404 - Latin American / Forest-Type / World-wide Tree News

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In this Issue:

Latin America / Forest-Type / World-wide

 

Index:

 

--Jamaica: 1) Save the trees by stopping Bauxite mining, 2)

Agriculture, squatting and polluting are biggest threats to island

watersheds,

--Haiti: 3) Hurricane's effect on severe deforestation and extreme poverty

--Mexico: 4) Conservationists fail to halt illegal logging of

Butterfly wintering site

--Costa Rica: 5) Gathering disease resistant Mahogany seeds

--Panama: 6) Rural poor and indigenous people amid declining forests,

7) MTV's green crusade trashes the forest,

--Guatemala: 8) leading enviro survives being shot after court victory

regarding mining laws

--Nicaragua: 9) New law to protect the Bosawas biosphere reserve

--Guyana: 10) Need to look beyond traditional approaches to financing

for forests

--Ecuador: 11) Four tribes members head to Wash. DC to talk about Chevron

--Argentina: 12) Lots of tourist sprawl at Iguazu Falls

--Brazil: 13) New website gets 13 million protests against fires and

deforestation in only 13 days, 14) Amazon stats, 15) Tropical woodland

savannahs give way to big ag exploits, 16) State of emergency has been

declared in Tailandia, 17) Norway offers a billion US dollars for

forest protection, 18) World's oldest ant species found living in

Amazon, 19) Understanding recolonization of degraded forest lands by

pioneer species, 20) Isolated native Indians in the Amazon forest

threatened by advancing loggers, 21) Amazon mayors up for election are

helpful to illegal loggers, 22) More on new web site: Globo Amazônia,

23) Greenpeace gives Lula a firefighter outfit,

--Mediterranean forests: 24) 50,000 fires each summer and more than 90

per cent of them are started by people

--Tropical Forests: 25) Conservation and Stability of Rainforest

Margins, 26) True worth and value unrealized, 27) Once covering some

15.3 billion acres only 200 million acres remain,

--World-wide: 28) Forests of the future is all about clean water

instead fiber, 29) International Day Against Tree Monocultures, 30)

" New " blueprint hammered out at a series of World Bank meetings, 31)

World Rainforest Movement Bulletin, 32) Difficult to guarantee

longevity of planted forests, therefore their expected carbon

benefits, 33) Deforestation associated with plantation development is

the biggest ecological impact, 34) How a green leaf makes UV

shielding, 35) 20 Visually Arresting but Threatened Forests, 36)

Extinction of ecosystem soundscapes: Human impacts on sonic

ecosystems, 37) Study of symbiosis is the quintessential systems

biology,

 

Articles

 

Jamaica:

 

1) For 30 years I have been painting landscape in one of the great

beauty belts of Jamaica, the Garden Parish of St Ann. This historic

area of Jamaica is known for its beauty in an island that is already

famous for its natural beauty since its discovery by Christopher

Columbus, that this beauty must be con-sidered a major natural

resource. I have just learned that our Government, in partnership with

exploiting Americans and Chinese, plan to mine for bauxite in the very

heart of Jamaica, the precious heart of the Garden Parish itself,

which sits on an aquifer that supplies the entire north coast with

clean, unpolluted water. The reason given is the usual regurgitated

lie that it will give jobs, but if bauxite mining, which has existed

in the area since the '50s, could not change the fortunes of the

people of St Ann, still after all that mining the poorest parish, it

is hardly likely to do so now. The loss of beauty is not simply an

aesthetic concern. Substitute the word 'Environment' for 'Nature' and

my concern expands to a level serious enough to have caused a whole

new area of study, that of survival itself, but if 'global warming,

melting ice caps, etc.' seem like far-away dangers to us we have a

textbook example of the losses incurred by misguided developers in our

own backyards that is impossible to ignore.

