Guest guest Posted February 7, 2007 Report Share Posted February 7, 2007 Formatted for wide margins! If you don't have wide margins use the weblog instead!Today for you 41 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---British Columbia: 1) Hydrologic harms of Beetles, 2) Large wooden pine beetle, --PNW: 3) Marbled Murrelet decline more than expected --Washington: 4) Thinning 8,000 acres on West Fork of Humptulips River--Oregon: 5) Unregulated herbicide use makes thick brown silt dead rivers--California: 6) Tahoe Ski resort expands near old growth grove--Montana: 7) Timber towns turn to sprawl towns, 8) More on sprawl, --New York: 9) Tree thefts more common these days--Maine: 10) Wild and Scenic river protections defended in court--USA: 11) Forest Service pilots new long-term logging contracts, --Congo: 12) Two thirds of Congo could go away soon --Kenya: 13) Imminent sandalwood extinction causes crackdown --Somalia: 14) Environmental emergency caused by increased charcoal burning--South Africa: 15) Working for Wetlands Program--Liberia: 16) Chimpanzee and pygmy hippo --Brazil: 17) Gold Rush, 18) Cargill, ADM and Bunge are slave owners, 19) Lula blasts EU and first world polluters, 20) Forest Service general demands Chirac focus on basics,--Guyana: 21) Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper--Peru: 22) Revising three rainforest oil concessions to exclude official reserves--Sri Lanka: 23) Sinharaja Rainforest protection is facing serious challenges --Vietnam: 24) Save the wild peach trees--Philippines: 25) Green Philippines Highway (GPH) project, 26) Logging woes,--South East Asia: 27) Rising demand for palm oil--Malaysia: 28) flooding limits log supply, 29) More Sabah Forest Industry calamities, 30) Timber Certification council is not good enough,--Sumatra: 31) Rainforest Alliance terminates contract with Asia Pulp & Paper--Indonesia: 32) Cancel logging in Riau and Jambi, 33) Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) destroys everything, 34) Most disaster-prone nation on earth, 35) Flooding disaster, --New Zealand: 36) Timber prices are up by about 50 per cent--Australia: 37) Save the Green ringtail possums, 38) Who's fixated on logging? --World-wide: 39) Rainforest: A Photographic Journey, 40) Illegal logging, 41) Websites to donate to help save the world's rainforests, British Columbia:1) As the mountain pine beetle (MPB) spreads through the interior of British Columbia, the extent of lodgepole pine mortality and salvage logging will be significant in many watersheds. Stand mortality, salvage logging, and road construction each have the potential to affect hydrologic processes. The following text provides an introduction to the hydrologic consequences of both the MPB infestation and salvage operations, sources of information, and links to a series of maps and tables indicating the extent of lodgepole pine dominated forest cover types in medium to large watersheds throughout the interior of British Columbia.http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/mountain_pine_beetle/stewardship/hydrology/index.htm2) A plan is underway to sculpt a large wooden mountain pine beetle and erect it on the rooftop of Innovation Place, which houses the Lakes Economic Development Association (LEDA), on Hwy. 16 and 6th Ave. Burns Lake mayor Bernice Magee floated the idea at this month's LEDA board meeting. The purpose of the project is to create a point of interest that will stop tourist traffic. The LEDA offices will also serve to educate visitors about the region's notorious beetle epidemic. Soon after the LEDA board members passed the motion to proceed with planning, Alcan caught wind of the project and donated $5,000 to see it realized. A LEDA spokesperson says some committee members expressed concern over the unattractiveness of the insect, and also of the negative impacts associated with it. She added further discussions are planned for Feb. 15. Talks will include the possibility of erecting the beetle on the lawn, or to the side of the building. LEDA will put the giant sculpture out to tender with local First Nations carvers. Any funds left over will be used for an information and education kiosk next to Innovation Place. The sculpture is expected to be about the size of a large desk. http://www.ldnews.net/Pacific Northwest:3) The review of existing population surveys by the U.S. Geological Survey was requested by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the Bush administration considers whether to take the marbled murrelet off the threatened species list in Oregon, Washington and California, where protection for the old-growth trees it nests in have dramatically reduced logging on some national forests. The first comprehensive look at population surveys in Alaska and British Columbia found an overall decline of about 70 percent over the last 25 years, dropping the estimated population to 270,000 birds in Alaska and 54,000 to 92,000 birds in British Columbia. The review released Monday found that genetically, the birds divide into three groups: the western tip of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska; the rest of the Aleutians south through British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon into California; and central California. The bird is not protected in Alaska. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Joan Jewett said they had received the USGS report, and were reviewing it. There is no time set for making a decision on marbled murrelett protection. USGS sea bird biologist John F. Piatt, lead author of the review, said none of the known human-caused threats to marbled murrelets - loss of nesting trees to logging, getting caught in gillnets, and oil spills - can by themselves explain the dramatic and widespread decline, particularly in Alaska. " Nobody was really expecting that kind of change, " Piatt said from Port Townsend, Washington. " Natural influences may be more important than human-caused, " changes. Even areas like Alaska's Glacier Bay, where there has been no logging, saw dramatic declines, raising the likelihood that something larger was a major factor, he said. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1501AP_Sea_Bird_Decline.htmlWashington: 4) Humptulips — Plants need light to grow large and healthy. And where plants are healthy, animals are as well. But a century of fire suppression and replanting logged areas with hundreds more trees than would have grown naturally have left many forests a dark labyrinth that is choking out some vegetation — and animals that need it to survive. To let more light reach the forest floor along the West Fork of the Humptulips River, managers with the Olympic National Forest are planning to thin portions of an 8,000-acre area to improve wildlife habitat. "When we get some light to the forest floor, all sorts of critters benefit," said Kathy O'Halloran, natural resources staff officer for the Forest Service. The key critters are the spotted owl, the marbled murrelet and Roosevelt elk, O'Halloran said. The Forest Service is still in the planning stages for the project, and cutting is not expected to begin until 2008 or 2009. It would last until 2012. Only stands of trees less than 80 years old are targeted for thinning. Yewah Lau, National Forest environmental policy act coordinator and leader of the team planning the Humptulips thinning project, said the aim is "to recreate old-growth conditions" in a second-growth forest. It's called "variable density thinning," she said. Standard, typical thinning involves removing a percentage of the trees from the whole area. Variable thinning removes a few trees in one area, more in another and all in some small sections to create small openings, Lau said. While cutting trees to benefit