you'll deem it worth the

three or four hours it takes to drive to St. Austell. Sitting 270

kilometres southwest of Salisbury is the popular Eden Project, a global

garden the size of 30 British football pitches, nestled in a lost world

crater overlooking St. Austell Bay. The amazing greenhouse, the world's

biggest, is home to the tallest canopy in captivity and claims to be

the only artificial environment on Earth where the canopy can grow to

its full height. This reproduction of the world's ecosystems introduces

visitors to a majestic rainforest cathedral as well as a giant

conservatory bearing the fruits of the Mediterranean and the flowers of

South Africa and California. This " living theatre of plants " performs

its play daily on the environmental stage, shifting with the seasons

and stressing sustainability. And like a garden, each season promises

new growth and activity. Over one million bulbs are flowering between

mid-March and mid-May. And visitors can stroll from a magically lit

skating rink into a subtropical rainforest. From the subtropical to the

sub-zero, the Eden Project is an award winner. Visit

www.edenproject.com. http://www.therecord.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=record/Layout/Article_Type1 & c=Article

& cid=1170457818039 & call_pageid=1024322088824 & col=1024322216735Germany:26)

NO-ONE could accuse Caldwell Investments and its colourful chairman

Stanley Wootliff of being dull. At a time when the bottom has dropped

out of its German underwear business, the baby buggy parasol business

has been hit by changing designs and not enough people want to buy its

sun canopies, Caldwell has decided to embark on a new venture making

bio-diesel in the Brazilian rainforest. Bio-fuels are currently all the

rage as the world wakes up to the fact that we need to reduce carbon

emissions if we are to save the planet. Bio-diesel is a green form of

diesel which is produced from plant matter. It is mixed into the diesel

sold at petrol pumps and currently accounts for 2 per cent of the

diesel mix, but by 2020 the Government aims to increase this level to

20 per cent. At the moment the most popular source is rape, which is

harvested for its edible oil, although some is also derived from soya

and palm. Mr Wootliff is championing the jatropha tree as a possible

source. Jatropha trees look a bit like olive trees, but the oil they

produce is inedible so no-one has bothered cultivating it before. Mr

Wootliff claims that the jatropha gives higher oil yields than other

plants. " When they decided we needed to produce bio-diesel, people said

'Let's use whatever is already available' rather than 'Let's start with

a blank piece of paper and decide what would be best'. Our plan is to

sell jatropha at $700/tonne, " said Mr Wootliff. Leeds-based Caldwell

has already set up a trial plantation of 1,000 jatropha trees in the

Brazilian rainforest and hopes to have the project up and running by

this summer. The plan is to plant 100,000 hectares which would make

100,000 tonnes of oil. The jatropha seeds will then be sold on to

plants which will esterify them into bio-diesel. http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=56 & ArticleID=2020492

Hungary:27)

Approximately five acres of beech forest were illegally cut down in

Hahót, Zala County, in recent days, reports uno.hu. Although forestry

authorities tried to intervene and halt the clear-cutting, officials

say they do not possess the power to stop such cases. According to

Tibor Hajdú, the director of the Zala County Forestry Authority,

regulations governing logging in Hungary are very easy to get around.

Moreover, the law only punishes the act of chopping down protected

trees. Once the trees have been chopped down, it is legal to remove and

sell them. Illegal loggers often get around the law by buying forest

land in the name of homeless people, making it impossible for

authorities to recover fines. Officials say that even if the identity

of the persons behind the ruse is known, they cannot be charged. The

five acres of beech forest were worth approximately Ft 30 million

(€117,000). http://www.caboodle.hu/nc/news/news_archive/single_page/article/11/hungarian_be/?cHash=22c653819

4Guyana:28)

A new Chinese company in Guyana intends to focus on 'finished' lumber

and is investing US$4.5M in a wood-processing plant to process logs cut

from the Jaling concession. The new company, it seems, has acquired a

percentage of the interests of Jaling and will be investing in lumber

processing on behalf of Jaling. This is likely to raise eyebrows as

Jaling is supposed to be utilizing its logs for value-added processing.

Jaling was in hot water last year for exporting logs rather than

complying with its wood processing investment commitments. Bai Shan Lin

International Forest Development Inc has the rights to 400,000 hectares

of forest for a period of 20 years, according to the company's website.