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080919/letters/letters4.html

 

2) POOR AGRICULTURAL practices, pollution and squatting pose the

biggest threats to the island's 26 main watersheds. " In most of our

watersheds, we have caused massive degradation in terms of vegetation

loss. Therefore, when it rains, flooding and landslides are extremely

common, " comments environmental consultant, Eleanor Jones. Jones and

her company, Environmental Solutions Limited, have done extensive work

on Jamaica's watersheds and its management over the years. In fact,

the company is currently engaged in the development of a national

water-sector adaptation strategy to address climate-change impact. The

project is being implemented with funding from the World Bank. worst

watersheds According to Jones, St Thomas watersheds are among the

worst in the island. The parish has three main watersheds, one of

which is the main supplier of water to the Kingston Metropolitan

Region (KMR). But it seems, she notes, that the people who depend on

the watersheds most are the very ones destroying them. Although St

Thomas has the largest concentration of small farmers in Jamaica,

bigger farmers are also a huge problem. " Our coffee farmers, for

instance, in St Andrew and St Thomas, have this idea that you have to

clean off the slopes and then put bananas and plantains to shade the

coffee plants, " argues Jones. On a recent trek into the hilly

interiors of the Morant River watershed, The Sunday Gleaner witnessed

what Jones has described: large, grassy parcels of land on hillsides

lay bare, stripped of trees, rendering the sheltered valleys and roads

below flood-prone. In fact, that happened during the passage of

hurricanes Dean and Ivan in 2007 and 2004, respectively. Evidence of

scarring is still visible in areas such as Somerset and Mount Lebanus,

where many houses lie abandoned due to constant flooding. " The man dem

burn off the hillside dem, " says 57-year-old coffee farmer Doriley

Brown of Somerset. Though he does not admit to engaging in slashing

and burning, he says it is done frequently in the area, especially by

younger farmers. " Everybody want fi go pon the fast lane. Nobody want

fi go pon the slow lane because most of dem not working otherwise and

making money, apart from the farming, " says Brown. According to him,

competition from other large farmers and importers makes it difficult

for small farmers. The main crop produced in Somerset is carrot, which

is selling for $30 per pound these days. " You have fi use manpower fi

clear the land, so you haffi pay a man $1,000 fi weed it and then you

haffi pay fi transport it, " says Brown. To avoid some of the costs,

many set fire to the land or use weedicides or insecticides to clear

it for farming. During the dry season, it becomes particularly

dangerous as dry winds and scorching sunlight torch the hillsides.

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080921/lead/lead6.html

 

Haiti:

 

3) With severe flooding, hundreds dead and hundreds of thousands

lacking food and basic provisions, Haiti has been hit badly so far

this hurricane season, with four severe storms in less than four

weeks. The Caribbean nation has suffered more than its neighbors, also

lashed by major storms, in part because of severe deforestation and

extreme poverty. After Tropical Storm Fay and Hurricane Gustav in

August, the poorest country in the Americas was devastated by Tropical

Storm Hanna last week, and flooding was compounded Saturday night and

Sunday when Hurricane Ike clipped the country's northern peninsula as

it raged westward toward Cuba. Damaged infrastructure and continuing

rains left aid organizations struggling to bring emergency assistance

to hundreds of thousands of storm victims. About 600 people died in

Haiti's recent storms, according to UN and government figures, and one

million were affected. The storms also battered roads and bridges. But

many say the damage could have been reduced by better environmental

planning.

http://povertynewsblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/deforestation-and-poverty-behind-hai\

ti.html

 

 

Mexico:

 

4) The traditional wintering site for tens of millions of monarch

butterflies in central Mexico is under continuing threat after

conservationists failed to halt the onslaught of illegal logging in

the area. The butterflies are in the middle of their annual journey of

up to 2,800 miles from eastern Canada to the small area of evergreen

fir forest that acts as their wintertime sanctuary. But, despite an

unprecedented drive to protect it, deforestation is threatening the

Monarch Biosphere Reserve and its visitors. A report from the WWF

showed deforestation of the area up nearly 10% over the last year, at

260 hectares (650 acres), reversing a downward trend established with

the help of unparalleled efforts by the authorities and

conservationists. " The problem is more complicated than we had

thought, " said Omar Vidal, director of WWF Mexico. " It is very

worrying. " Before the latest figures came out activists and government

officials were hinting at victory in the battle to protect the

mountainside reserve, which was formed in 1986 from land owned by 38

communities. Deforestation soared after the arrival of the logging

mafias in 2001, reaching a peak of 460 hectares in 2006. The impending

disaster led to unprecedented efforts to protect the reserve's 11,000

hectare core. Police and the army manning checkpoints cracked down on

trucks piled high with logs leaving the reserve and local people were

offered financial incentives to conserve the forest, and advice on

other ways of making money, such as tourism.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/12/wildlife.climatechange

 

Costa Rica:

 