old-growth forest- dependent species such as the spotted owl and the marbled murrelet may seem strange, the fact is old- growth forests are not just a carpet of big, old trees."The extremely old forests … have small openings all over," said Jack Smith, regional wildlife manager for the state Department of Fish & Wildlife. http://www.thedailyworld.com/articles/2007/02/05/local_news/02news.txtOregon:5) As Oregonians watch their rivers run thick and brown, they watch their futures flow away. Oregon's lush forests, like the rest of life on land, depend on healthy soils. So do the fishing, tourism and outdoor recreation industries. The primary purpose of our state's land use planning laws is to protect productive soils. So why the mud? Soil erosion and river contamination result from destructive management practices that are now allowed on private timberlands. The most extreme of these is the routine aerial spraying of huge quantities of poison herbicides. Repeated poisonings of people, wildlife and watersheds occur, with negligible monitoring or testing. Nearly 800,000 acres of forests were sprayed statewide in 2006. Spraying in Lane County covered almost 75,000 acres. Some herbicides are so lethal that two ounces can kill every plant on an acre of ground. Most spray applications are mixes of various herbicide formulations and " inert " ingredients. These mixtures are not tested for health or environmental safety. Under this type of land management, timber production drops off dramatically after the first or second harvest, requiring ever-increasing applications of synthetic fertilizers. The fertilizers themselves are deadly to soil microbes. Rain washes the poisoned soil down from the mountains to smother publicly owned spawning gravels, riverbeds, estuaries and coastal waters. Forest poisoning is legal, subsidized, free of liability, and encouraged by state and federal policies. In addition, the Oregon Department of Transportation poisons road shoulders and ditches along our rivers and coastline. In the early 1970s, influential members of the Oregon State University School of Forestry started promoting herbicides wholesale, starting with surplus Agent Orange. Today, some of those same professors are pushing herbicides before logging as well as after. This attitude appears to be shared by most state agencies, except for the Department of Fish and Wildlife. http://www.registerguard.com/news/2007/01/28/ed.col.sundquist.0128.p1.php?section=opinion California:6) Concerns over one of the last remaining stands of old growth red fir trees within Heavenly Mountain Resort's boundaries has sparked the inclusion of an additional alternative to the Master Plan's final environmental impact statement. The majority of the six alternatives in the report call for the replacement of the existing Olympic and North Bowl lifts with at least one high-speed quad. Early alternatives ran the quad directly between the bottom of the existing North Bowl chair to the top of the current Olympic chair. The straight alignment would require the removal of 353 old growth trees, according to Autumn Bernstein, land use coordinator for the Sierra Nevada Alliance. Newly added alternative 4A touts an angled mid-station configuration for the proposed quad. The chair would utilize the existing North Bowl lift corridor to lower the total number of trees that would have to be cut down, and save the stands of old growth entirely, according to the EIS. Environmental groups in the basin applauded Heavenly's efforts to include an alternative which preserved the stands of old trees. " I think it's great they've taken the community's concerns seriously, " said Bernstein. John Friedrich, program director for the League to Save Lake Tahoe was also pleased to see final EIS alternatives that showed " across the board " improvements in environmental awareness. " There is now a stronger environmental monitoring and mitigation program that Heavenly was active in helping to develop, " said Friedrich. A link to the master plan and the EIS can be found at the USFS Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit's Web site at http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/ltbmu/. http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20070205/NEWS/102050023 Montana:7) They called them "timber tours," and according to chamber president Joe Unterreiner, "early on, these actually were timber tours." But those were the days when the business of timber was the business of western Montana. Times have changed. On a soggy afternoon last fall, Unterreiner arrived on forestland owned by Plum Creek Timber Co. for a very different sort of tour. He called it "timber lite," adding that today's Chamber of Commerce field trips emphasize "the changing economics of what's happening with timberlands." Montana has been discovered, he said, its real estate is commanding premium prices, and companies such as Plum Creek are realizing their trees are worth more vertical than horizontal. So they're selling off big chunks of land to developers - and developing other pieces on their own. Mark Boardman is a forester with another local timber company; he arrived home from a two-year hitch in Iraq just in time for last year's timber tour. "Everything changed" while he was overseas, Boardman said. "To me, it seems like a huge change." Instead of standing amid a logging operation, Boardman and Unterreiner were standing in Meadowbrooke, Plum Creek's first attempt at developing its own subdivision. Are there any similarities between this site and the working forest Boardman knew before heading to Iraq? "Well, they're still Plum Creek lands. At least for a little while longer." That Plum Creek is divesting some lands - calling them "higher and better use" lands, or HBUs - is no secret. The company has even spun off a new subsidiary, Plum Creek Land Co., to broker the real estate deals. http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/02/04/news/top/news01.txt8) KALISPELL - It's not much to look at, this lonely six-mile stretch of bumpy gravel road. Yet this rural route has become a battleground of sorts, a place where lines will be drawn, where "we will finally decide how much taxpayer subsidy Plum Creek will continue to receive. That's really what's at stake," said Joe Brenneman, one of three Flathead County commissioners. "That taxpayers will pay for Plum Creek profits is no longer a question. The question is, how much will they pay?" At issue is a winding old road west of Kalispell, tracking nine miles from U.S. Highway 2 to Ashley Lake. For years, Brenneman said, the only real traffic on the road was Plum Creek Timber Co. trucks, hauling logs to the mill. But now that the land is cleared, the timber company has handed the acreage over to its real estate arm, Plum Creek Land Co. And the land company wants to carve out a 60-home subdivision on approximately 600 scenic acres around Ashley Lake - part of a larger land divestment, a national move by the company to convert industrial timber acres into homesites. The problem is, doing so will cost Brenneman's taxpayers money. "Right now," said Commissioner Gary Hall, "some of our biggest subdivision activity in the wildland-urban interface is on Plum Creek land. We know they have something like a quarter-million acres in the county, so the potential is pretty huge." Not many of those acres are very close to things like paved roads and schools and fire departments and hospitals and police stations."When people develop out away from the infrastructure," Brenneman said, "it always costs the taxpayers money." In 2004, the county's administrative officer researched the costs of hinterland growth. In Flathead County, where a whopping two-thirds of the population lives away from city