Officials of the company in Guyana were reluctant to speak to the press

on its development. The website said the company will be processing

logs harvested from the Jaling Forest Industries Inc concession. A

source from Bai Shan Lin said that in addition to this, the company

will be purchasing lumber for processing and resale both locally and

overseas. According to advertisements in the press, the company is now

recruiting staff for its operations. The company is also inviting local

companies to submit proposals to supply Bai Shan Lin with lumber for

processing. http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article_general_news?id=56512893Peru:29)

HOUSTON -- Indigenous leaders from the Peruvian Amazon,

environmentalists and human rights groups today called on the Peruvian

government to suspend its tendering of oil concessions that threaten to

devastate a vast swath of pristine tropical rainforest and the native

communities that live there. They arrived in Houston today to speak out

as Perupetro, Peru's state- owned oil company, launched its 2007

roadshow in Houston timed to coincide with the NAPE Expo, the oil

prospecting industry's semi-annual trade show. Perupetro plans to

tender 11 Amazonian blocks, covering approximately 22 million acres of

intact primary tropical rainforest. Three of those blocks intrude upon

official reserves set up to protect some of the last native peoples

still living in isolation anywhere in the Amazon. Three overlap

protected areas and nine intrude upon titled indigenous lands. In none

of the blocks has Perupetro obtained Free, Prior and InformedConsent

(FPIC), an internationally recognized human rights benchmark intended

to protect the rights of indigenous communities whose lives and lands

stand to be affected by extractive mega-projects such as oil drilling.

The new blocks mean that approximately 70 percent of the Peruvian

Amazon, one of the largest areas of tropical rainforest anywhere in the

world, will be carved into oil concessions. Huge areas of Peru's

rainforest have already suffered severe impacts as a result of drilling

for oil and gas. So far, the Peruvian state has shown little sign of

learning from these disasters. Today's call for suspension of the

auction was led by AIDESEP, an umbrella group representing Peru's many

indigenous Amazonian communities. http://biz./prnews/070131/law076.html?.v=82Brazil:30)

The Brazilian minister for the Environment, Marina Silva, is among the

seven winners of this year's edition of the Champions of the Earth

award, granted by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

According to a press release published by the organization, this is the

third edition of the award and the objective is to contemplate people

who have been prominent in the environmental area. The awarding

ceremony will take place in Singapore, on April 19, during the Summit

of Global Business for the Environment. According to the press release,

Marina Silva was chosen as she is a " tireless fighter for the

protection of the Amazon Rainforest " and " her work has championed

conservation while taking into account the perspectives of people who

use the resources in their daily lives. " According to the UN, she is a

" champion of the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity,

which promotes conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of

the benefits of biodiversity. " The organization points out that, as a

senator, she was successful in legislating rainforest preservation,

defending her people against poverty and protecting their way of life.

Marina was born in a village in the northern Brazilian state of Acre,

and has worked in rubber farming and on the land to help her family,

according to information on her personal site. She learnt to read and

write late in life, as an adolescent, and went on to history college,

to become a teacher and union leader alongside Chico Mendes, and a

political activist. She was elected to senate in 1994 and re-elected in

2002. http://www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/7851/54/Argentina:31)

Opponents are branding him a new-age 'imperialist gringo' and claim he

has a secret aim: to help the US military gain control of the country's

natural resources. Tompkins, who sold his Esprit clothing firm in 1989

for a reported $150m to devote his time and wealth to ecology, takes

such attacks in his stride. 'Land ownership is a political act; it

arouses passions,' he says. 'My intention has always been to eventually

turn over the land to the Argentinian government for a national park.'

He has already done so, donating an estate in Patagonia to the National

Parks administration in 2004. In the late Nineties he had bought the

155,000-acre Monte Leon sheep farm, including a 25-mile stretch of

South Atlantic coast, home to one of the largest Magellan penguin

rookeries in the world and also abundant in sea lions, pumas and birds.

But pressure to pass an anti-Tompkins bill in Congress could be strong.

The presence of other high-profile foreigners fuels passions. The

Italian clothing giant Benetton holds 2.2 million acres in sheep farms

in Patagonia and has clashed with the indigenous Mapuche people over

land ownership claims. And US media magnate Ted Turner likes to go

trout fishing on his Patagonian estates. At the centre of the storm is

a 310,000-acre estate Tompkins owns in the Ibera wetlands, a labyrinth

of marshes, lakes and floating islands of nearly 2 million acres. 'He

says he's worried about the birds and the wildlife,' said Mendez. 'But

his land is above the Guarani aquifer, one of the most important fresh

water reserves in the world, only 700km from an airbase the United

States plans to build in neighbouring Paraguay.' The aquifer is soon to

become an issue of strategic defence policy. Argentina's military

planners are convinced the country's oil and fresh water deposits could

become targets for world powers in an ecologically dark future, and are

putting together 'Plan 2025', dividing the country into regions based

on their resource potential. The Argentinian press has suggested

Tompkins might be a covert CIA operative securing US access to the

aquifer. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2005476,00.html?gusrc=rss & feed=12Madagascar:32)