5) A group of engineers from the Research and Forest Services

Institute from the National University in Costa Rica have collected

over 300 mahogany tree species throughout Central America in order to

clone them. The mahogany tree species has been pointed out as an

endangered species due to the demand of its precious wood. In Costa

Rica, the cutting down of Mahogany trees has been prohibited as an

effort to conserve the species. Costa Rica's forests have transitioned

from being a productive wood source for the construction market to

being a protected area in order to preserve nature. This has lead to a

deficiency in the country's wood source having reached a 20% deficit,

thus forcing the country to import wood from other countries such as

Chile, Canada and Nicaragua. The engineers from the National

University have stated that Costa Rica counts with over 150,000

hectares of agroforest land which can be used to exploit the

reforestation of precious woods. By cloning the collected trees,

engineers will be able to replant these species in specified areas

which will allow their growth as well as their cutting for the use of

its wood. The engineers have successfully cloned over 30,000 species

which have undergone treatment in order to grow a straight trunk for a

better extraction of wood. From these 30,000 cloned trees, engineers

will only replant those which show resistance to the mahogany plague.

http://www.128canopy.com/cloned-trees-to-alleviate-deforestation/

 

Panama:

 

6) Despite a deceptively high national per-capita income, there is

much poverty in Panama. The " poster child " of Panamanian poverty would

be malnourished, rural and indigenous. There would be no shortage of

models for such a poster; 87.7% of the rural indigenous population and

33.5% of the total rural population has been classified as suffering

extreme poverty. This means they have a per-capita income of less than

$470 dollars per year, insufficient to provide a minimum daily

consumption of 2280 calories (Government of Panama, 1998). At the same

time, the natural resources, which sustain the rural population, and

with wise use could produce an acceptable standard of living, are

being depleted at an alarming rate. For reasons of climate,

geographical location and topography, Panama has an apparent

comparative advantage in wood and other forest products. Nevertheless,

little has been done to develop this advantage. Often, thousands of

dollars of valuable wood is burned to clear land where less than one

hundred dollars of rice or corn will be harvested. The annual rate of

deforestation has been estimated at 50,000 to 70,000 Ha. per year.

Areas of extreme soil degradation due to erosion comprise more than

2,000,000 Ha. More than 1,700,000 Ha. of land that is unsuited to

agricultural production is currently in use, and will likely be added

to the total of degraded land in the future. Thus, it is probable that

the migration to urban areas will continue or increase from its

current level (Stewert, 1996). Who they are and what they are like

about 45% of Panama's population is classified as rural, with

1,007,247 rural non-indigenous and 206,489 rural indigenous people

(GOP, 1998). While exact figures for the number of subsistence farmers

are not available, a drive through the countryside will suffice to

know that the majority of the rural working population is engaged in

subsistence agriculture at least part of the year. Within two hour's

travel in any direction from Panama City's tall buildings, one will

encounter subsistence farmers.

http://paulownianow.blogspot.com/2008/09/brief-overview-of-subsistence-farmers_2\

0.html

 

 

7) Contrary to the goals of the MTV's current Green Crusade, the most

recent MTV " Real World/Road Rules " challenge -- which has yet to air

-- seems to pit competing teams against each other in an effort to

wreak the most havoc on Panamanian rainforests. The devastation left

behind once the shoot wrapped, was described in a recent article from

the Tree Climber's Coalition. They say MTV left the formerly pristine

area riddled with trash, unstruck sets, and even discarded scripts for

the so-called " reality " series. Apparently when MTV execs see green,

they're not looking at the environment. Calls to MTV were not

immediately returned.

http://www.tmz.com/2008/09/13/mtvs-real-world-deforestation-challenge/

 

 

Guatemala:

 

 

8) On September 4, Yuri Melini was shot three times in Guatemala City

and, despite grave injuries, was fortunate to survive. Melini is a

leading environmental activist and had just won an important Court

victory striking down aspects of Guatemala's Mining Law. The attack

appeared to be carefully planned. The assailants were reportedly

waiting for Melini and called his name to guarantee his identity

before shooting him. On the same day, 50 other environmental activists

received threats relating to their work. The Guatemalan government has

expressed concern that the killing may have been an act of

intimidation to deter Melini and others from engaging in environmental

advocacy. Take action now to support the government's initial reaction

and to urge it to: 1) Investigate the attempted murder and prosecute

those who ordered the shooting. 2) Ensure that Melini and other

environmental activists are adequately protected from further attacks.

