188 - Earth's Tree News

[Guest guest]

Today for you 38 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) Update on Tongass forest plan battles --British Columbia: 2) More

tribe land given away to pivate use, 3) Clayoqout update, 4) Why the

Great Bear isn't working yet, --Pacific Northwest: 5) Judge shuts down Bush's Aquatic Conservation interpretation--Oregon: 6) Burned forests restore themselves without any help, 7) Write a letter to Ed.--California: 8) Bankrupt logger baron, 9)Who saved Headwaters? 10) clearcutting plans, --Idaho: 11) Myrtle Creek Water supply trashed out by loggers--New Mexico: 12) Modern Forest history, 13) Saying good bye to a forest defender,--Arkansas: 14) She has the right to grow trees in her front yard,

--Wyoming: 15) More forest planning processes suspended--Michigan: 16) Miners want land back so they can ruin it to make money--Indiana: 17) Old forests of Indiana and why they don't grow back--Delaware: 18) Long-term forest study starts up

--Pennsylvania: 19) Mountain forest ruined for new road for Penn State football games--USA: 20) National forest history in the Rockies, 21) Old forest photo collection,--Canada: 22) Excluding forests from carbon calculations, 23) Greenpeace action,

--Kenya: 24) Deforestation hurts Lake Naivasha--Congo: 25) The last of the forest elephants, --Chad: 26) Switching from firewood to natural gas,--Senegal: 27) Losing 350,000 hectares of forests per year,

--South Africa: 28) restoring stream flows by clearing plantations--Guyana: 29) Akawini Amerindian Village swindled out of their forests--Brazil: 30) Intact forests are most resistant to global warming--China: 31) Asia Pulp and Paper destroying Native forest

--Malaysia: 32) Penan tribe have rebuilt their logging blockade--Indonesia: 33) Pride Campaign focuses on abating illegal logging--Sumatra: 34) Rare Sumatran Striped Rabbit filmed--Australia:

35) Loggers cleared to sue enviros, 36) Illegal logging in the Barmah,

--World-wide: 37) World's Magnolia tree under threat, 38) Forests

Forever website,Alaska: 1) The Forest Service has

agreed to withdraw decisions to conduct new timber sales in wild,

roadless areas of Alaska's Tongass National Forest in order to settle a

lawsuit brought by eight conservation groups and one native Tlingit

community. The suit made its way to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals,

which found that the Forest Service grossly exaggerated demand for

Tongass timber and failed to explore options for cutting trees outside

of the forest's pristine roadless areas. The court ordered the agency

to rewrite the management plan. " The Forest Service should be cutting

taxpayer losses instead of cutting roadless areas, " said Tom Waldo, the

Earthjustice attorney who represented the plaintiffs. " The settlement

agreement protects the roadless areas of the Tongass until the Forest

Service completes the new forest plan, so the trees will still be

standing in the places that are most important for hunting, fishing,

wildlife, recreation, and tourism. That makes it possible to adopt a

new plan that will protect the remaining wild, natural areas of the

forest, that will recognize the greatly reduced demand for logging on

the Tongass, and that cuts the huge taxpayer losses that the Tongass

suffers every year. " Waldo also sounded a note of caution about the

future: " Unfortunately, the Forest Service has now proposed a new draft

plan that would allow logging at a level about six times the current

demand, located overwhelmingly in roadless areas. We can hope that

public outrage will persuade the agency to reject this misguided

proposal, but if the agency continues in this direction, we will be

there to defend the roadless areas of America's premier rainforest. " http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/007/roadless-areas-in-tongass-national-forest-get-loggi

ng-reprieve.htmlBritish Columbia:2)

The Carrier Sekani Tribal Council is concerned about a provincial plan

to convert nearly 2,000 hectares of cleared pine beetle forest near

Vanderhoof into agricultural land. The move to sell off unceded

aboriginal title land to farmers is a sign of bad faith in the treaty

negotiation process, the tribal council asserts. "Each year, more of

our land is sold or leased to private interests," Saik'uz Chief Colleen

Erickson said in a press release. "Even if they send us a consultation

letter, the fact remains that this land will no longer be available for

negotiations at the treaty table. There is a big rush right now in the

territories to develop or sell our lands before a treaty is signed. To

us, this is not negotiating in good faith." Private lands cannot be

expropriated in treaty settlements, according to a 2002 treaty

referendum. "The provincial government claims it has a 'new

relationship' with First Nations, but they continue to sell off our

lands and resources, while we are attempting to negotiate a treaty in

good faith," Nak'azdli Chief Leonard Thomas said. "Industry is given

subsidies and incentives, like the one [Minister of Agriculture and

Lands Pat] Bell is proposing in the form of a fund to assist potential

farmers in removing stumps and converting farmlands, while First

Nations must borrow millions to negotiate treaties over the very same

land." Six approximately 320-hectare plots have been selected to be

sold commercially, if the program goes ahead. The location of those

plots hasn't been decided yet, Bell said, but they will be near

Vanderhoof because of the strong existing agriculture base in the area.

In addition, the soil conditions in the area are good for agriculture.

"We'll ask for market value for a stump farm, not for improved land,"

he said. "There will be a pool of funds to help the purchaser clear the

land." Bell said the project isn't comparable to the slashing and

burning of rain forests in South America for grazing land. http://www.pgfreepress.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=26 & cat=23 & id=868267 & more

3)

While the environmental groups that made the deal in the Great Bear

Rainforest are upset over the clear cutting and degradation of that

territory, saying " we wanted to make something even better than

Clayoquot " , their " deals " are coming back to haunt them. When they made

their agreement with the logging companies in Clayoquot Sound to help

market the old growth forest and protect only some pristine areas, many

people from the area disagreed. Around 1,000 people had been arrested

there to make a strong statement about the logging of coastal old

growth forests which are some of the last remaining large trees in the

world. Attached are some pictures of a log barge coming out of the

Cypre River near Tofino, carrying only old growth trees, predominantly

cedar. The barges come in in the evening, load all through the night

and leave early in the morning, avoiding general knowledge of what is

taking place. The pictures were taken early Wednesday morning, April

4th, as the barge was leaving Clayoquot Sound after the barge departed

Hecate Bay through Brabant Channel West of Tofino. With global concern

over climate change and extreme weather patterns bringing heavy rains

in the winter and drought in the summer (Tofino ran out of water last

summer at the height of tourist season) and with wild salmon stocks

plummeting amongst other environmental disasters, there is an immediate

need to stop this degradation and revisit destructive decisions and

processes. Meanwhile, logging is unabated and escalating in areas of

the coast such as Nootka Island (where they are even logging the

beaches), Kyuquot, Port Alberni and elsewhere. As this log barge was

leaving Clayoquot, another larger empty one was passing nearby heading

North. councilfire4) Ms. Langer said

ecosystem-based logging hasn't been tried anywhere in the world on an

industrial scale, so nobody is sure exactly how it will work or what it

looks like. But Lisa Matthaus, campaign director of the Sierra Club of

Canada, said they know the new logging doesn't look like the clear-cuts

that are continuing to appear in the Great Bear Rainforest. " We are

seeing clear-cuts, landslides, the same old stuff. Right now the forest

industry has a volume-driven model and we are talking about turning

that on its head. . . . It's complex, but we can't duck the problem and

we can't afford to fail, " she said. Stan Coleman, manager of strategic

planning for Western Forest Products, one of five industry signatories

to the Great Bear Rainforest deal, said the shift that's envisioned is

not going to be easy to accomplish, but he is confident it will happen.