centers, population grew 34 percent between 1990 and 2004. During that same time, the per-capita cost of providing county services increased 84 percent. http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/02/06/news/mtregional/news06.txtNew York:9) The Kents aren't missing any money or jewels. Instead, they say, 20 valuable trees were removed from their property in Colden. " It would be like someone coming on to your property, and they stole your lawn tractor, " said Beverly Kent. " The county won't help us out, and the state won't help us out, " said her husband, Ray. A change in state law aimed at curtailing the theft of valuable trees was supposed to help people such as the Kents, but its impact has been limited. Forestry experts point to the difficulty of proving crimes that happen deep in the woods on what is often imprecisely marked land. " I don't think the rank-and-file thief out there has been very impressed or deterred just by the new statute, " said Capt. Gary L. Bobseine of the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Statewide, the number of timber theft investigations by the DEC is down slightly, from 62 in 2004 to 57 in 2006. But Western New York's numerous wood lots continue to be tempting targets: 62 of the 177 investigations in those three years occurred here. Those numbers probably understate the extent of the problem, investigators say, noting that many people who own large amounts of wooded land don't walk the property routinely and may be unaware of timber thefts. " If you have 20 or 30 acres and someone steals a bunch of timber, you may not know for years, " said Assemblyman Jack F. Quinn III, D-Hamburg. Prices for popular hardwoods have climbed by about 15 percent over the last five years, according to consulting forester Bruce Robinson. High-quality black cherry trees can command up to $1,000 apiece, he said. Occasionally, the intent to steal is clear. Two years ago, Jack Van Scoter of Cockaigne Ski Resort in Cherry Creek asked a logger to walk some acreage he wanted timbered and provide an estimate of its value. The next day, he caught the man cutting trees on the property. http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20070205/1015139.aspMaine:10) Two Maine residents filed suit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Bangor seeking to nullify a law passed by the Legislature last year that guarantees vehicle access points to the river and re-designates six bridges over the Allagash as permanent structures. Charles Fitzgerald of Atkinson and Kenneth Cline of Bar Harbor contend that the controversial law, LD 2077, " creates areas of disruptive activity, congestion, noise and other problems " that conflict with the Allagash's protected status within the federal " wild and scenic " river system. The men argue that by passing the law, the Legislature violated the terms of Maine's agreement with federal officials to forever maintain and operate the Allagash " in its wild condition to provide a wilderness canoe experience. " Finally, the plaintiffs claim LD 2077 violates constitutional prohibitions against states enacting laws that conflict with federal laws. " It was time for the law to be tested, " Fitzgerald said in an interview Thursday. The lawsuit names Willard Harris, director of the state Bureau of Parks and Lands, as a defendant because the BPL manages the waterway. Environmental and conservation groups fiercely fought LD 2077 because it wrote into law 11 vehicle access points along the wilderness waterway, which runs for 92 miles through northern Maine's commercial forests. Hard-core wilderness advocates argued that the Allagash's designation as a wild and scenic river means limited access and few man-made structures, such as logging bridges. But St. John Valley residents lobbied hard for the bill on grounds that they had a right to access to the river for day use. http://www.bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=145906 & zoneid=500 USA:11) Mark Rey, Agriculture Department undersecretary for natural resources and the environment, said test programs are planned this year for three national forests -- the Colville in Washington, Shasta Trinity in Northern California, and the Allegheny in Pennsylvania. The goal is to make forest management projects into long-term projects stretching as long as 10 years to allow contractors to invest in equipment and training for workers, and to allow them to build stronger ties to the community, Rey and other federal officials said. " What we're trying to do with this new business model is see if we can respond to some of the problems that the current contracting system creates in terms of making it more difficult for local communities to participate, " Rey said. Bids for work such as reforestation or forest thinning projects typically cover only one year and rely heavily on the lowest bidder -- too often a " fly-by-night " or unscrupulous contractor who abuses immigrant workers mostly from Mexico, Rey and other officials said at a public hearing on forest worker conditions at the University of Oregon. The new business model likely will have to address current law that prohibits the U.S. Forest Service from rejecting bids it considers too low, Rey said. " In the past we have tried to reject bids like that, suspecting that probably either the work would not get done well or it would get done through the abuse of contract workers, " Rey said. Rey said the administration will reintroduce legislation called the Healthy Forest Partnership " that will in part see if Congress will give us authorization to contract not only with private contractors but with other units of government including local communities. " http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070204/BUSINESS/702040376/1040 Congo:12) WWF predicts that two-thirds of the forests in the Congo River Basin could disappear within 50 years if logging and mineral exploitation continues at current rates. The group reports that the world's second largest tropical forest loses nearly 3.7 million acres a year to agriculture, logging, road development, oil exploitation and mining. WWF is working to create protected areas, introduce sustainable forest management plans and raise awareness. It aims to see more than 300,000 additional acres of forest certified as viable by timber firms in coming months. http://www.ethicalcorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=4867Kenya:13) A local shrub famed for its medicinal qualities is under threat of over-exploitation, due to great demand abroad. Almost every part of the shrub, commonly known as sandalwood, has an economic value - leaves, stem, bark and even roots. The bark, for instance, has been used as a herbal drink by rural communities for centuries. Soon, this may not be the case as the shrub could be harvested to extinction. In foreign countries, sandalwood is used as raw material in the manufacture of perfumes and food flavour additives. A national sandalwood task force was established a few years ago to coordinate sustainable utilisation, but not much has been achieved. The shrub is not protected under the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species (CITES). To support such efforts by KWS, the forestry department has suspended the issuance of sandalwood movement permits. Anyone found transporting forest produce without a permit should be arrested under the Forest Act. The KWS report says sandalwood harvesters in Kenya uproot entire trees and export the stems, stumps and roots. "Roots and stumps are more popular than the stems, particularly the heartwood. Yet harvesting them reduces the regenerative potential of the tree, which sprouts from the root," the report says. http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=39 & newsid=91148 Somalia:14) The president of Somalia's self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, Gen Mahmud Muse Hirsi, has appealed for help in tackling an environmental emergency caused by increased charcoal burning, which has been compounded by greater numbers of displaced people since 1992. Hirsi said due to the influx of displaced people and drought-induced displacement of pastoral communities - which pushed them to urban areas - more acacia trees are being burned for charcoal. Hirsi urged international donors to support solar cookers and other alternative means of energy instead. In an open letter this month, he called on the international community to " join the Puntland government in permanently moving Puntland households from charcoal dependency to solar, wind and other cooking alternatives … " Fatima Jibrell, the 2002 Goldman Environmental Prize winner and founder of Horn Relief, told IRIN on Tuesday: " Cutting trees for charcoal can destroy in a few minutes a tree that took over 50 years to grow. No matter how fast trees might be planted for reforestation, they cannot catch up with the destruction of charcoal production. " Puntland is one of the driest areas of Somalia and is seriously affected by deforestation caused by charcoal burning. Moreover, Jibrell said, its arid climate means the soil is mostly saline and trees take a longer time to grow than in other regions of Somalia. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/9d1af2d50517f1cc6dea5a0e63573f1d.htmSouth Africa:15) The national environment department's Working for Wetland Programme, the global pioneer in vleiland rehabilitation, is set to launch a new project in Tsitsikamma. Built around a still evolving science, the programme works around the country, identifying degraded wetlands and installing gabions or rock baskets, "eco-logs", hessian and coconut fibre bags of soil, and other support structures designed to allow the vlei to restore itself. It will focus on a 30km-long hotspot, east of Clarkson, comprising about 16 fynbos wetland systems. Because of the steep inclines associated with fynbos, there are very few of these kinds of wetlands left. Once rich reservoirs of indigenous plants like sedges, fluitjiesriet, palmiet and brunia as well as insects, frogs, birds and other animals, many have been damaged by badly planned roads and drains and invasive alien brush. In some areas, large donga-like "head-cuts" have formed and erosion is eating backwards like a giant Pacman against the flow of the water. Eastern Cape co-ordinator, Japie Buckle, explained on a visit to the site this week. "Once this happens, they cease to be wetlands and many of the unique species which used to occur here disappear. Mountains to Ocean is clearing the area of pines ravaged in the infernos of November, 2005. It will be replanting not only according to the accepted international Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) guidelines, but also in terms of a new "give-and-take" scheme shaped with Working for Wetlands, according to the company's environmental consultant, Karen Kirkman. "The aim is to focus on the big systems and for us to try to leave those areas alone completely, in return for some extra ground around the smaller systems. We will never not adhere to the FSC guidelines, but both conservation and forestry can benefit from having large expanses rather than slivers to work with. We are trying this give-and- take system here and if it works it could be rolled out in other parts of the country." http://www.theherald.co.za/herald/news/n10_01022007.htmLiberia:16) A new project to conserve the western chimpanzee and pygmy hippo, by addressing human-wildlife conflicts adjacent to Sapo National Park, Liberia, West Africa, is about to be implemented by two of FFI's partners in Liberia: Forest Partners International and the Society for the Conservation of Nature of Liberia. This pilot project will use video camera monitoring to evaluate the level and forms of crop raiding by wildlife, especially by the two flagship species, in target communities adjacent to Sapo National Park and enable FFI's local partners to master the relevant monitoring techniques. Neighbouring communities will be told how and to what degree chimpanzees and pygmy hippos are genuinely affecting agricultural activities, and the data gathered will enable these communities and the Forestry Development Authority to mitigate damage to crops by wildlife, thereby reducing negative attitudes towards the park and, in particular, the chimpanzee and pygmy hippo. The project will serve to foster community awareness and understanding of the protected status of the target species, while new footage of Liberian animals that have rarely been studied or photographed in the wild will supplement current knowledge about these species and help to raise additional funding for future studies and conservation activities. For further information please contact: Svandermark http://www.edgeofexistence.org/blog/?p=32Brazil:17) Manaus -- A gold rush in Brazil that has desperate individuals tearing apart the surrounding rain forest was ignited by an Internet account, a report says. Since a local math teacher posted online descriptions of successful gold miners in the remote Brazilian town of Eldorado do Juma, Sky News said, up to 10,000 people have descended on the jungle and have been tearing it apart in their frantic search for gold. The Internet-powered gold rush has left large portions of the jungle state of Amazonas suddenly desolate as large trees have been cut down and area streams have been diverted to make way for deeper gold mines, Sky News said. The destructive search is the most massive gold rush in the South American country since the 1980s, the report said, when a mountain known as Serra Pelada was destroyed by tens of thousands of miners. " For me this is an open door after experiencing a big crisis due to a fall in the agriculture and fishery sector, " prospector Antonio Carlos dos Santos told Sky News. http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Quirks/20070204-023048-3936r/18) As most Treehuggers will be only to keenly aware, corporations such as Cargill, ADM and Bunge have long been accused of involvement in the destruction of the Amazon for soy cultivation (apparently now the leading cause of deforestation). According to a recent Greenpeace report, many of the farms that Cargill and others buy their soy beans from have been proven to practice debt-bondage, often enslaving the very same indigenous people whose lands have been grabbed by the farmer. There are some signs of hope. The Brazilian government has been encouraging major companies to support its anti-slavery efforts, but ADM, Bunge and Cargill have all refused to sign Brazil's National Pact for the Eradication of Slave Labor. It seems then, that environmentalists and abolitionists have more in common than some may think. In fact, this may always have been the case. Way back in the 1800s when the struggle against slavery was hotting up in the US, one out-spoken critic of slavery was none-other than Henry David Thoreau. The following is from an address given to an anti-slavery gathering, protesting the forced return of a fugitive slave from Massachusetts into bondage: http://www.treehugger.com2007/02/modern_slavery.php19) Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva blamed wealthy countries for global warming on Tuesday and said they should stop telling Brazil what to do with the Amazon rainforest. " The wealthy countries are very smart, approving protocols, holding big speeches on the need to avoid deforestation but they already deforested everything, " Lula said during the announcement of a public works project in Rio de Janeiro. Lula, a former factory worker, said wealthy countries should switch to non-fossil fuels, such as ethanol or biodiesel -- an area where Brazil is a pioneer. " We need a different campaign, not only to protect plants and animals ... to get rich countries to reduce gas emissions, " he said. Environment ministers from nearly 100 nations are meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, to discuss recent scientific findings that the burning of fossil fuels is likely to raise sea levels, cause more storms and shrink tropical forests like the Amazon. China also blamed rich nations earlier on Tuesday for greenhouse gases that fueled global warming and urged them to cut emissions. Brazil is the world's largest producer of ethanol, which is derived from sugar cane. It will invest 17.4 billion reais ($8.3 billion) in renewable fuels over the next four years. Accelerating demand for fuel ethanol has encouraged investors to move into traditional coffee growing areas in Minas Gerais state in search of more land to plant sugar cane. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06248201.htm20) Brazilian Forest Service General Director Tasso Azevedo demanded on Monday that French President Jacques Chirac propose concrete actions, such as satellite images to help fight deforestation, instead of proposing a UN agency to deal with climate problems. The Environment Ministry Official opposed creation of such an agency because it would spend more money and distract attention from the problem. Azevedo said that although Brazil is said to be among the greatest gas emissors in the world due to its deforestation problem, the high-resolution images of the Amazon forest, captured by the satellite Spot, have not been free. To use that service, it is necessary to pay between five million and 10 million dollars per year, he complained, and pointed out that if they would offer those images directly and freely, the country would have more efficient ways to reduce deforestation. Environment Minister Marina Silva also had an alternative to the French proposal, recalling the Brazilian initiative to create a mechanism to financially encourage developing countries to reduce their gas emissions by fighting deforestation. http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BF706B36A-1149-4A7A-9CA6-637C0033F0E5%7D) & language=EN Guyana:21) The Guyana Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), crafted out of nation-wide participatory consultations and published in 2001, set out the parameters of poverty in Guyana, analysed the contributory factors and detailed a road map for poverty alleviation or eradication. Like all other national policy documents, the PRSP celebrated Guyana's natural resource endowment. According to the PRSP, most of the poor in Guyana live in the interior Regions, coterminous with Guyana's forest cover. Today's column begins to consider the question: Why is there persistent poverty in the interior alongside the parcelling out of Guyana's best endowed forests in large-scale forestry concessions? Do the reasons for persistent poverty, as diagnosed by the PRSP, apply to the forestry sector? Today's column examines the first two causes of poverty according to the PRSP. http://guyanaforestry.blogspot.com/2007/02/guyana-and-wider-world.htmlPeru:22) The Peruvian government's announcement that it is revising three rainforest oil concessions to exclude official reserves intended to protect some of the last native Amazonian populations still living in isolation received a warm welcome from indigenous and environmental organizations today. Meanwhile, Peru's human rights ombudsman has publicly launched an independent investigation of all 11 new Amazonian oil concessions being auctioned by Perupetro, Peru's state-owned oil company, to ascertain whether they infringe the rights of indigenous communities and violate national laws. Both measures follow heavy pressure from Peruvian indigenous leaders as well as environmental and human rights groups, who attended Perupetro's presentation to US investors in Houston last week. http://biz./prnews/070206/latu120.html?.v=60Sri Lanka:23) Colombo - Officials in charge of the World Heritage Sinharaja Rainforest say they are facing serious difficulties in conserving the forest for future generations. They say illicit fellers, who are destroying the peripheral forests, are approaching the main forest as well. The peripheral forests are essential for the well-being of the main forest. The Sinharaja Rainforest has now dwindled to a strip 21 kilometres long and 3-7 kilometres wide. There is only one forest controller, four beat forest officers, seven field assistants, one forest expansion officer and 18 casual labourers to protect and maintain this World Heritage forest. http://www.colombopage.com/archive_07/February4145640SL.htmlVietnam:24) VietNamNet Bridge – A lot of peach trees, hundreds of years old, in Vietnam's forests have been chopped down; forests have been devastated, wild peach trees may disappear from Vietnam's forests. The Lunar New Year is still more than a week away, but in big markets in Hai Phong and Nam Dinh people have begun selling wild trees. The market in Nam My commune, Nam Truc district in Nam Dinh City, one of the biggest wild peach tree markets in the north, is now full of trees, mostly coming from Moc Chau plateau and Son La province. Every year, on the days just before Tet, several hundred trucks carrying wild branches overflow to the lowland. Every truck can carry 40 big wild peach branches. Ancient peach branches are always sold at high prices, at VND7-8mil, while a normal peach branch can be sold at VND500,000-700,000. A beautiful peach tree can be sold at VND2-3mil. A lot of people prefer wild peach trees from forests to grown peach trees. Not only wild peach branches are being sold, you can find peach trees on the market, which are sold for VND5mil each. The high profit has prompted people to chop big peach trees to transfer to Hanoi and northern provinces despite the ban issued by local authorities. http://english.vietnamnet.vn/lifestyle/2007/02/661609/ Philippines:25) About 3,000 members of Kiwanis-Philippine Luzon District (KPLD) are closing ranks to plant 11,040 six-to-eight feet high tree saplings between now and September in a show of support to the Green Philippines Highway (GPH) project of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). KPLD governor Anthony Macaraig said each of the 120 clubs that make up KPLD will be planting 92 tree saplings in celebration of the 92nd founding anniversary of Kiwanis International (KI) on January 21. According to Engineer Porthos Alma Jose, chairperson of the KPLD Kiwanis Week celebration, the choice for older planting materials for the activity gives them extra assurance of higher survival rates of the trees they will plant which, he stressed, is " the real objective of the whole undertaking. " A regular narra or mahogany tree seedling cost around P10.00 while those with height of up to eight feet sell for as much as P500. I hope other civic organizations would also celebrate milestones in an environmentally friendly way like what Kiwanis Club did. http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/pam/2007/02/02/oped/rox.pe.a.e.ssue.html26) It just so happens that trees in our country are decreasing in number because of people who indiscriminately cut trees. They do not think of the effects that will come our way if there are already no trees that will hold the soil. A very big issue is illegal logging especially in the provinces in the Visayas and Luzon. We have heard about mud slides especially the one that happened in Guinsaugon, Leyte last year. There were millions of casualties and families lost their source of livelihood including their homes. It