191 - Earth's Tree News

[Guest guest]

Today for you 37 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) Job export litigation, 2) Save Ancient Cedars, 3) 28 new

species of Lichen in logging area, 4) More logging is always the

solution,--Washington: 6) Weyco's monopsony, 7) Weyco Shareholder meeting, --Oregon: 8) Coastal Landscape Analysis and Modeling Study--California: 9) Retired CDF chief sues Maxxam,--New York: 10) World's first forests solved global warming 385 million years ago

--USA: 11) How illegal wood get here--Turkey: 12) Research Association of Rural Environment and Forestry--Syria: 13) New decree on forest issues--Africa: 14) East African forests--Uganda: 15) Gov. says they'll enforce laws against illegal loggers

--Mozambique:16) Amigos da Floresta--Kenya: 17) Taking back Karima Hill--Columbia: 18) Voiceless people of Choco--Brazil:

19) Illegal roads are everywhere, 20) Last of the Sertanistas, 21)

Paving 600 miles of rainforest potholes, 22) green colonialism, --Costa Rica: 23) Extinction at La Selva reserve is on its way--China: 24) Thanks to US buyers Chinese are the best lumber smugglers ever--India: 25) solar electric fence around forest reserves? --Kashmir: 26) More cop-log smugglers arrested--Pakistan: 27) Wood scarcity doubles furniture prices--Thailand: 28) Forest Defender creates political pressure for treeplanting--Fiji: 29) Mahogany landowners excited about judge opening doors to oversea markets,

--Malaysia: 30) Five new blockades in Penan, 31) Against Samling,--Indonesia: 32) Popular Mechanics article on illegal logging--New Zealand: 33) hardwood kwilas face extinction--Australia: 34) Murray-Darling logging escalates crisis, 35) Save Tasmania, --World-wide: 36) Illegal logging hurt world market? 37) Forest Services,British Columbia:1)

Supreme Court in Victoria and listened to arguments in the Court of

Appeal for British Columbia in the case of James vs The Crown. Lawyer

Joseph Arvay valiantly sought to reverse the Supreme Court's earlier

res judicata decision of 2006 and thereby advance the previously

certified class action lawsuit by former Youbou Sawmill workers. The

Youbou Sawmill was permanently shut down in January 2001 by TimberWest

Forest Corporation. After the announcement of closure, it was publicly

revealed by TimberWest that the British Columbia Ministry of Forests

had permitted an alteration in the contractual language of TFL 46. It

was this change, without consultation with communities or workers, that

paved the way for the mill's demise. Since then, the workers have

rallied and cried foul over the critical removal of " Clause 7. " The

class action lawsuit seeks to expose the negligence of the Provincial

Government and to extract compensation for the 200 workers whose

livelihoods and lives have been so irrevocably disrupted. Justices

Huddart, Saunders, and Levine presided over yesterday's hearing in

Courtroom 401. The onus is now on the Honourable Justices to open the

way for an airing of the facts in this case. A decision of the court is

anticipated sometime in the next two months and lawyer Arvay is

cautiously optimistic of a favourable outcome. It is important that

justice be done and that justice is seen to be done. The Youbou

TimberLess Society will continue to champion the welfare of these

former woodworkers, their families, and their community. --Ken James

papa.ken 2) Do not purchase products which are made

from Ancient Cedar trees. Ask your store owner where the trees were

logged. All tight grained 'old growth' cedar should be suspect. Some

bona-fide salvage of dead trees may be acceptable. Cedar mulch for

landscaping is often produced from ancient cedar. You can vote to save

the cedar with your dollars. Visit: http://www.dontbuysfi.com/companies/

You can copy and paste these requests; 1) Stop logging irreplaceable

ancient cedar forests. 2) Preserve The Ancient Forest (also known as

block 486) as an informative and interpretive trail. 3) Create the

Walker Rainforest Wilderness. 4) Preserve the remaining old cedar of

the POB Road, which is locally known as 'The Parthenon' into Emails

addressed to these people who have the power to make a difference: BC

Premier Gordon Campbell: premier BC Minister Of Forests and

Range Rich Coleman: Rich.Coleman.MLA BC MLA Shirley Bond

Shirley.Bond.MLA BC Chief Forester Jim Snetsinger:

Jim.Snetsinger The MOF Prince George District Manager:

Greg.Rawling Ask TRC Cedar LTD. to not log The Ancient

Forest tom http://www.ancientcedar.ca/ancientcedar.ca/help/help_.htm3)

Scientists have identified 28 species of lichens that are new to

science in the rainforest in the Robson Valley. According to one the

forest's leading lichen researchers, Clearwater-based Trevor Goward,

this could be just the tip of the iceberg. Goward said that there are

between 60 and 70 more lichen-types that have been collected which

could prove to be new species as well, after they are compared with

existing species from around the world. Why is all this diversity found

here in the Robson Valley (in a rainforest that few would believe

actually existed so far from the ocean)? Goward believes the diversity

has developed because the forest has been kept undisturbed for so long.

He said that some of these forests in Dome Creek are in a lightning

shadow, and are cooler and wetter than other similar forests, seriously

limiting the chances of fire. http://www.robsonvalleytimes.com/index.php?option=com_content & task=view & id=1098 & Itemid=1

4)

Taking another step in a race to harvest pine-beetle-chewed wood before

it loses economic value, British Columbia's chief forester yesterday

hiked the allowable annual cut in the Williams Lake timber supply area

by more than 50 per cent. The magnitude of the increase, from

3.8-million cubic metres to 5.8-million cubic metres, reflects the size

of the Williams Lake TSA -- at 4.9-million hectares, one of the biggest

in the province -- and the fact that its timber consists mostly of

pine, chief forester Jim Snetsinger said. " We expect the beetle to kill

80 per cent of the pine forest, and it will only stay usable for so

long, " Mr. Snetsinger said. " In order to get the highest economic

value, we'd like to get it harvested and get it replanted with healthy

green forests again. " An average interior sawmill consumes about one

million cubic feet of wood a year, so theoretically, the increase

represents enough volume to support an additional two mills, said Doug

Routledge, vice-president of the Council of Forest Industries. But

given the deteriorating quality of wood in the region, the increased

volume will help supply existing mills, while poorer-quality wood will

be destined for other uses, he said. Processed wood is currently

selling for about $80 a cubic metre. " There is 100 million cubic metres

that is dead, or will be dead. There's not a lot we can do about it.

