Guest guest Posted August 26, 2008 Report Share Posted August 26, 2008 --Today for you 34 new articles about earth's trees! (390th edition) --You can now RSS tree news in a regional format at: http://forestpolicyresearch.org --To Subscribe / to the world-wide email format send a blank email to: earthtreenews- OR earthtreenews- In this Issue: EU-Africa-Mid-East Latin America Index: --UK: 1) Tree village reaches 2nd year, 2) Biofuel subsidies for peat-forest protection, --Scotland: 3) 10,000 acre estate bought for forest restoration --Macedonia: 4) 641 fires have been registered --Ghana: 5) forest protection and elephants starving people 6) UN conference split on paying poor for forest protection, 7) Before, weather wasn't so hot, 8) Submerged logging, 9) Climate change solutions simple not complex, --Congo: 10) Conflicting reports releasedon same day this month, --Trinidad: 11) Restoring Nariva Swamp --Panama: 12) Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute offset its carbon by… 13) Clearing forests leads to conservation opportunities? --Suriname: 14) They live in harmony in unspoiled rainforest in Pavacachi --Uruguay: 15) Uprooting 80 hectares before approval, 16) Not everything was on fire - much had already been burned and cleared, --Peru: 17) Puerto Maldonado, a bustling frontier town, 18) Indigenous groups blocking oil and gas installations, 19) Rare Lowland Tropical Conifers, --Brazil: 20) Destiny of Carbon stores? 21) A quarry of ideas and creativity preserves 98% of their forest? 22) More on Oil palm moving out of SE ASIA, 23) They get a license for an Amazon hydroelectric dam, 24) " I'm more optimistic now,'' Minc said today, 25) Friends of Earth Finland challenges Stora Enso in Rio Grande do Sul, 26) The 'arc of deforestation' 27) Losing half of all rare tree species, 28) Vast oil and gas exploration planned, 29) Greenpeace's Amazon office, --Guyana: 30) Exports levels to China keep rising, 31) exporting pre-fabricated houses? 32) More from Lost Land of the Jaguar, 33) New National Log Export Policy is expected to triple revenues, 34) is this really the fault of the logging companies? UK: 1) A group of protesters remain encamped and defiant in a network of tree houses on the threatened land, despite a High Court eviction order being made against them in August, 2006. Supporters of the protest camp celebrated its second birthday on the steps of Worthingtown hall at the end of May and campaigners have spoken of fighting the plans until they are dropped entirely. Meanwhile, new plans for the controversial 875-home housing development in West Durrington have been submitted to Worthing Council. Five years after the original scheme provoked angry protests over plans to cut down ancient woodland and widen Titnore Lane, developers say they have listened to the public and changed their proposals. The West Durrington Consortium, comprising Persimmon Homes, Taylor-Wimpey and Heron Land Developments, say 200 trees will be " saved " by a speed management scheme in Titnore Lane and a T-junction, rather than a roundabout, into the access road. They have pledged to plant around 2,350 new trees in and around the development and say they will " regenerate " 10 acres of ancient woodland. As well as a mix of homes, the proposed development will include a neighbourhood square, central green, medical centre, sports fields, community centre, shop and a new school. Provision for public art is also included. http://www.westsussextoday.co.uk/worthing-news/New-Titnore-Woods-scheme-revealed\ ..4420028.jp 2) A respected British think tank has called on the Government to divert money away from subsidising biofuels to protecting peatlands and rainforests, saying it would be the most cost-effective method of tackling carbon emissions. The report by the Policy Exchange titled " The Root of the Matter " said that the " changing approach would significantly reduce the cost of tackling climate change and deliver a variety of other benefits. " The study explained that as forests grow, they take carbon dioxide out of the air however this is reversed when deforestation occurs. It went on to say that removing subsidies from biofuels and switching them to preserving peatlands and forests " would halve the total costs of tackling climate change " . " To be truly effective a global response is needed, but the UK has an opportunity to lead the way, " said Ben Caldecott, editor of the report. " In the UK alone, biofuel subsidies cost £550m annually. In 2005, a similar investment in preventing deforestation and peatland destruction could have offset the equivalent of up to 37% of all UK CO2 emissions. " " In the UK we can dramatically increase funding for forest and peatland projects domestically and with key partners, especially in South-East Asia, as well as lobbying at an international level for the right global policies. " " All this can be done within our current budget, by ending wasteful and damaging biofuel subsidies, " he said. Critics of subsidising biofuels say encouraging farmers to grow alternative fuel crops reduces the amount of land to grow food crops, pushing up its price. The British government is looking to review its policy in the wake of food shortages. http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200835/1857/Think-tank-calls-for-protec\ tion-of-peatl and-and-forest-in-battle-against-climate-change Scotland: 3) A conservation charity has bought a 10,000-acre estate in the Highlands as part of its efforts to restore Scotland's Caledonian forests. Trees for Life paid £1.65million for Dundreggan Estate, Glen Moriston – one of the charity's most significant projects – following two years of negotiations. The charity will now plant 500,000 native trees to reconnect the forest between Glen Moriston and Glen Affric. Dundreggan is home to species such as black grouse and wood ants, and contains areas of ancient woodland, including one of Scotland's best areas for juniper. But much of the estate is open treeless ground. It was managed as a traditional sporting lodge for many years, and grazing by sheep and deer has prevented the growth of woodland. By 2058, Trees for Life's long-term plan will see Dundreggan restored to a wild landscape of diverse natural forest cover, with the return of species including red squirrel, capercaillie, golden eagle, European beaver and wild boar. Scientific research and education programmes will be established and most human infrastructure removed. Dundreggan Lodge and a neighbouring cottage will be renovated to a high ecological standard, providing a base for volunteers and educational displays for students, researchers and school children. http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/801289?UserKey=0 Macedonia: 4) Skopje. 641 fires have been registered in Macedonia since the beginning of the year. 151 of them were forest fires and the rest of them had burned at stubbles, bushes and grazes, Macedonian MIA agency reports. 