" We are making progress. . . . We are seeing some stuff change on the

ground. And we are all fully committed to making the 2009 deadline, " he

said. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070329.BCLOGGING29/TPStory/TPNational/Politics/

Pacific Northwest:5)

In his ruling late Friday, U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez

struck down the administration's change to the forest plan, which

governs logging on 24 million acres of federal lands in Washington,

Oregon and Northern California. " Here, the dissenting views of

responsible scientists were neither set forth in substance, nor their

import discussed, " as required by the National Environmental Policy

Act, Martinez wrote. Under the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan's Aquatic

Conservation Strategy, before federal agencies could approve logging,

road-building or other projects, they had to determine that the

projects would not harm watersheds. That wording, designed to protect

salmon, had held up timber activities on 4 million acres designated for

logging. In March 2004, the Bush administration dropped the wording at

the request of the timber industry. Several U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service scientists who worked on the original Northwest Forest Plan

objected, saying the change would " remove or weaken several key

conservation provisions for aquatic species " and " is of great concern

to us. " But such comments were not included in the environmental impact

statement prepared in conjunction with the wording change, Martinez

said. Instead, some of the objections were " buried in the appendices as

a summary of public comments " but were not seriously weighed by the

U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management. In one appendix, the

administration misrepresented the views of the scientists who drafted

the original wording by saying that they did not intend for logging

projects to be evaluated for their impact on the watershed, the judge

said. Environmentalists and fishing groups who sued over the wording

change were thrilled. http://www.columbian.com/news/state/APStories/AP04032007news122015.cfmOregon:6)

Scientists looking at the aftermath of wildfires in the forests of

southwestern Oregon and Northern California found that after five to

ten years even the most severely burned areas had sprouted plentiful

seedlings without any help from man. Though natural regeneration

generally took longer to produce pines and firs, it created a more

varied forest, even after brush had become established, which is likely

to benefit wildlife, concluded to the study by scientists from Oregon

State University appearing in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of

Forestry. " When time is not a factor in achieving the goals, then

natural regeneration appears to be a very good approach to

reforestation, " said David Hibbs, a professor of ecology and

silviculture at Oregon State University who took part in the study. The

study is the latest to address the contentious issue of whether to

harvest trees killed by wildfires on national forests and replant, or

let them regenerate on their own. Fire serves as both an agent of

destruction and renewal in the Klamath and Siskiyou mountains where the

study took place, wrote lead author Jeff Shatford, a research assistant

in Oregon State's Department of Forest Science. The study looked at 35

plots in eight areas that had burned between 1987 and 1996. Most were

located in the Klamath River drainage of Northern California. Some were

in the Umpqua River drainage of Southern Oregon. All had burned

severely, Hibbs said. Over 19 years, the study found hundreds of trees

per acre in various types of forests, equal to or greater than the

density of forests that are 60 to 100 years old. Seedlings were still

sprouting 19 years after the fire, even in areas covered by brush.

Hibbs said they saw plentiful seedlings on sites located a quarter mile

from surviving trees that provided seeds, leaving them to wonder how

the seeds could have traveled so far. The scientific and political

debate erupted after the 2002 Biscuit fire, which burned 500,000 acres

in southwestern Oregon. Conservation groups lost court battles to stop

salvage logging and replanting in roadless areas not normally

considered for timber harvest. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/science/4685924.html7)

One of the easiest and best ways to get the word out about the threat

to our remaining native forests and the need to permanently protect

every American's birthright--our public forests, rivers and streams--is

writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Native Forest

Council staff, volunteers and several of our nationwide associates send

out regular letters to the editor to local and state papers, yet we've

found that most out of state papers won't run our letters. Which is why

Native Forest Council is introducing our " Letter Tree, " where

participating NFC supporters across the nation submit monthly letters

to the editor on a topic. The first step toward passing Native Forest

Council's " Forever Wild Act: Zero Cut on Public Lands, " is to wake the

sleeping masses. We must educate the American public of the life

sustaining services--pure water, clean air and a livable

climate--provided for us by our forests free of charge, and the need

for their genuine and lasting protection. Within a year, our goal is to

have at least one NFC supporter in every state and major city submit a

monthly letter to the editor to their local paper. Those interested in

becoming active and participating in NFC's " Letter Tree " will receive a

monthly topic, talking points and a model for each letter. Members are

also encouraged to craft their own letters with urgent and

uncompromising messages asserting the need for forest protection and

the inevitability of Zero Cut on public lands. NFC supporters wishing

to get involved with the " Letter Tree " program should respond to this

email with the subject line: " Letter Tree, " call our Eugene office at

541-688-2600, or drop a line to Native Forest Council, PO Box 2190,

Eugene, OR 97402. JoshCalifornia:8)

The hearing Friday morning was all about real estate -- specifically,

the 200,000 acres of Humboldt County timber land that the Scotia-based

Pacific Lumber Co. put up for hock in 1998. Maxxam, Pacific Lumber's

corporate parent, wanted to reorganize its debt, so it created a

holding company -- " Scotia Pacific, " or Scopac -- to take title to the

land. With the corporation organized thusly, Maxxam could go out and

borrow against the Scopac real estate, selling secured bonds to the

tune of $720 million. Fast forward to 2007. In January, the company

stopped making its payments on those timber bonds. So, naturally

enough, the holders of the bonds want to foreclose on the Scopac lands.

But Maxxam has decided that it wants to keep the lands, despite not

paying its debt. Those were the sides, and that was the fight, in

Friday's hearing. In legal terms, what it boiled down to was the

question of whether Scopac is simply a financial instrument, as the

noteholders were promised in 1998, or whether it is an independent

company in its own right, as Maxxam is now arguing. If the latter, then

the noteholders cannot immediately foreclose -- the Scopac company

would be entitled the same " fresh start " opportunity that all companies

receive in bankruptcy. Schmidt did not immediately issue a ruling. As

of Tuesday evening, Schmidt had not yet ruled on another question, one

that had been put to trial early last month. Namely, the question of

why this case was being heard in Corpus Christi in the first place.

