Guest guest Posted October 6, 2007 Report Share Posted October 6, 2007 Today for you 38 new articles about earth's trees! (240th edition) Subscribe / send blank email to: earthtreenews- Weblog: http://olyecology.livejournal.com . --British Columbia: 1) RAN called out for despicable sell-out of earth's last forests, 2) Why RAN, FSC and others must be stopped, 3) Final caribou call, 4) 14,000 stolen acres for sale online, 5) Beetle madness, 6) Current condition of destroyed forest lands, --Texas: 7) Old timberland being sold off by paper industry --West Virginia: 8) Logging has begun in Blackwater, supporters needed --USA: 9) Dismantling NEPA for years --Canada: 10) Northern Ontario, 11) If 84% of forests are certified then certification is meaningless, 12) Destroying the forest to save it fails due to inclement weather, --UK: 13) Human influence of pollen record, --Russia: 14) World's largest stands of untouched timber --Congo: 15) Capitol of Congo's rainforest in poverty --Ghana: 16) Gangs of unlicensed chainsaw operators --Cameroon: 17) Common effort to combat illegal exploitation --Angola: 18) Special assessment of the state of forests --Uganda: 19) Save Lake Victoria's Shores --Kenya: 20) Ecosystem services and poor, 21) Shamba system, 22) Be a Hummingbird, --Guyana: 23) Asst. Comm. of Forests speaks out about corruption, 24) Wai Wai people, --South America: 25) Is on fire! 26) Initiative for Integration of Regional Infrastructure, --Brazil: 27) Save the Atlantic rainforest --Nepal: 28) $5 million for biogas in order to stop use of firewood --India: 29) New legal term for forest, 30) Court's stops ownership handover, 31) Kaki forest reserve once an ethnic bloodbath is now full of people, --Indonesia: 32) Investigation into logging case in Riau --Australia: 33) Activist chained to log truck, 34) Tourist economy to be destroyed by a handful of loggers, 35) Mill approval now set to destroy 200,000ha of forest --World-wide: 36) Tobacco-based forest destruction, 37) 10% loss of forest leads to 1/3 greater chance of flooding, 38) Corrupt FSC is now a 226 million acre empire British Columbia: 1) Ecological Internet has identified Rainforest Action Network (RAN) of San Francisco, USA as the next target of our " End Ancient Forest Logging Campaign " . As the largest and historically most active rainforest conservation organization in America; RAN continues to support industrial ancient forest logging, suggests FSC certification of such practices ensures " sustainability " , and has already sold out British Columbia's ancient forests to such practices. They must not be allowed to do so again. Targeting a group that, however misguided, has long been our brethren is difficult but unavoidable. Climate change will not be solved without preserving fully intact ancient rainforest carbon sinks. These carbon sinks will not remain in place unless all ancient forest logging -- including selective, certified, sustainable or ecosystem management -- is ended. The absolutely necessary global ecological goal of ending ancient forest logging to stop climate change is difficult but not unattainable. Even countries rich in tropical rainforests are receptive to being compensated to end their industrial development. Sadly we find Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace and WWF amongst the greatest impediments to achieving these policies. Consider the attached open letter to RAN background for a major escalation of this campaign which will commence shortly. At that time we will be asking for your organization's support, continued participation in on-line protests, and involvement in additional protest tactics. http://www.rainforestportal.org Email your outrage to: mbrune 2) I think that Ecological Internet's take on FSC and RAN is right. We are not just talking about mutually recognized mistakes here, in the case of RAN and groups like it. We are talking about forms of environmentalism that have become collusionary with the logging of what little of our old-growth rainforest still exists. When the cover is ripped off of the destruction of priceless rainforest trees under the name of FSC, such as in Clayoquot, sometimes the worst part of the scandal is not what the logging companies are doing. That's the nature of the beast. The real scandal is that people who purport to be protecting the environment are part of what's going on. They are too busy protecting themselves to protect the forest: protecting their comfortable middleground, not ruffling any feathers, protecting their funding, or whatever. When the logging companies can link up with these groups, they are home free. If RAN or ForestEthics are with them, that's all they need. What can anybody DO about it? Well, first, FEEL it. No wonder there are so few ideas about solutions, if so many people aren't impressed that there's a problem worth doing anything about. I've been criticized for talking too much about " fighting " for the environment. What I'm talking about is an energy of moral outrage that vocally repudiates wrong environmental practices whether from the logging companies or the environmental movement. Mediocrity and blandness refuse to feel problems because feeling puts us in jeopardy of having to do something about what is felt, and that threatens our comfort level, our peace, our weekend. Secondly, having felt the problem, we need to go back to that most fundamental function of environmentalism, which is to TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT IT, and for environmental groups that means publicly in some way or the other. I agree, it is a major moral deficit in our movement that groups and activists are still going around touting FSC while huge rainforest trees are being cutdown and old-growth dependent species are going extinct. I have to be really honest and say that I'm personally disgusted at the widespread unwillingness of environmentalists to criticize practices within our movement. wildernesswatch Email your outrage to: mbrune 3) British Columbians have sent a final " caribou call " to the BC government, linking protection of mountain caribou habitat to the province's fight against climate change. 2500 cards, emphasizing the importance of old growth forests in carbon storage and species adaptation, were delivered to Agriculture and Lands Minister Pat Bell to pass on to the Premier, and another 2000 email messages have been sent to government this summer. A major announcement on mountain caribou recovery is expected this fall. Sent from across British Columbia, the cards are the product of a summer of grassroots campaigning by environmental group, ForestEthics. The campaign included a public service announcement that ran in movie theaters, as well as on-the-ground canvassing that signed up thousands of new caribou supporters. " British Columbians understand the link between protecting caribou habitat and fighting climate change, " said Candace Batycki of ForestEthics. " These cards are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to public support for mountain caribou recovery, and we hope the Premier does the right thing by protecting the habitat recommended by his own science team. " With BC's mountain caribou population hovering around 1900 – down from 2500 a decade ago – the fate of one of North America's most endangered mammals hinges on the government's recovery decision. Environmentalists also contend that significant protection of the province's Inland Temperate Rainforest, where all mountain caribou are found, is one of the easiest and most significant steps the government can take in fighting climate change. http://www.mountaincaribou.ca 4) Forget humble logs and two-by-fours. The real value in the