2 622 hectare of forests had burned, which is 19 times less than last year when at about 39 000 hectares of forests had been burned down, director of the saving and Protection Directorate Shaban Alisu said at a press conference. http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n150166 Ghana: 5) " We used to cut down a lot of trees to plant cocoa. Cutting down trees used to be normal, " chief Nana Opare Ababio, 47, told reporters sitting with the village elders as children danced and banged drums alongside. On racks, cocoa beans dried in the sun. Now, he said, villagers were respecting the park boundary. " Money has not flowed to the village, " he said, despite cooperation in helping protect the forest and a 2006 law meant to give local communities a share of park income such as from limited logging that does not damage the forest. Finding new ways to slow the felling of the world's forests is a focus of 160-nation U.N. climate talks being held in Accra, about 200 km (125 miles) to the east. Deforestation accounts for almost 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. But Afiaso may show some of the difficulties -- such as ensuring that money reaches poor local communities who are the ones slowing deforestation and dependent on farming maize, cocoa, plantains and cassava. And in Afiaso there are the elephants. " Elephants come to raid our crops. Then we have to buy food elsewhere, " complained one man at a village meeting. Protected in the park, elephant numbers in Kakum rose to 206 in the last census in 2006 from 189 in 2000, according to Daniel Ewur, the park manager. The animals break out of their forest stronghold and eat crops. Still, cooperation with the park has brought jobs for some people in the village and locals believe re-growth of forests in the protected area in recent years has helped stabilise once unpredictable rains and benefited crops, Ababio said. And local children will grow up seeing animals that might otherwise have been driven to extinction, even though some complain the deal has cut hunting rights. The forest is home to rare species including the Diana monkey and the bongo antelope. http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnLP711420.html 6) A 160-nation U.N. climate conference in Ghana split on Friday over ways to pay poor countries to slow deforestation, blamed for producing up to 20 percent of the greenhouse gases caused by human activities.Options suggested for raising billions of dollars in incentives include markets that would allow trading in the carbon dioxide locked up in trees, higher aid from rich nations and levies on airline tickets or on international shipping. " It's important that we get to grips with this, " Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters during the August 21-27 meeting of 1,500 delegates. " For many developing countries, avoiding deforestation is pretty much the only way they can engage in the climate change regime and reap some benefits, " he said of schemes meant to slow logging and burning of forests to clear land for farming. A U.N. climate conference in Bali last year agreed to explore ways to pay people in the developing world to leave forests standing — trees soak up carbon dioxide as they grow and release it when they rot or are burned. http://www.daskalnet.net/un-climate-talks-split-over-deforestation-funds.php 7) AFIASO — Years ago, no one thought twice about felling the rainforest around this village in West Africa Land was cleared, cocoa and palm oil were planted, and the hamlet survived. But the wind blows stronger across the fields and scrub these days, and the rainfall is heavier than the elders remember. " Before, the weather wasn't so hot, " says the village chief, Nana Opare Ababio. Afiaso, with 620 people, is on the border of Ghana's Kakum National Park, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) from Accra, where a 160-nation U.N. conference is discussing how the issues of deforestation and conservation fit into a new global treaty on climate change. As delegates ponder the big picture, sometimes it helps to see the direct impact these issues have on villages like Afiaso. An estimated 32 million acres (13 million hectares) of forest are lost to loggers, farmers and fires every year, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization. Most of it is in the Amazon, in Southeast Asia and in West Africa. Trees, and especially the diverse vegetation of tropical rainforests, soak up and store carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming. Decaying or burning trees releases carbon into the air. Scientists estimate that deforestation accounts for up to 20 percent of the carbon added by man to the atmosphere. Climate negotiators have wrestled for years over the complexities of monitoring and accounting for deforestation, but they acknowledge that efforts to contain global warming will fail unless the loss of forests is checked. Delegates agree that countries should be compensated for slowing or halting deforestation, and that this should be a key element in a new treaty under negotiation to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. In Accra, another group of countries whose forests already have been depleted argued with growing success that they should be rewarded for maintaining their remaining woodlands and for increasing their forest cover. But delegations _ and even environmentalists _ are split on how those programs should be financed and how they would be overseen. Negotiations on the deforestation package are likely to go through all of next year until the new treaty is due to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009. Estimates of the costs range from $20 billion to $30 billion a year flowing to developing countries threatened by the effects of climate change. " We need a financial mechanism to create incentives for countries to conserve their forests and natural resources, " said Duncan Marsh, director of climate policy for The Nature Conservancy, based in Washington. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20080825/ghana-forest-village/ 8) Logging of a Ghanaian forest submerged 40 years ago by a hydroelectric dam could point to an underwater timber bonanza worth billions of dollars in tropical countries, a senior Ghanaian official said on Monday. Exploiting submerged rot-resistant hardwoods such as ebony, wawa or odum trees in Lake Volta, the largest man-made lake in Africa, can also slow deforestation on land and curb emissions of greenhouse gases linked to burning of forests. " Logging will start in October, " Robert Bamfo, head of Climate Change at the government's Forestry Commission, told Reuters on the sidelines of a U.N. August 21-27 climate conference in Accra. " This will reduce the pressure on our forests. " " The project aims to harvest 14 million cubic metres (494.4 million cu ft) of timber worth about $4 billion, " he said. Logging will be led by a privately owned Canadian company, CSR Developments, which says it aims to invest $100 million in Ghana. Cutting equipment can be mounted on barges, guided by sonars to grab trees below water. " There are very similar circumstances in numerous countries around the world including Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Brazil, Surinam, Malaysia and others, " Bamfo said of forgotten forests swamped by hydroelectric dams. " The potential is there -- they are awaiting to see the outcome of the Ghana project, " he said. He told the conference there were estimates that there were " 5 million hectares (12.36 million acres) of salvageable submerged timber in the hydroelectric reservoirs in the tropics with the potential to supplement global demand for timber. " " The trees are still strong, " Bamfo said, even though they had been under water since construction of the Akosombo Dam in the 1960s. Harvesting would cost more than on land but was still commercial because of the value of the timber. http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN550657.html 9) The issue of Climate Change has been made so complicated even though in reality it's a simple one. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), adopted by 192 countries in New York in 1992, eventually gave birth to the Kyoto Protocol adopted in Japan in 1997. This protocol has since become the blueprint by which signatory countries (technically referred to as parties) promised to abide by certain policies to help tackle the effects of global warming. Of course ten of the original parties decided not to be bound by this document: almighty USA is the big brother country which opted out. I'll just give you a few of the things expected from countries under the Kyoto Protocol; 1) They must promote sustainable forms of agriculture in light of climate change considerations, 2) Take measures to limit or reduce green house gases and, 3) Research on and promote development and increase use of new and renewable forms of energy…..and of advanced and innovative environmentally sound technologies. There was also emission targets set for richer industrialised countries. -- So fast forward to Accra, 10 years after Kyoto was signed, none of the targets have been met. Little has been done in terms of conservation, reduction in emission, deforestation. The Accra talks are a kind of crisis talks to " force " countries come to some form of agreement on concrete action plans. Of course diplomatically, " force " is unacceptable. http://www.myjoyonline.com/features/200808/19786.asp Congo: 10) The irony was leafy green and growing like a giant red mahogany tree as conflicting reports on logging in the Congo were released on the same day this month. In one, The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification has now been achieved for forestry operations on nearly 3 million acres in the Congo River Basin. In the other, a World Bank-backed review of all timber contracts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said that more than three quarters of its logging deals should be canceled for not meeting necessary standards. Ecologists calling for more logging? Government demanding a halt? It's the kind of news that makes the Congo endlessly fascinating. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is home to 358-million acres of rainforest, the world's second-largest tract of oxygen-producing, air-scrubbing greenery. It's a rich resource among the many natural assets (like diamonds, the prize at the center of Heart of Diamonds, my novel of the Congo) that have attracted exploiters from all over the globe for over a hundred years. According to Greenpeace, more than 40% of it will disappear before timber industry chainsaws by 2050. It doesn't have to happen, of course, and steps are being taken to prevent an ecological and economic disaster of those proportions. Unlike diamonds, trees are a sustainable resource. Careful management of forests can provide fuel, lumber, and pulp—thus generating jobs, tax revenues, and economic stimulus to a country that sorely needs them—while maintaining the environmentally-critical forest itself for the long term. That's what the FSC certification is supposed to encourage. Laurent Somé, WWF Central Africa Regional Programme Office (CARPO)'s Representative, says " WWF is convinced that the adoption of responsible forestry schemes by logging companies will contribute greatly to the conservation of the Congo Basin forests and towards improving the national economy and also improve the livelihoods of local communities. " http://heartofdiamonds.wordpress.com/2008/08/24/nothing-as-it-seems-in-congo/ Trinidad: 11) More than a decade after thousands of hectares of land within the Nariva Swamp were deforested by illegal farmers, a project has been launched to restore those wetlands. The Nariva Restoration Project (NRP) is one of several activities being undertaken to protect Trinidad and Tobago's " living natural resources " , said Housing, Planning and Environment Minister Emily Gaynor Dick-Forde when she spoke at a " Show and Tell " on the project at Plum Mitan, Nariva. The project, which is being undertaken by the Ministry of Housing, Planning and the Environment, the Forestry Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Environment Management Authority (EMA), involves replanting of approximately 1300 hectares of land. The replanting is being done by villagers of Plum Mitan and Kernahan over a five-year period. The World Bank provided grant funding to develop the reforestation plan, hydrology studies, a social impact assessment and the remote sensing of greenhouse gas emissions. A brief on the project states: " The Nariva RAMSAR wetland has the most varied vegetation of all wetlands in Trinidad and Tobago, with distinct zones of swamp forest, palm swamp, herbaceous swamp and mangrove woodlands of distinct global biodiversity value. " It is important for the large numbers of waterfowl, including migratory species, and it is the major wetland in Trinidad which still sustains anaconda (Eunectes murinus), the blue and golden macaw (Ara ararauna), and manatee (Trichechus manatus). " The Nariva Swamp, which has been declared an Environmental Sensitive Area, covers 15,568 hectares of one of the most important natural habitats in Trinidad and Tobago. The wetlands cover approximately 7,000 hectares. The remainder is mostly covered by up-land forest, which surrounds the wetland and could be interpreted as a buffer/protection belt to the inland areas. For several decades the area was subjected to " large scale ongoing deforestation and degradation " . In the1960s the Navet Dam was built upstream to divert water from the Navet River (the Nariva watershed) to the expanding developments in the West coast of Trinidad. Then from 1987 to 1996 illegal large commercial rice farmers caused further damage when they squatted on more than 1500 hectares of land. They cleared the forest, dug canals, burned the vegetation on a regular basis, and extensively used agrochemical as well as heavy machinery. The illegal farmers were finally evicted in 1996, but their activities profoundly affected the hydrologic behavior of the Nariva Swamp and surrounding areas. http://www.newsday.co.tt/features/0,84794.html Panama: 12) The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), the Panama-based branch of the Smithsonian Institution, will offset its carbon dioxide emissions by working with an indigenous community to conserve forests and reforest degraded lands with native tree species. The agreement was announced Sunday, August 17, 2008. The initiative is based in the premise that tropical forests sequester large amounts of carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse. By protecting forests — thereby avoiding emissions from deforestation — and establishing plantations with native tree species, the program will generate carbon credits that STRI can use to offset the emissions that it can not reduce via a new energy efficiency program. Extra credits may be sold in the voluntary carbon market. The proceeds will be used to establish a fund that benefits all members of the Embera community of Ipeti. " I hope that our model for community-based carbon offset will show that the carbon market can directly benefit local people while helping Panama to remain an international leader in the global effort to reduce emissions from deforestation under the United Nations' Framework Convention for Climate Change, " said Catherine Potvin, a McGill University professor and a research associate at the Smithsonian who has worked cloesly with the Embera community in Ipeti. " As the community replants deforested areas with native species, we replant traditions vital to the conservation of our way of life, " added Omaira Casama, the first woman to hold the level of cacique — the highest authority in the General Congress — and an integral part of the project's planning over the past four years. " This is a very positive step toward confronting the ongoing devastation of natural resources and protecting the environment in the region. " http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0821-stri.html 13) Clearing forests lead to conservation opportunities? That's the argument made in an article coauthored by William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. " New Strategies for Conserving Tropical Forests " will be featured in the September issue of the leading journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution. Rhett Butler of Mongabay.com, a leading tropical-forest Web site, and Laurance argue that the sharp increase in deforestation by big corporations provides environmental lobby groups with clear, identifiable targets that can be pressured to be more responsive to environmental concerns. This in comparison to previous deforestation that was poverty-driven. The United Nations estimates that some 13 million hectares (33 million acres) of tropical forest are destroyed each year; but these numbers mask a transition from mostly subsistence-driven to mostly corporate-driven forest destruction, say Butler and Laurance. According to the authors, a global financial