Now we have to try and get it cleared and reforested as quickly as we

can. " http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070419.BCTIMBER19/TPStory/NationalWashington:

6)

The Weyerhaeuser case presents the scenario of a firm that successfully

engages in exclusionary conduct, obtains a monopsony, and yet does not

have any potential to injure the end users of its products. Rather, the

conduct has the immediate effect of injuring competitors, and the

longer-term effect of injuring input sellers. Commentators have argued

that the antitrust laws are indifferent to latter injuries because they

are concerned only with " consumer welfare. " This essay demonstrates

that Congress was, and the courts have been, far from indifferent to

the plight of sellers exploited by monopsonies. This essay shows that

Sherman Act cases referring to " consumer welfare " have not indicated

that they meant end-user welfare rather than aggregate welfare.

Finally, this essay argues that promoting consumer welfare is a goal of

the Sherman Act, but only a goal, and that making end-user welfare the

touchstone under the Act could have extraordinarily undesirable

consequences. http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/antitrustprof_blog/2007/04/should_we_take_.html7)

I'm down in Seattle right now, today we tried to go to the Weyerhaeuser

AGM we were legally allowed in as we had permission from shareholders.

But they said we needed record of the share on February 23rd, we had it

for January and March, basically just lame bullshit to keep us out and

lots of cops to try and scare us. They even turned away actual

shareholders and had 13 cops come in to deal with this at least 70 year

old man who just wanted to go to the meeting. And Weyerhaeuser

continues to log on Grassy Narrows First Nation Territory and destroy

ancient forests. The people that did make it in to the meeting had some

good dialogue about Grassy narrows and Rainforest Action Network is

positive that they are coming to a resolution soon!! Socially

responsible investors, Rainforest Action Network, and a number of NGOs

are backing a resolution filed by Capital Strategies Consulting, Inc.,

requesting " a feasibility assessment to suspend wood procurement from

Grassy Narrows' territory until the free, prior and informed consent of

the community has been established. " The resolution contends that

Weyerhaeuser's ongoing purchasing of wood clear-cut from Grassy Narrows

violates internationally recognized human rights and established

industry best practices. " The human and Indigenous rights of Indigenous

peoples must be respected by Weyerhaeuser. The deforestation of Grassy

Narrows First Nation and the milling of those logs without the

community's free, prior informed consent is an abuse of those

fundamental rights, " said Arthur Manuel of the Indigenous Network on

Economies and Trade. Today's meeting follows a week of events that have

raised the profile of Weyerhaeuser's inaction on the growing

controversy in Grassy Narrows. Yesterday, RAN activists scaled Quadrant

Homes' headquarters in Bellevue, Wash., and unfurled a gigantic banner

reading: " Weyerhaeuser: Human Rights Abuser. " Quadrant homes,

Washington's biggest homebuilder, is a wholly owned subsidiary of

Weyerhaeuser. The people of Grassy Narrows depend on the land for

hunting, fishing and other cultural activities, all of which have

suffered due to rampant clear-cut logging on their land. http://freegrassy.org/media_center/news_article/?uid=2336Oregon: 8)

" This research is one of the first and most integrated studies of the

'big picture' of forest management across ownerships anywhere in the

world, " said Gordon Reeves, a coauthor on several of the invited papers

and one of the Station's lead investigators with the research project,

known as the Coastal Landscape Analysis and Modeling Study (CLAMS).

CLAMS examines the ecological, economic, and social consequences of

forest policies in Oregon's Coast Range, which spans eastward from the

state's coastline to the western edge of the Willamette Valley. It

treats these policies-which influence which management practices

managers choose to use-as untested hypotheses and projects how they may

impact federal, state, and private forest lands in the area's nearly

five million acres. Some of CLAMS' findings include: The area of older

forest and habitat for old-forest species in the Coast Range is

expected to strongly increase over the next 100 years if policies are

maintained. Widespread recovery of coho salmon is unlikely without

improvement in habitats on private lands; habitat conditions for salmon

and trout in the Coast Range are more likely to improve on public lands

than on private. Recent biodiversity policies have been developed in a

largely uncoordinated manner, leading to less-than efficient production

of some forest values, such as timber and fish, in the region.The area

of diverse early-successional and hardwood forest is expected to

strongly decline in the Coast Range as federal lands concentrate on

producing old-growth forests and private industrial lands focus on

intensive forest management. Declines in plant and animal populations

may occur as a result. " The greatest benefit of CLAMS may be its

ability to change how people think about forests, which may ultimately

lead to better understanding and a more effective mix of forest

values, " Reeves said. Several land management agencies have adopted

CLAMS' models and techniques to improve their ability to understand the

effects of management on the production of forest goods and services. http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Study_Projects_Effects_Of_Forest_Management_In_Oregon_Coast_

Range_999.htmlCalifornia:9)

The former head of the California Forestry Department has accused

Pacific Lumber Co. of defrauding the state of more than $200 million in

the deal that preserved the old-growth Headwaters Forest in Humboldt

County in 1999. Richard Wilson, who headed the Forestry Department when

the agreement was signed, made the accusation along with state forestry

official Chris Maranto in a whistle-blower lawsuit filed in December

and unsealed Monday by Superior Court Judge David Ballati in San

Francisco. As part of the agreement to preserve the old-growth

redwoods, California paid $213.7 million to Pacific Lumber. The company

agreed to follow stringent logging practices to preserve animal habitat

and promote sustainable forestry on its roughly 200,000 remaining acres

of commercial timber land in Northern California. Pacific Lumber also

offered a plan that would allow it to cut a certain amount of lumber

each year without degrading the quality of its forests. But, the suit

alleges, that plan relied on an intentionally flawed computer model

that exaggerated the rate at which the company's forests would be

regenerated after cutting. In the whistle-blower lawsuit, Wilson and

Maranto, the state officer in charge of sustainable forestry, say they

concluded last year that there was a problem in the computer model.

" Defendant's deceptive growth and yield model made its sustained yield

plan false,'' the lawsuit says. " Had defendants fully disclosed the

nature of their ... computer simulations, " the lawsuit says, " the

California Department of Forestry would not have approved the sustained

yield plan, and defendants would not have received that $213.7 million

in state funds. " Former Rep. Pete McCloskey, whose Redwood City law

firm is part of the plaintiffs' legal team, called the alleged

deception " an elaborate fraudulent scheme fueled by corporate greed. "

Wilson and Maranto filed the suit under California's false claims law,

which allows people who allege that state or local governments have

been defrauded to file suit. Such suits are sealed while the state

attorney general examines them. Senior Assistant Attorney General Chris

Ames said the state Justice Department had decided not to pursue the

suit against Pacific Lumber. " It is not necessarily any reflection on

the merits of the case, " he said. That freed Wilson and Maranto to

bring the case as private plaintiffs. Should they win, Ames said, the

jury could order the defendants to repay three times the alleged fraud

-- of which 15 percent to 50 percent could be paid to the plaintiffs

and the rest to the state. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/20/BAGFRPCFAC1.DTLNew York:10)