PORT LOUIS - Conservationists have hailed Madagascar's decision to

establish a 300,000 hectare (741,300 acres) protected habitat for birds

unique to the giant Indian Ocean island. The Mahavavy-Kinkony wetland

is home to the Madagascar Teal, Sakalava Rail, Madagascar Sacred Ibis

and Madagascar Pond Heron, which are all unique to the island. The

northwest area is also a last refuge of the Madagascar Fish Eagle,

whose numbers have dwindled to just 220 birds. " One of Madagascar's

most spectacular wildlife areas -- almost 3,000 square kilometres of

tropical wetlands, forests, savannas and caves -- is to be protected by

law, " BirdLife International said in a statement late on Monday. It

said the government granted the area two years' protected status as a

first step towards declaring permanent protection. " This is a

particularly important milestone for conservation in Madagascar because

these are the first large freshwater wetlands to be protected that also

support a significant and dependent human population, " Vony

Raminoarisoa, director of BirdLife's Madagascar Programme, said in the

statement. In 2003, Malagasy President Marc Ravalomanana vowed to

expand the island nation's protected areas to 6 million hectares by

2008 from 1.7 million hectares to preserve the its unique and

threatened wildlife. BirdLife said the decree came into effect this

week. The world's fourth biggest island, Madagascar broke away from the

African mainland some 160 million years ago, leaving its flora and

fauna to evolve in splendid isolation. http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/39971/story.htmNepal:33)

Dear All, We are supporting small-scale Cardamom farmers in Nepal. The

Large Cardamom (Ammomum sabulatum Roxb) a unique substitute for the

true cardamom is said to be one of the oldest spices indigenous to the

eastern Himalaya region. Cardamom is a perennial cash crop grown

beneath the forest cover on marginal land; it is a low volume crop that

nevertheless has high economic value. Apart from its high-income value,

cardamom is a nonperishable crop; this is an advantage in areas where

accessibility and transport are restricted. Within Nepal cardamom is

cultivated in 39 districts, occupying an area in a range of 11,000 to

13,500 hectares. Cardamom has been a major cash crop in Nepal with an

annual production in a range of 6,000 to 6800 metric tons. Cardamon has

been one of the major income source for the east hilly district of

Nepal and contributing directly in alleviating poverty. Now we are

claiming that there are many advantages of climate change in cardamom

farming. --Ekanath Khatiwada, Nepal ekhatiwadaAustralia:34)

Senator Brown alleges Ta Ann Holdings has an appalling record of

deforestation, displacing indigenous people, and has links to

questionable timber production. He is calling for all the documents

under the joint venture deal with Forestry Tasmania to be released. But

Forestry Tasmania, the peak forest industry group and Huon MLC Paul

Harriss have all denounced the claims. Forestry Tasmania head Bob

Gordon said a report from a Worldwide Wildlife Fund off-shoot had found

Ta Ann sourced its timber legally. " Ta Ann has a long history of

meeting stringent market requirements, " Mr Gordon said. Ta Ann Holdings

will invest $60 million in rotary peel veneer mills to be built in the

Huon Valley and at Smithton. The agreement between Ta Ann and Forestry

Tasmania guarantees the supply of 150,000 tonnes of eucalyptus regrowth

pulpwood to the Huon mill for at least 10 years. It will be operating

by the end of this financial year. http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,21161550-5007221,00.html35) Forest defenders in Tasmania's Lower Weld and Upper Florentine Valley's have

locked down machinery to halt logging operations in old growth forest promisedfor

protection by the Howard government. "In the lower Weld an activist is

suspended in a tree sit attached to three quarrying machines,

preventing the transportation of materials to a roading site, while in

the Upper Florentine, three activists are locked on to machinery in

Coupe FO42F", Spokesperson Huon Valley Environment Centre Spokesperson

Jenny Weber said. " The devastation caused by forestry operations in the

Lower Weld and Upper Florentine serve as a testament to John Howard's

broken promises. Despite promises at the last federal election to

protect World Heritage valued forest in these areas, taxpayer's money

allocated after the election is being misused to destroy remote

wilderness ecosystems " said Still Wild Still Threatened Campaign

Spokesperson Ula Majewski. " The recent Wielangta judgement casts a

shadow of doubt over the legality of logging in these forests which

contain habitat for endangered species such as the Wedge Tailed Eagle,

Grey Goshawk and Myrtle Elbow Orchid. We call on the Coalition

Government to police it's own laws and honor it's promise to the

Australian people by protecting the high conservation value forests of

the Weld and Upper Florentine, " Jenny Weber said. http://savetheweld.blogspot.com/2007/02/monday-action.html36)