market and a worldwide commodity boom are creating conditions ripe for corporate exploitation of the environment. Surging demand for grain, driven by the thirst for biofuels and rising standards of living in developing countries, is also fueling this trend. http://www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_080811.html Suriname: 14) William F. Laurance, a biologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, says the high price of gold, coal, and other minerals is driving an influx of miners — legal and illegal — into tropical countries, where there are extensive mineral deposits but environmental protections are often a low priority. Pollution, deforestation, overhunting, and invasion of indigenous territories and protected areas can result. " I recently witnessed gangs of illegal gold miners in the rainforests of Suriname, in north-eastern Amazonia, " Laurance writes. " The miners were blasting at river banks with pressure hoses, devastating the ecosystem there. Once-pristine streams had become malaria-infested pools choked with sediment, the water stained bright red or yellow, and contaminated with mercury used by miners to amalgamate gold particles. " " Because of such pollution, indigenous and other rural communities in many gold-bearing regions of Amazonia often cannot find clean water to drink. Fisheries are being decimated too; mercury accumulates as it moves up the food chain, reaching dangerous concentrations in the larger fish that local residents rely on for protein. " Laurance notes that developing countries are also having problems controlling legal operations. He cites a surge in coal mining in Indonesia as an example. Multinational mining firms are lining up to exploit rich coal deposits in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) but environmental considerations are often an afterthought. Meanwhile Malaysia is preparing to embark on a dramatic dam-building spree in the Bornean state of Sarawak to increase electricity-generating capacity to attract mineral smelters and refiners. The plan is sanctioned by the state and federal governments despite opposition from environmentalists and a court-ruling against the scheme. http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0813-mining.html Ecuador: 15) A community from the Kichwa tribe in the Ecuadorian Amazon has found a way to preserve the forest and bring in money. They live in harmony in Pavacachi - a pocket of unspoilt rainforest 200 kilometres from the nearest city. The only way to get there is by light aircraft and canoe. The community were given the land by the government 20 years ago and have pledged to preserve its pristine nature. While about 20 people live in the forest, another 80 have to live in the city to earn money. Protecting the environment is an important part of their way of life. " The best way to have a good life is to conserve. It's about finding a balance between indigenous people and the environment, " Alberto Tapuy, the founder and leader of the community said. " It's something we were taught by our forefathers. " The forest provides families with everything they need to survive - from food to medicine. But they want to generate an income so they can provide their children with an education and improve their standard of living. Eco-tourism is helping to bring in some money without the need for deforestation. Pavacachi has been designated a biodiversity hotspot which is attracting scientists and wildlife enthusiasts. Through a community development organisation, called Earthsessions, volunteers can join the Tapuy family for a taste of forest living. Collecting water from the river and wood from the forest is part of the experience. There are long treks through the jungle to spot the many animals, plants and insects that thrive in Pavacachi. So diverse is the area, there is a high probability of discovering a new species of plant or animal. On my trip to Pavacachi, in one day I spotted seven different types of monkey, from the tiny Tamarin and Spider Monkey and the larger Dusky Titi. Giant otters, river dolphins, anacondas and jaguars are among the other animals visitors could see. Eco-tourism is one way to avoid deforestation and make a living. The Tapuy community hopes one day, more of the family will be able to live in the rainforest as their ancestors envisaged. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Amazon-Eco-Tourism-Prevents-Deforest\ ation-And-Raise s-Money-Pavacachi-Diversity-Hotspot/Article/200808215078458 Uruguay: 16) Uruguay ordered this week the temporary freezing of all activities of the Spanish pulp company ENCE, following the discovery of the uprooting of an 80 hectares patch of native forest which is strictly protected under Uruguayan law. " ENCE at one time requested 'to intervene' a native forest, but during a routine inspection we discovered they had uprooted 80 hectares before we even answered yes or no to the original request " , said Daniel Sanromán head of the Uruguayan Forestry Department. However he cautioned that a full inspection and inquiry must first be completed before any sanctions are imposed on the Spanish company which is clearing the ground for the building of a pulp mill that is expected to produce a million tons annually, with an overall investment of 1.2 billion US dollars. Apparently the native wood was cleared to plant 80 hectares of eucalyptus which has become the main input for the Uruguayan growing pulp industry. " What really matters is not the area uprooted, but the fact Ence ignored précis regulations on the issue " , said a reliable source from Uruguay's Agriculture Department. Ence public relations office said early Tuesday that they had received no official information from the Uruguayan authorities and would not comment any further. Sanromán admitted the company hadn't been officially notified but " they are well aware of the incident which was communicated to them by the team of forestry inspectors " . http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=14292 & formato=HTML Peru: 17) As I flew over the Peruvian rainforest, I kept a lookout for flames. I'd heard that, despite international outrage over the loss of millions of acres of trees, the Amazon basin was still going up in smoke. Now I'd come to see for myself, and it didn't take long. Out the window of the small LAN-Peru jet I was taking from Cuzco to Puerto Maldonado, a bustling frontier town perched on a tributary of the Amazon, I saw a tall grey column billowing up from the ground 19,000 feet below. Not everything was on fire - because much of it had already been burned and cleared. A patchwork of thin, pale green rectangles intermingled with darker, bubbly patches that indicated intact forest. But I couldn't help but worry that the amount of forest left serves more like an invitation to clearcutters than a deterrent. Oscar, my guide for the next four days, confirmed that that was the case. As we boarded a long, narrow motor boat for our five-hour trip into the wilds that host the Heath River Wildlife Center, the rainforest specialist noted that fires and clearcuts remain the biggest threat facing the region known for serving as the " globe's lungs. " " Why is the forest being cleared? " I asked, thinking the answer was linked to consumer demand for mahogany, teak and other exotic woods. Oscar acknowledged that logging is a major problem. But, he said, agriculture also figures substantially into the destruction equation. " Raising cattle and growing soybeans leave a big scar on the land, " he said. " You want prestige in the Amazon, you clear the forest, grow crops, and make money. It's as simple as that. " Independent research from various scientists as well as groups like Mongo Bay, The Nature Conservancy, and Greenpeace verify that raising cattle, growing soybeans and logging are the most damaging forces behind rainforest destruction. Though most studies have focused on Brazil, Peru isn't immune to the same marketplace forces. While many fastfood restaurants in