Nearly everyone associated with the case -- creditors, state regulatory

agencies, the federal government -- believes it should be heard in

California. But Maxxam wants it in a Texas courtroom, possibly because

they are confident that there they will be " in and out with all due

speed. " http://www.northcoastjournal.com/040507/towndandy0405.html9)

There is one part of the whole Headwaters discussion that is annoying.

People talk as if it were a given that the Headwaters Agreement took

Headwaters Forest out of timber production and therefore irreparably

damaged the local timber industry. However, North Coast Environmental

Center director Greg King directly addressed this point recently: These

groves were protected several times when litigants successfully argued

in court that the California Environmental Quality act and the federal

Endangered Species Act prevented any logging at all in Palco's ancient

forests. But we are a "nation of laws" until they impede the flow of

money. . . . If it's any consolation, keep in mind that had

environmental lawsuits not been successful -- had Maxxam logged the now

protected groves at the company's post-1986 pace -- Headwaters Forest

would have been eliminated five years ago, and there would be no

Headwaters Fund. http://humboldt-herald.blogspot.com/2007/04/hank-gets-schooled-on-headwaters-fund.html10)

SPI plans to clear-cut a million acres in the Sierra Nevada and

southern Cascades in the next decade, and Roseburg Lumber is also

clear-cutting much of its land in Northern California. Between

clear-cutting and wildfires, we may soon face a state that looks

dramatically different from what it does today, with forests on private

lands replaced by plantations or housing developments like the ones SPI

may be considering along Highway 44. During the mid-1990s large timber

companies like Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) and Roseburg Lumber

shifted from employing selective logging to increasingly relying on

clear-cutting. After clear-cutting, the forests are replanted with

single-age and usually single-species trees. Forests that would

naturally include eight or 10 different species of trees are replaced

by plantations that consist of ponderosa pine, with a few fir trees

mixed in. Such plantations create high fire hazards. Lacking large old

trees with thick bark that can resist fire, they burn quickly and

thoroughly in a wildfire. Furthermore, ponderosa pine forests promote

more intense fires than some other species, according to one study

based on wildfires in Northern California in 1987. Other factors that

increase the threat of wildfire today include the policy of suppressing

fires during much of the 20th century, which led to buildup of dead

fuels on the ground. Second, global warming has exacerbated the

problem, as warmer temperatures cause earlier snow runoff and drier

summer conditions. As a result, the average number of large fires in

the West has almost quadrupled in the past 34 years, according to a

study by the Scripps Institute. In a feedback loop of causation,

clear-cutting followed by tree plantations increases the release of

carbon, accelerating global warming. http://www.redding.com/news/2007/apr/06/speak-your-piece/Idaho:11)

A municipal watershed in Myrtle Creek Valley, which supplies Bonners

Ferry, Idaho with drinking water, has been severely damaged by logging

and road building that occurred after the 2003 Myrtle Creek Fire.

Recently the Forest Service proposed the Myrtle Creek project, which

calls for massive logging that will further degrade water quality. The

Forest Service proposes to log 2,080 acres, create over 40-acre

clear-cuts, log old growth areas, and fragment a 2000-acre Grizzly bear

seclusion area. The Lands Council of Spokane intends to fight the

project in court on the grounds that logging will take place in two

Inventoried Roadless Areas, which is counter to the current "law of the

land," the 2001 Roadless Rule. Ranotta McNair, supervisor of the Idaho

Panhandle National Forest, expects to sign the final approval documents

for the project later this spring after a 30-day period for objections.

Mike Petersen, Executive Director for the Lands Council, said that his

group "simply cannot agree to logging in roadless areas in an already

damaged watershed." More logging would only destabilize the thin soils

and increase the risk of another fire fueled by piled up logging slash.

The 2003 Myrtle Creek Fire started in a slash pile left from recent

logging. For more information, go to http://www.landscouncil.org or contact Tania Ellersick, Lands Council, at 509-838-4912.New Mexico:12)

From the last remnant stands of ancient Ponderosa Pine forests of the

Mogollon Rim to the lush spruce and fir forests framed by the jagged

peaks of the Southern Rockies, the forests of the greater Southwest are

widely diverse in their defining character and in the threats to their

survival. Our planet's largest ponderosa pine forest runs an arc over

southwestern New Mexico north through central Arizona. It is at the

point of ecological collapse. After 50 years of rapacious old growth

logging, centuries of livestock grazing, fire suppression, elimination

of predators and soil erosion, we are still without permanent

protection for the remaining 4 percent of our ancient pine trees. These

regal old growth stands are the last fire resistant protectors of our

forests. The Bush administration has launched a new wave of pillage and

plunder by rolling back environmental regulations in the name of fire

prevention. Rather than continue these economically inefficient

practices, Forest Guardians proposed an alternative vision, promoted in

Born of Fire, which calls on the government to allow fire to re-assert

its natural role in backcountry forests and for more use of prescribed

fire closer to home. Born of Fire - A comprehensive Forest Guardians'

review of fuel treatment programs and fire management plans in the

Southwestern Region of the U.S http://www.fguardians.org/support_docs/report_born-of-fire_6-05.pdf13)

Police say the driver suspected in Saturday night's hit-and-run

accident was drunk when he allegedly struck and killed a Santa Fe

businesswoman and activist who was out on a walk. Christopher Lavone,

35, hit Sarah Williams, 52, in the St. Francis Drive crosswalk near

Camino de las Crucitas with his car before he continued to the village

of Tesuque, where he called police at about 8:30 p.m. to report the

accident, Santa Fe police Capt. Gary Johnson said. Williams led a group

of local forest activists who in February persuaded Santa Fe officials

to revise plans to remove 90 percent of the trees in a 92-acre,

city-owned parcel near Hyde Park Road as a fire-prevention measure. A

professional Web designer, Williams rallied activists with an Internet

site called http://www.OnceAForest.org

" Sarah was a citizen in full, speaking truth to power with simple

courage, practicing generosity and fiercely advocating for sane

solutions, " said Forest Guardians founder Sam Hitt, who worked with

Williams to stop the Hyde Park clearing. On another project, Williams

was working with other activists to stop similar plans by the U.S.

Forest Service to clear trees near Ski Santa Fe. " We'll vow to fight

on, but we'll do it with a good deal of sadness, " Hitt said. http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/59549.htmlArkansas:14)

Fayetteville - The case, which was in environmental court Tuesday,

turned into a battle of pictures. City inspectors visited Fawkes' house

on Boro Drive Monday. City Attorney Jennifer Blue says the trees

ordered to be cut down are still standing. Fawkes has been fighting

City Hall to keep the trees she planted eight years ago on Arbor Day.