is true about the unwritten law of nature that "Mother nature knows best". Because of people who take everything for granted, lives must be offered to replace what they have destroyed. Because of what other people do, including those very selfish politicians, trees in our country are getting lesser than it used to be years ago. Yet, there are still those who use their power and instead of their lives taken, the innocent are the ones being made as offering in exchange for what others have done to Mother Nature. What we should do now is to start to help in the rehabilitation of our forests. This program has been done by our government to save our forests. One example is the rehabilitation in La Mesa in the Luzon area also to save the shortage of their water supply in Luzon. Another thing we should do is to help in the government's fight against illegal logging and to put those who are responsible for the losing of our forests in prison. You know what I think should be done to these people? They must be thrown in the middle of the forest and be left there alone as a punishment for what they have done (LOL, very brutal). http://nnekalim.blogspot.com/2007/02/i-could-never-see-poem-as-lovely-as.htmlSouth East Asia:27) Rising demand for palm oil in Europe brought about the clearing of huge tracts of Southeast Asian rainforest and the overuse of chemical fertilizer there. Worse still, the scientists said, space for the expanding palm plantations was often created by draining and burning peatland, which sent huge amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Considering these emissions, Indonesia had quickly become the world's third-leading producer of carbon emissions that scientists believe are responsible for global warming, ranked after the United States and China, according to a study released in December by researchers from Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics, both in the Netherlands. "It was shocking and totally smashed all the good reasons we initially went into palm oil," said Alex Kaat, a spokesman for Wetlands, a conservation group. The production of biofuels, long a cornerstone of the quest for greener energy, may sometimes create more harmful emissions than fossil fuels, scientific studies are finding. As a result, politicians in many countries are rethinking the billions of dollars in subsidies that have indiscriminately supported the spread of all of these supposedly eco-friendly fuels for vehicles and factories. The 2003 European Union Biofuels Directive, which demands that all member states aim to have 5.75 percent of transportation run by biofuel in 2010, is now under review. In the Netherlands, the data from Indonesia has provoked soul-searching, and helped prompt the government to suspend palm oil subsidies. The Netherlands, a leader in green energy, is now leading the effort to distinguish which biofuels are truly environmentally sound. The government, environmental groups and some of the Netherlands' "green energy" companies are trying to develop programs to trace the origins of imported palm oil, to certify which operations produce the oil in a responsible manner. Krista van Velzen, a member of Parliament, said the Netherlands should pay compensation to Indonesia for the damage that palm oil has caused. "We can't only think: does it pollute the Netherlands?" http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/business/worldbusiness/31biofuel.html?_r=1 & oref=slogin Malaysia:28) " The incessant rainfall and widespread flooding drove prices for Malaysian timber products sharply up, " the International Tropical Timber Organisation was quoted by AFP as saying in its latest newsletter. " With minimal raw material trickling in, stockists of sawnwood and plywood are marking up prices by as much as 25 percent to 30 percent, " it said. Seventeen people have been killed since unseasonably heavy rain started in December, severely affecting several areas including the southern Indonesian state of Johor, a main player in the furniture industry. The group said neighbouring Pahang state, a major source of raw logs and sawn timber, had also been seriously affected by heavy rainfall and flooding. " Export prices of timber products, especially plywood, rose sharply amidst thunderstorms and law enforcement efforts to curb illegally-harvested timber from reaching the various ports around the country, " it said. " Armed, uniform military personnel were stopping trucks for spot-checks on several highways leading to the major ports. " It added: " Assessment of damages to the Malaysian timber industry is ongoing and may not be known for three months, " it said. http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=6766929) KEMABONG: A hill logged until bald by Sabah Forest Industries (SFI) lining the Alutok river is said to be responsible for the recent flash floods which hit several kampungs, here. A resident, Matri Marol, 42, said although the logging activities had stopped, the barren hills resulted in fast flowing water into the low-lying areas and, at the same time, caused the river to swell. In this respect, the calamity had greatly affected more than 600 people, mostly Muruts, who had been staying there for generations. Kampung Alutok, some 80km from the Tenom township did not have a proper road link, he said. He recalled that Kemabong Assemblyman Datuk Rubin Balang had assured that the problem would soon be rectified through the intervention of the District Office. Sungai Alutok had become shallow through continuous siltation of the river bed, coupled with increasing amount of debris such wood drifts, clogging the river. Rubin agreed with the suggestion by the Kemabong District Office to deepen the river. http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=4730230) THE clarification from the Malaysian Timber Certification Council (StarTwo, Jan 30) in no way rebuts or provides evidence to challenge the article Disputed papers by Hilary Chiew (StarTwo, Jan 9) on the dispute involving the logging of Penan territory in Sarawak. Merely saying that MTCC independently assesses and certifies logging in permanent forest reserves (PFEs) is not good enough. It has to demonstrate that such assessments are credible. I have visited logging sites in MTCC-certified PFEs but one would think that it was illegal loggers who had entered the area without any regard for sustainable forestry practices and indigenous peoples' rights. The Network of Indigenous Peoples Organisations and NGOs on Forest Issues (JOANGOHutan) pulled out of the MTCC process several years ago because the rights and interests of indigenous peoples living within these logging concessions were not recognised, let alone protected. However, we are willing to work with the revamped NGO-led National Steering Committee (NSC) to give timber certification a chance to protect our forests and the people dependent on them. No new standards have been agreed to by this committee. It is therefore mischievous of MTCC to claim that their "output" is a result of multi-stakeholder consultations. http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2007/2/6/lifefocus/16745106 & sec=lifefocus Sumatra:Pekanbaru – Rainforest Alliance has terminated its contract with Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) in HCVF monitoring audits in Sumatra which will take into effect on February 17, 2007, due to "the company has not demonstrated a comprehensive, consistent or dedicated approach toward conservation management necessary to maintain or enhance the forest ecosystems fundamental to the survival of the HCVs present there." Through its public statement that available to Eyes on the Forest on Monday Rainforest Alliance announced the termination of SmartWood's involvement in APP's