An international research team has found evidence of the Earth's

earliest forest trees, dating back 385 million years. Upright stumps of

fossilised trees were uncovered after a flash flood in Gilboa, upstate

New York, more than a century ago. However, until now, no-one has known

what the entire trees looked like. Two years ago, two fossils were

found near Gilboa of trees which had fallen sideways, with their trunk,

branches, twigs and crown still intact. American researchers called in

Dr Christopher Berry of Cardiff University, an expert who has studied

tree fossils around the world for the last 17 years. Dr Berry was able

to identify the trunks as being of the genus Wattieza, a tree fern-like

plant. " This was also a significant moment in the history of the

planet. The rise of the forests removed a lot of Carbon Dioxide from

the atmosphere. This caused temperatures to drop and the planet became

very similar to its present-day condition. " Dr Berry worked with

colleagues from Binghampton University, New York and from New York

State Museum, which discovered the two trunk fossils. Their findings

are published in the April 19 edition of the scientific journal Nature.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Mystery_Of_Fossilized_Trees_Is_Solved_999.htmlUSA: 11)

Once illegally logged wood reaches U.S. territorial waters, there is

really only one way to stop it from entering the country: The wood must

be identified as a species listed in either Appendix I or II of the

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and

Fauna (CITES) — meaning that trade must be closely controlled to

protect the species from becoming threatened with extinction.

Unfortunately, more than 99 percent of imported wood products are not

from species protected by CITES. " To make things worse, we are signing

free trade agreements with countries with the worst illegal logging, "

says EIA's Groves. " These agreements are actually increasing the amount

of illegal wood imported. " The EIA analysis of customs data showed that

during the first year of the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement

imports of Indonesian logs and sawn timber rose 62 percent. In the end,

consumers may hold the key to restricting the market for illegal wood.

" One reason there is so much illegal logging is because consumers don't

know how to find products that are legal, " says Rainforest Alliance

green building specialist Rick Hilton. Rainforest Alliance is one of a

number of groups that track and certify legitimately logged lumber in

order to provide consumers with a more informed choice. The group's

SmartWood program is the leading certifier for the Forest Stewardship

Council (FSC), a nonprofit organization that runs the gold standard of

sustainable-forestry certification systems. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4215504.html?page=2Turkey:12)

The Research Association of Rural Environment and Forestry (RAREF) was

established in 1989. Its area of interest and study field is conducting

research on " determination and and solution of problems of the rural

environment (primarily deforestation) and to create public opinion in

parallel to findings of the research conducted. " RAREF, which believes

trees and forests are popular in the public, but this spontaneous

popularity should be supported by education and be transformed into

consciousnes, has members from almost every occupational group: 1) A

project named "Publication In Regard to Determination and Prevention of

Economic, Social, Cultural and Technical Reasons Which May Give Harm to

High-Mountain Ecosystems in the East Black Sea Region" granted by CEPF

(The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund) was implemented and

finalized. 2) An appeal to court to stop the decree by Ministry of

Finance for allocation of forestry seeding/plantation area in Kony city

to third parties for other purposes than forestry. (The court had

decided to stop similar decisions of the Ministry of Forest last year

upon our appeal. However all court decisions are neglected by the

Government) 3) Dendrology school is realized in June with the

participation of about 80 people. 4) " Stop Erosion ! " Campaign, which

consisted of the following activities, was performed: i) walking from

Ä°stanbul to Ankara (455 km), ii). printing and distributing 12 000

posters, iii) delivering 2 TV and 18 radio speeches, iv) photograph

exhibition, v) collecting 23 000 signatures to support the campaign. 5)

" Draft Law on Soil Protection and Land Improvement " was prepared and

submitted to the President of The Turkish Grand National Assembly. 6)

" Dendrology and Forest Ecology School " (1992-) (Environment Liasion

Center Intemational- ELCI): A training program on " Dendrology and

Forest Ecology " was repeated 8 times in Ankara, 3 times in Istanbul, 2

times in B o drum, and 1 time in Foça and Fethiye; excursions including

practical application have been arranged. Since 1996 upto now, this

school , has been organized with RAREF's own resources. http://www.kirsalcevre.org.tr/Syria:13)

DAMASCUS - President Bashar al-Assad on Monday issued the legislative

decree No / 25 / for the year 2007 on protecting forests. The decree

includes items on the state's forests, productions, investment sites

and the right of utilization as well as giving licenses within the

state's forest region. It stipulates for establishing forest protection

areas and reserves as well as gardens and for investing forests in

tourism. The decree canceled the previous forest law, No. 7 for 1994. http://www.sana.org/eng/21/2007/04/09/112340.htmAfrica:14)

There are few places on Earth quite as beautiful as the forests of East

Africa. Most are remnants of a continent-wide swathe of forest that

once stretched from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean. Pockets of forest

in Kenya and Tanzania still contain species closely related to those

only found in the deep forests of the Congo and Cameroon. They are

treasure houses of biodiversity, the sorts of places where one day

humankind will find a cure for Aids, for cancer, or a rare mineral that

will safely power a city the size of Manhattan for a year on a

teaspoonful of dust. Science fiction fantasy? No, reality. The problem

is that, like forests everywhere on earth, they are being ripped apart

and mowed down at a terrifying rate. In the Congo, illegal logging is

busy wiping out huge tracts of the majestic Ituri and other forests. In

Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, slash and burn agriculture on the forest

margins, illegal saw-pit operations deeper in and commercial operations

largely operated by politically well-connected companies have led to

further deforestation. It was for, among other things, her militant

opposition to the wanton destruction of these forests that Wangari

Mathai of Kenya was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. These East

African forests are places of enormous beauty and peace. On the slopes

of Mount Kenya and in the Mau Forests of western Kenya, I have hunted

trout in crystal streams while Narina Trogons flitted overhead. It was

like fishing in a cathedral, a vast temple of ancient, towering trees,

where turacoes (or loeries, as we called them here until recently) went

ko-ko-ko as they flashed through patches of sunlight. http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3777644Uganda:15)

During a two-day visit to White Water and the Wauna Land Development

Scheme, Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud told villagers that the

Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) intends to enforce the law against

illegal logging operations. He disclosed that there are 46 new rangers

in the GFC's Forest Monitoring Unit to ensure the sustainable

exploitation of forest resources. Loggers and saw millers from the

Wauna Land Development Scheme said several applications were made to

harvest logs from the available land, but the process was stalled

because of other applications made by Amerindian communities for title

to the lands. Persaud urged loggers and saw millers to form an

association and noted that the GFC would explore the possibility of

allocating timber concessions to reduce illegal logging and provide for

better monitoring. Additionally, the GFC was tasked with providing a

list of certified individuals and Amerindian communities in the region

who would be eligible to harvest and sell lumber. Persaud assured the

farmers and other residents that the Ministry of Agriculture would

continue to provide assistance for the desired agriculture activity

suitable for the area. http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article_general_news?id=56518208Mozambique:16)

As reports warning of the scope of illegal logging in Mozambique grow

more serious, local environmental groups are attempting to raise public

consciousness of the issue and pressure the government to act, but this

will be no easy task in a country where poverty reduction and HIV/AIDS

usually take centre stage. A newly formed coalition, called (Friends of

the Forest), has organised a march through downtown Maputo, the

capital, this Saturday, the country's first public demonstration

related to deforestation. " We need to get civil society more active, "

said Daniel Ribeiro, project officer for Justiça Ambiental

(Environmental Justice), a local nongovernmental organisation (NGO).