Neighbors have complained the trees in her front yard are an eyesore

and will decrease property values. " What's more telling for me, " said

Honorable Kim Tucker, District Court Judge, " is looking at the December

of '06 picture and the April of '07 picture, and there is virtually no

difference. " And with that, the judge found Fawkes guilty of violating

the court order to cut down the trees. Tucker sentenced Fawkes to ten

days in jail but suspended the sentence for six months. The City is now

going to make sure the trees come down. " The City will send out

inspectors or whatever, hire somebody to come in and clean up the

property and assess my clients whatever the costs, " said Marshall

Pitts, attorney. Fawkes is outraged and believes the City is singling

out her property to make an example. But the story is not over. Pitts

has appealed and wants the case heard in front of a superior court

jury. So at this point, the trees will stay until the higher court

decided if it will hear the case. http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=triangle & id=5180444Wyoming:15)

Officials from the Shoshone National Forest said they would suspend a

yearlong forest planning process pending more information about a legal

decision affecting the management of national forests. Bryan Armel,

forest planner for the Shoshone, said there will be no more public

meetings until the agency gets more information, possibly in the next

few weeks. Several public meetings were planned for April. " I don't

know how we're going to proceed until we get more direction, " he said,

noting that a management plan had been expected to be finished in a

year. That will likely be delayed, he said. On the Bridger-Teton

National Forest, Mary Cernicek said no public meetings are scheduled,

but the agency is " holding the course " and will continue with public

involvement as its forest plan, expected in late 2008, progresses. A

federal district judge ruled last week the Bush administration

illegally rewrote the rules for managing 192 million acres of federally

owned forests and grasslands in 2005 and must consider the

environmental impact of its plan before offering another policy

blueprint. The ruling by Judge Phyllis Hamilton of the U.S. District

Court for the Northern District of California suspends the forest rules

the administration adopted on Jan. 5, 2005. Hamilton said the

government did not adequately assess the policy's impact on wildlife

and the environment and did not give sufficient public notice of the

" paradigm shift " that the rule put in place. The judge ordered the

Forest Service to suspend its 2005 rule and subject it to a new round

of analysis, taking into account the environmental protection and

public participation requirements in the National Environmental Policy

Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. http://www.jacksonholestartrib.com/articles/2007/04/05/news/wyoming/fac481f3076b7aaa872572b300

805119.txtMichigan:16)

Now, thanks to rapidly rising metal prices, international mining

companies are again interested in the Upper Peninsula. A subsidiary of

industry giant Rio Tinto wants to open the country's largest nickel

mine about 25 miles from Marquette, and various companies are

prospecting for copper, nickel, uranium and other materials. One would

think they would be welcomed with open arms. Think again. The region

has moved on. Tourism built on activities such as hunting, fishing,

mountain biking, snowmobiling, skiing and kayaking has become its

economic mainstay. Many residents say they don't want this greener

economy sullied by mining. In Big Bay, a quaint, woodsy town seven

miles from the proposed nickel mine, windows sport hand-lettered

anti-mining signs and " No Sulfide Mining " is painted in large letters

on the slouching hulk of an old barn. Environmentalists are especially

concerned about the proposed nickel mine, known as the Eagle Project

and run by Kennecott Minerals Co., since it would tap into sulfide ore

bodies, which, when exposed to air, produce sulfuric acid as a

byproduct. The proposed mine is also four miles from the Huron Mountain

Club, a private wilderness reserve where 50 families have vacation

homes amid old-growth forest dotted with lakes and the Salmon Trout

River, home to the rare coaster brook trout. " This area is so

sufficiently unusual, precious and delicate that the mine should not be

located here, " said Peter Dykema, a Washington lawyer and

sixth-generation club member. " We're not against mining -- the world

needs nickel and Michigan needs jobs. But it shouldn't be here. "

Kennecott project manager Jon Cherry said the mine would operate for

about eight years and would be completely cleaned up a few years past

that. He said potentially acid-producing waste would be contained in a

double-lined pad and water quality would be restored. But

environmentalists contend that accidents are bound to happen. " Nothing

is totally leakproof, " said Sierra Club forest ecologist Marvin

Roberson. " One bad winter runoff could contaminate the stream and kill

off all the coasters. " Kennecott controls 500,000 acres of mineral

rights in the area, most acquired in the past decade. Michelle Halley,

a lawyer for the National Wildlife Federation, calls this part of a

" mineral rights rush. " http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040201406.html

Indiana:17)

Before Indiana was settled by European immigrants, nearly the entire

state was covered with old growth forest. Only one central Indiana

county supported open grasslands. Now, the opposite is true. Only

remnants of forests remain, and they are shrinking fast. The selfish

leveling of whole forests for farms and development is a shameful

example of our greed. But in a testament to Mother Nature's resiliency,

some good has come from our drastic changing of the landscape. Though

game birds like the grouse and non-game birds like some owls have been

forever hurt by the loss of forests in Indiana, other species have

benefited. Deer and raccoons are two of the biggest winners in the

new-look Indiana. And where gray foxes once roamed, there now are more

red foxes and coyotes. The patchwork of small woodlots, remnant

wetlands and agricultural fields that define the northern two-thirds of

Indiana teem with these species where allowed to flourish. Southern

Indiana is a different story. South of Martinsville, where the last

glacier stopped and the terrain becomes endlessly hilly, forests are

still intact. Often, they exist in tracts several miles wide and long.

In these places, clearings are at a premium for both man and wildlife.

Despite the protests of some environmental groups, logging is a

thriving industry in southern Indiana. http://www.kpcnews.com/articles/2007/04/06/features/columnists/don_mulligan/doc46163e2462751719

251267.txtDelaware:18)

This past autumn, Penny Rodrick-Williams, an instructor in University

of Delaware's department of entomology and wildlife ecology, took a

group of undergraduates to Iron Hill Park four times a week for three

weeks to monitor the mammals, birds and trees at this 335-acre tract

near Newark. But it wasn't just an academic exercise. The data the

students collected will help the Delaware Academy of Science, which

operates and maintains the Iron Hill Museum and a portion of the land,

and New Castle County, which owns most of the land, to determine the

best ways to preserve and protect this open space. Bob Stark is a board

member of the Delaware Academy of Science and a retired UD math

professor who was instrumental in forging the UD-Iron Hill

collaboration. He says the research results also will be useful for

creating field guides to the park and educational programs for the

9,000 K-12 students who visit the Iron Hill Museum each school year.