HCVF monitoring audits. Rainforest said that the findings from the verification audits clearly indicate to Rainforest Alliance that the efforts made by APP are insufficient to manage and protect these HCVFs through two intensive field evaluations within one complete year."Changes in HCVF boundaries, including some clearing of HCVFs identified for conservation, have occurred, which directly contravenes agreements between APP and the Rainforest Alliance. The company has also not addressed in a consistent or timely manner the Corrective Action Requests (CARs) raised by SmartWood," said the statement. Rainforest Alliance provide opportunity for APP to resume the partnership under some conditions such as "APP puts in place a harvesting moratorium on all company and joint venture concessions within which the conversion of natural forest to plantations are planned.." as well as other accomplishments should do. http://eyesontheforest.or.id/index.php?option=com_content & task=view & id=94 & Itemid=6 Indonesia:32) A coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) called on the government to cancel auctions for two selective logging concessions in Riau and Jambi, saying the move would endanger protected animals and threaten the livelihood of indigenous peoples.Eyes on the Forest, a coalition of Riau NGOs, said the auctions of PT SWS's 124,000 hectare concession in Riau and PT IFA's 130,000 hectare concession in Jambi would endanger Sumatran tigers and elephants. The two logging concessions are planned to supply the pulpwood industry. The NGO coalition, comprising the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Indonesia, the Riau chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) and the Working Network of Riau Forest Rescuers (Jikalahari), warned that companies would get licenses within the next few days to convert the forests to industrial timber plantations. http://elephantsindonesia.blogspot.com/2007/02/riau-ngos-ask-govt-to-stop-forest-sales.html 33) Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) is " responsible for the large-scale destruction of Indonesia's forests " as well as has " generated a number of conflicts with various community groups in Indonesia which have yet to be settled. " Those are quotes found on Social conflict and environmental disaster: A report on Asia Pulp and Paper's operations in Sumatra, Indonesia, compiled by Rivani Noor and Rully Syumanda. The report is part of the World Rainforest Movement's PLANTATIONS WATCH project, with financial support from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS). Beside highlights the social, economic and ecological damages made by APP in Riau, the study also tells of its operations inflicting losses to forest and communities in Jambi. The report found that in a bid to meet its pulp and paper capacity production, APP sourced its main raw material from " wood from forests " since " acacia accounts for not more than 30 percent of the total supply. " Hence, illegal loggings were perpetrated by APP's partners and subsidiaries in Riau's protected areas such as in Giam Siak Kecil forest block, Pekanbaru border's protected forest, Rimbang Baling wildlife reserve, and others. " More than 82 perent of logs from the area were transported directly to Indah Kiat, " the report referred to Rimbang Baling's illegal logging operations. The two authors, Rivani Noor of CAPPA and Rulli Syumanda of WALHI, said that around 70 percent of APP's plantation concessions are located in swamps and peat forests, particularly in the regions of Mendahara, Pematang Lumut and Klagian in Jambi Province and in Siak, Bengkalis and Kampar Districts in Riau Province. http://appwatch.blogspot.com/2007/02/social-conflict-and-environmental.html 34) At an alarming rate, Indonesia is replacing Bangladesh and India as the most disaster-prone nation on earth. Whenever the word Indonesia appears on the list of headlines on News, chances are that another enormous - and often unnecessary - tragedy has occurred on one of the islands of this sprawling archipelago. Airplanes are disappearing or sliding off the runways, ferries are sinking or simply decomposing on the high seas, trains crash or get derailed on the average of one per week Illegal garbage dumps bury desperate communities of scavengers under their stinking contents. Landslides are taking carton-like houses into ravines; earthquakes and tidal waves are swallowing up coastal cities and villages. Forest fires from Sumatra are choking huge areas of Southeast Asia. The scope of disasters is on a scale so vast that they cannot be discounted simply as the nation's bad luck or as the wrath of gods or nature. Corruption, incompetence and gross indifference on the part of ruling elites and government officials are to blame. Poverty, in combination with a dearth of sound public projects as well as kleptomania, is taking the lives of hundreds of thousands of desperate Indonesian men, women and children. Since the 1965 U.S.-sponsored military coup that deposed Sukarno and installed the military regime of staunchly anti-communist and corrupt pro-market dictator Suharto, Indonesia has escaped serious scrutiny by the international media and governments. After Suharto was forced to step down in 1998, Indonesia has been hailed by the international media as an emerging and increasingly tolerant democracy: yet the only political parties allowed to compete in elections are those that are staunchly pro-business. http://greenindonesia.net/archives/5835) Storm waters that had receded washed back into many low-lying areas of the city today after overnight rain, piling on the misery for 340,000 people forced from their homes after days of torrential rain. At least 29 people have died. Authorities estimated 40% to 70% of the city of 12 million people had been submerged, and more rain was predicted. Environmentalists blame the flooding on clogged storm drains and rivers, inadequate planning and deforestation of hillsides south of the city. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070206/NEWS07/702060357/1001/BUSINESS05New Zealand: 36) Rough timber prices are up by about 50 per cent and local forestry operator Blakely Pacific has put on another logging crew to take advantage of it. South Island forestry and marketing manager Andrew Cocking said round logs were selling for about $90 per cubic metre for export, a $30 increase on the market lows of last year. The last time prices were that high was in 2002, when the New Zealand dollar was nowhere near its current strength. " So the customers in Asia are paying record prices now, " he noted. Mr Cocking said the 2002 price spike had been somewhat artificial due to the activities of Carter Holt Harvey in the domestic market whereas today's price was real. " It's a price spike, but the signs are all good. It looks reasonably positive for 2007. " While it had to be noted that the timber market was a commodity market, and could be hard to predict as a consequence, now would be a good time for landowners with mature woodlots to consider cashing them in, he suggested. The market was being driven by demand for rough timber in Asia, not the higher quality grades demanded by domestic or US markets, said Mr Cocking. " You can't build a house out of it in New Zealand, not with our building rules. " While Blakely Pacific hadn't increased its exports to date in response to the price shift, that could change. The extra logging crew, which consisted of five or six men and would also require one or two trucks to service it, was to fell rougher timber from Blakely Pacific's higher ground in the Hunter Hills. http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/timaruherald/3949558a6571.htmlAustralia:37) Green ringtail possums may be threatened from