Click here to send the below letter to the Guatemalan government:

http://action.humanrightsfirst.org/campaign/Yuri/

http://action.humanrightsfirst.org/campaign/Yuri/explanation

 

 

 

Nicaragua:

 

9) Nicaraguan legislators have approved a law to protect the Bosawas

biosphere reserve in the northeast of the country, an opposition

deputy said Wednesday. The Nicaraguan National Assembly approved the

Soil Use Conservation Law in the Bosawas reserve on Tuesday, said

Maximino Rodriguez from the Constitutionalist Liberal Party. The law

establishes measures to prevent illegal wood trafficking in the

region, which is the second largest rainforest in the Americas after

the Amazon in Brazil and represents 15.25 percent of the national

territory. Rodriguez said that wood has been sold illegally in El

Salvador and Honduras, where it was widely used for making furniture

and other products. Moreover, a million hectares of woods in the area

were destroyed in September last year by hurricane Felix. President of

the parliamentary Environment Commission Carlos Garcia said the new

law imposes penal and administrative sanctions. " This law is against

the people from the north of the country who are used to the felling

and burning of trees, " said Garcia, who is from the Nicaraguan Liberal

Alliance. The Bosawas reserve is the largest tract of tropical

rainforest north of the Amazon. It is home to indigenous Miskito and

Mayangna people whose traditional life style causes little habitat

disturbance. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/11/content_9914623.htm

Guyana:

 

10) Guyana's President Bharat Jagdeo gave a presentation on the

importance of financing for sustainable forest management when he

addressed a conference on forest management in Paramaribo, Suriname on

Tuesday. Jagdeo underlined and emphasised the need to look beyond

traditional approaches to financing for forests. He made reference to

the work of the Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPC),

McKinsey and Company and the Stern Review, who have all underlined the

importance of addressing deforestation as part of global climate

change. The Guyana Chronicle reported that Jagdeo pointed out that

forests need to be included in any international framework being

established to address climate change. He noted that the current EU

Carbon Trading Scheme does not recognise standing forests nor does the

Kyoto Protocol, which actually provides a disincentive for tropical

forest conservation and protection. Touching on finances, Jagdeo made

the point that while overseas development assistance for forest

management has been helpful, he said there is need for a more

predictable flow of finances which can only come from a market based

approach. He also emphasised that " without proper valuation of our

forests, tropical forest countries may be short changed in the

negotiations. " He made reference to the circumstances of Guyana and

Suriname, as countries with high forest cover and very low

deforestation rates.

http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/news-10597--13-13--.html

 

Ecuador:

 

11) With pressure mounting in Ecuador from a major environmental

lawsuit and criminal fraud indictment against Chevron lawyers, four

residents of the Amazon rainforest will travel to Washington to

discuss the devastating impact of the oil company's operations over

three decades in what once was one of the world's most pristine

jungles. Meetings are set with members of Congress and Congressional

staff. (Media can obtain the names of the members of Congress and

congressional staff on September 17th by emailing or phoning the media

contact. We are not releasing the names until then to prevent Chevron

from interfering with the meetings.) The lawsuit, filed in 2003 after

Chevron insisted the case be shifted to Ecuador from a U.S. federal

court, is expected to result in one of the largest civil judgments in

history. An independent court-appointed expert recently assessed

damages between $7.2 billion and $16.3 billion. Chevron recently hired

several A-list Washington lobbyists, including McCain Campaign finance

chair Wayne Berman and former Senator Trent Lott, to try to convince

the Bush Administration and Congress to deny Ecuador trade benefits as

" punishment " for letting these individuals press their private legal

claims against Chevron. Further, two Chevron lawyers were indicted

last week in Ecuador for conspiring to falsify the results of a

purported environmental clean-up as a ruse to avoid liability in the

civil case.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/battle-over-chevrons-amazon-chernobyl/stor\

y.aspx?guid={3439C6B6-186E-4871-9B8F-B8F7D4CDC2CD} & dist=hppr

 

 

Argentina:

 

12) Iguazu Falls is one of the largest waterfalls on earth; made up of

many cascades it is located in the border of Brazil and Argentina. It

was declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1984 and its surrounding

rainforest boosts over 2,000 species of flora and fauna including

tapirs, ocelots, jaguars and caimans. The pristine natural

surroundings are complemented by world class hotels offering five star

activities from the most unique spa treatments to the most daring

adventures. There are alternatives for all members of the family like

touring the rainforest, bird watching or discovering the colors of the

gemstones at a nearby mine. For those seeking an adrenaline rush

rappelling, zip-lining and tyrolean crossing will create unforgettable

experiences. Major international hotel developers as well as respected

local companies are investing in the region to add more than 3,000

rooms. Yriapu Tropical Forest will concentrate most of the investment

that will be guided by sustainable practices including low density

hotels, low rise constructions and usage of local materials.