" Every once in a while it gets in the news and filters through, but it

is not regularly featured in the media. " Organisers expect about 500

people to take part in the march. That something has to be done, and

quickly, became abundantly clear last year, said local activists. The

first major indicator was a widely distributed report that documented

large discrepancies between various official statistics on

deforestation in the central province of Zambezia, and also alleged the

existence of a " timber mafia " carrying out extensive unsustainable

resource exploitation. " Asian timber buyers, local business people and

members of the government of Mozambique and their forest services are

colluding to strip precious tropical hardwoods from these slow-growing,

semi-arid and dry tropical forests, at a rate that could see the

resource exhausted in five to 10 years. " In December 2006, media

reports of some 40 containers of illegal timber seized at the port city

of Quelimane, Zambezia's capital, indicated the scale of criminal

activity in the destruction of forests. An environmental activist

estimated that the amount of contraband wood in that one seizure

represented more than twice the annual amount of timber the province

allowed to be harvested legally. Government officials disputed the

estimate, and the common official response has been to characterise

assessments of illegal logging as 'out of date'. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/2dea58439b38d45a5c24a98d3a129041.htm

Kenya:17)

After years of struggle, residents have eventually won a battle against

a local authority and a tea processing factory over what they call

"destruction of their environment". A Government agency — The Public

Complaints Committee — established under Environmental Management and

Coordination laws, has yielded to pressure to preserve the treasure of

Karima Hill in Othaya Division by giving recommendations the residents

have been yearning for decades. Last week, the agency released a report

on investigations it carried out on the hill's environmental

degradation due to massive logging, an issue that has generated bad

blood pitting the locals against Othaya council, which manages the hill

together with Iria-ini Tea Factory which had leased nearly a third of

the hill for 30 years. Residents formed a group — Karima Ka Inya Forest

Association (Kaifa) — under which they have been fighting for

conservation of the hill. They have been pressing the Government to

place the hill under the Ministry of Environment. The ministry allows

community management of natural resources under the new Forestry Law.

Despite years of protest by the local community, the tea processing

factory had been allowed to plant thousands of exotic tress on about 80

acres up to year 2030. Incensed by the idea of having an exotic

environment, the residents increased the pressure to revert the sacred

hill into its indigenous form. The council has for years denied that

the hill has been left at the mercy of loggers. The town clerk, Mr

James Kuria, conceded that the council had leased nearly a third of the

entire hill saying it was part of its revenue channels.http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=39 & newsid=95808

Colombia:18)

I had the honour to meet, listen and learn from a representative of

Organizacion Nacional Indigena De Colombia (ONIC). ONIC speak on behalf

of the voiceless people who live in the Choco (which is on the Pacific

coast) and Amazonas (in the South, bordering Peru & Brazil) regions

of Colombia. These vast areas are home to indigenous, Afro Colombians

and small farmers and huge biodiversity, rainforests, water, minerals

and oil. These areas have always been ignored by the government.

Although in 1959 they were declared forest reserves. And in 1980, they

became important to international capital, with associated development

plans. In practise, this meant; airports, roads, ports. The words rural

development was also used, which meant that the old growth forest

became cocoa, rubber and African palm (oil palm) plantations, for

biodiesel. Colombia has signed the Convention on Biodiversity and the

Kyoto Protocol. Colombia has endured civil violence and murder for over

25 years. The paramilitaries claim to force guerrillas out of

rainforests when it is clear the land is owned by the indigenous and

Afro-Colombian communities, who have title to the land. We were told of

one case where paramilitaries displaced 25,000 people and stole from

them, 30,000 hectares of land. This land was cleared and African palm

plantations were sown as the paramilitary said it was not collective

property. In the last 20 years, more than 3 million people have been

displaced. Indigenous and Afro-Colombian people are killed by the

government, paramilitaries and guerrillas. The African palm plantations

force the displaced communities to become associates of the palm oil

companies. The workers are paid in vouchers which can only be exchanged

for goods in the company shop, where items can be double the price of

normal outlets. If workers speak out they are assassinated. The most

important thing to the local communities, who live in the rainforests,

is food security and their homeland guarantees this. The biodiversity

of the forest provides them with an environmentally stable social

infrastructure and they know how to look after this. They say that the

government model signifies destruction of all this and it is all about

money. They say that their communities offer sustainability and

conservation of the environment, based on the values of their community

life. The government model leads to death and human rights abuses. http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/blog/2007/04/19/palm-oil-threat-to-rainforests-and-indigenous-c

ommunities-in-colombia/Brazil:19)

Officially Geroan's chainsaw shop doesn't exist. Nor does the newly

opened petrol station next door, or the motorbike workshop or even the

Uniao supermarket, a rickety shack where the dusty shelves droop under

the weight of dozens of cachaca spirit bottles. This is the Trans-Iriri

highway, a clandestine yet very real road that cuts hundreds of miles

through an area of the Brazilian Amazon called the Terra do Meio, or

Middle Land. But look at virtually any map of Brazil and you won't find

any of these places. Officially the Trans-Iriri doesn't exist. Illegal

roads, or viscinais - often built by illegal loggers looking to cash in

on the world's largest rainforest - represent one of the biggest

challenges to the Brazilian government in its fight against

deforestation. It is estimated that there are more than 105,000 miles

of viscinais in the Amazon region - illegal dirt tracks that meander

through indigenous territories, government land and ecological reserves

and which pave the way for the continued destruction of the world's

largest rainforest. At around 130 miles, the Trans-Iriri, which cuts

westward across the Middle Land from Sao Felix do Xingu, is the king of

these illegal roads. Government officials recently claimed some success

in reducing deforestation, saying that from 2005-2006 about 6,450

square miles was cleared, 11% less than the previous year. Yet

supported by this network of hidden roads loggers continue to destroy

the forest at an astonishing rate. In the state of Para, where the

Trans-Iriri is located, satellite images produced for the government

show that deforestation has jumped by 50% since 2004. Sao Felix do

Xingu, the municipality where the Trans-Iriri begins, remains for the

fifth year running the Brazilian champion of deforestation, with around

300 square miles cleared between 2005 and 2006, according to the

government. This week the environment ministry said that from May a

satellite imagery system known as Detex would be used to identify

logging, allowing rapid intervention by members of the environmental

agency Ibama. Activists remain sceptical. " The state must intervene

first with some kind of police action to stop the land grabbers, " said

Mr Feitosa. " It cannot continue to act as if the road does not exist. "

In the meantime Brazil's network of illegal roads continues to expand.