loss of its primary rainforest habitat, although this individual seemed content to reside in a tree in a housing suburb. They are usually solitary and typically nocturnal, those large eyes developed to gather the dim light of night. They do not use tree hollows or build nests as do other possums. They are also nearly always silent. They also produce but one young at a time. They are very specialist feeders. They eat only leaves (they are " folivores " ), and seem to select for mature leaves largely from only a few specific tree species. This might put them at some risk, if those trees were to disappear from the forest ... or if the forest itself was to disappear. Green ringtail possums are a " local endemic " of northeastern Queensland and as such have a very limited overall distribution there and are found nowhere else in the world. So their very specialized diet, their narrow endemic distribution, their solitary behavior, and their slow reproductive rate may all combine to put this species of possum at greater risk. http://www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070206.html38) Although all native forests are important for biodiversity conservation, the environmental movement has afforded national parks a special status akin to static museum exhibits that can be "locked up" and left. Unfortunately, this ignores the reality that forests are dynamic entities constantly changing in response to age as well as factors such as feral animals, weeds, and fire. Most forest scientists acknowledge that inappropriate fire regimes transcend all other threats to represent the greatest danger to the environmental integrity of Australian forests and acknowledge the need for human intervention through controlled burning to manage fire frequency and minimise the threat of intense summer wildfires. By being so fixated on logging, the environmental movement has traditionally ignored the infinitely greater threat of fire. This was highlighted when lobby group, the Victorian National Parks Association, failed to consider fire as a significant management issue in their 2002 proposal to create an expanded Australian Alps National Park. Similarly, the Wilderness Society has traditionally ignored fire except in designated Wilderness Areas where it sees no place for managed cool burning and supports letting natural summer fires burn. Now, after recent landscape-scale events, environmental activists are expressing strong opposition to the controlled use of fire in autumn and spring which they irrationally view as damaging to the environment despite the far greater potential for uncontrolled summer wildfires to severely damage forest ecology as well as impact on human life and property. While public land managers continue to view fire protection as a critical management function, the conversion of state forest into parks and reserves has substantially reduced government revenue (from timber sales) with a concurrent loss of considerable forest and fire expertise from government agencies. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5456World-wide:39) Rainforest: A Photographic Journey - Thomas Marent first set foot in a rainforest when he was 24 and in Australia studying English. Marent, who bought his first camera when he was 16, developed a passion for rainforests after that. This coffee table book is the result of Marent's 16-year journey through North and Central America, South America, Africa, Asia and Australasia to photograph the wonders of the rainforest. In the beginning, he photographed "anything beautiful" but later began seeking out special subjects such as the camouflaged leaf-tailed gecko at Ankarafantsika National Park, Madagascar, and the awesome nest of pitcher plants at Kinabalu National Park in Sabah. Marent went to great lengths in his quest to capture these special creatures; he once stood on a nest of fire ants to get a good shot of a jumping stick insect at Tambopata Reserve, Peru. He took a fortnight to recover from the stings. The rainforest is also not a friendly place for an ambitious photographer. Not only must Marnet guard himself against the poisonous and dangerous denizens of the rainforest, he often got lost and was always an inch away from heatstroke or starvation. The human populace isn't always kind either. In Columbia, he was nearly found by guerrillas who had a reputation of kidnapping Westerners. Still, this did not deter Marent as he journeyed through the rainforests of the world. His pictures are reproduced beautifully on high-quality matte paper; the colours are simply brilliant. Two percent of the royalties from this book goes to The Rainforest Foundation which believes that rainforests should be protected along with the rights of the people living within them. And as we study the photographs that Marent has taken, it is sobering to realise that the magnificent plants and animals that he has captured are slowly dying out as human civilisation make its way into the rainforests' borders. http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2007/2/6/lifebookshelf/16144948 & sec=lifebookshel f40) Albert Einstein provided some wisdom that is applicable to ecoforestry: "A clever person solves a problem — a wise person avoids it." Illegally logged timber destroys lives by perpetuating a vicious cycle of violence, intimidation, corruption and environmental and social degradation. A ban on the import of wood products from illegal and destructive sources is the only way to stop illegal logging. Delegates to the FLEG East Asia Ministerial Conference, which took place in Indonesia in September 2001, promised to implement rigorous measures to stop the illegal trade of timber from the region. The Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) process aims to combat the threats posed to forests by illegal logging, trade, poaching and corruption. Illegal logging takes place when timber is harvested, processed, transported, brought or sold in violation of national laws including: 1) Obtaining concessions illegally (eg via corruption and bribery) or without full and informed consent. 2) Cutting protected tree species or extraction trees from a protected area 3) Taking out more trees, under sized trees, oversized trees than is permitted or trees outside an agreed area 4) Illegal processing and export 5) Fraudulent declaration to customs of the amount of timber being exported 6) Non payment or under payment of taxes 7) Use of fraudulent documents to smuggle timber internationally http://www.pink-globalwarming-awareness2007.com/2007/02/03/ecoforestry/41) It sounds nice doesn't it? Owning your own piece of rainforest, so that it can never be cut down sounds like a wonderful prospect. Shame you can't have it in your own back garden though. However, it is possible to protect a piece of rainforest, to conserve the species within it ,by supporting one of a number of charities that have negotiated deals with governments and local people in order to protect rainforest either through purchase or management partnerships. Here are a few websites where rainforest can be protected by donations. http://natureproducts.net/RFFF/Rainforest,_own_one.html http://www.adoption.co.uk/rainforest/ http://www.worldlandtrust.org/supporting/gift.htm http://rainforestheroes.com/kidscorner/protect/s03_paa.html http://www.funedesin.org/html/buy_rainforest.htm http://www.calakmul.org/html/save.html I was quite surprised how cheaply a hectare of rainforest can be protected for. It makes me wonder if the vast sums that are spent on some poorly conceived conservation projects in developed countries would be better used to fund projects such as these. http://enviroblah.blogspot.com/2007/02/buying-piece-of-rainforest_05.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.