" One year's data, in itself, may not be all that illuminating, " notes

Rodrick-Williams. " But I'll be returning each fall with my Wildlife

Conservation and Ecology class. " Over time, Rodrick-Williams said, the

information gathered should give a pretty complete inventory of this

land, which is one of the largest old-growth forests in the county. She

explains that most of the other forested areas in New Castle County,

such as White Clay Creek State Park, are younger and have been more

recently disturbed, either by human activities such as logging, or by

natural activity, such as fire. http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070218/LIFE/702180317/-1/NEWS01

Pennsylvania:19)

Drive down Route 220 through the Bald Eagle valley near State College,

Pa., and look at the ridge to the east. No need to look closely. The

ribbon of dirt and rock and a freshly laid roadbed contrasts sharply

with the remaining forest of pines, hemlocks and oak trees. And take

note of the graders and dozers scurrying hither and yon, soon to be

replaced by passenger cars and tractor-trailers. Bulldozing one of

Pennsylvania's largest remaining unbroken forests to make way for a new

highway serving Penn State football fans five or six weekends each fall

is bad enough. Gov. Ed Rendell could have shut down the I-99 boondoggle

with one phone call, putting the new highway in the valley where it

should be – on the flat valley land below Bald Eagle Mountain. The

existing two-lane highway would have sufficed as one side of the

four-lane monster. But he didn't. Instead, PennDOT, Pennsylvania's

Department of Transportation, rolled ahead with a $700 million project

that included slashing a roadbed across a state game land paid for by

Pennsylvania sportsmen and women. And let us not forget former U.S.

Rep. Bud Shuster's role in the destruction of fish and wildlife habitat

in Pennsylvania. Shuster, in his zeal to have his moniker on all manner

of public works projects, used his power as head of the House

Transportation Committee in the 1990s to exempt I-99 from the federal

environmental review process. Killing the Bald Eagle forest, though,

was only the first environmental disaster associated with the building

of I-99. A pretty little trout stream called Buffalo Run came next.

"This godforsaken road has already broken my heart," James J. McClure

of State College wrote in a letter published by the Centre Daily Times

of State College. http://lowbagger.com/pennstate.htmlUSA:20)

The national forests got their start in the Northern Rockies with the

designation of the Shoshone Forest Reserve in 1897 and were managed in

a largely custodial fashion until the 1950s, a period when district

rangers really were rangers, riding right off the pages of Ivan Doig

and Norman Maclean. These forests got their comeuppance in 1970 when

the forestry and wildlife faculty of Montana State University conducted

an investigation of the agency's management of forests in western

Montana, revealing to the public what insiders had known for 20 years:

the depletion of private timber stocks and the post-World War II

housing boom instigated an era of timber primacy on the national

forests. The Bolle Report, named after Montana State University's Dean

Arnold Bolle, documented an undeniable patterns of overcutting,

regeneration failures, decimated wildlife habitat and destroyed trout

fisheries. In many ways the Bolle Report was the first real evidence of

the Forest Service's betrayal of the public trust and its progressive

multiple-use mission promoted by Gifford Pinchot. The Bolle Report, and

the Forest Service's continued mismanagement of the national forests in

Montana and Idaho, led to the famous Church Hearings and guidelines,

the Randolph Bill, and ultimately the National Forest Management Act

and the decade-long debacle of national forest planning. These

congressionally-mandated forest plans changed nothing in the Northern

Rockies. In some cases the forest plans actually proposed doubling the

historic logging rates, and established an " advance roading " strategy

designed to settle the wilderness debate once and for all. Thus was the

James Watt-John Crowell vision for industrial wood production on the

national forests brought to life. On top of these problems, harvesting

timber in most of the Northern Rockies is an exceedingly irrational

economic proposition. Unless, of course, the government is writing the

checks. The Forest Service's own accounting records bear this out. From

1990 to 2005, timber sales on national forest lands in Montana, Idaho,

and Wyoming have lost more than a billion dollars-not to mention the

monumental losses in environmental values, such as salmon, trout, and

elk habitat.http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair04072007.html21)

An amazing collection of American environmental photographs was created

and cataloged by faculty, staff, and students in the Department of

Botany at the University of Chicago from the 1890s to the 1930s. The

earliest photographs in the collection were taken in 1891 in the arid

desert landscapes of California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. The latest

images were made in the Hawaiian Islands in 1936. Photographs in the

collection were developed in a variety of sizes and formats and

preserved by the Department of Botany as glass plate negatives, mounted

prints, and glass lantern slides. Students and professors scoured the

United States and shot a photographic collection of forests,

landscapes, and trees that is unequaled by either volume or quality. It

is highlighted by the Library of Congress on the American Memory site.

It is rare to see a photo of the American chestnut left to its final

fate but you can find several here; or to view a turpentine tree with

such majesty as the ancient longleaf pine (Pinus palustris). The whole

photo collection preserves a past forest that is very different from

our present forest. Cameras accompanied Department of Botany faculty

and students on field trips across the United States. These photographs

provide an overview of trees across the nation. They demonstrate the

character and the wide range of the American forest. This collection

consists of approximately 4,500 photographs documenting natural

environments, ecologies, and plant communities in the United States at

the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century.

This group of American botanists were generally regarded as one of the

most influential in the development of modern ecological studies. http://forestry.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ & sdn=forestry & cdn=education & tm=11 & f=00

& su=p284.5.420.ip_ & tt=2 & bt=0 & bts=1 & zu=http%3A//memory.loc.gov/cgi-

bin/query/r%3Fammem/aep%3A@field%28DOCID%2b@lit%28icuaep.ALS4%29%29Canada:22)

Instead of forests being used as a credit to offset other emissions,

the government is now afraid that including forests in the formula

could drive up Canada's climate-change burden. Government scientists

made the call after learning of the damage that could come to forests

from 2008 to 2012 and realizing the forests could become another source

of emissions, pushing Canada even further from its Kyoto targets. In

addition to destroying trees, which take carbon dioxide out of the

atmosphere, insect infestations increase the threat of wildfires. For

example, the mountain pine beetle, a current threat in Western Canada,

burrows into a tree and prevents it from drawing water, killing it and

turning it to kindling. " I know for the average guy in the street, they

think, `Big forests, lots of trees, how could it be?' " said Lempriere, a senior economist with the Canadian Forest Service in

Ottawa. " But if you think of fires, that's a lot of carbon and they're

very unpredictable. " The Kyoto treaty, which Canada ratified in 2002,

gives countries the option of using agricultural land and managed

forests in the calculation of a country's total emissions. Managed

forests are those that are regularly cut down and replanted. This

should work to the advantage of a heavily forested country like Canada

because trees and plants naturally act as a carbon " sink, " taking in

carbon dioxide and emitting oxygen. But the realities of life on a

hotter planet have changed norms. " We were always aware that there was

risk of (forests becoming a carbon) source which is why in the

negotiations Canada negotiated for having an option. ... We wanted the

ability and the time to do further analysis, " Lempriere said. http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/19924523)

Undercover Greenpeace reps performed an amusing and savvy intervention

on a Kleenex commercial shoot in Times Square, effectively hijacking

their ad campaign, and shutting down the shoot for the rest of the day.