According to a recent study by Imazon, an environmental group based in

the state capital Belem, around 1,200 miles of new roads are built each

year. http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,2062370,00.html20)

There are only five sertanistas left in Brazil. One of them recently

said: "Everything dies at its own time. The forest dies, with it die

the Indians, with them die the sertanistas". Outnumbering the

sertanistas is an assortment of characters in a sorry tale of

diminishing rainforests, species loss and displaced people. Miners,

cattle ranchers, loggers and global fast food chains encroach on virgin

jungle and indigenous people. Deep inside the steamy Amazon jungle is a

closed world of elusive darting jaguars; huge anacondas; caimans hiding

languidly in rivers, their eyes silently watching; and

brightly-coloured parrots squawking from high in the trees. Sharing

this world are tribes who have little or no knowledge of the "Western

world" and are unaware that their ancestral territories and traditional

ways of life could suddenly be destroyed by highways, cattle ranches

and forest loss. A sertanistas is a "backlands expert" with rich

knowledge of remote Indian tribes. Like the great explorers,

sertanistas carve their way through the verdant jungle and track down

isolated tribes in need of protection. The sertanistas job is to divert

development around tribal areas and they do this in the face of threats

and violence from developers and the unpredictable actions of

vulnerable Indian tribes. The sertanistas are a dying breed. It has

been 20 years since the last sertanista was hired and former

sertanistas have retired or died. And so with them goes knowledge that

is quickly fading from memory. Lost knowledge of the location of

indigenous tribes; knowledge of the complex ecosystem that is the

Amazon; knowledge about traditional ways of life; the secrets of

life-saving medicinal plants; knowledge of diverse and fast

disappearing local dialects. One of the last remaining sertanistas is

Sydney Ferreira Possuelo, a rugged 67-year old who has spent the last

20 years of his life discouraging contact with Indian tribes. Contact

with the outside world often results in Indians ending up on the

fringes of developed areas dependent on alcohol, prostitution or

disease. Possuelo has incurred the wrath of developers who care little

for the culture or dignity of remote tribes. Yet, he has been

instrumental in having 11% of Brazil's species-rich rainforest set

aside and protected as exclusion zones. Possuelo occupies a land of

tension in which indigenous people are scared and threatened and

profiteers are aggressive and abusive of Earth's abundance.http://thinkingshift.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/lost-tribes-lost-knowledge/

21)

The 1,100-mile road is the main north-south artery of the Amazon

rainforest. It is also the most controversial road in Brazil, built in

the 1970s to open up the jungle to colonisation - forgetting, of

course, that many indigenous Indians lived there already. It has become

a frontier of deforestation. Now President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

has announced that one of the major projects of his second term, at a

cost of $350m, will be to pave the 600 miles of the road that is still

a dirt track. Roads bring human activity, which has always meant a

plundering of natural resources. Yet Lula believes he can develop the

region without increasing destruction. The stakes are high, since the

area of influence of the BR-163 is a quarter of the Brazilian Amazon.

'The problem in the past is that the government has not had presence in

the area,' says Muriel Saragossi, the government's co-ordinator for the

Amazon region. 'We now have an integrated vision.' The 'Sustainable

BR-163 Plan' involves 20 ministries and is Brazil's most ambitious

attempt ever to reconcile growth and conservation. The road stretches

from Cuiaba, near the Bolivian border, to Santarem on the banks of the

Amazon. On the first 450-mile paved section the rainforest has been

transformed into rolling fields as far as the eye can see. The main

crop is soya. Soya - half of it exported to the EU - is the economic

force behind the road project. If the BR-163 is paved to Santarem, with

its deep water port, farmers could export soya along it. 'This will cut

the road journey to the market by 600 miles as well as a similar

distance by sea,' says farmer Nelson Piccoli in Sorriso. Piccoli, like

other farmers, resents the suggestion that soya is responsible for

razing the Amazon: 'We did not destroy this region. We transformed this

region from native vegetation to agricultural production. What you are

seeing here is how we are supporting humanity. You cannot survive

without eating food.' As I travelled along the BR-163 I was surprised

by how much the environmental message seemed to have got through to the

timber industry. In Sinop, a lumber town, a building was emblazoned

with the words Green Party. Paulo Fiuza, the local Green leader, is a

former logger. 'Just because you work in the timber industry it doesn't

mean you can't be an environmentalist,' he says. If they carry on

destroying the way they have been, he said, they will destroy the land

that has brought them wealth. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2057399,00.html22)

Tory party donor and environmental philanthropist Johan Eliasch has

been accused of "green colonialism" after allegedly consigning 1,000

people to poverty in his attempts to preserve the Amazon jungle. The

allegations against Eliasch, who last week was touring South America

with his friend the Duke of York, come from the inhabitants of a region

of the Brazilian rainforest the size of Greater London. In 2005 the

Swedish-born tycoon, who runs the Head sports goods empire, spent a

reported £13.7m of his estimated £361m fortune buying 400,000 acres —

about 625 square miles — of jungle from an American-owned timber

company with the aim of protecting it from loggers. Eliasch has

described the move as "my little bit towards saving the world". As a

result of the deal, a lumber mill that employed as many as 1,000 people

closed in the town of Itacoatiara in northwest Brazil, increasing

hardship in an already economically depressed region. The closure has

pitched Eliasch into a debate about how rich countries can help

preserve tropical rainforests while considering the livelihoods of

people who live and work in them. Some local environmentalists have

accused him of dabbling in "green colonialism". "What he is doing is

valid in terms of preservation but you cannot let people go hungry,"

said Lelio Moreira, who works at the local radio station, Panorama

Itacoatiara. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1655188.ece

Costa Rica:Conservationists

working in a lowland forest reserve at La Selva in Costa Rica used

biological records dating from 1970 to show that species of frogs,

toads, lizards, snakes and salamanders have plummeted on average 75% in

the past 35 years. Dramatic falls in amphibian and reptile numbers

elsewhere in the world have been blamed on habitat destruction and the

fungal disease chytridiomycosis, which has inflicted a devastating toll

across central and South America. But scientists hoped many species

would continue to thrive in dedicated reserves, where building,

land-clearance and agricultural chemicals are banned. The new findings

suggest an unknown ecological effect is behind at least some of the

sudden losses and have prompted scientists to call for urgent studies

in other protected forest areas. The researchers, led by Maureen

Donelly at Florida International University, believe climate change has

brought warmer, wetter weather to the refuge, with the knock-on effect

of reducing the amount of leaf litter on the forest floor. Nearly all

of the species rely on leaf litter to some extent, either using it for

shelter, or feeding on insects that eat the leaves. http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200704170921.htmChina:23)

Chinese demand for an endangered tropical hardwood tree used to make

luxury flooring is driving it to extinction, Greenpeace said Tuesday.

