Guest guest Posted March 5, 2008 Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 Today for you 35 new articles about earth's trees! (306th edition) Subscribe / send blank email to: earthtreenews- Weblog: http://olyecology.livejournal.com To Donate: Click Paypal link in the upper left corner of: http://www.peacefromtrees.org --Oregon: 1) 7 seedlings made from 700 year old fallen spruce --Kenya: 2) The last Ancient forest --Mexico: 3) Update on country's forest defenders --Belize: 4) Rising threats to the forest --Ecuador: 5) Chevron is engaging in a pattern of extrajudicial attacks, 6) Caught in a classic stalemate between development and environment, --Guyana: 7) Conservation International's renewable 30-year agreement --Brazil: 8) 900 activists invade corporate tree farm, 9) Impact of Illegal logging raids, 10) Rural women protestors oppose green deserts, 11) Mato Grosso's soybean baron, 12) An attempt to walk over 4,000 miles, --Argentina: 13) Wildfires in Patagonia region --India: 14) Forest decline kept in check? 15) 2-day consultation on land and forests, --Pakistan: 16) Deforestation on both sides of the Indus Highway --Madagascar: 17) Effects of deforestation on the ringtailed lemur --China: 18) Tropical forest decreased 67 percent in 30 years, 19) Yew poaching, --Philippines: 20) Illegal logging at Quezon National Park, 21) 2 government employees caught helping smugglers, 22) Rise for Nature Movement --Malaysia: 23) Develop natural resources of Royal Belum, world's oldest rainforest --Indonesia: 24) Demanding the immediate prosecution of illegal logging suspects --Sumatra: 25) Leuser Ecosystem wilderness, 26) More emissions than Netherlands --Australia: 27) Activists nationwide prepare to protest Gunns, 28) Novelist Ian McEwan speaks for the trees, 29) Gunns says it's the most significant deal it has ever struck, 30) Resotring the headwaters of Petrie Creek, 31) Application to log Mt Rae forest refused, --World-wide: 32) World Bank unveiled practical guidance? 33) Will we increase or decrease forest carbon pools? 34) Global maps that show projected habitat loss and climate change, 35) Site-level carbon emission baselines, Oregon: 1) After a fierce Oregon storm last December shoved the nation's largest Sitka spruce tree to its death, news that tree's lineage might live on has the West abuzz with excitement. Rick Mock, an Oregonian who lives in the area where the 206-foot tree in Klootchy Creek County Park, also known as " Klootchy, " spent its 700 years on Earth, has announced he is raising seven trees he gathered directly from Klootchy. Mock visited the fallen giant in January and pruned a small, still-living limb off a section of Klootchy's trunk. He then cut seven tips off the branch, placed them in pots with potting soil, and set them under 13-watt fluorescent lights in his house, the Oregonian reported. Mock said he already has tiny green needles sprouting from one of his branch tips. If they do indeed survive, Mock said he will turn the tiny trees over to the county. And if possible, Mock told The Oregonian he would like to see one of the Klootchy's offspring planted near the state capitol in Salem. Allow us here at NewWest.Net/Bend to be the first to say, " Long Live Klootchy! " http://www.newwest.net/city/article/a_future_for_oregons_giant_sitka_spruce/C509\ /L509/ Kenya: 2) Minutes drive from Kwale town, at the end of the tarmacked road stands one of the last remaining tropical rainforests in Kenya. Lying between the dry, shrubby plains to the west and sandy rolling green hills to the east, the lush rainforest of Kwale is pristine and teeming with wildlife. Nestled cosily among the tall trees is the unmissable Shimba Hills Rainforest Lodge which hasn't lost its jungle appeal five years since I last visited it. The lodge, a dark-timbered structure in the middle of the forest is a picture straight out of a childhood fantasy. The concept is that of a tree house you dreamt about living in as a child. Several unusual elements strike a first time visitor here. Raised on stilts, the timber that supports the concrete frame of the building completely blends in with the surrounding rain forest. The jungle proliferates inside and out of the building. The designer's vow not to cut down any trees to make way for the construction means that in some places you can actually step over a tree trunk. " If it came through a bedroom, then it came through a bedroom, " says Jon Cavanagh, head of the team that designed the lodge. " The most we did was to crop some twigs. " Everywhere you stand in the lodge, you have a different view of the forest and the watering hole it overlooks, which attracts a multitude of birds and animals. It is an ideal retreat, where silence should be enforced on visitors so as not to disturb the otherwise pristine silence or pollute the natural forest sounds that are virtually impossible to find these days. http://www.nationmedia.com/eastafrican/current/Magazine/mag030320081.htm Mexico: 3) The struggle for environmental defenders in Mexico continues. Activists who seek to protect their local ecosystems continue to be under threat from illegal loggers and the inaction of local government authorities. As part of this struggle comes the case of environmentalist Ildefonso Zamora, his family and his community of San Juan Atzingo, Ocuiln municipality in the State of Mexico. Since 1998, Ildefonso Zamora has worked to bring public attention to the problem of illegal logging in his community, which borders the Zempoala Lagoons National Park, a zone identified as one of the 15 critical regions affected by illegal logging in the country. The park is located within what Greenpeace calls the great water forest which houses two percent of the worlds biodiversity and supplies three quarters of the water consumed in Mexico City, besides helping to mitigate climate change and its impacts in the region. For the last number of years, Ildefonso, his family members and fellow commissioners of their indigenous communal landholding have been subject to a series of threats by illegal loggers. Various incidents have included gunshots outside family residences, death threats, confrontations in vehicles on the highway and even threats directed at the local mayor. The most shocking incident against these defenders of the forest was the murder of Ildefonsos 21-year-old son Aldo in a highway shooting at the hands of a group of illegal loggers in May 2007. The arrest of two men involved in the murder was delayed by a staggering 79 days after the shooting. At 9 months since the death of Aldo, two of the four murderers still remain at large, despite being clearly identified and having outstanding arrest warrants. Mexican President Felipe Caldern made public statements in July 2007 that he would commit to carrying out justice in the case, yet such an outcome has yet to be delivered. These incidents occur within an environment of harassment and systematic discrediting of defenders of environmental rights in Mexico. The murder of Aldo Zamora can be placed among the similar cases of Rodolfo Montiel, Teodoro Cabrera, Felipe Arreaga and Albertano Pealoza in the mountains of the state of Guerrero and the cases of the indigenous Tarahumaras environmentalists Isidro Baldenegro and Hermenegildo Rivas in the state of Chihuahua. http://www.illegal-logging.info/item_single.php?item=news & item_id=2573 & approach_\ id=8 Belize: 4) Dr Colin A. Young of Galen University in Belize, says that ecosystems in Belize face a number of rising threats, including high deforestation rates (at 2.3 percent the deforestation rate is twice that of Central America), improper solid waste management, rapid coastal development, increasing poverty, weak institutional and legal frameworks, climate change, and the recent discovery of sweet crude oil. He says that without improving management of protected areas, improving local participation in conservation, and stimulating interest in science among Belizean students, " the environment that has been the mainstay of the Belizean