B.C. woods these days is as high-priced real estate, a trend that has picked up speed with TimberWest Forest Corp.'s new agreement to sell more than 14,000 acres through an online auction. The sale, announced yesterday, features six parcels of land ranging from the mountaintop, 12,000-acre Capes Lake site - about 70 kilometres west of Comox with a minimum bid of $2.9-million - to an industrial site in Campbell River. California-based LFC Online is conducting the auction and the deadline for bids is Nov. 8. " In many ways, Vancouver Island is just getting discovered, " TimberWest chief executive officer Paul McElligott said in a recent interview, adding that real estate prices on the island have roughly doubled in the past five years. Demographics are also driving the company's real estate strategy. " What we have going for us on the real estate side is that baby boomers who are starting to think of a second home or recreational property or retirement home are looking at Vancouver Island as a really attractive place to go and live, " Mr. McElligott said. The loss of forest land to other uses is cause for alarm, said Thomas Maness, an associate professor in the University of British Columbia's faculty of forestry. " From a conservation point of view, the biggest problem we have is the loss of forest land to other uses, " Mr. Maness said. The trend is not as pronounced in Canada as in the United States because most Canadian forest land, about 95 per cent, is publicly owned, Mr. Maness said. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071005.RTIMBERWEST05/TPStory/\ Business 5) Flying 1,000 metres above the mountain pine beetle-infested forests of the Cariboo-Chilcotin, Vancouver Board of Trade chairman Henry Lee got his first real look Wednesday at the scale of the epidemic that has swept through the central Interior. A sea of rusty brown unfolded below the charter Pacific Coastal aircraft, stretching from the Fraser River to the rugged folds of the Coast Mountain Range, 300 kilometres away. Lee was part of a nine-member delegation of Vancouver business people who had responded to a call from Cariboo community leaders to see first-hand what the beetle has done to their world. Through the windows of the Beechcraft 1900, Lee and the others saw the cutting edge of climate change. The largest single asset in the province of B.C. -- the forest -- is undergoing a catastrophic natural event. But it is unfolding slowly, at a pace that provides hope that unlike a tsunami or earthquake, people can adapt in time. In Williams Lake later in the day, local leaders explained how communities are adapting to their changing world. They want broader public awareness about the unfathomable scope of the epidemic out, explained Keith Dufresne, manager of the Cariboo-Chilcotin Beetle Action Coalition. Further, Dufresne said, there's a lesson for everyone in how the Cariboo communities have responded to the crisis. The beetle has taught them that sudden change is a part of the natural world. Some species will die. Others will thrive. It's the same with communities. And in the Cariboo, the communities are determined to adapt. " This is spreading through the province like a shock wave, " said Dufresne. The outbreak's epicentre was Tweedsmuir Park, where a series of warm winters in the 1990s fostered all the right conditions for the beetles to multiply. Now, more than a decade later, the insects have killed half of all the pine in the province, moving every summer in a front that now stretches from Merritt in the south to the eastern side of the Rockies. The front passed through the Cariboo in 2005 and 2006. The trees turned red within the first year and now they are a deep rust color or grey. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=d82cb5bf-a390-486\ 3-b4f1-517586b4 7b5d 6) The Southern Coastal Region has been over-logged. All industrial (heavy equipment logging) in old-growth forests should be terminated. Coupled to that closure there should be extensive ecological remediation/recovery efforts made across this tattered landscape. The recent recommendations of the FPB on privately owned second-growth forests should be the basis for any further extraction. The current plans for the North and Central Coastal old-growth forests provide inadequate protection. There should be a return to the 70%% retention standard advised by the government's own scientists. Though I worked as a salvage logger in the Southern Interior, twenty-five years have passed and the precise issues faced in the BC's interior forests have changed. (over logging, climate related stresses, Pine Beetle infection, and so on...) Perhaps it would be best if someone local suggested general plans for these regions. dlrubin Texas: 7) An environmental group is competing with oil and gas interests and private equity firms to snatch up the old timberland being abandoned by paper companies. Otherwise, ecotourism in these parts amounts largely to a marketing scheme, a brand called the Pineywoods Experience that's the brainchild of the environmental group, the Conservation Fund and a consulting outfit. Ecotourism, in a nutshell, is a kind of travel that prizes flora, fauna and cultural heritage, and which emphasizes preservation of the natural environment. Towns from Jefferson to Beaumont, eager to find an alternative to the industry that has so long shaped their economy, appear to be banding together and buying into the idea. At least 70 businesses, individuals and small governments have signed onto the plan, which has a $1.5 million budget, much of it raised by the Conservation Fund. For generations, East Texans have considered the paper and logging companies, such as Temple-Inland Inc., to be benevolent corporate stewards, even as the mill in Lufkin caused a chemical stench that kept people indoors as far away as Nacogdoches, 20 miles away. In 2000, about a half-dozen companies owned about a third of the 12 million forested acres in East Texas. But by this summer, when Temple-Inland sold 1.55 million acres of timberland for $2.38 billion to a private equity firm, no land remained in the hands of the big paper companies, Boggus said. The future of the timberland, either as managed forest or subdivision, remains a question. The land could be turned into a " sterile pine plantation, " said Richard Donovan, the author of " Paddling the Wild Neches, " and, like many people in these parts, a former Temple-Inland employee. " Seeking to maximize their profits, they go in and completely obliterate anything but pine trees, and plant them in rows just like you plant corn or cotton or anything else, " he said. " No wildlife will live in pine plantations — there's nothing for them to eat and no shelter for them. No sunlight reaches the floor of forest for flowers, shrubs or anything else. " http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/10/06/1006pineywoods.ht\ ml West Virginia: 8) Hello Blackwater supporters! Logging has begun in TSL A82258 Cutblock 19! This is an area of forest which is on the hillside south of Blackwater Lake. Please come out to Blackwater and help increase our presence on the ground. Any assistance for our protest camp would be greatly appreciated. We are in need of firewood, food, batteries, and extra rain gear. Spread the word! We need your help to save the Blackwater ecosystem. Friends of Blackwater is asking lovers of West Virginia's great outdoors to sign a petition asking West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin to help protect the Blackwater Canyon Trail. The petition drive follows a successful campaign by Friends of Blackwater to get comments to the Forest Service in Elkins calling for Trail protection. The