Kleenex, responsible for vast old-growth forest destruction in Northern

Canada's Boreal Forest, opened the door for this one. " It's classic

surprise marketing at its finest. After all, what could Kleenex people

do? The entire promotion is all about providing people a platform to

air their grievances. If you are concerned about a company's supposed

less-that-nice use of foresting techniques then what better place to

air the grievances that on a couch to an understanding listener. Or at

least one that's supposed to be understanding. " There are at least two

reasons why you don't want to miss this: 1.) It's fun. That's all.

That's the important part of any activism. It makes the lives of the

people who do it more exciting, fun and meaningful -- which this action

clearly does and 2.) They're not calling anyone evil or advocating for

the disbanding of Kleenex's parent company Kimberly Clark. They're just

saying, you know, please stop this totally unnecessary and

irresponsible behavior so we can blow our noses without worrying about

sullying some virgin.... er, forest. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZCym0DB7hAKenya:24)

The water that fills Lake Naivasha comes from rivers and streams

originating from the Abederes mountain range that forms the eastern

wall of the Rift Valley. The Aberdares used to be covered by thick

forests that trapped moisture, kept temperatures cool, and performed

other functions including supplying plentiful rainfall to the area. But

massive deforestation has taken place in the Aberdares range and other

wooded areas in Kenya over the past few decades. The deforestation has

come about from people clearing the land for farms, timber merchants

over-logging, government selling or giving away large tracts of forest

in corrupt deals, and other forms of mismanagement. This has caused

many of the rivers and streams feeding Lake Naivasha and other lakes to

shrink or dry up, leading to a drop in water levels. There is also less

rain in the area, in part because there is less forest cover to trap

moisture and attract cloud cover. John Njoroge, a farmer and

conservationist in the Aberdares area, points out grassy plains in the

nearby hills that once were forested, but have since been burned and

cleared by the local community. Njoroge says he has noticed less rain

and changing rainfall patterns. " We have just now witnessed a change

for about one-and-a-half years near Kinangop [forest] without rain, " he

said. " And some years back, it was just raining about three times a

year. We are just expecting [rains] now in March and October, but now

we are just getting one season rain around in December, which is just

raining accidentally. " Deforestation is one of several human activities

that experts say contribute to climate change. They are especially

worried that the emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases

into the air are forming a barrier that prevents the sun's energy from

radiating back into space, thus raising the earth's temperature. http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2007-03-19-voa24.cfmCongo:

25)

For the African forest elephant, a road is a highway to death, says a

team of researchers, who trekked more than 8000 kilometers in five

African countries to assess the animals' populations. " Forests that

were formerly safe havens for elephants, such as those in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo, are now virtually empty, " says Mike

Fay, a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in New

York. Forest elephants (Loxodonta africana cyclotis) live only in the

woodlands of West and Central Africa. In 1989, the last time a survey

was made, scientists estimated the overall population at 172,400. That

count was based on a foot survey, because the forest is too dense to

tally the elephants from the air, as is done for their cousin, the

savannah elephant (L. africana Africana). The new study, published in

the current PloS Biology and headed by Stephen Blake, a biologist with

WCS, was based on indirect measures, such as counting dung piles along

transect lines and tallying carcasses left by poachers. The dung

density was then converted to elephant density, with many areas--even

some national parks--estimated to have fewer than 0.6 or less

individual elephants per square kilometer. " It's a bleak picture, " says

James Deutsch, a conservation biologist at WCS. Most revealing: The

number of elephant dung piles increased significantly away from roads

built to give loggers access to African hardwoods. Moreover, to escape

their killers, the forest elephants, which were once widely

distributed, have sought safety deep inside national parks and

reserves, the researchers report. For instance, the largest remaining

wilderness in the Congo basin, Gabon's Minkebe National Park, is home

to some 22,000 elephants, they estimate. " They've shown that the closer

elephants are to roads, the more mortality they will suffer, " says Sam

Wasser, a conservation biologist at the University of Washington,

Seattle. " An entire species of elephant is being wiped out. It's all

being fueled by the demand for ivory in China and Japan, and the

soaring price of high-quality ivory, " which has quadrupled in price

since 2004 to $850 per kilo. Unfortunately for the forest elephant,

even the safe zones it now relies on may turn into killing zones: The

authors of the study note that logging roads are being built close to

Minkebe National Park. http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/406/2Chad:26)

A 12 kilogramme cylinder of gas, which costs 24 dollars at

government-subsidised prices in N'Djamena -- or even 18 dollars across

the border in Kousseri, Cameroon -- lasts for upwards of four months,

observes Klingar.This compares favourably to the cost of charcoal. A

four-month supply of this energy source would cost Klingar between 72

and 96 dollars, depending on the season. Jérémie Odering Goulaye,

Chad's environment minister for the past decade, has tried to compel

citizens to use gas, even having road blocks set up at all entrances to

the capital at one point to prevent charcoal makers and woodcutters

from selling their goods in the city. Officials seized the firewood and

charcoal loads that were discovered. However, unscrupulous

representatives from the water and forestry department later sold the

confiscated wood and charcoal on the black market, which undermined the

effectiveness of the operation to a great extent. http://allafrica.com/stories/200704030257.htmlSenegal:27)

Where does a four-fold increase in a country's population over half a

century make itself felt most acutely? Concerning Senegal, the answer

to this might well be: in the forests. This quadrupling of the

population in 47 years has led to an increase in the amount of land

under cultivation, rising demand for firewood and charcoal, and

accelerated urbanisation. The result: Senegal loses about 350,000

hectares of its forests annually to fires that are frequently started

to clear land for farming, and more than 80,000 hectares for

agricultural needs, according to the Centre for Environmental

Preservation (Centre pour la sauvegarde de l'environnement, CSE). The

average number of trees per hectare in the country, estimated at more

than 250 during the colonial era, dropped to less than 20 trees per

hectare by 1995, says the CSE -- this in a study titled 'Phenomena of

Drought and Desertification in Senegal' ('Phénomènes de la sécheresse

et de la désertification au Sénégal'), commissioned in 2006. " Senegal

has long since passed the threshold of the sustainable exploitation of

its forest resources, " observes Mansour Fall, an agricultural

scientist. At the same time, the Senegalese government has tried to

limit forest exploitation for domestic needs through initiatives to

improve household energy use and to promote the use of gas -- as well

as through raising the price of firewood and charcoal. According to

Fall, firewood and charcoal provide for 63 percent of the country's

energy requirements, while petrol imports cover the remaining 37

percent. http://allafrica.com/stories/200704030833.htmlSouth Africa:28)