economy will be severely impacted. " Young makes several recommendations for addressing negative environmental trends in Belize, including increasing funding for conservation-oriented research; adopting a stronger national protected areas policy; encouraging national and international NGOs to pool their research expertise and financial resources to facilitate the establishment of new conservation areas and strategies; implementing a " conservation " tax on oil production; promoting conservation-driven livelihoods for local communities; and developing an ecosystem services payment system. http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0303-tcs_young.html Ecuador: 5) Representatives of thousands of Ecuadorians suing Chevron are charging the oil giant with " engaging in a pattern of extrajudicial attacks " on a court-appointed special master who is preparing a damages assessment against the company in a historic multi-billion dollar environmental trial in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest. Chevron's alleged behavior includes personal harassment and an ad hominem advertising campaign, coinciding with the mysterious theft of case-related files from the court-appointed special master's office, according to the Amazon Defense Coalition, the organization that represents an estimated 30,000 plaintiffs in the case, including the members of five Amazon indigenous groups. " Chevron is using extrajudicial influence to undermine the one independent expert who is preparing to tell the truth about Chevron's damages in Ecuador, " said Julio Prieto, a lawyer on the case, which has been tried in the town of Nueva Loja since late 2003. Prieto added that Chevron is " engaging in a pattern of vicious, defamatory and unethical attacks " on the special master, an Ecuadorian geologist and environmental expert named Richard Cabrera. Cabrera is working with a multi- disciplinary team of experts to assess the damages, which plaintiffs said could be the most extensive ever for an environmental case, possibly exceeding $10 billion. http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104 & STORY=/www/story/02-28-200\ 8/0004764208 & EDATE= 6) Rafael Correa won the Ecuadorian presidency on the strength of his promises to deliver much-needed social programs to his country's largely impoverished population. He also pledged to protect Ecuador's natural heritage of biodiversity. Add to this political mix a lot of foreign debt and a billion or more barrels of oil located under a UNESCO bioreserve in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and it's clear why some observers saw the nation as caught in a classic stalemate between development and environment. Now, though, the ITT oil fields—located within Yasuní National Park, one of the world's most biodiverse places and home to a number of indigenous communities—have become an experiment in the possibility of having it both ways. In May 2007, Correa proposed a unique solution: if the international community will agree to pay or excuse debt worth $350 million annually for 10 years (half the anticipated value of the oil) to help fund sustainable development in Ecuador, then the oil, the forests, and the indigenous groups threatened by the encroachment of oil companies will all be left alone. It's a proposal that many are taking seriously. In addition to the danger posed to biodiversity and indigenous rights, development of the ITT fields would be a climate change disaster, generating an estimated 436 million tons of CO2 and destroying a huge swath of tropical rainforest crucial to sequestering carbon and regulating weather patterns. Though the Bali climate agreement endorsed the importance of forest preservation, it failed to safeguard against the transformation of forests into internationally traded and managed " carbon sinks " that would exclude indigenous people and traditional livelihoods from their borders. Ecuador's example may point toward a way to protect forests without compromising a future that values equity and human rights. http://yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2274 Guyana: 7) The goal of Conservation International's renewable 30-year agreement with the Guyana Forestry Commission is to protect 200,000 acres of rainforest from logging and other destructive development-a conservation concession rather than a timber concession. Through contributions and product sales, Save Your World™ helps pay the annual lease fees required to maintain the agreement. " We are pleased to accomplish saving nearly a quarter of a million acres of rainforest, and want to thank eco-conscious consumers and all our retail distribution partners including Whole Foods Market and Vitamin Shoppes, as well as local and regional partners Mollie Stone's in San Francisco, Fruitful Yield Health Foods in Chicago, and Wild Birds Unlimited of Michigan and Florida for helping to achieve this goal, " said Save Your World's President, Scott Cecil. " The project has been an enormous success with the government and people of Guyana because, for the first time, they haven't had to choose between conservation and economic development, which is a real plus for a country like Guyana, one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere, " said Dick Rice, Chief Economist at Conservation International. Rice recently visited Guyana with Save Your World's President Scott Cecil to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the historic rainforest agreement, one of the first of its kind in the world. Attendees celebrating the event included Guyana's Prime Minister Hon. Samuel A. Hinds, and Guyana's Forestry Commissioner James Singh. While in Guyana, Cecil and Rice discussed potential expansion plans for 2008. Save Your World's new goal is to expand the area under protection to 500,000 acres by the end of 2010. Dr. Phil Willink of the Chicago Field Museum's Fish Division accompanied the group and observed, " The aquatic ecosystems of the Upper Essequibo Conservation Concession are one of the most pristine, if not the most pristine, on the planet. Biodiversity is high, with many species unique to the watershed or new to science. It is imperative that we act quickly as pristine areas are disappearing quickly around the planet, so it is critical to learn about them before they are altered. " http://www.happynews.com/news/2282008/save-world-conservation-international-save\ -acres-rainfor est.htm Brazil: 8) About 900 activists representing poor farm workers invaded a corporate tree farm run by a Swedish-Finnish paper maker on Tuesday, claiming the company is violating Brazilian law. Protesters from Via Campesina said in a statement that Stora Enso is operating illegally because Brazilian law forbids foreign companies from owning land within 150 kilometers (95 miles) of the country's borders. The 2,100-hectare (5,200-acre) farm, where trees are grown to be harvested into pulp, is in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul near Brazil's border with Uruguay. " Planting this green desert in the frontier zone is crime against our country, against the pampas ecosystem and against the food sovereignty of the state, " the group said in a statement. The company is aware of the law and has applied for an exception, said Otavio Pontes, a spokesman for Stora Enso's Brazilian unit. The land is currently owned by a Brazilian company, he said. But Via Campesina accused Stora Enso of using a Brazilian front company to get around the law. After staging the invasion before dawn, activists cut down trees and planted saplings that are native to the region of " pampas, " fertile lowlands stretching from Brazil to Argentina. The group, which staged similar invasions last year against Stora Enso and pulp companies, says paper companies operating in Brazil harm the environment by clearing native forests and replanting them with trees such as eucalyptus and pine. The process reduces biodiversity, while limiting the amount of land that Brazil's poor can occupy for family farms, protesters say. Stora Enso has asked a judge to evict the activists, Pontes said, adding that they threw stones at a caretaker's house. Stora Enso is one of the world's largest forest product companies and makes magazine paper, newsprint, fine paper, pulp and packaging boards. It employs 38,000 people in more than 40 countries. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/03/04/ap4728485.html 9) Lima, 43, is vying with 6,000 other out-of-work laborers who lost their jobs after the Federal Police and environmental inspectors swept through the small Amazon town of Tailandia, seizing wood and fining sawmills and charcoal producers that couldn't prove their products came from legal sources. Environmental groups are pressing Brazil to halt deforestation in the Amazon, the world's largest rainforest, after logging accelerated in the second half of 2007 following four years of declines. While the raid may trigger unemployment in Tailandia, the town will be better off in the long run, said Cristiano Noronha, an analyst at Arko Advice, a political consulting company. ``It's a necessary evil,'' Noronha said of the crackdown in a phone interview from Brasilia. ``It would be a disgrace for the government to let the Amazon be destroyed when global warming and environmental preservation is on top of the global agenda.'' As many as 500 police and guardsmen, wearing bulletproof vests and carrying machine guns, descended on the town in the northern state of Para after a mob of 2,000 people attacked state and federal environmental inspectors Feb. 19, forcing them to abandon audits of local sawmills. ``The city's streets are empty,'' said Fernanda Monteiro, 25, a secretary for the town administration. ``There are guards on horses, big dogs and police with heavy guns on every corner.'' Para's environmental secretary, Valmir Ortega, requested armed officers to escort inspectors when they visit mills. ``We will continue the operation against illegal deforestation even if I have to start wearing a bulletproof vest,'' Governor Ana Julia Carepa said in a statement on the state's Web site. ``We will not be intimidated.'' http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086 & sid=aYtfET3sY_IA & refer=latin_ame\ rica 10) In their statements, the rural women protestors equated the green deserts of eucalyptus plantations with aridity and death, and highlighted the relationship between diversity and fertility, factors that make life possible, and monocultures and desertification, which represent death. " The research contains numerous testimonies about how Aracruz Celulose's eucalyptus plantations and pulp mill affected local communities in general and women in particular. For instance Maridéia, an indigenous Tupinikim woman remembers the days before the arrival of Aracruz: " It was so wonderful to have the river open to us. We washed clothes, we collected water for drinking, for cooking… You could catch fish, you could scoop them up with a sieve. All those women… there would be so many there together! It was the place to wash clothes. You would finish washing clothes, then take a swim and leave, you know? " Those were the good old days. Then Aracruz arrived and " destroyed everything we had, it destroyed our forest, it destroyed our river, the fish, the hunting " (ROSA, Tupinikim village of Pau-Brasil). The replacement of the forests by eucalyptus plantations led to the loss of food formerly supplied through gathering, hunting and fishing. The destruction of the tropical rainforest also led to the disappearance of rivers and streams, which were once the meeting places for women and a privileged space for sharing female knowledge. Indigenous and quilombola women have been forced to live with the pollution of their surroundings by the agrochemicals used in monoculture industries. The disappearance of the forest has also meant the loss of the raw materials used in the production of utensils and crafts, an activity that was primarily the domain of women in indigenous communities. The loss of biodiversity has also signified the loss of a large number of natural medicines derived from the plants, roots and animals of the forest. It has deprived Guaraní indigenous women, who formerly used plants to stimulate and reduce fertility, of the right to family planning, leaving them hostage to contraceptive pills and tubal ligation. In addition, indigenous and quilombola women can no longer find the vines, trees and animal fats they once used for medicinal purposes. Some indigenous women, bearers of a wealth of knowledge about native flora and fauna, have become domestic workers, day labourers, babysitters and cooks for Aracruz Celulose officials. http://intercontinentalcry.org/viewpoint-from-world-rainforest-movement-bulletin\ -127/ 11) Maggi owns more than 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) of soyabean plantations in Mato Grosso state. It is reckoned to be the biggest such holding in the world making him the king of soya. " What really makes me feel happy is seeing the beans in the fields, " Maggi said last week, shading his eyes from a tropical sun while gazing over yellowing fields ready for harvest. " Growing crops is the only thing I know how to do. " According to environmentalists Maggi also knows how to accelerate deforestation of the Amazon, at least indirectly. By buying up the savannah for soya cultivation, he forces cattle ranchers north into the rainforest where they slash and burn, releasing millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, said Paulo Adario, the Amazon director of Greenpeace in Brazil. " It is an indirect but fundamental impact. " There is another version of Maggi: a pioneer who helped turn a sea of barren scrub fit only for some cattle into highly productive farmland - and in the process turned Brazil into an agricultural superpower which is expected to overtake the US as the world's leading food exporter while the global population surges towards 9 billion people. Brazilian government scientists discovered that the acidic soils of the savannah could be made fertile with phosphorus and lime, a momentous technological breakthrough that Maggi and other migrants from the south exploited when they moved to Mato Grosso in the 1970s and 1980s. " They arrived with nothing and look what they've achieved, it is a great success story, " said Alan Goldlust, the head of Comexport, a Sao Paulo-based trading firm. " Nobody thought it was possible. " Not so long ago Maggi's story would have been cast in terms of development versus ecology. Now a new dimension has complicated the picture. An upward surge in commodity prices has created, what the United Nations last week called, a " new face of hunger " . Annual global food price increases of up to 40% are hitting the poor and raising the spectre of urban malnutrition. Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Guinea, Senegal and Uzbekistan. Emergency price controls and subsidies have been declared. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/03/environment.brazil 12) In April 2008, Ed Stafford and Luke Collyer will attempt to walk over 4,000 miles from the source of the Amazon River in southern Peru to the mouth in Brazil. The expedition will be uninterrupted and it is expected that it will take 16 to 18 months to complete. The aim is to use the expedition as a educational tool by collecting and broadcasting experiences and opinions from the Amazonian people that live and work in the mountains and the rainforest. This will be achieved using cutting edge technology mobile satellite links and an interactive tracking map on their website. Ed and Luke will only carry what fits in their rucksacks. Human habitation is scarce in the vast Amazon basin, so they will have to use sustainable survival practices to live off the jungle. If they complete their journey through one of the most amazing and threatened eco-systems left on Earth they will be the first men ever to walk the Amazon. The expedition also has a secondary aim of attracting enough attention to raise both money and awareness for the charities that it is supporting. http://planetultramarathon.wordpress.com/2008/02/29/walking-the-amazon/ Argentina: 13) Wildfires burned at a national park in Argentina's Patagonia region on Thursday, threatening to destroy trees up to thousands of years old, and the government called for residents in the area to evacuate. The Alerces National Park is a protected area of 650,000 acres (263,000 hectares) in the Andes region of Chubut province, near the border with Chile. The blaze, which government officials said was intentionally set, has destroyed more than 1,730 acres (700 hectares) in the area, according to state news agency Telam. Television images showed smoke obscuring the enormous green forest and flames shifting with the wind. Chubut Gov. Mario Das Neves said the fires began a few days ago and intensified on Wednesday night as strong winds combined with hot, dry weather conditions. " There are two fronts, one more under control than the other. We're racing against time to get there before the winds pick up speed, " Das Neves told local television. The province declared a state of emergency in the five districts affected by the wildfires and earmarked 2 million pesos ($628,000) to handle the disaster. " Meteorological information seems to indicate there could be some rainfall, which is what we need. The wind is our worst enemy because it keeps (the fire) spreading and keeps our firemen from working, " Das Neves added. http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN28550619 India: 14) BHUBANESWAR: The latest report of Forest Survey of India ( FSI) has revealed a net addition of 21 square km of forest area in the state during 2004-05 and notes that the decline in forest cover has been checked. " But the rate of addition is a only 0.04 per cent during the two years and when viewed in terms of the money spent on plantation and other measures the growth is meagre " , said Mr Biswajit Mohanty, secretary Wildlife Society of Orissa. Compared to this, there was a loss of an amazing 472 square km of forest during the previous year periods of 2002 and 2003. It is doubtful if the forest department can recover the previous loss since the addition is so low compared to the loss of 0.97 per cent suffered as per the previous survey. As per the FSI report, Orissa has added 51 square km of very dense forest, lost 56 square km of moderately dense forest and added 26 square km of open forest , thereby leading to a net increase of 21 square km. Every two years, the FSI conducts an assessment of the forest cover in the country with the help of remote sensing techniques. The state has a total area of 1,55,707 square km. As per the latest census only 31 per cent of area of the state has actual forest cover. However, only 18 per cent of the state's geographical area is covered by dense forests though ideally it should have been 33 per cent. The state has a recorded a forest area of 58,136 square km though actual forest area of the state is 48,374 square kms including scrub forest of 4,743 square km. The break up of forest cover as per the 2005 assessment: Very dense forest: 538 square km, Moderately dense forest: 27,656 square km, Open forest: 20,180 square km and Scrub forests: 4,743 square km. A total of 538 square km of very dense forests have been recorded only from four districts ~ Mayurbhanj, Balasore (Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary), Rayagada and Kandhamal, including 319 square km in Simlipal Tiger Reserve. The most forested district is Kandhamal with 68 per cent of its geographical area covered with forests, followed by Gajapati 58 per cent. Bhadrak district has only 0.35 per cent of its area covered by forests. Districts like Ganjam and Koraput have lost forests while there was no change in as many as 20 districts. Rayagada, Kalahandi, Kandhamal and Dhenkanal districts have recorded additions of 3 to 6 square km each. http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=9 & theme= & usrsess=1 & id=193192 15) IMPHAL - A two day consultation on land, forests and natural resources has resolved to approach the Supreme Court for modification of its interim order of 1996 with regard to the Indian forest laws. The two-day state level tribal consultation on land, forests and natural resources was held on February 28 and 29 at Tribal Research Institute, Adimjati, Chingmeirong under the joint banner of the All Tribal Lawyers Association, Manipur and Naga People`s Movement for Human Rights. In the consultation which was attended by various apex bodies of the tribals in Manipur, intellectuals, tribal students bodies, social activists, scholars and individuals etc., resolved that the interim order of the Supreme Court was not in the interest of the conservation in its true sense and the tribal people of India and Manipur in particular and called for modification of the same. It also urged the state forest department to immediately halt all activities under the joint forest management programme which the consultation meeting demanded withdraw of. It also urged the hill areas committee and the legislatures to take immediate steps to implement and safeguard the land and forest rights of the tribal people of Manipur asking them to take up steps to protect the rights directly through a Central Act in an adequate manner with dignity. http://www.kanglaonline.com/index.php?template=headline & newsid=41343 & typeid=1 Pakistan: 16) ARAK: Illegal deforestation has been taking place on both sides of the Indus Highway, and it is feared that the area will be entirely cleared of trees if the cutting continues at the same rate. Some local people, as well as the timber mafia, have been reportedly involved in the cutting down of trees in Karak district, and this practice has been continuing unhindered as no government agency is accepting the responsibility of safeguarding these trees. Locals including Usman Ghani, Ali Mar Jan, and Hajat Shah, said here on Thursday that the trees had taken years to grow, and that the government had grown them along on both sides of the Indus Highway at the time of its construction to make the journey more pleasant for commuters, but that now some people were involved in cutting them down illegally. They added that some local people were cutting these trees for domestic use and as a result a large portion on Indus highway has been cleared from trees. They added that they did not know whom to complain to about the ruthless removal of the trees. The locals complained that neither the district police nor any other agency was showing any interest in safeguarding the trees, a fact which has encouraged local people and the timber mafia to cut down more trees. They said that these trees had a pleasant impact on the climate, and that the area near the Indus Highway had witnessed more rain than other parts of the district. Solutions: They suggested that committees should be formed consisting of local people from around the district near the Indus Highway, to help the authorities to safeguard the trees, and that the government could control the cutting down of trees with the help of these committees, as local people would be able to point out the culprits. They demanded of the government that the Forest Department should take the trees into its protection, and that permanent guards should be deployed to save the trees. They also stressed that those involved in the illegal practice should be severely punished. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C03%5C01%5Cstory_1-3-2008_pg\ 7_45 Madagascar: 17) Using satellite imagery, GIS and ecological and demographic data from the field, Robert W. Sussman, Ph.D., professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has studied the effects of deforestation on the ringtailed lemur population in Madagascar during the last forty years. He has determined that while causes of deforestation vary in different parts of the African island nation, the total lemur (lemur catta) population has dropped by more than half since the 1950s. Sussman discussed his long-term field research project in " Habitat Monitoring by GPS in Madagascar " during the " From Global to Local: Impact of Field Research in Biological Anthropology " session Sunday, Feb. 17, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, Mass. Sussman, who first began studying lemur populations in Madagascar in 1969, continues to conduct and coordinate long-term research of the demography, ecology and social organization of lemurs at the Beza Mahafaly Reserve and in southern Madagascar. He is co-founder of the reserve, which began as part of a cooperative program in research, conservation, education and development between Washington University in St. Louis, Yale University and the University of Madagascar (currently University of Antananarivo), which also manages the reserve. In the years since its development in 1978, hundreds of research papers have been written about the flora, fauna and people of Madagascar. Education programs on the local animals and conservation have been developed for the local people. Many non-Malagasy students have completed their doctoral field work in the area, and more than 100 local students have earned graduate degrees based on research done at and around the reserve. Sussman now uses the reserve as a base for his GIS and satellite imagery studies of southwestern Madagascar — the entire range of the ringtailed lemurs. He is looking at the relationship between deforestation, land use by the human population, and the density and distribution of ringtailed lemurs. http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/11163.html China: 18) Tropical rainforest cover in southern Yunnan decreased 67 percent in the past 30 years, mostly due to the establishment of rubber plantations, according to a new assessment of tropical forests in southwestern China. The study, published in the inaugural issue of the open access e-journal Tropical Conservation Science, reviewed species composition in China's only tropical rainforest. " This paper summarized advances in biogeography of the unique tropical rain forest of southern Yunnan, southwestern China and highlighted its similarities and differences to typical equatorial rainforests of SE Asia in floristic composition and physiognomy, " said Dr. Hua, author of the paper and a research scientist at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Kunming. " The tropical rainforest in southern Yunnan is a type of tropical Asian rainforest that occurs really at the climatic limits of tropical rainforest due to its high altitude (up to 1000 meters) and at the northern edge of the tropical zone (up to 24-40°N), " he explained. " The tropical seasonal rainforest occurs at altitudinal and latitudinal limits in the northern edge of the tropical SE Asia. At the similar northern latitude of the world, there are mostly deserts or dry lands except the northern edge of SE Asia. This makes the occurrence of the tropical seasonal rainforest unique in the world due to its restricted geographic distribution. " Hua says that Yunnan's unique type of rainforest is the product of the moist tropical climate in southern Yunnan which resulted from the uplift of the Himalayas after the late Tertiary period. The forests of southern Yunnan support more than 3600 species of seed plants, 75 percent of which share distribution with other parts of tropical Asia. http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0303-tcs_hua.html 19) GUANGZHOU -- After being crushed down by heavy snow, some rare yew trees in Shaoguan City of south China's Guangdong Province were " beheaded " and " skinned " by locals seeking to make a profit, according to the Yew Tree Forest Park management there. In January, heavy snow hit Zhangjiacun village of Shaoguan where more than 100,000 yew trees grow, breaking many yew trees. More than 100 of these rare trees are at least 1,000 years old. Fallen branches of the trees even blocked the only path for villagers to climb the mountain. Some people, driven by profit-making, even chopped the tree trunks down or skinned them so as to extract taxol, an expensive ingredient in a synthetic anti-cancer drug. " Yew trees grow very slowly, with one centimeter in 10 years. It's not easy for those trees to grow so high, " said one keeper with the park, tears in her eyes. The snow did not damage the trees substantially and they would have made full recovery with proper treatment, she added. " However, being skinned or lopped from the root, the trees surely can not live any longer. " Local police have arrested several people involved and investigation is still underway, said an official with the park. Local authorities warned villagers not to fell the rare yew trees or they would face severe punishment. The endangered tree species are on the state top protection list in China. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-03/02/content_7698711.htm Philippines: 20) LUCENA CITY--An environmentalist group has expressed alarm over the resurgence of illegal logging operations inside the Quezon National Forest Park (QNFP). Jay Lim, program officer of Tanggol Kalikasan (TK)-Southern Tagalog, said a team of provincial environment, police and military officials discovered on Friday remnants of freshly cut trees inside the mountainous area of the village of Sipa in Padre Burgos town. " The stumps and the scattered flitches were barely a week-old, " Lim said. He showed to the Inquirer video footage of fresh stumps and several pieces of lumber strewn on the hilly slopes. Lim said the team also found widespread charcoal-making inside the park. " If there's charcoal making, there is always logging. It's a telltale sign, " he said. When contacted for comment, Diony Dapla, QNFP park area supervisor, said he would immediately investigate the report to find out if the area is inside the park itself or in its buffer zone. " Even if the alleged illegal logging operations are outside the park, it should be immediately stopped, " Dapla said in a phone interview. He said he hasn't received reports of illegal logging inside the park in the boundary of the towns of Pagbilao, Atimonan and Padre Burgos. Dapla admitted, though, the existence of charcoal-making inside the park by villagers living in its perimeters. " It's part of their livelihood. Unless the government gives them alternative means of making a living, they will always resort to charcoal-making, " he said. Lim said the illegally cut forest products were being sneaked out of the forest park through a mountain river, which ends up in the delta of Tayabas Bay. He said the sawn lumber will be brought to the Lucena coast in boats or ships after they reach Tayabas Bay. The QNFP is a 983-hectare forest reservation declared a protected area by Proclamation No. 594 dated Aug. 5, 1940, and the National Integrated Protected Areas Systems Act (Republic Act No. 7586) dated June 1, 1992. It is traversed by the zigzag road that is part of the national highway between Pagbilao and Atimonan. The last time that illegal logging was reported inside the QNFP was in 2004. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20080301-122226/Logging-r\ ears-ugly-head- again-in-supposedly-protected-areas 21) LUCENA CITY – Two employees of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources office in Real, Quezon, face administrative and criminal charges for allowing the transport of forest products using " recycled " government documents. Antonio Diwa, Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro) chief based in Real, identified the suspects as Manolo Delgado, verifying forest officer, and Quirino Cadeliña, chief of the Forest Resources Utilization Unit. Diwa claimed that the two employees acted on their own and without proper authorization from their superiors. " Definitely, the two will be subject to internal investigation for possible administrative case. And if it so warrants, they will also face the corresponding criminal charges, " Diwa said over the phone on Thursday. The Cenro-Real covers Sierra Madre mountain ranges in northern Quezon. The case came about after government soldiers, led by 1st Lt. Romelito Teves of the Army's 16th Infantry Battalion, intercepted about 3,587 board feet of hardwood species aboard an Isuzu Forward truck at a checkpoint on Wednesday. The wood products, 175 pieces of flitches and lumber, were supported by a certificate of transport issued by Cenro-Real dated Feb. 26, 2008, and signed by Delgado and Cadeliña. The document identified one Thelma Aumentado as owner of the forest products that originated from Barangay Minahan Sur in General Nakar town and destined for Baliwag, Bulacan. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view/20080229-121862/2-DE\ NR-men-face-ra ps-for-illegal-logging 22) The Bangon Kalikasan Movement (BKM, Rise for Nature Movement) appealed to Atienza to revoke the permit issued by Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes when he was environment secretary in 2007, allowing the Department of Public Works and Highways to cut down 628 trees along a stretch of the highway from Bocaue to Calumpit towns to make way for a road widening project. " Before Reyes left the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources), we reminded him of his Greening the Philippine Highways and Trees for Life projects as we asked him to revoke the permit, to no avail, " said BKM president Joey Papa. The BKM sought a temporary restraining order from the Malolos Regional Trial Court to stop the enforcement of the permit but their petition was dismissed, Papa said. He said a former president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines-Bulacan chapter, lawyer Jose de la Rama, would file another petition for a TRO, but " meanwhile, the trees will continue to fall unless Atienza steps in to revoke the order. " " We hope Secretary Atienza will heed our plea, " he said, stressing the importance of trees to the environment. " As experts warned last year, [there are] only nine years left for governments and people to do something dramatic to mitigate extreme climate changes … yet certain authorities continue to be so callous, to say the least, " Papa said. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20080302-122338/Green-gro\ up-urges-DENR-ch ief-to-save-trees-from-road-project Malaysia: 23) IPOH: A Belum Valley Biodiversity and Biotechnology Centre will be set up to research and develop the natural resources of Royal Belum, one of the world's oldest tropical rainforests. The RM78mil centre will be built under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the Perak government and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Perak Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamad Tajol Rosli Ghazali, who witnessed the signing here Thursday, said a 600ha plot of land at Belum Valley would be approved for UPM's research and development into the various indigenous species found in the rainforest. " They will be given the right to extract specimens from the rainforest for research and development purposes, " said Tajol Rosli. He pointed out that the centre, expected to complete by the end of the Ninth Malaysia Plan, would not involve the construction of buildings because it would be in its natural environment. The centre, which would be able to boost the country's biotechnology sector, was expected to create jobs for some 500 people there, he said. " Although the number of jobs created is not too high, the centre will also be able to generate income for the locals such as the boatmen or food caterers, " Tajol Rosli added. http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/2/28/business/20080228164655\ & sec=business Indonesia: 24) Members of the Indonesian Forest Protection Committee and the Riau chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) rallied Thursday at Riau Police Headquarters here demanding the immediate prosecution of illegal logging suspects. Riau Police named six regional heads and dozens of executives from 23 forestry and plantation companies as suspects in illegal logging cases in early 2007, but none of these suspects have been brought to trial. " We handed over data and facts from the field between January and April 2007 to help the police in their investigations. It has been a year now, but the illegal logging cases have not yet been resolved. We hope Riau Police chief Sutjiptadi keeps his promise to settle the cases, " Riau Walhi executive director Joni Setiawan Mundung said during the rally. He cast doubt on whether Riau Police had investigated the six officials who issued forestry licenses critics say sped up the destruction of the province's forests. " We were initially very impressed by the actions taken by Sutjiptadi, who expressed his commitment to combat illegal logging in Riau, especially when we were told the National Police had asked for the President's permission to question the regional heads in Riau on Sept. 27 last year. " Sixty days have passed but there is has still been no reply from the President. The police should have immediately questioned the officials, who have been identified as suspects. Surprisingly, the Riau Police have yet to question them, with the police chief instead issuing a statement saying they won't be examined, " said Mundung. Riau Police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Zulkifli declined to comment on the charges. " Please ask the Riau Police chief about the illegal logging issue, " he said. http://www.savetheorangutan.co.uk/?p=939 Sumatra: 25) The Leuser Ecosystem is an outstanding wilderness in Aceh northern Sumatra. It is one of the richest expanses of tropical rain forest in Southeast Asia. More than 2.5 million hectares in size, it is the last place on earth where elephants, rhinos, tigers, clouded leopards, and orangutans are found within one area. The first official statement of intent to protect the Leuser Ecosystem was signed in 1934. The Leuser International Foundation (a non-profit non-government organization) was established in the late 1990's when the ecosystem was seriously under threat from illegal logging and wildlife poachin. Geographically, the Leuser Ecosystem lies between 3-4.5° North and 96.5-98° East. It covers approximately 2.6 million hectares of tropical rain forest, encompassing 890,000 hectares of designated national park, as well as extensive areas of protection and production forests. The ecosystem contains two major volcanoes, three lakes, and nine major river systems that flow to the east and west coasts of the island. The Leuser Ecosystem has an enormous level of biodiversity. It contains at least 127 mammal species, including the Sumatran elephant, Sumatran tiger, Sumatran rhinoceros, and Sumatran orangutan. About 8,500 different plant species grow in the beach, swamp, lowland, mountain and alpine ecosystems of the Leuser Ecosystem. Of the 10,000 plant species recorded in the West Indo-Malayan Region, 45% are found in the Leuser Ecosystem. Spectacular plants such as Rafflesia (the largest flower in the world) and Amorphophallus (the tallest flower in the world) are among the plants protected there. Gunung Leuser National Park is one of the biggest national parks in Indonesia (950,000 hectare). Actually, it's a collection of various nature reserves and forests: Nature Reserve Gunung Leuser, Nature Reserve Kappi, Nature Reserve Kluet, Sikundur Langkat Wildlife Reserve, Ketambe Research Station, Singkil Barat and Dolok Sembilin. http://thebangkong.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/leuser-national-park/ 26) Turning just one Sumatran province's forests and peat swamps into pulpwood and palm oil plantations is generating more annual greenhouse gas emissions than the Netherlands and rapidly driving the province's elephants into extinction, a new study by WWF and partners has found. The study found that in central Sumatra's Riau Province nearly 10.5 million acres of tropical forests and peat swamp have been cleared in the last 25 years. Forest loss and degradation and peat decomposition and fires are behind average annual carbon emissions equivalent to 122 percent of the Netherlands total annual emissions, 58 percent of Australia's annual emissions, 39 percent of annual UK emissions and 26 percent of annual German emissions.