petition campaign will continue until the Forest Service makes a final decision sometime later this year. http://www.saveblackwater.org/ USA: 9) The Bush administration, since taking office in 2000, has been working to fundamentally weaken our country's core environmental law - the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). On August 16 the US Forest Service published their latest attack on this bedrock law: a proposed rule that could jeopardize the core of the NEPA process. This new rule would: 1) reduce citizens' ability to fully participate in decisions that would affect our national forests and grasslands; 2) curtail review and analysis by the Forest Service of environmentally damaging activities; and 3) weaken requirements to fully evaluate past activities on these public lands when making management decisions. ---Make your voice heard, click here to send a letter to the Forest Service urging them not to silence the public's voice in public land management decisions! http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/americanlandsalliance/campaig\ n.jsp?campaign_ KEY=14086 & t=default.dwt Canada: 10) To drive west on the long loop of Highway 11 as it spans northern Ontario is to encounter the vastness of this province. You can go for miles without seeing another vehicle except for the occasional logging truck or tractor-trailer rig. At night the forest forms a black wall on either side of the road. The headlights carve a tunnel though the night, reflecting off the scarred face of Precambrian rock. The radio fades out, the news reports from Toronto or Ottawa replaced by the hiss of the universe. The lights of small towns -- Hearst, Cochrane, Longlac, Geraldton -- where you stop for gas and a coffee come almost as a surprise after the empty miles. Northern Ontario accounts for nearly 90% of Ontario's land mass. It stretches from Georgian Bay in the south to Hudson Bay and James Bay in the north. It cuts across two time zones, from Quebec in the east to the Manitoba border in the west. Residents in northwestern Ontario are closer to Winnipeg than Toronto, which is a two-day drive from Thunder Bay. This image of vastness -- and a few cross-Ontario road trips -- helps to understand the frustration of those who live and work in northern Ontario about what they perceive to be the Toronto-centric obsession of provincial politics. Northerners feel their voice is lost in the cacophony of catering to vote rich southern Ontario. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=46d2b066-5234-42e1-a864-00cae36\ 1a4cb 11) About 84 per cent of Canada's working forests are certified, the report noted, but FSC covers only 14 per cent while SFI covers 26 per cent and CSA 62 per cent. The difference between a FSC forest and a CSA forest " can be negligible or it can be very significant, " depending on a variety of factors, Hamilton said. The SFI program " is weaker with respect to forest management practices ... and is still struggling with credibility issues, " her report found. Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. - which has recently been a target of Greenpeace offensives - uses CSA certification, as do some other members of the Forest Products Association of Canada. In 2002, the association required certification by one of the three programs by the end of 2006, president Avrim Lazar noted yesterday. Canada now has almost 45 per cent of the world's certified forests. " The fact that we are debating in Canada which certification system is the platinum and which the silver and which is the gold standard is cause to celebrate because most other countries have forests that are uncertified for sustainable practices, " Lazar said. " Most of our competitors don't qualify at all. " Kathy Abusow, who recently became president of the U.S.-based SFI, said that she has yet to read the report but that it is " counterproductive " to nitpick about which system is best when only 10 per cent of the world's forests undergoes any form of certification. Greenpeace is more interested in " protecting the brands that it loves, " than " recognizing and rewarding " certification efforts, Abusow said. Yet recognition and reward of best practices is one possible outcome of studies such as EEM's, Rycroft said. It will spur the growth of environment-friendly papers and forest products, said Rycroft, adding that she knows of 10 large Canadian companies looking for paper that has a high content of recycled paper or FSC-virgin fibre. http://www.marketsinitiative.org/ 12) Cold, wet weather has delayed Alberta's plans for three controlled forest fires this fall along its boundary with British Columbia to slow down the pine beetle's voracious march eastward. The province must now wait out the winter and attempt the " prescribed fires " in about six months before warmer spring temperatures cause forests to dry out and wildfire hazards get too high. " Nature's just not co-operating right now, " Rob Harris, a spokesman with Alberta Sustainable Resources, said Friday. The biggest burn was to be a 112-square-kilometre fire in the Kakwa-Willmore interprovincial park north of Jasper National Park. There was also an 80-square kilometre fire planned for an area in the west-central part of the province near Nordegg. " If we do find trees in that area that do have mountain pine beetle in them, we'll still be able to go in there and treat them with single-tree cut-and-burn operations, " said Harris. The third fire planned was a 13-square-kilometre blaze near Mount Nestor near Canmore in an area that straddles Banff National Park and the provincial Spray Valley Park. It lies just one mountain pass over to a swath of B.C. forest that has been completely stricken by the beetle. But as with the other two fires, the province has been waiting for a dry autumn that never came. " The weather's really started to cool down; there's been a lot of precipitation in that area, " said Harris. " Chances are we're not going to get the type of burning conditions that we need to move forward with that prescribed fire. " http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5j4-rwB_bQah99C-X9nAPvNQjx3xQ UK: 13) Pollen records suggest a decline between 4000 and 3000 BC in tree species such as ash and an increase in plants such as nettles and plantains. As ash tends to grow on the edges of woods, its decline could well be associated with the clearance of parts of the wildwood for agriculture, though it may also have disappeared because of disease. It is possible that some parts of the country never quite recovered from this Neolithic clearance. It is thought that some areas like East Anglia and the Somerset levels were largely cleared of the wildwood. Neolithic farmers probably had sheep and goats, which their ancestors brought from the continent, pigs bred from wild boar, and domesticated dogs derived from wolves. The grazing of the goats, sheep and pigs probably had a significant effect on the woodlands of lowland Britain. The farmers also cultivated wheat and barley, which had been grown thousands of years earlier in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. Later metal (copper) tools were used (probably about 2220BC) though flint continued to be important for some time as evidenced by the extensive workings at Grimes Graves, near Thetford. (Here, black floorstone flint was mined from underground shafts using antler picks). The early settlers felled large trees and used them to make wood henges, for example, at Stanton Drew in the West Country. Others have been found, for example Seahenge at Holme next the sea in Norfolk. The posts of this structure (made of oak) have been laser scanned and it seems that many different