http://travelvideo.tv/news/more.php?id=15440_0_1_0_M

 

 

 

Brazil:

 

13) Thirteen days after the official launch of the website Globo

Amazônia and the interactive map Amazônia.vc in the Fantástico

television show, on September 7, the application registered 13 million

protests against fires and deforestation in the Amazon. The protests

came from more than 230,000 users who installed Amazonia.vc, available

as an Orkut application, which enables users to follow the devastation

of the forest in real time. The interactive map allows an active

participation in the fight against the destruction of the forest. The

users can record their protests, which will then be used by the news

team of the Globo Amazônia website as material in the production of

journalistic features. Since the launch of the application, most of

the protests were made against deforestation areas in the northern

state of Pará. There were posted 5,784,305 protests. Pará was followed

by Mato Grosso, with 3,037,099, and Rondônia, with 1.429.199 protests.

The position of the Brazilian states in the ranking of protests is

proportional to the intensity of destruction of the forest in each of

them. In July, most of the deforestation was located in Pará,

according to the latest survey on devastation presented by Brazilian

space agency INPE. In this northern state, 236 square kilometers were

deforested in just one month. Mato Grosso came in second with 33

square kilometers of new cleared areas, followed by Amazonas, where 24

square kilometers of destruction were detected by the satellites.

http://g1.globo.com/Amazonia/0,,MUL766901-16052,00-GLOBO+AMAZONIA+SURPASSES+MILL\

ION+PROTESTS+AGAINST+DEFORESTATION.html

 

14) The Amazon Rainforest encompasses 1.4 billion acres (5.5 million

square kilometres). In the 10 years from 1991 to 2000, about 500,000

square km of the Amazon was lost to deforestation. It's been estimated

that 17.1% of the Amazon has been lost to deforestation since the

1970. And at the present rate of deforestation, the Amazon Rainforest

will be reduced by 40% by 2020. That's a big problem for all of us.

The Amazon is a huge carbon sink - it locks away huge amounts of the

greenhouse gas CO2. Deforestation not only reduces the world's

capacity to lock away CO2; it leads to the release of CO2 too. The

existence of the Amazon Rainforest has huge benefits for all of us.

Ask a typical person on the street how to solve the problem of

deforestation and you'll get answers such as: prevent illegal logging

or ban deforestation of the Amazon. But then put yourself in the

position of somebody who lives in or near the Amazon. Obviously,

you'll need to feed your family and make a living. Cut down some trees

and sell the timber to make a bit of money. Use the land to farm and

to graze cattle and to feed your family. I think it's extremely unfair

for anybody to tell the people who live in the Amazon they can't do

this. I mean, how are they expected to make a living otherwise? Sure,

we all lose out from the deforestation because it contributes to

climate change. But it's only fair that the people living in the

Amazon should primarily be allowed to look after themselves and their

families in the only way they have.

http://cow.neondragon.net/index.php/guide-how-to-save-amazon-rainforest-and-envi\

ronment

 

15) Judson Barros lives in the state of Piaui in northwestern Brazil -

a region known as El Cerrado that is traditionally dominated by dirt

poor family farms and tropical woodland savannahs. It's a stunted,

scruffy landscape often overshadowed by the larger and more

romanticized Amazon jungle to its west. But it is nonetheless

important as Brazil's second-largest ecosystem. Scientists say it is

one of the most biologically diverse savannahs on the planet. To clear

the land, plantation owners commonly stretch a long chain between two

bulldozers and rip out the vegetation along their path. Then the roots

and top layer of soil are swept together and set on fire. Trucks cart

off the native wood to be burned as fuel at the Bunge plant. With help

from state officials, the company obtained a 15-year tax holiday for

the factory and permission to burn all the savannah hardwood within a

17-mile radius of the plant, eventually extending its wood purchasing

to a 100-kilometer, or 62- mile, radius. Once all the native wood is

gone, Bunge says it will switch to eucalyptus plantation wood that it

is having grown just for this purpose. In 2003, New York-based

agribusiness company Bunge Ltd. opened a soybean-crushing factory in

the city of Urucui in the south of the state. In search of cheap land,

a few commercial soybean farmers had already moved into Piaui from

soy-growing strongholds in southern Brazil. Once the Bunge plant

arrived, the conversion of Piaui's Cerrado into industrial farmland

began in earnest. The state's soybean cultivation nearly tripled over

the next three years. Such was the rush to expand the agricultural

frontiers that new fields were often cleared without the proper land

titles and required environmental permits. By 2006, soybeans became

the state's number- one cash crop. Barros, president of the nonprofit

Fundacao Aguas do Piaui (the Waters of Piaui Foundation, known as

Funaguas) was outraged by this plan. So Funaguas teamed with the

attorneys general offices of both the state and federal governments

and sued Bunge, charging it had neglected to adequately study the

environmental impact of its operations, as required by Brazilian law.