* Riau was chosen for the study because it is home to vast peatlands estimated to hold Southeast Asia's largest store of carbon, and contains some of the most critical habitat for Sumatran elephants and tigers. It also has Indonesia's highest deforestation rate, substantially driven by the operations of global paper giants Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Limited (APRIL). http://samadhisoft.com/2008/03/03/destruction-of-sumatra-forests-driving-global-\ climate-change -and-species-extinction/ Australia: 27) A resonating rally call to thousands of anti-pulp mill advocates, sympathisers and environmental activists nationwide to be prepared to protest. The cause is to try and stop construction commencing in July of the $2 billion Gunns pulp mill in the Tamar Valley, north of Launceston. Conservationist groups such as the Wilderness Society expect the scale and passion of demonstrators to rival the legendary 1980s campaign to stop the Franklin dam. The fear is that clashes between protesters, Gunns and police, will be bitter, angry and ugly. " I'm afraid there is going to be blood, " said Tasmanians Against a Pulp Mill (TAP) member and Tamar Valley resident Buck Emberg. " The anger here is palpable. " Mass arrests are already being contemplated by protesters and police. " We know there are large numbers of doctors who'd like to get arrested, " expands Vica Bayley. " Or pensioners, or fishermen, or winery owners. " This has got the potential to be Australia's next Franklin dam. " The prospect of thousands of anti-pulp mill arrests presents another problem for the Tasmanian Government - especially in Launceston. " They haven't got a jail big enough, " said Tasmanian Greens deputy leader Nick McKim, who expects he too may be arrested. Premier Paul Lennon is not happy with the talk. " I think radical conservationists threatening illegal action doesn't do them any favours at all and I'd be surprised if it had much support in the wider community, " Mr Lennon said. Publicly groups such as TAP, the Wilderness Society and the Tasmanian Greens hope the pulp mill will be axed by Gunns before construction starts in four months. They pin their hopes on shaming and pressuring the ANZ Bank, Gunns main financier, not to supply project finance to what they say is an environmentally flawed and economically marginal pulp mill. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23309107-1244,00.html?from=public_rss 28) British novelist Ian McEwan has always liked to have his say — in his books and in public. In the 1980s he was part of the anti-nuclear movement and campaigned against the government of Margaret Thatcher. Now McEwan has turned his creative gaze — " tangentially " , he claims — to the issue of climate change. And his feelings have been honed by a trip to Tasmania before his appearance in Adelaide, where he is the star attraction of a star-studded Writers' Week. He visited novelist Richard Flanagan and travelled with Greens senator Bob Brown to where old-growth trees are under threat of logging. " We hiked in some stunning forests, their beauty enhanced by the fact that they wouldn't be here in six months, " he said. McEwan found it bizarre to be drawn " into the strange spectre of a Federal Government funding a private company to turn ancient forests belonging to the state into woodchips " . The fact this was happening " in a sophisticated, advanced democracy (that is) scientifically literate … is one of profound astonishment " . Forests, he said, were one of the central arguments in post-Kyoto discussion. The difference between when McEwan campaigned against nuclear power and now is that he is known to more people and Western culture is " noisier, it's more connected " . The huge success of novels such as Atonement, Enduring Love and, most recently, On Chesil Beach, have pushed him further into the public eye. He didn't expect the huge success of his novels. He thought Atonement was a novel that only other writers would read and was apologetic when he gave it to his publisher, saying it was about the failure of literary modernism, the need for narrative and the nature of literary memory. But his publisher was thrilled. http://www.theage.com.au/news/environment/mcewan-goes-out-on-limb-for-tasmanias-\ trees/2008/03/03 /1204402365144.html 29) Forestry Tasmania said its wood supply contract for Gunns' proposed pulp mill is the most significant deal it has ever struck, according to an online ABC report. Forestry Tasmania agreed to supply Gunns with 1.5 million m3 of plantation and native forest timber a year for 20 years for about $350 million. Hans Drielsma from Forestry Tasmania told the ABC the contract stipulates if the market base price for pulp wood falls by 1%, the price his company receives from Gunns will drop by only three-quarters of a per cent. Dr Drielsma said if the price increases by 1%, Forestry Tasmania's return will go up by one-and-three-quarters of a per cent. " When things are good, we get a really good return, and that means that you know the company can afford it because, when things are good they should be making a reasonable return, and then we get a really sort of extra return, " he said. " When things are not so good, our losses are somewhat attenuated so we feel that that provides, you know that's a pretty good buffer. " http://www.internationalforestindustries.com/2008/03/04/tasmanian-pulp-mill-deal\ s-out-record-c ontract/ 30) Greg Downes, who runs Downes Survey Group in Nambour, is also a passionate environmentalist. And one of his most passionate and ambitious projects was to reclaim the rainforest area around the headwaters of Petrie Creek in Woombye. On Saturday, he was proudly able to proudly present the results to the world. After more than 15,000 trees had been planted on the 13-hectare property, and acres of lantana and camphor laurels had been removed, finally the rainforest finally has emerged, with trees now standing three-to-six 3-6 metres tall already. Fifty or 60 people thronged to what is called Floydia Bushland Conservation Reserve in White Cedar Place, West Woombye, on Saturday, to take a walk througha special place. " It all started about 10 years ago, " Mr Downes said. " We had lots of help, and Petrie Creek Catchment Care Group gave us moral support. " And we had lots of assistance from environmental consultants, particularly Dr Mike Olsenwho is a very experienced environmental restorative ecologist. " We found that of all the listed species that were threatened with extinction, one-third of them were found on this land, which was very significant. " Mr Downes said he was funding all the revegetation work and will maintain responsibility for the area for nine years. http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2008/mar/03/land-care/ 31) Application to log Mt Rae forest refused: Upper Lachlan Council has refused an amended application to log the Mt Rae forest near Taralga. Although a report recommended the modified DA be approved, councillors decided at their meeting in Gunning yesterday that the application was too different from the original one, which was approved in November 2005. The minutes show that Council felt 'the modification application is not considered to be substantially the same development as the development for which consent was originally granted'. It was also feared that the environmental impact would likely be " adverse " , and that the logging would not be in the public interest. http://ibnnews.org/localnews/application_to_log_Mt_Rae_forest_refused_29208_5045\ 10455085_00000. html World wide: 32) The World Bank unveiled practical guidance on Tuesday to tackle the complexity of issues surrounding forests' role in poverty reduction, economic growth, and the protection of local and global environmental commons. The