bronze axes were used to shape the timbers, which indicates a degree of social organization and cohesion. Evidence of farmsteads and settlements dating from 3500 BC have been found near Mildenhall; indeed East Anglia and its coast have yielded many artefacts associated with Neolithic settlers. http://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/trees/the-wildwood-and-onwards/ Russia: 14) Vast and largely desolate Siberia is home to one of the world's largest stands of untouched timber, full of red pine and larch coveted by the pulp and paper industry. These remote northern Russian woods are also right next door to China, where demand for paper and consumer packaging for the country's booming middle class has far outstripped supply. In August, International Paper, the world's biggest paper and packaging company by sales, formed a 50-50 joint venture with Russian mill operator Ilim Group Holdings. If all goes well, one analyst predicts the deal could add almost 10% to the company's 2008 per-share earnings. It's not a move without risks, PricewaterhouseCoopers analyst Craig Campbell said, citing potential political instability, poor infrastructure and a fractured market with numerous competitors. " But it does have potential, " Campbell said. " Ilim is the biggest player, a smart player, with older mills that could benefit from new investment. " Furthermore, International Paper sold almost all its North American timberland to raise $11.3 billion to help pay for the venture, along with its investments in Brazil and Eastern Europe. After paying off about $6.2 billion in debt and buying back about $1.4 billion in stock, that's still a lot of cash investors might not see again if the Russia-China gamble fails. " The unknown is worrisome, sometimes for the right reasons, " Chief Executive John Faraci told MarketWatch. But, he added, IP has been in western Russia since 1999. " We know how to do business there, and we've been successful. " http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/international-paper-heads-wild-russian/sto\ ry.aspx?guid=%7 B7D821B7E-A3AE-4D7A-9294-C00C329509FE%7D Congo: 15) If the vast and isolated forests of the Congo Basin--the second-largest tropical woodlands on the planet--had a capital, it would be this sleepy city of crumbling colonial-era Art Deco buildings and empty boulevards. At the heart of central Africa's great rainforests lies Kisangani, a small city in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) some 1,300 miles from the mouth of the Congo River. The town began as a Belgian trading post, Stanleyville, and was Conrad's model for Kurtz's inner station in Heart of Darkness. No roads connect Kisangani to the rest of the world; over the past two decades they have all collapsed and been retaken by the jungle. Even river navigation is blocked beyond here, as a massive course of falls stretches for sixty miles upstream. Down by the river women sell caterpillars to eat, but no one buys them. The sky is low and gray, but it never seems to rain. In the government buildings, yellow-eyed malarial old men sit in empty offices next to moldering stacks of handwritten files. There are no computers, electricity or, in many offices, even glass in the dark wooden window frames. In a strange twist, this general dilapidation--the result of Congo's traumatic history--has inadvertently preserved Congo's massive tropical forests. First, Mobutu Sese Seko's thirty-two-year kleptocracy destroyed what infrastructure the Belgians had built. Then years of civil war and invasion by Uganda and Rwanda took an estimated 4 million lives, through violence and the attendant ravages of disease. All this chaos warded off the great timber interests. As a result the Congo Basin's massive forests--most of which lie within the DRC--are the world's healthiest and most intact. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071022/parenti Ghana: 16) Chopped, sawn and milled, these logs bring in valuable foreign exchange revenue for the West African country. Timber is one of its biggest foreign exchange earners. But Ghana is losing its forests, as a result of gangs of unlicensed chainsaw operators that devastate the country's forests, depriving the government of revenue in the process. Ghana is currently negotiating a timber trade agreement with the European Union, its biggest export market for timber. The hope is that the deal will reduce illegal logging, reverse the devastation of its forests and halt the slide in timber sales to Europe. The EU is in talks to establish bilateral timber trade agreements with a handful of countries, three of them in West Africa: Ghana, Liberia and Cameroon. Agreement with Ghana is likely to be reached by early 2008. Once implemented, timber products covered by the agreement can only be sold in Europe with a license certifying their legality, says the Ghanaian Forestry Commission's Chris Beeko. But sceptics warn that high domestic demand for timber and a growth in non-European markets may limit the impact of the deal, which is called a voluntary partnership agreement or VPA. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6983895.stm Cameroon: 17) " Illegal forest exploitation is an illness that affects the world's forests, notably tropical forests. It is a problem with multiple repercussions " , Ambassador Puyol said, underscoring the fact that the forestry sector is of primordial socio-economic and political importance to Cameroon. The action plan that came out of the meeting is a new approach in legal logging. " It reflects our commitment towards common effort to combat illegal exploitation " , he said. The implementation of the plan will be done when the Voluntary Partnership Accord will be signed to combine measures to reinforce good governance in forest resources management as well as put in place an exploitation licence to ensure that only legally logged wood is sold in the European Union market. The road map makes provision for the definition of certain concepts: legal timber, application of forestry law, governance, etc. http://allafrica.com/stories/200710050893.html Angola: 18) A seminar to present a study on the special assessment of the state of forests and ecosystems in Angola happens Friday in Luanda, in a promotion of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Minader). The meeting, according to the press release of Minader, aims to equip the participants with information on the use of geographic information systems for the management of the forest resources, as well as to present data of experiences carried out in the provinces of Huambo and Kwanza Sul on the current use of the lands. The already conducted satellite studies on the artography, added the note, will enable the elaboration of an integrated programme of natural resources administration for the forests across the country. During the one-day event, the participants will discuss topics on the " Application of data " , " Methodology of Mapping used in the ongoing project " and " Discussion on the transformation of forests, bushes and sensible ecosystems of Angola " . The meeting gathers officials and technicians of Minader, Forests Development Institute (IDF), representatives of international organisations and guests. http://allafrica.com/stories/200710050122.html Uganda: 19) John Speke, the British explorer, who arrived at Lake Victoria's shores in 1858 after months of braving dense forests and tropical diseases in his search for the Source of the Nile would be shocked if he were to see the lake today. At the time, it is said, the lake water was as clear as the creator intended it to be. Today, intense rains pounding down on barren and degraded lands have swept in tons of phosphorous laden sediments into the lake, adulterating its waters with excessive nutrients thus allowing growth of water weeds. Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium (NPK) are among the basic nutrients plants require for growth. Saddening though, the very phosphorous needed in the farmlands is being swept into the lake and 'poisoning' it. Apart from affecting the quality of water, in the lake, the fact that vast farmlands have been denuded of NPK has brought on the spectre of reduced productivity around the lake's formerly rich agrarian areas. Scientists at the World Agroforestry Centre report that within a generation the land surrounding the lake could degrade to a point where it would pose grave consequences for people living around it. 30 million people in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda derive their livelihood on the more than 65,000 square kilometre lake or it's surrounding areas. Icraf's researchers have come up with the Western Kenya Intergrated Land Management Project, one of the most comprehensive efforts ever undertaken to conserve the areas around the lake.The project, which has already kicked off on the Kenyan side, is also expected to expand to Uganda and Tanzania. So far, the research team involved has combined field surveys and satellite imagery with advanced analytical techniques to create detailed maps that pinpoint soils and their nutritional problems. With grants in excess of of $60 million from Global Environment Facility and World Bank, the project will see large scale planting of indigenous tree species on abandoned agricultural land and planting of carefully crafted mixtures of improved species that farmers can use to produce a range of marketable products including fruits, firewood and timber, in addition to helping farmers adopt more sustainable agricultural practices. http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=85110 Kenya: 20) As a follow up to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), the World Resources Institute together with the International Livestock Research Institute and the Kenya Government have published an innovative new atlas of Kenya. Nature's Benefits in Kenya explores the link between ecosystem services and poor people, overlaying socio-economic information with spatial data on ecosystem goods and services. The atlas shows the location and status of key environmental resources - including water, biodiversity, agricultural land and forest land - and the ways poor people use these resources. This atlas demonstrates the contribution that visual aids such as maps can make to this debate, analyzing competing demands for different ecosystem services - food, water, wood - across one region, the Upper Tana River watershed. Whereas academic journals may be intimidating or inaccessible to many, maps can be powerful communication tools that can be used by professionals and public alike, allowing patterns, trends, and clusters to be easily identified. There are many limitations - not least, that not all ecosystem services and social processes relevant to poverty are easily mapped. Even for those aspects that can be mapped, the final product is only as good as the data that goes into it. Yet both poverty and environmental data can be patchy, unreliable and open to wide interpretation. Even when good data are available, the analysis may reveal little about the causes of poverty, or changes in the underlying processes and functions of natural environmental systems. Nonetheless, as a first step to more closely examine potential synergies and tradeoffs among different ecosystem services the report authors point out that " such a visual and geographic approach may let policymakers 'see' Kenya's natural systems in a new light, helping them to visualize ways to use those systems to alleviate poverty. " http://www.wri.org/biodiv/pubs_description.cfm?pid=4279 21) Farmers from four districts in the North Rift region want the Government to reinstate the shamba system in public forests to boost food security. The farmers from Nandi North and South, Uasin Gishu and Keiyo districts petitioned the Government to allow them to carry out farming activities in public forests while taking care of the planted tree seedlings. " The system had proved beneficial in terms of attaining food security and improving afforestation efforts hence the Government should consider re-introducing it, " former assistant minister for Planning Elijah Sumbeiywo said. The system was banned more than five years ago as a measure by Government to contain wanton destruction of forest cover through illegal logging activities. Environment and Natural Resources minister David Mwiraria recently disclosed plans by the Government to re-introduce the system following pleas from some leaders and farmers. But the North Rift farmers asked the Government to prepare a clear environmental conservation policy instead of banning the shamba system. " Lack of sufficient manpower and adequate financial allocation has made it impossible for the Kenya Forestry Services to carry out tree planting exercise on cleared plantations, " said Mr Samuel Kirui of Nandi South district. http://allafrica.com/stories/200710021106.html 22) Once upon a time, Maathai said, a hummingbird saw a raging forest fire. The other animals gathered at a safe distance and watched the trees burn. Some just stood around and stared at their hooves. Others neighed in resignation. But the hummingbird was a creature of action. It flew to a nearby lake, put a bead of water on its beak and ferried the drop to the flames. It did this over and over. The bird hoped to fight the fire, one drop at a time. Other animals -- including lions, zebras and a jackass or two (yes, they're everywhere) -- teased the bird for being hopelessly optimistic and shouted discouragements. Eventually, the hummingbird had heard enough. It chirped back at the cynics who wondered why such a small bird bothered to take on such a big fire. " I'm doing the best I can, " the humble hummingbird sighed. " That's all we can do. " On her way to becoming a force for nature, Maathai fought gender discrimination (women weren't supposed to earn a Ph.D., she heard) and other doubters. But the tale of the hummingbird also is a metaphor for anyone who has tackled a seemingly insurmountable challenge. Hummingbirds are all around us, not always recognized and sometimes rebuked, but they steadfastly march to the beat of their own wings. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/333659_robert29.html Guyana: 23) Dismissed Assistant Commissioner of Forests Rudolph Adams is claiming that he was fired because he refused to carry out an illegal act. And the former top official is threatening to disclose all he knows. Adams 's statements are the latest twists for the forestry sector, which has been taking quite a hammering from critics. Last week, Minister with responsibility for the forests, Robert Persaud, and Guyana Forestry Commissioner James Singh, in a press conference, announced that several companies are being investigated for allegedly under-declaring their forest production and incorrectly stating the origin of logs harvested. If the accusations prove true, the infringements would also have severe implications on Government's revenues and would indicate forestry employees' illegal collusion with businesses, it was stated at the press conference. Speaking with Kaieteur News, Adams said he was dismissed because he insisted on inspecting a shipment of logs belonging to a Chinese company. Speaking out for the first time, Adams said that his troubles all started on July 21 this year. As Assistant Commissioner of Forests - Quality Control division, Adams said that, according to regulations, he had the authority to inspect logs, although GFC has inspectors specifically for this purpose. On the said day, he was informed by a junior employee that a shipment was coming from Kwakwani, Berbice River . As per normal, a team was assembled and checks were made for the shipment at the various wharves. http://guyanaforestryblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/forestry-official-breaks-silence.