China imported about 60,000 cubic metres (2.1 million cubic feet) of

merbau logs in 2006, most of it smuggled from Papua New Guinea and

Indonesia, the environmental group said in a report. The wood was used

mostly to produce high-end hardwood flooring for the domestic market

and exports to the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and Europe, it said.

" This is a highly prized species for luxury goods and the market demand

in China as well as in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific is

driving merbau to extinction, " said Tamara Stark, a forest expert with

Greenpeace. Unprecedented economic growth, coupled with a shortage of

domestic forest resources, had seen China become the world's largest

importer of tropical logs including merbau, the report said. China also

had the world's second-largest wood manufacturing sector after the US,

it said. The Greenpeace investigation showed Chinese importers used

sophisticated methods such as forging import documents as prices of

merbau soared to more than 600 dollars per cubic metre. http://www.terradaily.com/reports/China_Demand_Driving_Endangered_Tree_To_Extinction_999.html

India:25)

The Forest Department has started installing solar electric fence to a

length of 10 kilometres along the border of select reserve forests in

the district . The department's action comes in the wake of complaints

from villagers that animals including bison and wild boars from the

forest cause extensive damage to crops in Kanjanayakanpatti,

Chettiapatti, Alagatrupatti, Vellakalpatti, Vallam and Edhumalai. The

problem is usually more during summer when animals come out of the wild

in large numbers in search of water.The animals uproot groundnut,

banana and paddy crops causing huge losses to the villagers. As the

traditional method of keeping a watch at nights and chasing away

animals failed, the villagers had been asking for an electric fence.

The work has been taken up in the border areas of Thachamalai,

Vellakalpatti and Omanthur reserve forests at a cost of around Rs. 16

lakh. The peripherals of Thachamalai will be covered to a length of

four kilometres. A distance of three kilometres along the borders of

Vellakalpatti and Omanthur will be fenced. More areas will be covered

during the next phase. The department has formed monitoring groups to

maintain the fence with financial support of the village forest

committee. http://www.hindu.com/2007/04/13/stories/2007041311560100.htmKashmir:26)

Another police official was today arrested while attempting to smuggle

green timber from Panzalla area of Handwara in North Kashmir. This is

the third instance in less than two months when a Police official was

caught while smuggling green timber in Kashmir region. Recently a

Senior Police officer was suspended by state government for using

official truck to smuggle timber from Srinagar to Jammu. While in

another case a police gypsy loaded with illicit timber was seized and

its driver was arrested by forest protection force from Kangan area of

Ganderbal district. Sources told News Agency of Kashmir that an

Assistant Sub-Inspector in Jammu and Kashmir police Sharief-ud-Din was

caught red handed when he was transporting smuggled timber in a tractor

at Panzalla. The accused officer was on leave when he was arrested, a

police spokesman said. A case under Forest Act has been registered

against him and the smuggled timber has been seized, he added. The

green cover of Jammu and Kashmir has suffered huge damages in absence

of proper check during the last seventeen years of turmoil. Cutting of

green trees has been banned by an order of Supreme Court in the state

or else where in the country. However, smuggling of green timber is

rampant in entire state causing huge damage to the forests in the

entire state every year. The past experience has reflected that most of

the smuggling and green timber is being done either in nexus with

government official or by security forces. http://naknews.co.in/newsdet.aspx?q=7647Pakistan:27)

The prices of wood used in building construction and making furniture

have registered rapid rise in the past few weeks like the increase in

the prices of cement and steel. The most commonly used wood in building

in the country is pertal, an imported variety of wood, is available in

the local timber market for Rs 470-500 per cubic feet. Other widely

used wood, diyar, used for making doors, cupboards and furniture, is

touching the price range of Rs 1,200-2,000 per cubic feet depending on

the quality. Teak, a high quality wood that is used for making

expensive furniture items, can be bought in the price range of Rs

3,000-3,500 per cubic feet in the timber market. Deodar, another

high-quality wood, is available in the price range of Rs 3,200 to Rs

3,600. Pinewood, fir and sheesham are priced at Rs 1,200-1,600 per

cubic feet, depending on quality. These prices are double than where

they stood about 2-3 years ago, and are expected to rise at an even

faster rate in coming days, because of rising demand. The booming

development activities all over the country are a major factor

affecting the prices of all material used in construction and

development work. "As more and more construction work is taking place,

the demand for timber is bound to rise," said a local timber merchant.

Pakistan has limited timber and wood resources. Of Pakistan's depleted

forest resources, amounting to about 3.1% of the total area, only about

1,748,000 hectares (4,319,500 acres) are classified as commercial or

productive forests. Privately-owned forests cover some 3,783,000

hectares (9,348,000 acres) located primarily in the North-West Frontier

Province (NWFP) and Punjab. Hill forests predominate in the north and

northwest temperate and subtropical regions. Fir, spruce, deodar,

bluepine, chirpine, chilghoza and juniper, as well as broad-leaved

species like oak, maple, walnut, poplar and chestnut are found in the

hill forests. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C04%5C07%5Cstory_7-4-2007_pg5_9Thailand:

28)

Flight Sergeant 1st Class Pramuan Peungsuriyawong hit upon the move

after his request to replant the degraded 300-rai Dong Mun Forest was

turned down by the Forestry Department on grounds that the area was

situated within the 2,300-rai Dong Mun National Forest Reserve. Pramuan

left his home in Bangkok's Chom Thong district on April 4 for the Dong

Mun Forest in Kalasin's Tha Khantho district, in hopes that his march

would raise public awareness and participation in reforestation.

