Guest guest Posted December 25, 2007 Report Share Posted December 25, 2007 Today for you 32 new articles about earth's trees! (272nd edition) Subscribe / send blank email to: earthtreenews- Weblog: http://olyecology.livejournal.com --British Columbia: 1) Grand Fir die-off --Washington: 2) Weyco's legacy of ruin --Oregon: 3) We're country folk and we're mad as hell, 4) 40,000 family forests, --California: 5) Gap family wants Maxxam land, 6) UCSC treesit, 7) Beaver saved, --Montana: 8) Jocko and Chippy fire salvage planned, 9) Poisonous precipitation, --New Mexico: 10) Legacy Road and Trail Remediation Program --Missouri: 11) Champion Cherrybark Oak --Massachusetts: 12) $1.4 Billion Environmental Bond Bill --Maine: 13) $3.25 million for Lower Penobscot Forest Project --East Coast Forests: 14) Long live the GE-free Chestnut trees --Latvia: 15) Wild Christmas trees dwindling fast --Iceland: 16) Rich soils once forested now mostly desert --Congo: 17) Batwa people driven off the land --Cameroon: 18) Baka people driven off the land --Tanzania: 19)A unit to curb illegal harvesting, 20) China ruining country, --Bolivia: 21) Elite unit of Field Museum scientists defend forest --Brazil: 22) 700 more federal police to the Amazon River basin --Peru: 23) Roads in the southern highlands --Chile: 24) Darwin first visited Chiloé Island in 1834 --Sri Lanka: 25) A Tourism Earth Lung program for Galle rainforest --Kashmir: 26) Wular lake used by timber gov backed timber smugglers --Nepal: 27) Refusal to hand over 6,000 community forests in Terai --Indonesia: 28) Mandatory tree planting for every citizen being urged --Malaysia: 29) Danum Valley's blue-green fringe being devoured --World-wide: 30) Mature forests really do absorb more carbon, 31) Bali Summary, 32) Bali ignores biodiversity issues, British Columbia: 1) Found in abundance in the Pacific northwest, including southeastern Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland, the grand fir thrives in wet, rainy conditions. Grown extensively on commercial Christmas tree farms, the fragrant conifer can reach heights of up to 75 metres and live to be 300 years old in the wild. Yet many of Oak Bay's grand firs are dying before they hit 100, Mr. Paul said, pointing to a scattering of ivy-covered stumps next to a chip trail winding through scenic Henderson Park. In neighbouring Saanich, parks staff have removed dozens of middle-aged grand firs from Cuthbert Holmes Park, Knockan Hill Park and other areas in recent years. " Saanich has had quite a lot of grand firs die in our parks. It's generally being attributed to a lack of rainfall, " said arborist Brent Ritsom, who has worked for the municipality for 20 years. " We are cutting trees down that are up to three feet in diameter. It's very unusual. " The grand fir can be highly sensitive to development, but Mr. Ritsom said many of Saanich's dying grand firs are located in forested areas where they would normally be expected to thrive. Richard Hebda, curator of botany and earth history at the Royal B.C. Museum, said the grand fir's plight mirrors that of the western red cedar, another giant West Coast conifer that has been ravaged by changing weather patterns and the lack of summer moisture. " I'm almost certain the same issue is affecting the grand fir. Oak Bay is one of the driest parts of the Island, " he said. Two years ago, Mr. Hebda embarked on a climate-change mapping project that ultimately predicted the demise of the western red cedar and other plant species on southeastern Vancouver Island within 50 years. The computerized maps, now part of a climate-change exhibit in the museum, assume that average temperatures in the region will rise between three and five degrees by the middle of the century. http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=90661 Washington: 2) RE: " Mudslide photo spurs look at logging practices, " Local News, Dec. 16. - The photo captures in an instant the foul obscenity that is perpetrated on our planet every day so that the bottom line will look just a little better at the end of the next quarter. Even more sickening is that this activity is all perfectly legal and approved by corporate-owned stooges in the government. The photo also illustrates the axiom " watch what they do, not what they say. " Look at Ringman's photograph. Now look at Weyerhaeuser's " Values " statement on their corporate Web page where they proclaim we " hold ourselves to the highest standards of ethical conduct and environmental responsibility. " Weyerhaeuser has known for decades that clear-cut logging on such terrain inevitably leads to " catastrophic events. " On the Chehalis River itself, the USGS long ago determined that such forest practices are a major contributor of sediment to Grays Harbor (where tax dollars are spent to dredge the shipping channel). During the negotiations for the Forests and Fish rules in 1998, Weyerhaeuser and the rest of the timber industry refused to stop these high-risk logging practices. Stillman Creek running chocolate, rafts of logging debris in the floodplain, and heavily damaged aquatic habitat are the direct results. I don't know if it is incompetence, corruption or both, but the net result is corporate and regulatory malpractice of the highest order. I challenge Gov. Christine Gregoire to vigorously enforce state laws, and clean agency house. The article also states that the state gave approval for the clear-cutting based on a report prepared by a Weyerhaeuser employee. Huh? How do I get that kind of deal? It would be so cool to be the one who provides the information that determines how the government regulates me. Wow, I could do pretty much anything I wanted. Without the Weyerhaeuser geologist's report, according to the article, the state would have had to send out a geologist who actually works for the state. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004086783_sunlets23.html Oregon: 3) Day Owen stood on the steps of the U.S. Courthouse in Eugene on Friday and brandished a rusty pitchfork before the assembled crowd. " We're country folk and we're mad as hell, " he exclaimed. Mad in general about the logging and herbicide spraying going on in the forests of the Coast Range near his farm in Triangle Lake. Mad specifically about a proposal by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to nearly triple logging on the land it manages in Western Oregon, a big portion of it in the Coast Range. At issue is the Western Oregon Plan Review, which would change the way the BLM manages 2.6 million acres of forest in Western Oregon, including about 285,000 acres in Lane County, or about 10 percent of the county's land mass. The BLM's preferred alternative calls for clear-cutting areas designated for logging; reducing habitat set aside for northern spotted owls and marbled murrelets — both listed as threatened species; reducing buffers along rivers and streams; adding 1,000 miles of roads; and cutting down more than 100,000 acres of trees that are 120 years and older. The plan would provide economic benefits, including revenue for county governments, plus logging and other wood-products jobs. A spirited crowd of more than 200 people, including a contingent of high school students from Network Charter School in Eugene, braved chilly temperatures to hear speakers denounce the BLM plan and the timber industry. " We need to stop negotiating and start fighting, " said Tim Hermach, president of the Eugene-based Native Forest Council. " This is a nature-¬killing industry and we have to stop them " Owen and his wife, Neila Rose, are co-founders of a grassroots group called the Pitchfork Rebellion, which is offering an alternative to the WOPR, as the BLM plan is known, dubbed the " People's Preferred Option. " We've got to stop these clear-cuts. We've got to stop the spraying. We've got to stop the cutting of old growth, " Rose said. " Their plan calls on BLM to manage its forests as old growth tree reserves, and treat them as carbon storage areas to help protect the earth against global warming. Under