In 1978, after strong campaigns from the community, the land was

declared to be a site of significant cultural, ecological and

historical significance, originally having a strong Aboriginal

presence. It was listed in 1980 in the National Estate Register,

Australia's National inventory of natural and cultural heritage places

deemed of importance to our future heritage. It forms part of the

wildlife corridor along Anderson's Creek to the Yarra. Residential

development in the reserve was banned. It is now managed by the

Manningham City Council, with the direct continuing support and

involvement by the " Friends of 1200 Acres " community group. The Forest

has an extensive network of walking trails (nearly 9 km), some of which

are joint-use fire management tracks, and a perimeter track shared

between horseriders and walkers. Many interpretative signs along the

main Trails provide useful and informative background of the history,

fauna and flora in the Reserve. We are told that most of the forest is

regrowth, and that this is what the eastern suburbs would have looked

like prior to European settlement. http://bushwalkjournal.blogspot.com/2007/02/hiking-in-100-acres-forest-reserve-park.html

37)

Tasmania's Forest Industry Association and Forestry Tasmania both say

there still some options left for Auspine to secure a supply of

softwood. The Scottsdale sawmiller has been left in limbo after finding

out its supply is being sold to Forest Enterprises Australia. Forestry

Tasmania's general manager Bob Gordon says there are other softwood

resources in the state. These include forestry's own plantations on

King Island and in the north-west, as well as privately-owned

plantations. He says they could also buy logs that are being exported

at present. " There's a range of of quality reasons why they haven't

done that, but again I don't believe anything's off the table, " he

said. The Forest Industry Association's Terry Edwards agrees. He says

another option is to process logs on Forest Enterprises Australia's

(FEA) behalf until its new sawmill is built. " They don't currently have

a capacity to process those large logs, " he said. However, Mr Edwards

thinks the options are unlikely to support both Auspine's Scottdale

sawmills. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1836292.htmTropical Forests:38)

If you want to do something about tropical trees, the single most

important thing is to help reduce the tremendous pressure from debt,

IMF conditions, and " free " trade that lead to tropical deforestation.

Saving a tree that has decades or centuries worth of carbon stored

withint it is worth a lot more than planting a new tree. But nothing

says you can't also support programs like the one founded by Nobel

Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai as well. When tree planting is

integrated into people's lives, and directly benefits them, they can

plant local species they know are useful to them and ensure they

survive until harvest. When you tap longstanding knowledge within a

culture -- when " technical support " respects and works with that local

knowledge and answers to the people it springs from -- both planting

and cultivation tend to be low input. This kind of investment won't

ever report back exact numbers you can use to claim you have offset

your share of your nation's carbon use. But you never really could

honestly use offsets as modern indulgences to excuse greenhouse gases

emissions. Ultimately, only political action and a physical

transformation of society that eliminates most fossil fuels can solve

the problem. In the meantime, it is admirable to do what lies in your

power as an individual -- just avoid false claims and " solutions " that

make the problem worse. http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/1/28/221315/214World-wide:39)

Controlled environments such as those in algae bioreactors are not

subject to bad harvests and remain sustainable for the economy year

after year. Lance Seefeldt, USU Biofuels Program: "For soybeans, you

get about 48 gallons per acre. And right now, the idea is for algae, we

could get about 10-thousand gallons of oil per acre. So you can see

it's about 200 times more oil per acre compared to soybeans. For every

square meter of parabolic dish, we can illuminate 10 square meters of

algae surface. Byard Wood, USU Biofuels Program: "We're talking about

thousands of acres with these kinds of bioreactors to produce in

quantity the amount of liquid fuel that we need to make an impact."

According to reliable sources, PetroSun is already in its final stages

of testing commercially scaled CO2 injecting bioreactors that produce

algae biomass that can provide 30 times the production per acre of

biodiesel than corn or soybeans. Injecting CO2 means the bioreactor

needs to be near a place that already produces CO2, in the case of

PetroSun, major cities and industries that can capturethe needed gas

would be more economical to avoid higher transportation costs, and

allow self-reliance on a more practical scale. http://biodiesel.rain-barrel.net/algae-biodiesel-as-a-sustainable-solution/