It is a tiny stream, barely more than a trickle, but after decades

water is flowing regularly again in the Braamfontein Spruit. The river

rises in downtown Johannesburg and gently meanders northwest before

emptying into the Hartebeespoort Dam 80 kilometers away The

Braamfontein is typical of many river systems in Southern Africa which

are the lifeblood of water security in the region but which are

threatened by infestations of alien vegetation. For years now its path

has been defined in the landscape by ever-increasing numbers of

Australian eucalyptus with its heavy leaves and tall branches that suck

up 70 percent more water than the drought resistant, spreading canopies

of African acacia. Mr. Sambo says that in addition to using more water,

alien plants such as eucalyptus are often allelopathic, that is they

kill off surrounding plant life by releasing a chemical into the soil

to which local plants have no resistance. He says research has shown

that as a result the impact of alien plant infestations is dramatic and

can, in as little as twenty years, reduce the flow in a river system by

74 percent. The impact on wetlands is equally devastating - they dry up

and become tinder boxes, thus preventing them from performing their

role in containing the natural fires which are common to the region and

essential needed for the regeneration of some plant species. Southern

Africa is also beset with unemployment, poverty and shortage of skills.

South Africa's Working for Water project targets these challenges while

working to restore river systems and wetlands. The project has directly

created nearly 33,000 jobs among the previously unemployed; it has also

benefited communities indirectly by providing firewood, building

materials and wood for sculptors and landscapers. http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-03/2005-03-22-voa19.cfmGuyana:

29)

Akawini Village Forest Resources under Siege by Logging Company: We the

residents of the Akawini Amerindian Village, Pomeroon in Region 2 are

facing the destruction and loss of our forest resources that has

sustained our people for generations. We are faced with this situation

ever since the day that we signed an agreement with a logging company

by the name of Interior Wood Products Incorporated (IWPI). The

representative of this company, namely Basdeo Singh told us in 2004

that he wanted to enter into an agreement with our village to harvest

logs. He showed us a draft agreement which he said had the blessings of

the Minister of Amerindian Affairs. Also present at this meeting was

Peter Persaud who clamed to represent the Amerindian people, Luvindra

Sukraj who said that he was a representative of the Guyana Forestry

Commision; We were placed into groups and given about five minutes to

study the agreement though we did not understand the legal language in

the agreement. Shortly after this meeting and the signing of the

agreement the Minister of Amerindian Affairs (MoAA) sent the Council a

letter stating that she had never seen the agreement that Basdeo Singh

claimed had her approval. The Minister also made contact with GFC who

said that they also had never seen that agreement. Then in July 2005

Basdeo Singh came to our Village again, this time he was accompanied by

OvidWilliams of the MoAA. They said that they had brought an amended

version of the first agreement. At this meeting we told Basdeo Singh

that he had lied to us the first time and we do not trust him and

therefore we would not sign any agreement. He threatened us that if we

did not sign the agreement he would go ahead and work with the old

agreement and the royalties would be paid directly to the MoAA. He also

threatened to take the Village Council to court. Ovid Williams at this

time also strongly stated that if we did not sign the agreement then it

meant that we did not respect his office and that of the Minister. http://guyanaforestryblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/akawini-village-council-press-release.html

Brazil:30)

One of the most profound predicted impacts of climate change was

discussed in a landmark conference at Oriel College by scientists,

conservationists and policymakers from Europe and North and South

America. They discussed some key research showing that although intact

forests are fairly resistant to climate change, with partial

deforestation the entire landscape could become drier and a domino

effect could occur producing a 'tipping point' affecting the whole

forest. Scientists were unwilling to quantify the risk of this

happening, but talked about 'corridors of probability' with models

predicting the risk at between 10 to 40 per cent over the next few

decades. In 2005 a very large spread of forest fires was recorded for

the first time in the south-western Amazon region. New research by Dr

Luiz Aragao, from the Environmental Change Institute, tracked the full

extent of those fires in the most affected region – Acre State in

Brazil. He said: 'An area of 2,800 sq km (1,081 sq miles) was burned

due to an extensive leakage of fires into newly-flammable forest.' He

also revealed that the fires occurred mainly where there was human

activity. The interdisciplinary conference examined how conservation

and sustainable development strategies could buffer the region against

climate change, and how a new international market in carbon-trading

could finance such a plan. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070403143622.htmChina:31)

On March 28, Greenpeace China announced its discovery that the paper

giant Asia Pulp & Paper [1] (APP) has planted a large area of

eucalyptus trees for pulp and paper making in Yingge Mountain

Provincial Conservation Area, in southern China's Hainan Province. In

doing so, the subsidiary of the Indonesia-based Sinar Mas Group has

breached China's Conservation Area Management Regulation and Hainan

environmental protection rules for a second time, after promising [2]

the State Forestry Administration in May 2005 that it would "follow the

law." Both southwestern China's Yunnan Province and the island province

of Hainan are biologically diverse areas with rich forest resources.

APP only started planting pulpwood trees in Yunnan around 2002, but has

been engaged in the activity in Hainan since 1994. Eucalyptus, an ideal

species for pulpwood production, can now be seen everywhere around

Hainan, with conservation areas like Bawang Mountain and Jiefeng

Mountain surrounded by "battalions" of the trees. Entire mountainsides

are covered by the trees, which resemble soldiers in uniform on parade

or a canvas of suffocating cloth. In 1997, Hainan Jin Hua Forestry

Company, an APP subsidiary, planted a demonstration project of some

100,000 mu (6666 hectares) of pulpwood trees, including Grand

Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus urophylla, and Acacia mangium, in each county of

the province. The project has been a success, since one mu of

good-quality pulpwood trees can produce four cubic meters of timber

each year, or 24 cubic meters over the six-year logging period. By the

end of 2004, the project had planted a total of 970,000 mu (64,600

hectares) of pulpwood trees, though it still lagged behind the target

of 3.5 million mu (233,000 hectares). The slowdown in planting has been

attributed mainly to the Asian economic crisis in the late 1990s, which

affected APP's investments, as well as continued dry weather that

prevented planting. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5004Malaysia:32)

Members of the Penan tribe have rebuilt their logging blockade, a month

after it was dismantled by police and loggers. The Penan have been

blockading the logging road to stop the Malaysian logging giant,

Samling, from destroying one of the last remaining areas of pristine

rainforest left in Sarawak. The Penan rely on this forest for their

food and all their needs; without it they cannot survive as an

independent and self-sufficient people. The Penan have told the Human

Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) that they will continue to

block the road in order to protect their ancestral land. 'They want to

log on our land. We will not allow that', the Penan delegation told

Suhakam officials at a meeting in the town of Miri last week. The Penan

believe that unless they defy the loggers all the remaining forest in

the area will be gone in two years. Samling have already cut down much

of the Penan's rainforest. In June 2006 the Malaysian authorities

announced that they would remove the blockade, near the community of

Long Benali, and arrest four Penan leaders. However, after protests by

Survival supporters and others around the world, they took no action.