Carrying a shoulder bag and a folding tent on his back while wearing a

T-shirt saying, " Love the King, Love the Forest, " Pramuan had already

hiked 500 kilometres to Ban Samjan in Khon Kaen's Muang district as of

yesterday evening. He was expected to reach Kalasin's Tha Khantho

district 70 kilometres up the road today. Throughout Pramuan's 12 days

of trekking, sleeping by the road and developing blisters, people asked

him where he was heading, and after he explained his goals, many

offered him food and water, while some even gave him a little money for

reforestation efforts. Donations now total Bt2,000. The Bangkok native

said he had served as a military mechanic before making friends with

Phra Ajarn Niran Khunnatharo, abbot of Wat Thamnamthip in the Dong Mun

Forest, in 1992. Noticing that villagers had destroyed the forest by

burning trees to grow tapioca, Pramuan decided to quit his job in 2000

and dedicate himself to the cause of reforestation for the sake of the

Kingdom. Together with some schoolmates, he built weirs to irrigate the

forestland and underwent training on ecofriendly organic agriculture so

he could teach it tolocals and stop them from razing forestland for

tapioca farming. In January, Pramuan - reportedly with local villagers'

support and forestry officials' initial agreement - submitted a request

to the Khon Kaen Forestry Office to plant trees on 300 rai of the

forest, he said. But the matter became stalled, and he was eventually

told he must do it in accordance with proper procedure, which he did

not know, he said. After that, officials told him he could not take

care of the area, because it overlapped with the temple's land.

Pursuing the matter at the Regional Forestry Office, Pramuan said two

explosions and the burning of sugar-cane plantations during the daytime

had damaged the forestland, as well as trees he had been raising for a

decade. He went to Government House on February 22 to appeal his case

but was ignored. http://nationmultimedia.com/2007/04/19/national/national_30032175.phpFiji:29)

Mahogany landowners from Mataqali Naua of Serua are eagerly waiting for

the Forestry department to give them a logging license after High Court

Judge, Justice Jiten Singh instructed NLTB to liaise with relevant

authorities to give them a license since they have secured a lucrative

overseas market. Landowner Atunaisa Tiva who won his case against Fiji

Hardwood Corporation and Native Land Trust Board told Legend FM News

today that his mataqali is hoping that the license will be granted as

soon as possible. He said the Seattle Woodproduct International from US

has already deposited $100,000 in the bank for the landowners to start

logging. Meanwhile, Finance Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry has revealed

that the interim government is now exploring ways to hand over the

mahogany forest to the resource owners. Chaudhry said this is to ensure

that the resource owners have the ownership and enter into an agreement

with the Fiji Hardwood Corporation to sell mahogany logs to FHCL for

downstream processing. http://www.fijivillage.com/artman/publish/article_37336.shtmlMalaysia:30)

Five new blockades have been set up by Penan tribal communities in the

Malaysian province of Sarawak in an attempt to stop loggers destroying

their forest homes. On April 4th 2007 officers of the Sarawak Forestry

Corporation, supported by the police, dismantled another Penan blockade

for the second time this year. The police used chainsaws to destroy the

blockades and fired gun shots to intimidate the Penan. Four Penan

villages and one nomadic group recently set up the five new blockades,

in protest at the logging companies Rimbunan Hijau, KTS Logging and

Samling. Police are reportedly already heading towards one of the

blockades, which is on a main logging route and used by a number of

different companies. Survival is concerned for the safety of the Penan

at the blockade sites. Much of the Penan's forest has already been

destroyed. According to Malaysian and international law the Penan have

rights to their land and should be consulted before any logging can

proceed, but these rights are openly violated. In areas where the

forest has already been destroyed by logging, licences for plantations

are now being g ranted, stripping the Penan, and other tribes in

Sarawak, of their land rights forever. To write in support of the

Penan, http://www.survival-international.org/how_to_help.php?howto_help_id=328 & n=null & tribe_id=42

31)

Indigenous people living in tropical rainforests in Malaysia and Guyana

are stepping up the global campaign against the Samling group, one of

Malaysia's leading timber companies, and gravest threat to rainforests

and their inhabitants worldwide. The Samling Group holds 1.6 million

hectares of tropical rainforest concessions in Guyana and 1.4 million

hectares in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. On the recent occasion of

its public listing at the Hong Kong stock exchange, 37 organizations

from 18 countries asked investors and banks to shun the company for its

failure to comply with basic environmental and social standards. In

Malaysia, nomadic and semi-nomadic Penan communities living on the

Limbang river in the North of the state of Sarawak have launched an

appeal to the international public urging Credit Suisse, HSBC and

Macquarie Securities, the three banks who have sponsored Samling´s

recent public listing, to stop supporting the timber giant. Meanwhile,

other Penan communities from the Upper Baram region of Sarawak report

renewed police action on their native lands. Officers of the Sarawak

Forestry Corporation and a special police force unit removed a

long-standing Penan logging road blockade near Long Benali, a community

located at a strategic entry point to one of Sarawak's last contiguous

primary rainforest areas. In the South American state of Guyana, the

Akawini Amerindian Village has asked the Government to help end an

agreement with a Samling subsidiary. Their council has said that the

villagers were threatened with court action unless they signed an

agreement allowing logging on their lands by Guyanese Samling

subsidiary Barama Co. Ltd. Please send a protest email targeting the

banks funding Samling, asking them for a public statement to withdraw

their support to Samling and refund of IPO profits.http://www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp?id=samlingIndonesia:32)

In a grainy undercover video the smuggler stands surrounded by stacks

and stacks of lumber, large bales of freshly milled planks held

together with steel bands. His gold watch glints as he begins counting

money, methodically placing each bill on a desk. Sitting nearby, his

partner watches through Coke-bottle glasses. They both appear to be in

a good mood, laughing and joking with their clients. " This smuggling, "

the money counter says, " is better than drug smuggling. " After all,

trafficking a rain forest wood such as ramin through Singapore can be

just as profitable as running heroin, but it doesn't carry the

mandatory punishment of death. The unwitting star of the video, Frankie

Chua, managed an import/export business. The men Chua regarded as

potential clients were, in fact, undercover employees of the

Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). The nongovernmental

organization, headquartered in London and Washington, D.C., had spent

months tracking the export of " dirty " timber from Indonesia, and

suspected that Chua was a central player in a burgeoning class of

activity called forest crimes: the illegal harvesting, transporting,

processing, buying or selling of timber. This multibillion-dollar black

market business occurs in more than 70 countries, and contributes to

the annual destruction of more than 32 million wooded acres — an area

nearly the size of New York state. " We are losing forests around the

world at an alarming rate, " says Sally Collins, associate chief of the

U.S. Forest Service, which sometimes sends personnel to assist agencies

combating timber theft internationally. Clearing the land of trees

decimates wildlife and alters a region's climate system and water

balance. The arrival of clandestine loggers in pristine areas also

disrupts indigenous communities, erodes their source of food and income

and sometimes leads to violent conflicts. Powerful, politically

connected logging syndicates take advantage of Indonesia's weak law

enforcement system to clear-cut hardwood species. More than 73 percent

of all logging in Indonesia's Papua province is illegal. In the case of

merbau, black market logs are trafficked to Malaysia, where the EIA

suspects that companies such as Kim Teck Lee (KTL) manufacture the

merbau into flooring. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4215504.htmlNew Zealand:33)