their plan, rural counties that in the past have received revenues from the logging of federal forests would instead get payments from the federal government for keeping those forests as carbon storage areas. http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=3926\ 9 & sid=4 & fid=1 4) There are more than 40,000 family forest landowners in Oregon today. They mostly go unnoticed, although they produce 16 percent of Oregon's wood products and maintain lands important for drinking water, wildlife and recreation. Combined, they own 5 million acres of prime Oregon forestland, or 40 percent of Oregon's private forests, in parcels ranging from two acres to 5,000 acres or more. Some family forests are in their fifth or sixth generation of ownership. But, will these family forests continue through the next generation? In Oregon, 20 percent of family forestland owners are 75 or older. In many cases, the next generation has no interest in managing forestlands, or lacks the financial ability to do so. When inheritance taxes come due, if the family is unprepared, a crisis can ensue. Trees may be cut to pay taxes, or the property sold for development. While families may not want to see their lands converted, there is tremendous pressure to transform tree farms for subdivisions or shopping malls or other non-forest uses. Nationwide, almost 2 million acres of forestland are annually being converted, and this is likely to be just the edge of a tidal wave. The economic sustainability of private forests is a very significant component of this issue. Since 1980, real prices received for timber products have declined, while the values of alternative uses have escalated, along with the costs of providing more benefits desired by the public and mandated through regulation, such as enhanced wildlife habitat. It may not be financially feasible or equitable for families to shoulder these burdens alone. Fortunately, there is optimism on a number of fronts. Incentives such as conservation easements and carbon credits are emerging as alternatives to exclusive reliance on regulation, and programs like OSU's " Ties to the Land " are being developed to assist families with keeping their lands. In Europe, a family forest management plan might project 400 years into the future. Innovative financial incentives and long-term planning that involves the younger generation can help keep family forests intact for the future. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/argus/index.ssf?/base/news/119825580536530.xml & co\ ll=6 California: 5) The San Francisco family that founded the Gap has promised to invest $200 million in a plan to revive the bankrupt Pacific Lumber Co. and restore its heavily logged redwood forests - but only if a federal judge in Texas evicts its current owner, Houston financier Charles Hurwitz and his Maxxam Corp. The dramatic proposal backed by the clan of San Francisco billionaires led by Donald and Doris Fisher, was aired Friday in federal Bankruptcy Court in Corpus Christi, Texas, where Pacific Lumber sought Chapter 11 protection in January after missing a payment on about $750 million in bonds. That debt is a legacy of the financing Maxxam secured in 1986, when former junk-bond king Michael Milken helped Hurwitz acquire Pacific Lumber in one of the leveraged buyouts of the 1980s. To pay that buyout debt, Maxxam greatly increased Pacific Lumber's harvest of redwoods, sparking a spate of tree-sitting and other environmental protests during the past two decades. Not until April will the Texas Bankruptcy Court decide who gets to own what in this complex case. But the environmentalists who have long been Maxxam's most-vocal critics welcomed the Fisher plan to have one of the family's current holdings, the 9-year-old Mendocino Redwood Co., essentially clone itself to take over Pacific Lumber. " It would be a vast improvement over the current situation if Mendocino Redwood Co. were to become the owner of (Pacific Lumber Co.'s) land, " said Sam Johnston, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Information Center in Garberville (Humboldt County). But Pacific Lumber general counsel Frank Bacik said his firm stands behind its own reorganization plan and considered itself on par with the Fisher-backed company when it comes to logging practices. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/22/MN8JU2ICL.DTL 6) On December 21st, security guards at the Physical Sciences Building diligently watched over the parking lot on Science Hill where tree-sitters have been occupying Coast Redwoods since November 7th in protest of UCSC's Long Range Development Plan. Someone up in the cluster of trees dubbed " Tree 1 " confirmed what Grrr reported in a comment on SC-IMC, that on December 20th, two carloads of cops accosted the Raging Grannies in the parking lot and then arrested a young woman who allegedly attempted to climb a tree. Despite UCSC's recent actions against perceived protesters, people continue to bring bags of supplies to either the base of the trees or directly to the sitters in the platform high above the ground. The parking lot and trees are slated to be replaced by a highly-controversial Biomedical Sciences building, the first project under the University's plan to develop 120 acres of forest in order to accommodate 4,500 new students by 2020. The Biomedical Sciences building will have no allotted classroom space, despite ongoing complaints about overcrowded class sizes. However, it will have room for live animal experimentation, which includes practices such as food/air deprivation, infection, and non-anesthetized surgery, according to campus guidelines. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/12/21/18468361.php 7) Bakersfield plans to spare the life of a bothersome beaver blamed for gnawing down nine cottonwood trees along a popular bike path. Thursday, the California Department of Fish and Game announced it planned to exterminate the beaver, which lives near a path along the Kern River. Bakersfield Recreation and Parks Department Director Dianne Hoover says she's asking the state wildlife agency to rescind a permit to kill the beaver. Instead, the city wants to relocate the animal or find another alternative solution. An animal welfare researcher at Indiana University is also talking with local officials to try to find a zoo where the beaver could live in a captive setting. http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_7781815?nclick_check=1 Montana: 8) Some of the state's largest wildfires over the summer didn't burn everything in their paths and some foresters are already busy checking out the Jocko Lakes and Chippy Creek burn areas for salvageable timber. The Jocko Lakes project calls for salvage over an area of approximately 2,000 acres and the Chippy Creek project calls for salvage over an area of up to 3,750 acres. Overall, about 140,000 acres burned in the Lolo National Forest last summer and officials say the projects would also provide for restoration and road work. Salvage logging on some of the burned areas could begin as early as next fall and winter. http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/global/story.asp?s=7535058 & ClientType=Printab\ le 9) Bits of ammonium - a nitrogen compound associated with agricultural operations and fertilizers - are hitchhiking on the snow and rain that fall onto Yellowstone, Glacier and other national parks in the intermountain West. In high enough levels, ammonium can trigger subtle changes in the natural functions of lakes, ponds, insects and flowers. Yellowstone and Glacier are among nine parks where " significant worsening trends " of ammonium in the air were found, according to a recent National Park Service report on air quality trends from 1996 to 2005. In Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park, scientists studying the effects of increasing ammonium for years are starting to see shifts on the alpine tundra, where wildflowers are giving way to grasses. That not only reduces the diversity of plants and impedes the