The blockade was finally dismantled on February 7th, 2007, amid

international condemnation. http://www.survival-international.org/press_room.php?id=2332Indonesia:33)

The Pride campaign with Mapayah Foundation, a local NGO with three

staff, is focused on abating illegal logging in two spectacular forest

reserves in the Aceh Besar District. I drove up into the woods

accompanied by our campaign manager, Cut Meurah Intan, and a village

leader. He explained that he's extremely concerned about illegal

logging that is getting ever closer to the village's only source of

fresh water, a small mountain stream. If the stream dries up they'll

have to move, he said. We drove round the hillside on a rough logging

road to find the culprits – the Indonesian military. They've even put

up a large sign proclaiming that they are logging in the area and have

a license to do so. But it's the military chief, not the Department of

Forestry, who has authorized the logging. Further down the hillside,

still in forest that is legally protected, the local police have also

gotten in on the act, this time building a huge new headquarters

sprawling over 75 acres. Law breaking in Indonesia, even by the police,

is here even more brazen than I have seen elsewhere. Perhaps even

worse. The new police facilities were financed through the Indonesian

government agency that manages funds donated for reconstruction after

the tsunami. http://www.rareconservation.org/blog/?p=57Sumatra:34)

The Sumatran striped rabbit -- a little over a foot long and chalk

coloured with dark brown stripes -- is critically endangered and was

last photographed in the Bukit Barisan Park in 2000, the World

Conservation Society (WCF) said in a statement. A programme manager at

WCF's Indonesian office, Nick Brickle, said the rabbit was photographed

in a forest in south Sumatra at the end of January. " It is a nocturnal

animal. Other than that, we do not know more about it, " Brickle told

Reuters, describing it as about 30 cm (12 inches) long and similar in

size to a small cat. " They live in forests, up in the mountains. What

you need to protect the rabbit is protect the forest. " The WCF

statement said the rabbit was only known to exist in the mountains of

Sumatra and was thought to be the only representative of its genus. In

1999 researchers discovered another striped rabbit in the Annamite

Mountains straddling Laos and Vietnam, but although both seem similar

in appearance genetic samples revealed that the two were separate

species. http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=72349Australia:35)

Victoria's Supreme Court yesterday lifted a stay of proceedings imposed

last August, clearing the way for the company to sue 14

environmentalists over their anti-logging protests. Gunns first

launched legal action against 20 environmental groups or individuals -

including two Greens politicians - in December 2004, citing their

damaging campaigns and other activities against the company. The court

threw out the original statement of claim, as well as two subsequent

attempts to sue the protesters. Greens leader Bob Brown yesterday

warned the case could drag on for years, exacting a heavy toll on the

defendants. " It is a traumatic episode for all the environmentalists

involved and it is going to be an immense burden on them, both on their

ability to get on with their lives and on their wellbeing, " Senator

Brown said. Judge Bernard Bongiorno said Gunns had surrendered its bid

to sue Senator Brown, Tasmanian Greens leader Peg Putt and four other

defendants. But he gave the go-ahead for the company to continue with a

revised claim against 14 defendants, which campaigners fear could

ultimately cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. " The manifest

unfairness of this process ... continues, " Senator Brown said, adding

that " those who defend the forests " should not be facing legal action.

" It is those who want to uphold our national environment legislation

who are in court. " Gunns was ordered to pay the costs of the six

defendants, while the 14 remaining campaigners were told to file their

defence statements by May 4. A spokeswoman for Gunns said the company

would not comment because it was a legal matter before the courts. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21500078-662,00.html

36)

Environment groups have criticised an Environment Protection Authority

(EPA) report which found no evidence of illegal logging in the Barmah

Forest, in northern Victoria between Echuca and Tocumwal. The EPA

forest audit found a 93 per cent compliance rate with logging rules

across Victoria. But Friends of the Earth and the National Parks

Association say they have found three incidents in the last six months

where protected trees have been logged in the forest. Jonathan la Nauze

from Friends of the Earth says the EPA cannot be expected to monitor

the entire forest, but he says their current monitoring is not working.

" It doesn't measure up with what we're seeing on the ground and with

what we've then had confirmed by the department, " he said. " There

doesn't seem to be adequate systems in place to protect some of our our

last standing old-growth red gums. " http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1890327.htmWorld-wide: 37)

More than half of the world's species of magnolia tree are under threat

of disappearing from natural environments, according a consortium of

conservationists. It warns that some species of the flowering trees,

sometimes called the " tulip tree " , have fewer than 10 wild individual

trees left. " This is a very ancient species, " says Sara Oldfield of

Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) in the UK. " Over

millions of years, the trees have survived all sorts of geological and

climatic upheavals. The fact that over half the species are threatened

is really quite worrying. " Oldfield's report, the Red List of

Magnoliaceae was published on 2 April by BGCI and Fauna and Flora

International. It identifies 131 wild magnolia species as in danger of

extinction, mostly in Asia, Europe, the southern US, Central America

and South America. There are 245 species worldwide. The trees, whose

flowers are sometimes deep fried and eaten, are mostly threatened by

deforestation – to make way for coffee plantations in Columbia, for

instance – and general logging in other parts of the world. The bark of

one species of magnolia, Magnolia officinalis, is also used in cough

and cold medicines in China. The medicinal overexploitation is such

that people are having trouble finding enough M. officinalis and other

species are being used as substitutes. Some species of magnolia are

being unsustainably logged for their timber. http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11520 & feedId=earth_rss20

38)

These days, woods and forests seem very distant, Far from our everyday

lives, Almost like the world of an ancient fairy tale. Probably, that's

the way you feel as well. But who can forget the feel of a wooden

table, The sounds and fragrances of trees, their branches and leaves

are engraved in the memories of all of us. We live with the forest and

it gives us life. There are some wonderful messages from some of our

friends, They live their ordinary, everyday lives with the forest. Let

us pass on these messages to you. The " Forests Forever " project has

been an attempt to give shape to our wish to preserve something

irreplaceable and with these last contents, is now presenting the last

part. We hoped to provide a place to awaken asperations for the future

by encountering the wonderful woods and forests of the world. We hope

that you will continue to visit this site in the future. Forests

Forever - Messages from People who Live With the Foresthttp://www.forests-forever.com/