the U.S. have pledged not to use beef or soy products grown on recently deforested tracts of land, the Asian and European markets haven't been so responsible. And consumers everywhere continue to buy tropical woods because they are beautiful, unusual, and resistant to rot. http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/blogs/green-products-services/rainfore\ sts-55082101 18) Peru has declared a state of emergency in jungle areas where indigenous groups are blocking oil and gas installations in protest at a new land sale law. The government said violent acts by protesters had put security at risk. The measure allows the authorities to send in troops and bans public gatherings for 30 days. Some 65 Amazon tribes say the law will make it easier for big energy companies to buy up their land, parts of which are known to be rich in oil and gas. The indigenous people have been demonstrating for more than a week at hydro-electric dams and oil and gas installations in three different parts of Peru's Amazon basin. They are angry at a law which they say makes it easier for investors to buy their land because it lowers the bar for consent from two-thirds of a community assembly to a simple majority. The legislation is one of a number of laws being passed as part of Peru's free trade agreement with the US. " They have mobilised themselves for the right to life, the right to keep their territory and to defend the environment - the Amazon rainforest which is the lungs of the world, " said Alberto Pizango, head of the indigenous Amazonian organisation, AIDESEP. Indigenous communities complain that some 70% of Peruvian Amazon territory is now leased for oil and gas exploration, putting at risk their own lives and the biodiversity of the Amazon. At the weekend, some 800 demonstrators and police clashed in the province of Bagua, leaving several people injured. Talks between the tribes' representatives and the Environment Minister Antonio Brack also fell through. Mr Brack said there could be no further dialogue until order was re-established. " The state has the obligation to guarantee the right of all Peruvians when others violate them so order has to be established - let us be absolutely clear on this, " Mr Brack said. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7569851.stm 19) I was walking down the Anaconda Trail at the Madre Selva Biological Station with botanist Rodolfo Vasquez when he suddenly stopped, stared at the bark of a 120-foot tree, and started searching the ground. Odd behavior? Perhaps, but when you're with Peru's top field botanist, odd behavior is forgivable, since it means that something interesting is probably afoot. It didn't take Rodolfo long to find what he was looking for — broken off branches and twigs with small leaves arranged in a single plane and interspersed with tiny cones. Yes cones, as in the pine-cone type of cone. The only problem was that there aren't supposed be any conifers growing on clay soils at in lowland rainforest just south of the equator. The presence of cones and the unique arrangement of the leaves confirmed that the tree was a species of Retrophyllum, a genus in the Podocarpaceae which is a group of conifers widely distributed in the southern hemisphere. To Rodolfo's dismay, however, the tree was a male, as confirmed by the tiny pollen producing cones. While most plants combine male and female parts on the same plant and even in the same flowers, conifers typically have separate male and female plants. Plant taxonomy, however, is based largely on female floral, fruit, and seed characteristics, none of which are obtainable from a male plant. Without that additional material, it would be impossible to conclusively identify the new tree, or if it was an undescribed species, to formally describe it and give it a scientific name. We searched the surrounding area looking for additional individuals but without success. Our single male tree was destined to remain an anonymous bachelor, and he soon was dubbed " Lonely George " for lack of a better name. Conifers in the Podocarpaceae family are mostly plants of temperate regions, growing well south of the equator in temperate zones, or at high elevations where temperatures are cooler. Lonely George's very existence is somewhat fortuitous to start with. The Madre Selva Biological Station was founded by Project Amazonas in 1994 on lands that had been partially used for slash-and-burn agriculture. The area had also been selectively logged 10-15 years previously, and the scars of tractor trails are still visible less than 100 yards from Lonely George's position. Although the Andean species are highly valued as timber, it is likely that the loggers didn't recognize the timber value of the single tree, and concentrated on cutting trees with known market value instead. http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0817-amazonas_new_tree.html Brazil: 20) According to " Climatic and Biotic Controls on Annual Carbon Storage in Amazonian Ecosystems " published by Blackwell Press in 2000, the Amazon rainforest holds approximately 10% of the world's ecosystem carbon stores. It also states that the Amazon forest accumulates 0.6 tons of carbon per hectare per year. The absorption of carbon dioxide is not the only way the Amazon rainforest impacts on world climate. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report titled " The Amazon's Vicious Cycles: Drought and Fire in the Greenhouse " reveals that the rainforest " influences climate by acting as a giant consumer of heat close to the ground, absorbing half of the solar energy that reaches it " . A report by Agence France-Presse (AFP), dated June 3, 2008, titled " Worsening Amazon Deforestation Embarrasses Brazil's Govt. " states that " In the past two decades, 700,000 square kilometers of the four million square kilometers that make up the forest have been razed, which corresponds to an area the size of a football field disappearing every 10 seconds. " Quoting figures from Brazil's National Space Research Institute, the report claims that the rate of deforestation in 2008 will be greater than in 2007. The major contributors to the Amazon deforestation are cattle ranching, soybean production and forest logging. - The U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization publication " Livestock's Long Shadow " states that " 70% of previous forested land in the Amazon is occupied by pastures " . - According to the World Bank Working Paper No. 22, titled " Causes of Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon " , " Soybean cultivation is increasing rapidly in the cerrado, causing the agricultural frontier to expand into forest areas. " - Greenpeace International, in its website " Logging in the Amazon " states that " Illegal and predatory logging plays a central role in the destruction of the Amazon. It is now generally accepted that illegal logging is the norm, rather than the exception in the Brazilian Amazon. " - These activities have a huge environmental impact in that they remove carbon dioxide absorbing forest, use " slash and burn " methods to clear the forest, thus releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and replace the forest with methane producing cattle. The Earth has seen this all before, from hothouse periods such as the late Permian (c250 million years ago), when atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide were ten times higher than they are today, to sudden climatic crashes, as at the end of the Ordovician (c450 million years ago) when global temperatures fell by more than 10°C, precipitating a mass extinction in which two-thirds of life on Earth abruptly disappeared. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/articl\ e4573560.ece 21) MANAOS - The Brazilian state of Amazonas is " a quarry of ideas and creativity " and is in the vanguard for having preserved 98 percent of its native forests, paying for environmental services, and enacting the pioneering Climate Change Act, says Nadia D'Ãvila Ferreira, the state's secretary for the environment and sustainable development. A biologist who holds a master's degree in freshwater and fish biology and another in quality management, she took the helm of the Amazonas Secretariat of the Environment and Sustainable Development (SDS) in March 2008. Amazonas covers a vast territory in northwestern Brazil and is one of the country's nine Amazon Basin states. Ferreira had already served in high-level posts in the SDS and in the Secretariat of Education for Amazonas state. Following are excerpts from an interview with Tierramérica's Mario Osava in the Amazonian city of Manaos. TIERRAMÉRICA: The Climate Change Act was passed in 2007. What has been done as a result of that legislation? NÃDIA D'ÃVILA FERREIRA: The (state) government created a foundation to develop environmental services in the State Centre for Conservation Divisions (CEUC) and of Climate Change, both inaugurated in April 2008. The CEUC will manage 34 conservation areas that cover a total of 17 million hectares, in association with non-governmental entities. TA: And for the climate change issues? NDF: The law calls for six programmes that the State Centre for Climate Change must carry out. One is the Forestry Grant, entrusted to the Sustainable Amazon Foundation. Another is a programme for energy alternatives. Training is another activity. We just completed a teachers workshop on forest management and climate change. We have published two books which in 2009 will be distributed to all teachers, nearly 30,000 people, after reviewing them and expanding them based on participatory input. We want to show how students in primary and secondary school can help tackle the climate issue. Also, there will be environmental monitoring, with specific indicators for the state, which reduced deforestation 63 percent over the last five years. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43648 22) Brazil will allow the establishment of oil palm plantations on degraded lands in the Amazon rainforest under a agreement signed between Brazil's ministers of agriculture and the environment, reports Folha de S. Paulo. Environment minister Carlos Minc said the proposed law aims to expand biodiesel production in the Amazon without contributing further to deforestation, but environmentalists argue the plan will effectively cut the amount of forest landowners are required to keep on their property from 80 percent to 50 percent, thereby accelerating forest conversion and breaking an earlier promise by Minc that the government would not change the restriction. The initiative, dubbed " Floresta Zero " , allows a landowner count the planting of oil palm and other exotic species towards their " legal forest reserve " requirement. The existing law mandates the use of native species in forest regeneration for the establishment of legal forest reserves. Green groups say that because plantations are biologically impoverished relative to natural forests, the plan would hurt biodiversity. 12 NGOs voiced opposition to the proposed changes to the forest code in a statement released Friday. http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0820-brazil_palm_oil.html 23) Brazil's environment minister said Monday he granted a license for an Amazon hydroelectric dam but attached stringent conditions to protect Indian reservations and nature preserves. But at least two environmental groups criticized the government's approval of a project that they say fails to safeguard either people or the environment. The license for the Santo Antonio dam is contingent upon millions of dollars of investments in equipment for fire fighters, environmental police and sewage treatment for the state capital, Porto Velho, Environment Minister Carlos Minc said. The dam is one of two planned for the Madeira river in the Amazon state of Rondonia. Brazil auctioned off the rights to build the 3,150-megawatt Santo Antonio dam to a consortium including Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht and Furnas in December. The dam is expected to cost 9.5 billion reals (US$5.9 billion) and go online in 2012. The environmental groups Friends of the Earth, Amazonia, and International Rivers issued a joint statement later Monday accusing Brazil's environmental protection services of " approving a mitigation plan which will do libttle " to lessen the dam's impacts " on the region's biodiversity, and on river bank communities, including indigenous tribes living close to the reservoir area. " " The granting of the construction license under these conditions will mean additional challenges to the project in the courts, " Friends of the Earth said. http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Aug11/0,4670,BrazilAmazonDam,00.html 24) Brazilian Environment Minister Carlos Minc said the pace of deforestation in the Amazon won't increase this year, a turnaround from April when the government predicted the first acceleration since 2004. ``I'm more optimistic now,'' Minc said today in an interview in Brasilia. ``I believe deforestation will be the same as last year.'' The world's largest rainforest lost 11,224 square kilometers (4,334 square miles) in 2007, the smallest loss since 1991. The government's current estimate, which Minc said will be revised, is for 12,000 square kilometers of loss this year. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has tightened rules against illegal logging since December, responding to preliminary figures that signaled devastation of the forest could accelerate. In April, the government expected Brazil would lose as much as 15,000 square kilometers of rainforest this year as surging prices for cattle and soybeans led ranchers to seek farm land in the Amazon. Minc said government efforts to combat the deforestation of the Amazon are starting to bear fruit. The pace of deforestation has been falling since 2004, when it reached a nine-year high of 27,379 square kilometers. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086 & sid=a5hV4N_tXsMM & refer=latin_ame\ rica 25) The environmental advocacy group Friends of the Earth Finland is accusing the forest company Stora Enso of inappropriate behaviour in Brazil in its land acquisition activities in the state of h. The organisation's spokeswoman Noora Ojala says that Stora Enso has donated money for the election campaign of the state's governor Yeda Crusium in exchange for favourable decisions by the state's authorities. Ojala says that pulp manufacturers supported Crusium to the tune of EUR 200,000. At an event organised on in Helsinki on Thursday by Friends of the Earth and Friends of the Landless, Ojala said that the support smacks of corruption. Stora Enso owns half of the Veracel pulp mill in Brazil, and the company is planning to expand its pulp business, which means that the company needs more land. The raw material for pulp in Brazil is cultivated eucalyptus. The two NGOs say that land acquisition has not been without problems. Last spring police in Brazil broke up a demonstration by women of the Landless Workers' Movement at a Stora Enso wood plantation in Rio Grande do Sul. The women had taken over a plot of land of one hectare, cutting eucalyptus seedlings. Police broke up the demonstration using clubs and rubber bullets. Sixty demonstrators were injured in the clash. Noora Ojala says that the police were called in by Stora Enso, which knows that Brazilian police are in the habit of using tough measures against demonstrators. http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Friends+of+the+Earth+accuses+Stora+Enso+of+buyi\ ng+political+in fluence+in+Brazil/1135238858251 26) of southern Amazonia has one of the highest deforestation rates documented anywhere in the world. Landscape changes in a poorly studied but strategically important region in the Brazilian Amazon were studied using biennial Landsat TM/ETM+ images from 1984 to 2004. Deforestation rate for the period 1984–2004 was 2.47% yr−1 in the 7295 km2 study area, but decreased to 1.99% and 2.15% in 2000–2002 and 2002–2004, respectively. Landscape structure changes were characterized by smaller forest patches that were further apart, but increasingly complex in shape. Deforestation was mainly driven by cattle ranching, which in turn was affected by distance to roads, with forest cover increasing at greater distances from roads. A multi-layer perceptron was used to develop future scenarios based on Markov Chain analysis. Based on current land use, forest cover in the region will decline from 42% in 2004 to 21% by 2016. Results indicate a critical threshold at 51% of forest cover in which landscape structure and connectivity changes abruptly. This suggests that the region requires greater efforts in environmental law enforcement, land-use planning and education programmes to maintain the remaining forest cover near this threshold. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online & aid=2010520 27) Common tree species in the Amazon will survive even grim scenarios of deforestation and road-building, but rare trees could suffer extinction rates of up to 50 percent, predict Smithsonian scientists and colleagues in the Aug. 12 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The Amazon basin contains about 40 percent of the world's remaining rainforest. One of the fundamental characteristics of tropical forests is the presence of very rare tree species. Competing models of relative species abundance, one based on Fisher's alpha statistic and the other based on Preston's lognormal curve, yield different proportions of rare trees in the forest. Thirty years ago Stephen P. Hubbell, senior scientist at the Center for Tropical Forest Science of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and distinguished professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleague Robin Foster, now at the Field Museum in Chicago, set up a unique experiment to monitor the growth, birth and death of more than 250,000 tropical trees on Panama's Barro Colorado Island. This large " forest dynamics plot " would generate the data needed to build good models that include rare species. Today the Center for Tropical Forest Science coordinates a Global Earth Observatory—a network of 20 such forest study sites in 17 countries, which maintains " actuarial tables " for more than 3 million trees. Hubbell works with data from the network to develop and test his neutral theory of biodiversity—an attempt to find a unified explanation of large, complex biological systems that accurately predicts the outcome of major ecological and evolutionary forces of change. In this offering, the authors use the neutral theory to predict the number of tree species and to test predictions of the Millenium Ecosystems Assessment that forecasts major tree extinctions in the Amazon over the next several decades. First, they estimate that the Brazilian Amazon has (or had) 11,210 large tree species, and, of these, 5,308 species are classified as rare. Based on optimistic and non-optimistic scenarios for road construction in the Amazon published by the Smithsonian's William Laurance and colleagues in the journal Science in 2004, they predict that the rare species will suffer between 37 and 50 percent extinction, whereas the extinction rate for all trees could be from 20 to 33 percent overall. http://www.physorg.com/news137865266.html 28) Vast swathes of the western Amazon are to be opened up for oil and gas exploration, putting some of the planet's most pristine and biodiverse forests at risk, conservationists have warned. A survey of land earmarked for exploration by energy companies revealed a steep rise in recent years, to around 180 zones, which together cover an area of 688,000 sq km, almost equivalent to the size of Texas. Detailed mapping of the region shows the majority of planned oil and gas projects, which are operated by at least 35 multinational companies, are in the most species-rich areas of the Amazon for mammals, birds and amphibians. Researchers used government information on land that has been leased to state or multinational energy companies over the past four years to create oil and gas exploration maps for western Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia. The maps showed that in Peru and Ecuador, regions designated for oil and gas projects already cover more than two thirds of the Amazon. Of 64 oil and gas regions that cover 72% of the Peruvian Amazon, all but eight were approved since 2003. Major increases in activity are expected in Bolivia and western Brazil. " We've been following oil and gas development in the Amazon since 2004 and the picture has changed before our eyes, " said Matt Finer of Save America's Forests, a US-based environment group. " When you look at where the oil and gas blocks are, they overlap perfectly on top of the peak biodiversity spots, almost as if by design, and this is in one of the most, if not the most, biodiverse place on Earth. " Some regions have established oil and gas reserves, but in others, companies will need to cut into the forest to conduct speculative tests, including explosive seismic investigations and test drilling. Typically, companies have seven years to explore a region before deciding whether to go into full production. " The real concern is when exploration is successful and a zone moves into the development phase, because that's when the roads, drilling and pipelines come in, " said Finer. Writing in the journal PLoS One, Finer and others from Duke university in North Carolina and Land is Life, a Massachusetts-based environment group, call for governments to rethink how energy reserves in the Amazon are exploited. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/13/conservation.forests 29) I've just returned from a two week trip to Greenpeace's Amazon office where we were discussing future plans to protect the rainforest. The office is based in a city called Manaus which, despite its position in the heart of the jungle, is far from a provincial backwater - with over two million people the city keeps up a frenetic pace, despite the baking equatorial sun and exhausting levels of humidity. The job that our campaigners, logistics experts and policy thinkers are doing to protect the Amazon biome is simply inspirational. Many of them have made real sacrifices to work there, moving away from family and friends and the giant cities of Brazil in order to work at the front line of climate and forest protection. Sao Paulo, a city of 20 million people, is close to many of their hearts, but lies on the coast just under 4,000 kilometres away. Fighting for the protection of the Amazon basin, its rivers and biodiversity is more than just a day job, it requires a commitment to an entirely different way of life. Running a Greenpeace office in such an environment isn't easy. For a start, there are real issues of security to consider, which means a 24-hour guard must be employed look over the gates of the office. The heavy duty vehicles that campaigners use for field research and actions are fitted with bullet proofed glass - not to stop people actually shooting at them, apparently, but at least to protect against a wayward baseball bat or brick. In many ways, the Amazon remains a 21st century version of the wild west, a frontier where criminals and organised rackets are often more powerful than the local police force. The large logging companies that rule this part of the world employ some pretty heavy handed tactics, and many are openly hostile to organisations like Greenpeace. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/forests/sticky-noisy-and-remarkable-working-am\ azon-jungle-2008 0821 Guyana: 30) Guyana's log exports to China continue to increase despite a government policy to ensure value-added exports. From the start of this year to the end of July, exports to Beijing were 5% higher than the 2007 figure for the corresponding period, according to a report by the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO). Additionally, greater volumes of sawn lumber are being exported and at higher prices, the report pointed out. The ITTO said that log exports recorded for July were 11% greater by volume than the combined total for May and June, 2008. It attributed the 5% rise to an increase in consumption of Wamara logs in the Chinese market and noted that this year the export volume of Wamara logs was 48% greater than that of the same period last year, with July's volume exceeding a previous high by more than 42%. " This trends also indicates an increasing demand for Wamara logs in the Chinese market since August 2007 " , the report said. Meanwhile, the report stated that from the beginning of this year up to July, sawn lumber exports have increased 18% by volume and 26% by value from the same period last year. The prime destination for sawn wood for July was The Netherlands with the dominant export being Wamara, the report noted. Meanwhile, the latter part of July's round-wood exports was up by more than four times the earlier portion of that month's figure. " This alone contributes to approximately 15% of all roundwood exports for the year, owing to a higher demand for greenheart piles from the US. Plywood exports by volume, on the other hand, are showing some signs of improvement from the combined results for May and June levels, with the US being the primary destination for exports " , the report said. http://www.stabroeknews.com/news/log-exports-to-china-up-itto/ 31) Guyana has not been exporting pre-fabricated houses for almost two years now, despite demand for the commodity in the Caribbean. However, the Guyana Forestry Commission has been encouraging this phenomenon, since it is promoting more value added production in Guyana. Persons who manufacture pre-fabricated houses are not required to pay export commission on their product. This is also applicable to persons who manufacture furniture and other value added products within the forestry sector. Timber companies which do not have forestry concessions in Guyana will not be allowed to export logs, Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud said last week. This decision is in keeping with an announcement by President Bharrat Jagdeo to deter the exportation of the forest product and to allow for more value added activities in the country.Ameerally, who is the owner of Wood Associated Industry (WAICO), said that his operations were originally in Berbice, but he began experiencing difficulties in transporting containers across the Berbice River to facilitate export. He said that he took a business decision to relocate his operations at Land of Canaan, East Bank Demerara, which is a more convenient location from which to sell overseas. " My forestry concession is in Kwakwani. At Land of Canaan, it is earlier to commute to Kwakwani. The working factory is now being set-up. Shipping has to be a major consideration when exporting pre-fabricated houses, because you have to utilise containers properly, because, if you don't, you will be paying for containers that have lots of space going out, " Ameerally said. http://www.kaieteurnews.com/?p=4763 32) This week's episode of the BBC's three-part wildlife series, Lost Land of the Jaguar, sees the international team of scientists, climbers and filmmakers push further into the Guyanese rainforest in search of elusive wildlife. Locally named 'The Land of Many Waters' Guyana has few roads, so small plane or riverboat is the only way to access most of the country – of which 80% is covered by virgin rainforest. After an initial overnight in Georgetown, a private charter flight over endless rainforest reaches the breathtaking Kaieteur Falls, 822 feet (five times the height of Niagara) - there are no other falls in the world combining this magnitude of water and sheer drop. Naturetrek's aircraft lands on the table top summit of a nearby tepuis, allowing exploration of the ecosystem, including the unique micro environment of the giant Tank Bromeliads, the world's largest, in which the tiny Golden Frog spends its entire life! With luck a splendid male Guianan Cock of the Rock may also be observed in full display. Later, at Timber Rainforest Resort within the Amerindian reserve of Santa, open marsh attracts Sungrebes and Sunbitterns, while Red-shouldered Macaws nest in the Moriche Palms in front of the lodge. http://www.easier.com/view/Travel/Holidays/article-196320.html 33) The new National Log Export Policy is expected to triple revenues and employment opportunities by promoting more value added activities in the forestry sector. The proposed 10 percent increase would increase in the commission will form the basis of this growth over the next three years. President Bharrat Jagdeo Tuesday presented the policy to the Forest Producers Association (FPA) and the Guyana Manufacturers and Services Association (GMA). The Policy was developed after discussions among the stakeholder groups and a Ministerial Committee was appointed to develop a Position Paper. At the forum held in February 2007, three options were proposed for consideration by the government. These were a total ban on the export of logs, no ban on the export of logs, and the introduction of an increased export commission. Following the forum, the government continued their discussions with the stakeholder groups and international agencies. These included the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. The Policy was subsequently finalised. http://guyanaforests.blogspot.com/2008/08/log-export-policy-targets-increased.ht\ ml 34) It is with no surprised that all the alleged forestry breaches and so called " forest crimes " as one writer puts it is being unearthed at the eleventh hour. The question is as previous writers have alluded to is whether this is really the fault of the logging companies or is the GFC the sole and real culpable party. And is this a deflector against other more critical matters worth investigating within the GFC? Please permit me to delve into the management structure, personalities and procedures of the GFC in answering this question. You the readers will assert for yourself the crooks of the issue. While I do not wish to portray that some logging companies are angels in their compliance with the forestry law and Code of Practice but in this instance I believe they may have been treated unjustly and abused. GFC management structure is currently unstable. As is known the GFC's management structure has been going through several changes due to restructuring and unstable workforce at the senior level since the late nineties. The most stable office since that period has been the Commissioner of Forest's office that over the years, including currently, has had to deal with various management personalities. Senior management not experienced and qualified for the job – few qualified foresters. Too many bureaucracy to get approval to operate Technical departments being dissected and being managed by unqualified officers The current management structure and personalities may have brought to bear the recent unjust actions on the industry by GFC. Their knowledge, experience, qualifications and consistency to manage processes they are in charge of are questionable. To begin with the current Forest Management Department has been dissected into several subsections and each is being headed by several heads of other departments most of whom are unqualified foresters. Probably it stands to reason that a technical department such as this one does not really require qualified managers in the field of forestry. Moreover most of the senior officers never spent more than 25% of their working experience at the GFC in the forest to understand proper forest management in practice. Therefore, they can be termed " Pseudo Foresters " . This is the department responsible for the so called " permission to harvest blocks " that the logging companies apparently breached. http://guyanaforests.blogspot.com/2008/08/gfc-inside-story-part-1-gfc-misleading\ ..html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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