The endangered tropical hardwood kwila faces extinction in the wild

within 35 years but New Zealand does not even track how much is coming

into the country, Greenpeace says. At a press conference in Beijing

today, Greenpeace released a report entitled Merbau's Last Stand, which

reveals the smuggling methods used to bring the endangered tree species

merbau (known as kwila in New Zealand) into China. The report sounds

alarm bells for the future of kwila and the paradise forests of the

Asia Pacific. Greenpeace New Zealand forests campaigner Grant Rosoman

said today that despite Indonesia banning the export of logs, it was

found that last year thousands of cubic metres of logs entered ports in

China from Indonesia. " They are containerised and falsely labelled as

sawn timber, imported with forged documentation labelling the timber as

Malaysian, and kwila logs are also imported from illegal logging

concessions in Papua New Guinea. " New maps produced by Greenpeace

showed that 83 per cent of the forests housing the last healthy

populations of merbau on New Guinea island had already been allocated

for logging, Mr Rosoman said. He said kwila was by far the main

tropical timber imported into New Zealand. " Virtually all of it is

illegal from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, but NZ customs codes and

statistics do not record it separately. " Neither the Government nor the

timber trade knows how much illegal timber and wood products are

imported into New Zealand every year. " Mr Rosoman said the NZ

Government was complicit in this illegal trade by doing nothing to stop

it and had no data on the scale of the problem. Greenpeace estimates

that at least $15-$20 million of kwila sawn timber, decking and outdoor

furniture is imported into New Zealand every year. According to the

Ministry of Forestry statistics the imports of wooden furniture have

increased four-fold in recent years to a value of over $150 million

annually.http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1 & objectid=10434708Australia:34)

With the Murray-Darling Basin in crisis, environmentalists have

condemned a railway line upgrade that will see 300,000 sleepers cars

cut from stressed river red gums growing on parched floodplains. The

executive officer of the National Parks Association of NSW, Andrew Cox,

said it was hard to believe such logging could be allowed when 75 per

cent of Murray River red gums were dead or dying in some areas because

of the drought and over-allocation of water to irrigators. The red gum

forests relied on floodwaters for growth and regeneration, but some

areas had not been flooded for 10 years. Mr Cox said the $10 billion

federal plan to rescue the Murray-Darling river system would be wasted

unless governments stopped logging, because the forests of the Murray

were vital to the river's health. The Victorian Government has put out

a tender for the sleepers to upgrade its line to Mildura, but most of

the timber is likely to come from public and private land in NSW. Russ

Ainley, the executive director of the NSW Forest Products Association,

said red gum mills in NSW could easily supply the Victorian tender in a

sustainable manner. He added that timber sleepers were renewable and

far more environmentally friendly than concrete sleepers. A spokeswoman

for the Victorian Government said timber sleepers were chosen as they

were cheaper. She said NSW forestry authorities were consulted. http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/murray-will-be-damaged-by-logging/2007/04/19/1176697003

245.html35)

Destruction of Australia's ancient forests in Tasmania is occurring on

an industrial scale at an unrelenting rate, and is sanctioned by the

Tasmanian Government and certified internationally by PEFC as

sustainable! Tasmania's unsustainable forestry practices include: 1)

poisoning wildlife - tens of thousands of animals die from 1080 poison

yearly, 2) mass conversion of forest to short rotation plantations 3)

fire bombing forest with napalm incendiaries, producing more than 30%

of Tasmania's annual greenhouse gas emissions -- PEFC is a global

organisation that certifies forestry schemes and the products from them

as environmentally sustainable. PEFC approves Tasmanian forest products

as sustainable and endorses Australia's forestry practices, including

those in Tasmania, where Gunns Ltd woodchips thousands of hectares of

native forest every year. Who is PEFC and how does it relate to

Tasmanian forest destruction? The UK and German Governments recommend

PEFC-approved products for Government contracts and in consumer guides.

I need you to take action TODAY. By completing the form opposite you

will send three messages that will: 1) separately petition the UK and

German governments to withdraw support for PEFC, and 2) tell PEFC to

reject the Australian Forestry Standard. http://www.wilderness.auWorld-wide:36)

Because illegally logged timber isn't burdened with taxes and duties,

it undercuts the world market, depressing prices by up to 16 percent.

That, says the 30-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and

Development (OECD), results in an annual loss to the global economy of

$15 billion; the U.S. economy alone takes a $1 billion hit. But for

black market barons, it is all big profits. In 2003, chain saw crews in

Peru received less than 7 cents per cubic foot of mahogany — a wood

that brought up to $52 per cubic foot on the international market last

year. Traffickers go to almost any lengths to protect their lucrative

trade. In Honduras, two local forest advocates were shot dead last

December. Latin America, West Central Africa and Southeast Asia are

home to the majority of the world's tropical hardwood reserves: trees

such as teak, mahogany, merbau and ramin. They are also home to the

majority of illegal loggers. According to a commission sanctioned by

the Peruvian government, an estimated 95 percent of logging in Peru is

conducted illegally — and more than 90 percent of that wood ends up in

the United States. Similarly, though the Indonesian government outlawed

the export of unmilled wood in 2001, and of milled wood in 2004, an EIA

analysis of customs data shows that the United States imported 6731

tons of Indonesian logs and sawn timber in 2005. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4215504.html37)In

the developing countries, the necessity of publicizing services of

forests is severely lacking and wanting. This sector must be given

attention with especial emphasis. The country like Bangladesh has to be

very serious in all respects to understand and exercise the services

offered by the forests. We must remember that the services are very

important and useful and they could be made so if we become serious

about the maintenance of forests as the services deserve. Religious

conservation practice is, however, a ritual or tradition linked to a

particular faith and is based on a religious belief. This type of

conservation implies 'belief in the existence of God who has created

the universe and given man a spiritual nature which continues to exist

even after the death of the body'. Religious belief plays a major role

in conservation of nature and natural resources. Religious leaders

generally impose religious meaning or sanctity to certain places as

symbol of God's existence. As a consequence, places with these

religious taboos normally enjoy a high degree of priority in terms of

conservation. The holy books of every religion cite something or the

other in favour of such natural conservation. For example, the Holy

Quran says man is born with nature made by Allah and he indeed prospers

who purifies it; and he is ruined who corrupts it. The Srimav

Bhagavatam says that one should look upon deer, camels, monkeys,

donkeys, rats, reptiles, birds and fleas as though they were their own

children. The Bhuddists too believe that the branch of a tree must

never be cut so as to destroy the shade beneath which Lord Buddha had

taken shelter. In this manner though the believers do not directly

participate in conservation but disallow others to destroy nature.

Apart from Hinduism, the two major religions Buddhism and Jainism

organised in the region around 2500 years ago. Both preached against

animal sacrifice at religious ceremonies and emphasised compassion

towards all forms of life. http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/04/06/d704061801127.htm