\ html 24) An indigenous group in Guyana has established one of the world's largest sustainable forest reserves, reports Conservation International. The Wai Wai, a forest-dwelling people who received title to 625,000 hectares (1.54 million acres) of land in 2004, will build a " conservation economy " based on principals of sustainable use. With assistance from conservation scientists, the Wai Wai will seek to develop ecotourism and expand their traditional craft business. " We have always been keepers of the forests that support us, and now it is official, recognized by the government and the world, " said Cemci Sose, chief of the Wai Wai. " The immediate challenge we face is creating economic opportunity through the Community Owned Conservation Area to prevent our young people from leaving, which could destroy our community. " Conservation International, an environmental group that is working with the Wai Wai, hopes that the reserve will generate additional income from payments for ecosystem services, like carbon sequestration and watershed protection. Carbon credits for forest conservation could be worth tens of millions annually to Guyana. " This shows the power of giving land rights to indigenous populations, because they know what's best for their communities, " CI President Russell A. Mittermeier said. " The Wai Wai could have sold off the timber and other natural assets for a one-time payoff, but instead they chose to protect the rainforest and allow future generations to continue to benefit from it. " http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1003-ci_guyana.html South America: 25) Vast areas of Brazil and Paraguay and much of Bolivia are choking under thick layers of smoke as fires rage out of control in the Amazon rainforest, forcing the cancellation of flights. Satellite images yesterday showed huge clouds of smoke and much of the Amazon basin burning as fires, originally set by ranchers to clear land, have raged into the forest itself. From Santa Cruz in the east of Bolivia, where flights have been grounded, to the Brazilian frontier city of Porto Velho, where the river Madeira has been made unnavigable, burning smoke has blocked out the sun and local communities have begun to complain of respiratory disorders. Roberto Smeraldi, head of Friends of the Earth Brazil, said the situation was out of control: " We have a strong concentration of fires, corresponding to more than 10,000 points of fire across a large area of about two million sq km in the southern Brazilian Amazon and Bolivia. " Each year at the end of the dry season, in anticipation of the first winter rains, farmers and cattle ranchers throughout South America set fires to " renovate " pasture land. But this age-old cycle has spun out of control as deforestation and climate change have created a tinderbox. There has also been a massive expansion of cattle ranching into forested areas, where fires are then set to clear an area after chainsaws have felled the trees. Mr Smeraldi was clear on who was to blame for this year's fires: " They are mainly, I would say more than 90 per cent, the result of expanding cattle ranching. " The first rains have arrived but they are weaker than usual in most areas and have been useless against the fires. In the past three years Brazil's National Development Bank and the World Bank have poured funds into the southern Amazon, fuelling the expansion of the cattle industry with new slaughterhouses and four million additional head of cattle arriving in exactly the areas where the fires are now. Conservationists have said that while governments insist they are doing their utmost to stop deforestation they have been putting in place incentives for the destruction of the forest. " It is taxpayers' money fuelling these fires, " said Mr Smeraldi. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3028701.ece 26) Meanwhile, in Argentina, a recent symposium on the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA), highlighted threats to the Amazon. Timothy Killeen, a U.S. biologist living in Bolivia who works for Conservation International's Centre for Applied Biodiversity Science (CABS), presented his research report " A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness: Development and Conservation in the Context of the IIRSA " , at one of the workshops. .... Of the 10 corridors planned across the Amazon region, nine cross the highly biodiverse Amazon wilderness area, the world's largest intact tropical forest, which provides global environmental services such as carbon sequestration, water resources and climate regulation. .... " Unfortunately, IIRSA has been designed without adequate consideration of its potential environmental and social impacts. It should incorporate measures to ensure that the region's renewable natural resources are conserved and its traditional communities strengthened, " the report says. Among his proposals, Killeen advocates programmes that reward people who do not deforest land, instead of those who do. According to his estimates, governments could subsidise longer logging cycles, or benefit from the new market in carbon credits. " The largest -- and as yet unexploited -- economic asset in the Amazon is its carbon stocks, which we estimate to be worth 2.8 trillion dollars if monetised in today's markets, " according to the report. If Amazonian countries agree to reduce their present rate of deforestation by five percent a year for 30 years, they would achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that could be converted into credits and used to pay for the health and education needs of thousands of municipalities in the region, the report says. http://words-of-power.blogspot.com/2007/10/sustainability-update-10-5-07-ask-the\ m.html Brazil: 27) I made the trip with the World Land Trust, which specializes in the buying-up of endangered habitats. And here's the good news: a complex series of talks and meetings have been set up with a view to buying up crucial areas – wildlife corridors – of the Atlantic rainforest in Brazil. There's just 4 per cent of it left. Here's the snag: you don't march into a foreign country and start buying it up. That's neocolonialism and a Bad Thing. And you can't buy an area of forest and consider that you've done a good job. The place needs to be visited, patrolled and looked after: otherwise poachers of both animal and trees will move in, and others will simply take the place over. It's a ticklish business, involving the funding of a local NGO for the purchase, and subsequent advice on development and maintenance. I paid a visit to the Reserva Ecológica di Guapi Assu, where purchases, aided by WLT, have already been made and stunning areas of forest have been made safe. That's where I climbed slopes so steep a man would need to use his hands in places – but my horse, a skinny beast of bottomless stamina, marched up with a bounce in his stride between the soaring pillars of the trees beneath the vaulted roof of the canopy. It's impossible to enter either rainforest or a cathedral without a feeling of reverence. It's not because a forest is like a cathedral but because a cathedral is like a forest. I did genuflect as I entered: though to inspect an ocelot scat. There was the burrow of an armadillo, a place where the howlers howl, a pool with butterflies of quite astonishing beauty and diversity. But never mind all that: here, the forest itself is the star: a place of epic silences, for though the place is species-rich, it has always been population-poor. Which makes it the more fragile. But as you walk the forest paths – snaking vines, moss-laden trunks, branches bearing impossible burdens of bromeliads - it is the strength of the place that gets to you: its integrity, its endlessness. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/simon_barnes/article2599272.\ ece Nepal: 28) The World Bank has agreed to provide $5 million in assistance to co-finance the setting up of 37,000 biogas plants in rural areas of Nepal. The World Bank administered Global Partnership on Output Based Aid (GPOBA) has signed a grant agreement with the Nepalese government under the fourth phase of the Biogas Support Program (BSP-IV). The Project will be implemented by the Alternate Energy Promotion Center (AEPC). The grant is co-funded by the United Kingdom 's Department for International Development (DFID). The project aims to replace traditional energy sources used by the rural population, such as fire wood and kerosene, with modern biogas plants. Biogas digesters use anaerobic decomposition of organic material to produce a methane-rich which can be used for cooking and light. GPOBA's grant will sponsor new biogas plants ranging in capacity from 4m3 to 10m3. Even the smallest plants with a 4m3 capacity produce enough gas to run a cooking stove for nearly 2.5 hours daily. Women and girls, who are traditionally responsible for running the household, colleting firewood and cooking, will be among the project's primary beneficiaries. Furthermore, access to biogas will enable families to use gas lanterns after sunset to provide light for children's studies or other household activities. http://biopact.com/2007/10/world-bank-to-provide-5-million-for.html India: 29) What constitutes a forest in India is all set to change if the new definition proposed by the ministry of environment and forests goes through. The definition of a forest is critical because of the Forest Rights Act enacted last December, which aims to give land and rights of forest resources to tribals residing in these forests. This comes right after the ministry also notified core areas of tiger and wildlife sanctuaries as off-limits for any habitation. According to the proposed definition, which has at present been sent to all the states for comment, " any area notified as forest in any Act or recorded as forests in any government record " will be forest. Further explanation of the definition says that any area having trees, scrub, grassland, wetland, water body, desert, geomorphic or any other features and any area variously recorded as jungle or forest, such as chhote bade jhad ka jangal, jhudupi jungal (shrubland), unclassified state forests and so on, on community-owned lands will also come under Central control as they will be classified as a forest. However, the definition excludes man-made plantations, orchards and agro-forestry tree crops on private and community-owned land from its purview. The ministry, before finalizing the definition, had initiated a consultative process with the not-for-profit Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, which had proposed three options. However, none of them were taken into consideration. " The definition is too simplistic and completely unacceptable. It will open up numerous arenas for dispute and conflict, " said Sanjay Upadhyay, a Supreme Court advocate specializing in forestry rights and environment. http://www.livemint.com/2007/10/06001803/Redefining-forests-may-hurt-tr.html 30) When gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi decided to throw the gauntlet at the Central Government, he probably did not know that it was the Supreme Court that he was defying. In his " civil disobedience movement " on Gandhi Jayanti, Modi handed over ownership rights of forest land to 30 tribals. He promised to dispatch documents to the remaining 2,204 encroachers soon. On Friday, responding to an interim application filed by Amicus Curiae Harish Salve, the Supreme Court directed the Gujarat Government to immediately cancel the pattas. They reminded the state that it would be a violation of Supreme Court orders until the Government notifies the Tribal Act passed by Parliament in December 2006. The application said that there is a procedure laid down for state governments to request regularisation of forest land by applying to the Ministry of Forests and Environment. States like Orissa and Chhatisgarh have followed it in the past. Regularisation of encroachments is the biggest reason for reduction in forest cover, it said. The matter was brought to the attention of the court by the Central Empowered Committee (CEC), the Supreme-Court-appointed panel on forest-related issues. A day after Modi's public announcement, they had written a strongly-worded letter to the Gujarat Chief Secretary asking him to cancel all the pattas and file an Action Taken Report at the earliest. They had also written to the Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests to conduct an 'immediate inquiry " and issue " directions " to cancel these allotments. http://www.indianexpress.com/story/225222.html 31) When Abdul Mallek, his two wives and three children reached Kaki reserve forest of Karbi Anglong district sometime during the Karbi-Kuki ethnic bloodbath in 2003, only a few migrant families had huts inside the dense forest where nobody dared to move even at daytime. Now, after four years, the number of families residing inside the forest is over 300. The fallout: rapid depletion of the dense green cover. " Some of us cultivate fields in the reserve forest areas which had been cleared. Others prefer working with those who come to collect timber, " explained Mallek, who visited Lumding first referral unit recently for treatment of his malaria-stricken eight-year-old daughter Sulema. Mallek is an expert woodcutter who can fell four large trees in a single day. " We work on a contractual basis. Our duty ends after we load the timber onto trucks, " he said. Timber mafiosi and militants, in cahoots with a section of dishonest forest officials, pose a grave threat to the green cover of almost all the reserve forests of Karbi Anglong. The Kaki reserve forest covers an area of 121.49 sq km, but rampant felling has turned what was once a dense jungle into a mere grassland. A cubic foot of segun wood costs Rs 150 in the Nagaon-Karbi Anglong border belt. With pirated transit passes, such timber is ferried through central Assam to Guwahati, where the rate shoots up to Rs 1,400 per cubic foot. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071006/asp/northeast/story_8397982.asp Indonesia: 32) Headed by Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal & Security Affairs, Widodo A.S., the team was expected to settle the logging case in Riau, a crisis that led the Forestry Minister and National Police Chief to a tense debate. Sixteen echelon I officials are in this team. Besides police, forestry and prosecution institutions, the Environment Minister's Office, the Industry Department, the Home Affairs Department and the State Intelligence Agency are also represented. The President asked the team to settle three main issues: the collection of accurate data on Riau's forests, utilization of seized timber, and legal action against illegal-logging suspects. A great task was indeed ahead of the team members. Apart from holding meetings, they flew to the location where piles of timber were sealed by the Riau Regional Police in the forest of Sungai Gaung, Indragiri Hilir. The wood produced by PT Bina Duta Laksana, a partner of PT Indah Kiat Pulp & Paper, had some problems. The license was for chipped wood but a lot of logs over 30 centimeters in diameter were discovered, which was against the rule. The license issued to Bina Duta by Riau Governor Rusli Zaenal when he was Regent of Indragiri Hilir was seen as procedurally flawed. The Riau Police Chief had sent a request that the President allow the examination of the governor. Rusli himself denied having issued an illegitimate license. " My God, I will explain everything about it later, " Rusli told Tempo. The Joint Team has met already at least nine times to thoroughly resolve Riau's timber looting case, most frequently in the Bima Room, the main room at the Coordinating Minister for Security's Office. http://sobat-hutan.blogspot.com/2007/10/sobat-hutan-fruit-from-poison-tree.html Australia: 33) Police arrested a man in Hobart yesterday for chaining himself to a log truck to protest against the approval of the Gunns pulp mIll. About 20 protesters stopped a log truck on Macquarie Street near Franklin Square, about 3:30 AEST yesterday afternoon, while one of them shackled himself under the vehicle. The truck was heading to the woodchip mill at Triabunna. Warrick Jordan from the Huon Valley Environment Centre says those opposed to the decision will keep voicing their opposition. " We're here to highlight the fact that Tasmania's democratic processes have been subverted, " he said. " The Gunns pulp mill will consume vast quantities of ancient forest, such as those in the Weld, the Styx and the upper Florentine. " http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/06/2052529.htm 34) BRUNY Island tourist operators are furious that the hills directly behind historic Adventure Bay will soon be logged. Forestry Tasmania plans to clearfell alternate strips of a 30ha block of state forest next to the popular Mavista Falls reserve and rainforest walk behind Adventure Bay. New logging roads into the area will be constructed in November, with six to eight weeks of logging in April when the peak summer tourism season is past. Tourism operators on Bruny Island have branded the logging plans an outrage and claim they have been kept in the dark. Logging on Bruny Island ceased last November after locals and forest workers identified a high number of rare swift parrots in areas targeted to be logged. Former fisherman Rob Pennicott, who runs Bruny Island Charters boat wildlife trips, said many tourism operators and locals had hoped the temporary moratorium meant the end of logging in areas frequented by tourists. He said he feared the sight of log trucks and clear-felled forests would negatively impact on tourists who came to the island for its clean beaches, wildlife and forests. Mr Pennicott was also worried about the increased chance of accidents involving log trucks and tourists unused to driving on narrow dirt roads. " We all believe forestry is important, but to log such a sensitive area so heavily that will be so visible to tourists is just a bad move, " Mr Pennicott said. Artist and Adventure Bay accommodation operator Barry Weston queried how the logging industry, which employed fewer than 10 people on Bruny, could take precedence over the interests of more than 100 residents who were engaged and employed in tourism. http://www.sundancechannel.com/blogs/thegreen/390255646/ 35) Malcolm Turnbull has done what Gunns and the Prime Minister required and approved the pulp mill. But he hasn't taken it off the election agenda – this is far from over. Mr Turnbull is saying that the conditions he's put on the marine effluent, and saving 400ha of forest, make this a world's best practice mill. But how can a mill which will destroy 200,000ha of magnificent forest, 500 times what's being protected, be world's best practice? How can a mill that pumps effluent, albeit less than it might, into a pristine environment be world's best practice? How can a mill that adds 10 million tonnes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere every year be world's best practice? Mr Turnbull didn't answer those questions, because he decided he didn't have to. He is attempting to argue that his capacity to act was very limited, but he has broad powers under the EPBC Act that he ignored. A case in point is the greenhouse gas emissions from the pulp mill which he chose not to assess, even though he has the power to do so under the EPBC Act. He chose not to even though the greenhouse emissions from the project were to be assessed under the joint Commonwealth / State approved assessment process conducted by the RPDC in Tasmania. When Gunns withdrew from the RPDC process and Minister Turnbull offered an alternative Commonwealth process, he chose not to include greenhouse gas emissions. http://greensblog.org/2007/10/04/worlds-best-practice-pulp-mill-my-foot/ World-wide: 36) Without even factoring in the paper wrapping, packaging and print advertisements - which require as much paper by weight as the tobacco being grown - nearly 600 million trees are felled each year to provide the fuel necessary for drying out the tobacco. That means one in eight trees cut down each year worldwide is being destroyed for tobacco production. In South Korea and Uruguay, tobacco-related deforestation accounts for more than 40 percent of the countries' total annual deforestation. While in Malawi, in a region where only three percent of the farmers grow tobacco, nearly 80 percent of the trees cut down each year are used for the curing process. http://robinnixon.com/blog/2007/10/01/1-in-8-trees-are-destroyed-for-tobacco-pro\ duction/ 37) The international study adds numbers to the equation: As little as 10% loss of forest cover leads to a an increase of as much as 28% in flood risk, according to the Charles Darwin University and the National University of Singapore research, written about in today's Straits Times of Singapore. Nearly 100,000 people died, 320 million were displaced and $1.15 trillion in damages was sustained due to flooding in 56 developing countries across Africa, Asia and South America in the 1990s. Analyzing records of forest cover and using a complex mathematical model, the scientists estimated that a 10% loss of forest cover leads to an increase of flood risk of between 4% and 28%. The loss of forest is also a major contributor to global warming. Because of deforestation, Indonesia is the No. 3 contributor to climate change, behind China and the United States, where the contribution comes from burning coal and other fossil fuels, primarily. This study could provide some additional political support for retaining forests in developing nations, but larger schemes that have industrialized nations funding forest protection in the third world will most likely be needed, since economic development in many forested nations relies on logging, farming and other practices that can be destructive to forests. http://www.thedailygreen.com/2007/09/28/a-little-deforestation-makes-a-big-flood\ /7327/ 38) The Forest Stewardship Council's certification of sustainable forestry practices is growing, with 50% of the paper product market share and 226 million acres accounted for. Advocates say the demand for recycled paper and sustainably harvested pulp from consumers, advertisers, magazine makers and other users of paper will yield the fastest reforms of the industry. http://www.thedailygreen.com/2007/10/02/15-facts-about-paper-industry-and-the-en\ vironment/7447/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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