growth of one of the park's main summer visitor attractions, but also could have a harmful effect on pollinating insects. Scientists are watching for other changes, too, including to forests in the park and to tiny life forms that live in high-elevation lakes. " What we're experiencing now could easily be something that Yellowstone could see in the future, " said Jeff Connor, a natural-resource specialist at Rocky Mountain National Park. For now, though, Rocky Mountain park has higher levels than Yellowstone or Glacier. Overall, the air quality in Yellowstone still good. Visibility is improving and the presence of ground-level ozone - listed as a concern for several years in the trend studies - appears to have leveled off. http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/12/22/news/state/21-rainfall.txt New Mexico: 10) A chunk of money in the newly approved federal omnibus appropriations bill will be devoted to watershed restoration, and Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians is hoping to attract some of the money to New Mexico. The conservation group already has a $360,000 Forest Service three-year grant to decommission some Santa Fe National Forest roads, which is one step in restoring watersheds, according to Forest Guardians program director Bryan Bird. The federal appropriations bill included $39.4 million for a " Legacy Road and Trail Remediation Program " — funds that can be used to reclaim or repair Forest Service roads that are contributing to water quality problems. Santa Fe National Forest is criss-crossed by hundreds of miles of roads that shed water and sediment into streams. Restoring some of them to a more natural state will take money and time, Bird said, but could create much-needed jobs in the rural communities near national forests. " Roads change hydrology, create erosion and unnatural run-off, " he said. " When you don't have roads on a forest landscape, you get more saturation of water into soil covered by vegetation. " Bird likened high road densities to a " parking lot effect. Water hits this compacted dirt and just runs off quickly into streams. " Forest Guardians received a Forest Service collaborative forest restoration grant two years ago to dig up, cover over and reseed some old logging roads in the Jemez Mountains, Bird said. Most of the time has been spent waiting for archaeologists to make sure the road work won't disturb archaeological sites. He said the organization plans to hire heavy equipment operators from Chama and other local communities to begin decommissioning the roads in the spring. When they cease to be official Forest Service roads, they are closed to public vehicle access. " They literally rip the road out and recontour the road so the hydrology is restored. That's a lot of work, " Bird said. " Then we'll revegetate with native seeds. " Science classes from Jemez High School are helping document what the land looks like before and after the roads are covered over. http://www.santafenewmexican.com/SantaFeNorthernNM/forest_guardians_Group_aims_f\ or_federal_money Missouri: 11) On John and Rick Blaich's 320-acre Black River ranch between Poplar Bluff and Dexter there stands a cherrybark oak more than 100 feet tall, with a crown spread that matches its height and a trunk over 200 inches in diameter. The massive tree is a Missouri State Champion Tree, meaning it's the largest known of its species in the state, though there would have been more like it if most of the woodland wasn't cleared, according to local conservationists. Today only about 20 percent of the original timber remains in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley, the historic flood plain and valley of the lower Mississippi River through which nearly 40 percent of North America drains, according to experts. Resource Forester Mark Pelton of the Missouri Department of Conservation said less than 5 percent of Butler County's old growth forests remain, encompassing eight towering trees that have been awarded state champion status. " Our flood-prone soil makes for very productive agricultural land, " Pelton said. He added that most of the clearing took place in the 1950s through 1970s, when soybean became more valuable. " Timber just couldn't compete with row crops. " The cherrybark oak, along with other varieties of red and white oaks, has extensive root systems primarily adapted to wet soil that stretch 10 to 18 feet beneath the earth's surface. " The reason why we still have these tiny remnants is because people like the Blaichs chose to keep what's timber, timber, " he said. Rick and John's parents, George and Audrey, purchased the property in 1951. When the sons took over the farm in the late 1980s, about 40 acres was added, which includes what they call the " Mengo Slu, " a bottomland area that once served as a Black River waterbed. It's lined with tupelo and swamp chestnut oaks, over which the champion cherrybark oak casts its enormous shadow. While a core sample of the champion tree has never been taken to determine its age due to the simple fact that Pelton doesn't have a large enough drill, he suspects it's pushing 125 to 150 years old, he said. Judging by historical photos of Butler County, Rick Blaich said he believes the only reason the cherrybark oak was left standing is because it was grown in someone's yard. Since the property runs into the Black River channel, it probably wasn't practical cropland either, Pelton suggested. http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071223/NEWS01/712230368/\ 1007 Massachusetts: 12) The Sierra Club today applauded Governor Patrick for filing a much-needed $1.4 Billion Environmental Bond Bill, the largest in the Commonwealth's history. " We applaud the administration for filing such a generous Bond Bill to address our environmental needs. There is something for everyone, including land acquisition, agricultural preservation, monitoring and cleanup of solid waste and hazardous sites, clean air and water programs, and major funding to address the needs of our state forests and parks system, " stated Massachusetts Sierra Club Director James McCaffrey. " The filing of the environmental bond signifies a tremendous holiday bonus for the environment in Massachusetts. " The $1.4 Billion bill represents an unprecedented commitment to numerous program and efforts to protect the environment in the commonwealth. Included in the proposed funding is $665 million in borrowing authority for infrastructure and parks assets. This number includes $250 million to repair and rehabilitate DCR bridges, as well $213 million for other spending on state parks, urban reservations, harbor islands, hiking and biking trails, swimming pools, skating rinks, and campgrounds. " This bill shows a real commitment by the administration for environmental and conservation priorities, " McCaffrey said. " Governor Patrick and Secretary Bowles clearly understand that there are real unmet needs on the environmental front. By doubling the amount of the 2002 Environmental Bond, this bill indicates the administration is serious about protecting the natural environment in Massachusetts. " The bill will need to be approved by the legislature. " There is such broad consensus and support in the environmental and business community for the environmental bond – more than 130 organizations and growing every day - that we expect a swift passage by the state legislature, " McCaffrey added. http://mass-sierra.blogspot.com/2007/12/holiday-bonus-for-forests-and-parks.html Maine: 13) Federal funding for the Lower Penobscot Forest Project was announced today by Maine's Congressional delegation, Maine Department of Conservation, The Nature Conservancy and The Forest Society of Maine. The project received $3.25 million in Forest Legacy funding in the FY08 federal budget—the largest award this project has ever received. " The Lower Penobscot Forest is in a vital area to preserve Maine's tradition of sustainable working forests and is an extraordinary resource for the communities of central