Forests Sourcebook: Practical Guidance for Sustaining Forests in Development Cooperation is designed to be a resource for countries, staff of the World Bank Group, government and development agencies and other stakeholders in the forest sector, including investment projects, according to a statement released by the World Bank. The sourcebook also aims to give guidance on the World Bank's stringent policies that relate to forestry work, said the statement. The Forests Sourcebook draws on the experiences of more than 70experts, both within and outside the World Bank, who have applied innovative approaches to implementing the World Bank's Forest Strategy. Through concrete illustrations in the first section of the document, the Sourcebook looks at the operational implications of seven themes that are priorities in the sector, from how forests can contribute to poverty reduction, to improving forest governance, and mainstreaming forest considerations in macro-policy dialogue. A second part of the Sourcebook provides specific guidance on how to implement the World Bank's Operational Policy on Forests, considered to be a rigorous, state-of-the-art standard in this sector, with special attention to the vital role that consultation and communication need play if a project with a forest component is to be successful and sustainable. " Sustainable forest management is more than just growing and protecting trees -- it is highly complex and can only be addressed through a range of actions that blend technical aspects of forestry with other considerations such as how to strengthen policy and governance frameworks to engaging market actors and mobilizing the necessary resources, " said Warren Evans, World Bank Director for Environment. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/27/content_7674694.htm 33) Forests contain nearly 40 percent of the world's carbon—more than the atmosphere contains—but too little is known about forest carbon dynamics to predict whether anthropogenic global change will increase or decrease forest carbon pools. Helene Muller-Landau, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, announced a major global research effort to quantify forest carbon pools and fluxes. She announced the new effort at the Climate Change in the Americas Symposium, held Feb. 25-29 at the institute's headquarters in Panama. Researchers from more than 70 institutions working in a network of 25 forest study sites currently monitor more than 3 million trees representing approximately 8,200 species—10 percent of the world's total tree fauna. This Global Forest Observatory, which is coordinated by the Center for Tropical Forest Science at STRI, was originally set up to understand biodiversity but has become an ideal tool for determining the on-the-ground effects of global change. Working with partners at 12 of the CTFS sites, Muller-Landau will assess carbon storage and movement by quantifying the amount of carbon in trees, soils, lianas and woody debris; determining annual carbon flux at different sites; and seeking explanations for movement of carbon through forest ecosystems. Finally, scientists will scale up the study from individual sites to the larger landscape level by collaborating with regional forest ecologists and remote sensing researchers. Global warming has been driven by the burning of fossil fuels since the start of the industrial revolution. Current levels of atmospheric carbon have not been reached in the last 400,000 years. While there is evidence from the CTFS forest plots indicating that some forests are currently absorbing some of this excess carbon from the atmosphere, other studies suggest that global temperature increases are actually slowing tree growth and, therefore, carbon absorption. Rainfall patterns and drought frequency are expected to shift as well—also with unknown impacts on forest carbon budgets. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/stri-sag030308.php 34) Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have developed a series of global maps that show where projected habitat loss and climate change are expected to drive the need for future reserves to prevent biodiversity loss. Their study, published online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, provides a guide for conservationists of the areas of our planet where conservation investments would have the most impact in the future to limit extinctions and damage to ecosystems due to rapid human-driven climate and land-use change. The researchers found that many of the regions that face the greatest habitat change in relation to the amount of land currently protected -such as Indonesia and Madagascar-are in globally threatened and endemic species-rich, developing tropical nations that have the fewest resources for conservation. Conversely, many of the temperate regions of the planet with an already expansive network of reserves are in countries-such as Austria, Germany and Switzerland-with the greatest financial resources for conservation efforts, but comparatively less biodiversity under threat. " There's a huge discrepancy between where the world's conservation resources are concentrated and where the greatest threats to biodiversity are projected to come from future global change, " said Walter Jetz, an assistant professor of biological sciences at UC San Diego, who headed the study. " The developed nations are where the world's wealth is concentrated, but they are not the future battlegrounds for conservation. " http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Study_Finds_Future_Battlegrounds_For_Conservat\ ion_Very_Differ ent_To_Those_In_Past_999.html 35) Clark Labs was recently awarded a contract by Conservation International to assist in the development of site-level carbon emissions baselines for a subset of their projects in their Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) program. Conservation International's Regional Programs Department (RPD) and the Center for Applied Biodiversity (CABS) is charged with developing a portfolio of site-based carbon-offset projects. This task requires developing the expertise of its regional programs to conduct REDD project development, including the technical capacity to estimate carbon-emissions baselines that are transparent, and validated to a level to achieve confidence from the carbon-investment community. Conservation International's Climate Change Initiatives program in RPD led a training event on Forest Carbon Project Development in the Fall of 2007 in Quito, Ecuador. The objective of the training was to provide guidance on how to develop innovative forest carbon projects that contribute to mitigating climate change, while conserving biodiversity and promoting local community livelihoods. " Deforestation and land use change account for roughly 20 % of green house gas emissions. Protecting forests will not only preserve biodiversity but also help to reduce the rate and degree of climate change, " indicated Stefano Crema, Research Associate at Clark Labs. The course was attended by over 30 trainees from 12 regions. It was based on lessons learned and the experiences in the development of existing projects in Ecuador, Madagascar, Indonesia and others. Clark Labs contributed to the workshop and assisted in the development of site-level baseline scenarios of carbon emissions using IDRISI Andes and its Land Change Modeler application. Several different models and approaches were explored for estimating these baseline scenarios. The required input data was determined and the models were then validated. Necessary data to execute the scenario models for the emissions baselines included GIS data on roads, towns, rivers and topography, forest biomass, and historical deforestation patterns in and around the site for three time periods. Existing methods guidelines were provided by Clark Labs. http://spatialnews.geocomm.com/dailynews/2008/feb/28/news1.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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