Maine, " said Senator Olympia Snowe. " Located only a short drive from the Bangor and other towns in the region, these forests present great outdoor recreational opportunities and environmental education opportunities for the children of the area. " This Forest Legacy award will be applied to a working forest easement on 24,500 acres near Great Pond, part of an effort to secure the protection of 42,000 acres within a forested area that the U.S. Forest Service's identified as the most threatened watershed in the nation. The Maine Department of Conservation, The Nature Conservancy and the Forest Society of Maine are working together to protect these lands within central Maine's largest unfragmented forest block. According to the partners, the Great Pond easement is possible only because of the interest and cooperation of the landowner, GMO Renewable resources. The Nature Conservancy, which brokered the easement, also purchased a conservation easement last July on an adjacent 12,700 acres which buffers the vital wetlands at Sunkhaze Meadows National Wildlife Refuge and the State's Bradley Unit. Forest Society of Maine is taking the lead in conserving an additional 4,800 acres near Amherst. " Not only are the rolling hills of the Lower Penobscot Forest an important economic and recreational resource for communities, " said Michael Tetreault, director of The Nature Conservancy in Maine, " but they also sustain a wide diversity of ecological resources. The land includes forested wetlands, bogs, old-growth spruce-fir forests and spruce flats, which are becoming rare in the Northeast, and the second largest red pine woodland in Maine. " This project arrests division of lands along the edge of Sunkhaze Meadows National Wildlife Refuge to the north and Route 9 to the south. http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/maine/press/press3266.html East Coast Forests: 14) If ever there was a tree that has inspired devotion, it's the American chestnut, once one of the most common trees in East Coast forests. Thoreau considered it among the " noblest " trees he encountered in his walks through the Lincoln woods, while settlers in the southern Appalachians found the nuts and timber such valuable allies in their struggle to survive that the tree became a regional icon. When an imported plague, the chestnut blight, all but eradicated the tree in the early 20th century, people mourned from Georgia to Maine. Since that time, ardent fans have struggled to pull the chestnut back from the brink. Most of their efforts have relied on old-fashioned breeding techniques - investing the tree with blight-resistance genes from other species of chestnut through the laborious and lengthy process of hand-fertilizing flowers, planting the resulting seeds, cultivating trees, and culling inferior specimens. And then doing it all over again. But a pair of forestry scientists at the State University of New York in Syracuse are now exploring a different idea: that genes from other plants, and even from animals, might provide the chestnut with completely new weapons to thrive again in the Eastern forests. The technology they are using is the genetic engineering that has transformed medicine and agriculture - and triggered intense controversies - over the last three decades. Advocates of forest biotechnology say that with a few snips and tucks of the molecular scissors and tweezers, it may be possible to quickly, and even radically, revise the way a tree grows. Scientists could create a tree that repels bugs, resists weed-killers, or better weathers winter freezes. They could change the composition of wood, manipulating the levels of lignin, the cellular glue that holds wood fibers together, in order to fashion the tree of a lumberman's or a paper manufacturer's dreams. They could solve pressing environmental problems with designer trees that can pull toxic chemicals from the soil, suck greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere, or serve as a source of green energy. Or, perhaps most sensationally of all, they could save trees that face extinction. The debate now revving up over transgenic trees in general has been simmering among devotees of the American chestnut. Some members of the leading restoration group, the American Chestnut Foundation, strongly support Maynard and Powell's work. But others insist classical breeding methods are all that's needed to develop a blight-resistant chestnut tree - and without courting controversy or the risk of unknown consequences. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2007/12/23/trees_by_design/?pag\ e=4 Latvia: 15) Forest rangers in Latvia say they are being overwhelmed by large numbers of people illegally cutting down Christmas trees near the capital Riga. The number of wild Christmas trees is dwindling fast in the city's protected forest, the rangers say. The rangers say they are catching at least 20 people daily - but do not have enough staff to catch everyone. Latvians are allowed to cut down trees in designated national forest, 50km (31 miles) from Riga. The city claims to be the home of the world's first Christmas tree - and Latvia has a strong tradition of people going out into the forest to cut down their own tree. The Latvian media say the tree-hunting problem is especially bad this year because of inflation - the highest rate in the European Union. They report that the cost of a Christmas tree has gone up at least 10% since last year. But those caught cutting down a Christmas tree in protected woodland face a fine of up to 491 lats (£504; $1,000), the media report. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7158256.stm Iceland: 16) Human activities are having a profound impact on the Iceland landscape. It is now transformed from a forested island covered with rich soils to mostly desert. Iceland's leading soil scientists are part of a major national effort to restore the island's environment. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17548004 Congo: 17) The Batwa people were traditionally hunter-gatherers. In Eastern Congo, they lived off what the forest provided, until prolonged warfare and the creation of national parks ended their way of life. Neglected by the government, shunned by other ethnic groups, the Batwa live on the margins of Congolese society. They have no knowledge of agriculture or animal husbandry. They have never participated in a cash economy. They live in temporary villages in constant fear of being driven out by real estate developers or the government. They build their houses out of sticks and leaves and die of things like too much rain. There are about 3,000 living in the area around Goma. They want dignity, they want a way to live as others live, but how? No one can simply give that to them. I interviewed Mahor Faustin, the Secretary General of all the Batwa/pygmies in North Kivu. He was at the first site I visited, a temporary camp of shelters of sticks and leaves, built on land loaned by the Catholic Church. Here is how he explained the history of his people and how they came to be in their present situation. This was communicated through an interpreter and translated from old notes, so I've filled in a bit for fluency's sake, but I think it captures his general meaning: Since we were born, we have been hunting in the forest. Since former times, we have been living in the bush. We were getting traditional medicine from plants in the forest. When we were living in the forest, we didn't catch malaria because it was cold. We prefer to live in the bush because we could pick fruits and eat them with our children. It produces vitamins, and we don't have disease. There are potatoes that are natural to the bush. Now we have no health. Today pygmies are starving. We don't have opportunity to hunt or gather fruits. We don't understand why the government can tell us to leave the forest. We are ill here; we don't have food. We need to go back to the forest to live there. And today, as it is forbidden for us, we are struggling to see how we can live. http://jenbrea.typepad.com/africabeat/2007/12/batwa-people-of.html Cameroon: 18) In Cameroon, the pygmies have shared the dense equatorial forest for centuries with gorillas and other wildlife. One of Cameroon's pygmy groups, the Baka, consists of semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who live in the south and southeast. Today, loggers and poachers are driving them out of their homes, but groups defending indigenous peoples want them to be given stronger legal rights to their ancestral lands. Baka communities in southeastern Cameroon are angry that the government has withdrawn its support for the adoption of a UN draft declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. Last year, Cameroon joined 30 other nations in supporting the draft declaration. They voted for its adoption at a UN Council on Human Rights in June 2006. But the government has changed its mind. The groups have petitioned, expressing surprise at its refusal to back the draft declaration. The appeal notes that Cameroon's pygmies, unprotected by the country's legal system, cannot defend their territories against loggers. The advocacy groups also criticize the government for not including the Baka among the inhabitants of the tropical forest ecosystem in its development policies or legal system. Cameroon musician and rights activist Donny Elwood, fondly called " The Pygmy, " says for the Baka the forest is a sacred universe, where little has changed for centuries. He says they can only live naturally in that environment. A local Cameroonian NGO, the Centre for Environment and Development, says Baka communities are fast losing their rights to the gradually shrinking tropical forests. It says they lack telephone connections and access roads to the outside world, as well as modern healthcare and formal education. Indigenous peoples' rights activists say some of the Baka are not even recognized as citizens of the territories where they live. Most don't have birth certificates and identification cards because they're not born in hospitals or near administrative units. As a result, they are often deprived of the legal protections enjoyed by other citizens, and they don't have voting rights. In addition, the government does not provide them with royalties for logging concessions operating on their land. This is in contrast to other groups including the Bantu, who do receive royalties from the government when private interests operate in or along the forests or tribal lands. http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2007-12-21-voa31.cfm Tanzania: 19) The Government has established a unit to curb illegal harvesting of forest products. It will also ensure that forest products are transported according to the country's rules and regulations, the utilisation sector's acting assistance director in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Mr Fabian Mukome, said in Dar es Salaam. The Forest Law Enforcement and Government (FLEG) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN) organised the event to discuss ways of facilitating the private sector's involvement in conserving forests. He said the patrol unit would help villagers protect forests. The initiative is expected tackle corruption and illegal forest harvesting. He called upon stakeholders to conserve and harvest forests judiciously for the country to benefit from them through job creation and earning foreign currencies. " Currently, Tanzania is about to lose sandalwood as the wood is illegally being harvested. It is pertinent that all and sundry protect forests, " he said. http://allafrica.com/stories/200712210716.html 20) Scientists have said that due to Chinas increasing demands for timber, illegal trade activities have emerged in the forest sector of Tanzania, which is one of its main exporters of timber. Though Tanzania is only one of many African suppliers of timber to China, which include Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Mozambique, the country's contribution has skyrocketed in recent years. This is indicative due to an increase in Tanzania's timber export market by almost 1,400 percent in value between 1997 and 2005. According to a report released in May by TRAFFIC International, a joint program of the conservation nonprofit WWF and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), China accounted for all indigenous hardwood logs and three-quarters of sawn wood and raw material exported between July 2005 and January 2006. The report also found that Tanzania lost 58 million U.S. dollars annually during 2004 and 2005 in timber revenue due to poor governance and corruption in the forestry sector. These illegal activities include logging without documentation, logging in unauthorized areas, and the use of invalid export documentation. http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/china-spurring-illegal-timber-trade-i\ n-tanzania_10097 96.html Bolivia: 21) The boundary is easy to spot. On the Brazilian side, the landscape is ragged and torn apart where loggers have built roads and cut into what once were hundreds of miles of continuous wilderness. In Bolivia, the rain forest is still pristine and intact, a solid green carpet of densely packed trees, off-limits to logging, farming, ranching, mining or any sort of development. An elite unit of Field Museum scientists has worked hard to protect the Bolivian side, cooperating with officials to see that portions of it are declared protected biodiversity zones. The museum has achieved significant success with this kind of work, which McCarter calls " science-based advocacy. " Using a process known as Rapid Biological Inventory, in which experts survey vulnerable areas and highlight what would be lost if they were developed, the museum to date has helped win protective measures for 40,000 square miles of wilderness. " That is a very considerable accomplishment, " said John Terborgh, a Duke University biologist and one of the world's leading authorities on Neotropical ecology. " There isn't a Nobel Prize in conservation, but the RBI team is deserving of it. " Since the museum's Environment, Culture and Conservation Division was formed in 1999, it has conducted 20 Rapid Biological Inventories in five nations: Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Cuba and China. First, the unit's 30 biologists, anthropologists and logistical specialists look for big, intact wilderness areas that are threatened by human encroachment. Working with local scientists and environmentalists, they then launch an intense expedition into the wilderness to inventory every plant and animal species they encounter. " They are really difficult undertakings, " McCarter said. " They are rigorous, done by top-notch scientists with world-class reputations. Their reports have enormous credibility when they go to local and national leaders to ask for protection for these areas. " The team is putting together a final report on its most recent Rapid Biological Inventory, conducted in October. In a 4,000-square-mile area straddling the northern border between Peru and Ecuador, they found one of the richest biological treasures they have so far uncovered. Both nations set aside the area years ago as a protected zone, but it was then largely forgotten. As a result of lax oversight, an oil concession now overlaps the entire protected zone in Peru. " This is the epicenter of plant diversity, " Field Museum botanist Robin Foster said, noting its proximity to the equator, the most biologically diverse region of the world. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-field_bd23dec23,1,3515977.story Brazil: 22) Brazil announced Friday it will create a landholder registry and send 700 more federal police to the Amazon River basin in a new effort to monitor and prevent deforestation in the environmentally sensitive region. The initiative includes measures that would identify illegal deforestation and ban the sale of livestock and produce grown in areas that had been illegal deforested, with violators subject to fines and loss of credit from government institutions. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva approved the initiative by decree on Friday. The measures requires rural property owners to reregister their holdings in the Amazon to ensure compliance with Brazil's strict environmental laws. Land owners who failed to reregister would no longer be eligible for government loans and other benefits. " This registry will permit us to create a common data base which will permit us to identify the rural areas which require action against deforestation, " said Environment Minister Marina Silva, who is not related to president, at a news conference in Brasilia, the nation's capital. After three years of substantial reductions in the pace of rain forest destruction, preliminary numbers suggest Amazon deforestation is speeding up, driven by rising agricultural commodity prices on the world market and relatively dry weather this year. Silva said the registry would be carried out initially in 32 municipalities responsible for 45 percent of all deforestation in 2006 and other municipalities could be added later on. The environment minister also announced the government would send 700 federal police to the Amazon to aid the roughly 1,700 environmental protection agents, police and soldiers already in the region fighting illegal deforestation. http://financelifeguru.blogspot.com/2007/12/brazil-announces-new-amazon-protecti\ ons.html Peru: 23) Marcos Chambilla Copari recalls arriving in the of village of San Lorenzo, in the southwestern Peruvian rainforest, in 1986, a refugee from flooding around Lake Titicaca in Peru's southern highlands. " There was no road to get our products to market, " he said. " Everything rotted in the field. " Two decades later, he is happy to see the Interoceanic Highway being paved from the Peruvian-Brazilian border in the southwestern Amazon over the Andes to the Pacific coast. He and the farmers' association of which he is president want to take advantage of the highway to get their rice crops to new markets. Chambilla hopes the highway will bring a new wave of migrants who will settle in San Lorenzo and neighboring communities and give them a boost, just as his family and others did 21 years ago. But not everyone shares Chambilla's enthusiasm about the changes in this remote corner of the Amazon where Peru, Brazil and Bolivia meet. Once heavily forested, the area has seen boom-and-bust cycles of rubber tapping, logging, cattle ranching, and now the rise of the agrofuel industry, all accompanied by social and environmental problems stemming from demographic growth and deforestation. Researchers and local government officials in the three countries worry that negative impacts of huge infrastructure projects, such as the Interoceanic Highway and a series of large dams planned for the Madeira River in Brazil, are developing so quickly that steps cannot be taken to mitigate them. Those effects are exacerbated, they say, by global climate change, which is likely to bring more droughts like the one that led to massive forest fires in 2005, especially in the state of Acre, Brazil, and the neighboring department of Pando, Bolivia. Those issues topped the list of concerns at a three-country conference Nov. 15-17 in Brasiléia, Brazil, where scientists, government officials, grassroots leaders, small-scale farmers, Brazil nut harvesters, rubber tappers, students and representatives of nongovernmental organizations wrestled with problems facing the area. The forum was sponsored by the Madre de Dios-Acre-Pando Initiative (MAP), a grassroots movement that began in 1999 with a handful of scientists and non-profit organizations concerned about land-use planning. This year's event drew more than 500 people. MAP is a forum for discussing issues common to the three regions, including deforestation, land use planning, poverty, migration and population growth, economic development, non-timber forestry activities such as rubber tapping and Brazil nut harvesting, health care and education. http://www.latinamericapress.org/article.asp?lanCode=1 & artCode=5441 Chile: 24) Charles Darwin visited Chiloé Island in 1834 and 1835 on his now-famous voyage around the world in the Beagle. I don't think he liked the island very much. About the climate he said: " In winter the climate is detestable, and in summer it is only a little better. " He found the forest beautiful but gloomy, impenetrable, impervious, blackish-green, and generally silent. The poor but industrious people had been " negligent " in clearing the forest, which was " a heavy drawback to the prosperity " of the island. And he showed no signs of learning anything there that contributed to the later development of his then-radical ideas. Poor Charles! He really missed lots of good things on Chiloé. The forest is certainly thick and dense, and often very muddy, but full of bamboo thickets and spectacular flowering trees and vines. His impression of a silent forest is mystifying; in spring and summer the songs of birds can be heard everywhere. And by now, much of the forest has been cut and burned, for agriculture and for plantations of exotic trees, so presumably Darwin would be pleased. The south-temperate rainforest of southern Chile, including Chiloé, represents a curious composite of different worlds. Most of the trees are broad-leaved, evergreen, and closely related to species on the other side of the world in New Zealand and eastern Australia, and even southern Africa. They are living evidence that all the southern continents were once joined into a huge super-continent called Gondwanaland - there are even fossil trees of similar types in Antarctica. Country people still tell the old myth about chucaos: When you leave the house in the morning, if you hear a chucao call on the left, that is bad luck and you should go back immediately and stay home. But if it calls on your right, then it is OK to proceed upon your business for the day. For me, however, chucao calls from all sides were good luck and very much OK. My research team eventually found a chucao nest and I saw the chicks for the first time. There were two of them (the usual number), and they were almost ready to leave the nest. They already had plumage like their parents, except for an " afro " of extraordinarily long down on top of their heads. The long " hairdo " flopped down over their eyes in a most engaging way. I was captivated. That was years ago, and I've seen hundreds of chucao chicks since then, and I still chuckle at the sight. So here was this totally cute little bird whose populations also happen to be threatened by potential extinction because of loss of the forest habitat. How could I not study it? http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/122307/out_20071223022.shtml Sri Lanka: 25) The concept was based upon the fact that Galle was once covered completely in rainforest. Even today, a few rainforest species can still be found in the currently bustling town. In fact, Sri Lanka's last remaining rainforest area, which is home to fifty percent of the island's endemic species of mammals, butterflies, insects, reptiles and rare amphibians, is only a one and half hours' drive away from Galle. The programme is a part of Sri Lanka Tourism's Towards a Carbon Clean Sri Lanka; a Tourism Earth Lung programme. The programme envisages to make Sri Lanka a carbon clean destination within a period of 10 years with assertive action on stopping de-forestation, mitigating pollution and using energy efficient alternative technology. " By running a community-focused, environment restoration project, we hope to create dynamic, living green spaces which can be enjoyed by everyone and provide benefits to both residents and visitors to the city, " the RRI Managing Director Charith Senanayake clarified. With the aim of restoring the diverse and indigenous ecosystems that the municipality of Galle once enjoyed, RRI's " Rainforest City " has set out to strengthen and deepen the understanding of the value of Sri Lanka's native plants. To this end, the programme will build upon a local commitment to care for the environment and to develop Galle as an attractive tourist destination. The Galle Fort was chosen as the first community in Galle to take the Rainforest City project forward. To coincide with the ceremony at the Stadium, a public planting took place at the Fort. On Sunday, the RRI further enhanced the programme through planting of 20 trees by local schoolchildren, with the help from Galle Rotary in Galle Park. In addition to this, 1,000 mangrove trees were planted along 10KM of canal at Kepu Ela in Galle. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/071223/Mirror/mr607.html Kashmir: 26) The thick and dense forests here are fast dwindling as timber smugglers in connivance with government gunmen are using Wular lake to smuggle the green gold with Forest Protection Force unable to curb the vandalisation of green wealth in the belt. The timber smuggling according to residents who live along the banks of Wular Lake is taking place during day when the smugglers find it easy to move in the lake with tacit understanding of the government gunmen in the area. " Every day in the evening, the smugglers in connivance with forest department personnel can be seen ferrying the timber in boats through the inland waterway of Wular lake Ghats, " say residents of Kanibathi here. Boatmen wishing anonymity said they are paid good tariff for ferrying the timber by smugglers in Wular. In these forests thousands of unending stumps of trees lie scattered over a vast land. The devastation of forests in Bandipore is visible as one enters the forest at Aloosa. " It was round the clock that these smugglers in collusion with Ikhwanis and forest employees felled hundreds of Deodar trees during 18 years, " locals told Greater Kashmir. Pointing towards the partially burnt stump, a villager of Aloosa said, " Forest employees deliberately set fire to these remnants to conceal their misdeeds. " " They (forest employees) set fire to the trunks after felling trees here to show that these trees have been cut decades ago. But you see these are only half burnt which expose their deeds, " he said, adding that department has only formed village protection committees with no end result. " They are using these committees for their ends. If timber is spotted anywhere these men in committees take ransom and give half to department and let off the accused, " he said. The villagers at Aloosa allege that during 1994-95 the government gunmen (Ikhawanis) with Army caused destruction to the forests here and chopped off hundreds of trees that were sold outside state. " While Ikhwanis in Hajin Sonwawari chopped off the social forest nurseries. Their counterparts here daily felled hundreds of trees and smuggled them in vehicles, " the villagers say. Conservator of Forests Kashmir Abdur Razzaq told Greater Kashmir that they will purchase boats if smuggling was done through Wular Lake. " We have no boats and if smuggling is going through Wular we will purchase boats for river patrolling, " he said. http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=24_12_2007 & ItemID=34 & cat=1 Nepal: 27) Ministry for Forest and Soil Conservation has been pending the decision to hand over six thousand community forests in the Terai and inner Terai to their respective users since the past four months. The Ministry's inaction contravenes the stipulated forest regulations that require the handing over of community forests to the user groups. " The District Forest Offices have been rejecting the call of user groups to hand over the community forests. The local government officials have been reportedly turning down the work plans of consumers for the management of the forests,� Ghanashyam Pandey, president of the Federation of Community Forest Users Nepal (FECOFUN), said. The then minister for forest and soil conservation, Matrika Prasad Yadav had directed the district level forest officials not to accept new application for registration of community forest user groups and also stop endorsing the work plan they put forward, Pandey said. Following the protest regarding the Minister's directives, the ministry had agreed to hand over the forests on June 11, 2007,� Pandey added, " Despite the ministry's assurance, the consumers are still deprived of looking after the forests in their locality and carry out the necessary conservation works. The assurance of the erstwhile minister has not been translated into practice as the Minister himself quit from the post. The ministerial portfolio has remained vacant for the last four months. The confusion among the Ministry officials has led the District Forest Officials (DFO) to shelf the application for the new registrations of community forest user groups. " Although we have been mounting pressure on the government to appoint a new minister to address the issue, the government has not so far heeded our request, Pandey said. According to Pandey the consumers of Chitwan, Rupandehi and Dang have been bearing the brunt of the indecision at the Ministry and the district forest offices. The official at FECOFUN said 1500 community forests have been waiting to get a final clearance while five thousand others are preparing their work plan for fresh registrations. Talking to The Rising Nepal president Pandey said that the FECOFUN is planning to launch a nationwide agitation soon saying that their demands were ignored for the last four months. He blamed the government of trying to maintain status quo in the conservation of forests thereby leading to widespread encroachments and misuse of the forests in the Terai and inner Terai regions. http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/content.php?nid=32802m Indonesia: 28) The Forestry Ministry wants the government to issue a policy making it mandatory for each Indonesian citizen to plant a tree every year to store more carbon. In its action plan, the ministry said anyone who wished to cut down a tree with a diameter of more than 10 centimeters had to secure a permit issued by the government. " And anyone who fells a tree has to plant two more trees, " the action plan stated. The director general of the forestry research and development agency, Wahjudi Wardojo, said planting trees was one of the most effective ways to mitigate climate change. " We hope local administrations set a rule requiring local citizens to plant more trees, " he told The Jakarta Post on Friday. The ministry has set five targets for its mitigation action plan until 2009. The targets are; to combat illegal logging, rehabilitate forest land and conservation areas, restructure the forestry sector especially for industrial aims, empower local communities living near forests and improve institutions monitoring forests. The action plan states the ministry will rehabilitate 11 million hectares of damaged forests until 2009, 4,8 million hectares until 2012 and 16 million hectares for 2025. " The remaining will be rehabilitated until 2050, " it says. The ministry also aims to reduce the deforestation rate. " We have targeted to reduce deforestation by 23.63 million hectares until 2009, 6.15 million hectares until 2012 and 10 million hectares until 2025, " the action plan stated. The ministry has targeted to reduce forest fires by 50 percent by 2009 and 75 percent by 2012. Wahjudi said in order to meet the targets, the ministry needed a national and international funding mechanism. " Without financial support from the international community, it will be difficult to reach the target, " he said. The Kyoto Protocol on climate change is an international binding treaty aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions to combat global warming. The protocol allows developing countries to host afforestation and reforestation projects to reap cash under the Clean Development Mechanism. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20071222.H05 & irec=4 Malaysia: 29) Here elephants rule the hilly tracks, long-limbed gibbons eyeball annoying visitors and thirsty leeches claim a jungle toll in bites and blood. But outside, on the muddy path that rings Danum Valley's blue-green fringe, a different kind of beast reigns. Daily, countless monster trailers rumble past this conservation area that's large enough to hold a couple of small island nations. They carry logs harvested from an even larger area -- the Ulu Segama and Malua forest reserves -- that circles the Danum Valley Conservation Area. Logging is set to end this year but it's pitted political parties against each other and green groups against Yayasan Sabah, which manages both the logging and conservation. It's done another curious thing -- it's made the pristine Danum seem even more precious. " In the early days, Danum didn't seem so special because Sabah was covered in jungle, " says Dr Waidi Sinun. " Today, most of the jungle's gone, " says the scientist who started as a research assistant here 20 years ago. Now head of the foundation's conservation and environmental management division, he says Danum is one of the few large untouched areas left to study. The rest of the world seems to agree. Over the last two decades, it's hosted almost 400 research projects and been the subject of 370 publications and 70 masters and doctorate theses. From just four students scrambling about the jungle during Sinun's student days, Danum's now the destination for about half of all research applicants to Malaysia. The Danum Valley Field Station, the base for all researchers, has hosted field courses for students from Japan to Sweden. It's also served as base to the Royal Society's Southeast Asia Rainforest Research Programme (SEARRP) since 1985. Danum is likely to become an even greater focus as several large studies on tropical forests and climate change take flight next year. While others were toying with the idea in the early 90s, says Sinun, the Sabah Foundation was promoting the planting of forests to absorb climate changing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. With the support of groups like the Face Foundation, it began programmes like allowing people to pay for trees to be planted in a logged over forest to offset carbon emitted by their air travel. It has now rehabilitated over 11,000 hectares of forest this way, says Sinun. He admits that it's been an uphill battle keeping a forest that would be probably more profitable to cut and getting little thanks in return. http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Sunday/Focus/2113387/Article/index_html World-wide: 30) It has long been believed that mature forests, while storing vast quantities of carbon, do not actually continue to take more out of the atmosphere--the total carbon in the system was thought to be constant. If this were true then protection of old-growth, while preventing carbon dioxide emissions through clearing or burning of trees, would not actually help increase the earth's carbon stores. If the result of a new study from China turn out to be true fo rthe rest of the world, that theory could be turned on its head. Researchers in Guangdong Province found that the amount of carbon stored in the soil of a mature forest increased by 68% over about 24 years. The scientists do not yet know if this is happening in other forests, or if the Guangdong site was " a special case. " http://www.aboutmyplanet.com/community/climate-change/2090-old-growth-forests-ke\ ep-sucking-carb on.html Old-growth forests can keep on squirreling away carbon from the atmosphere long after they have reached maturity, a study suggests. The discovery runs counter to the theory that established forests, although valuable stores of carbon, will not help to alleviate the greenhouse effect because they are already 'full' of carbon. http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061127/full/news061127-13.html 31) Imagine a freight train filled with 15,000 delegates hurtling towards its doom. Ahead on the track, are 1,000 sweating negotiators from 187 countries divided by nuance, nationhood and indecision, all poking at the rails. Armed with procrastination and paperwork, they occasionally look over their shoulders at the advancing train, nervously. Only one, imagining himself to be the fat controller still, resolutely keeps his back turned to the train and smirks at doom. His name is Uncle Sam. In the Bali 'House of Meetings' it was a fortnight of tears, boos and brinkmanship as world Government struggled to avoid an impending catastrophe and the US played poker with all our futures. US intransigence at refusing to agree any specific cuts in emissions as a basis for talks leading up to a future post Kyoto deal, brought high drama. As late as the final Saturday night, the talk behind closed doors was of total collapse, with China covertly calling on the G77 group of developing nations to scrap the whole deal, go back to square one, and blame the Americans for the fallout. It took Papua New Guinea, a small nation with a big voice, to face down the US with the cry: " If you can't lead, at least get out of the way! " That did it, along with the boos and hissing in open plenary, unprecedented in the usually gentile diplomatic atmosphere of these talks. America buckled and signed up. The result is a historic agreement with the US in the process fully for the first time, but kicking and screaming. We may look back and wonder when the world so fell out of love with America. Meanwhile the train hurtles on. In the front carriage are the revered scientists of the IPPC, pointing fingers agitatedly at a disaster ahead nobody gets. Making them collective Nobel Laureates may make them feel better, but the prize they want is to be noticed by the rest of us and for America to turn its might from being a Satan to some, into to being a Saviour for all. But there was a another success. So the road to Bali is over, the road to Copenhagen begins. Whilst governments wrangle, it is clear that the world does not need Forests Maybe or Forests Later, it needs Forests Now. Meanwhile on the tracks, the suits argue over a 60 per cent gauge, or perhaps 20 per cent or none at all. Perhaps we need a points change but who will change direction first and besides the train heading for doom with all the delegates on board was not of their making anyway. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/12/21/eacanopy121.xm\ l 32) Policies to reduce global warming by offering credits for carbon sequestration have neglected the effects of forest management on biodiversity. I review properties of forest ecosystems and management options for enhancing the resistance and resilience of forests to climate change. Although forests, as a class, have proved resilient to past changes in climate, today's fragmented and degraded forests are more vulnerable. Adaptation of species to climate change can occur through phenotypic plasticity, evolution, or migration to suitable sites, with the latter probably the most common response in the past. Among the land-use and management practices likely to maintain forest biodiversity and ecological functions during climate change are (1) representing forest types across environmental gradients in reserves; (2) protecting climatic refugia at multiple scales; (3) protecting primary forests; (4) avoiding fragmentation and providing connectivity, especially parallel to climatic gradients; (5) providing buffer zones for adjustment of reserve boundaries; (6) practicing low-intensity forestry and preventing conversion of natural forests to plantations; ( 7) maintaining natural fire regimes; (8) maintaining diverse gene pools; and (9) identifying and protecting functional groups and keystone species. Good forest management in a time of rapidly changing climate differs little from good forest management under more static conditions, but there is increased emphasis on protecting climatic refugia and providing connectivity. Conservation Science, Inc., 7310 NW Acorn Ridge, Corvallis, OR 97330, U.S.A., reed_noss Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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