A federal judge ruled in the group's favor and ordered the company to

find a more environmentally friendly alternative to the firewood. But

when Bunge executives threatened to close the factory and leave the

state, a judicially approved deal was cut that allowed the company to

keep burning the firewood. Funaguas filed a formal objection to the

ruling in 2004. The group has also publicly denounced Bunge, alleging

its involvement in an array of environmental and human rights

offenses. Funaguas' fight with the multinational hasn't made Barros

popular among plantation owners and their farmhands. He has received

death threats and has been burned in effigy. And he's fighting civil

lawsuits for the equivalent of $1 million that Bunge filed for alleged

" moral damage " to its reputation.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1562402/conservation_corp_enviros_ally_wit\

h_big_grain_traders/

 

16) There is discouraging news on the delicate state of the rain

forests in Brazil. They are among the world's greatest natural

wonders, but they continue to fall victim to human trespassers. Police

are raiding the sawmills in the town of Tailandia. They're there to

crackdown on illegal logging, a practice that's destroying the Amazon

rainforest. It's an uphill struggle - In this region, a state of

emergency has been declared. Years of indiscriminate logging have

destroyed this area, once thick with rainforest. Now, all that's left

are razed areas, torched to clear the land for cattle ranching and

illegal charcoal ovens, In these poverty-stricken areas, woodmill

workers are scared of losing their jobs as the authorities clamp down

on the illegal mills: " We'll be unemployed - said this logger -

" people here live off the logging industry. When this stops everyone

will feel the effect. " This is the largest crackdown launched by the

Brazilian authorities on illegal logging. Just last year alone,

environmental agencies estimate that $3 billion were made from the

sale of illegal timber - that's twice the amount made from legitimate

sales. The Brazilian environment agency says in the last few months of

2007 an area almost the size of Rhode Island was cleared here - that's

sixty per cent more than what was cleared in the previous three years.

The impact of logging on the forest has been devastating but it's not.

http://www.necn.com/Boston/World/Police-crackdown-on-illegal-logging-in-Amazon-r\

ainforest-/1221673371.html

 

17) Norway will give Brazil US$1 billion by 2015 to preserve the

Amazon rain forest, as long as Latin America's largest nation keeps

trying to stop deforestation, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens

Stoltenberg said Tuesday. The promised donation is the first to a new

Amazon preservation fund Brazilian officials hope will raise US$21

billion to protect nature reserves, to persuade loggers and farmers to

stop destroying trees and to finance scientific and technological

projects. " Efforts against deforestation may give us the largest,

quickest and cheapest reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, "

Stoltenberg told reporters. " Brazilian efforts against deforestation

are therefore of vital importance if we shall succeed in our campaign

against global warming. " Amazon trees are felled by loggers or burned

in bulk, releasing an estimated 400 million tons of carbon dioxide —

80 percent of Brazil's greenhouse gases — into the atmosphere every

year and making the country one of the world's top sources of

emissions. Brazil slowed Amazon jungle clearing between 2005 and 2007,

but environmentalists worry the trend may now reverse itself, as more

trees are cut to make way for cattle ranches and soy plantations that

soaring world food prices have made more profitable.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/16/news/LT-Brazil-Amazon-Fund.php

 

18) A newly discovered species of a blind, subterranean predator —

dubbed the " Ant from Mars " — is likely a descendant of one of the very

first ants to evolve on Earth, a new study finds. Christian Rabeling,

an evolutionary biology graduate student at the University of Texas at

Austin, found the only known specimen of the new ant species in dead

plant material on the ground in the Amazon rainforest at the Empresa

Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuaria in Manaus, Brazil, in 2003.

Rabeling and his colleagues named the ant Martialis heureka ( " ant from

Mars " ) because they'd never seen an ant like it before. The ant is

well-adapted for its underground home, with a long, pale body and no

eyes. It also has long, slender forceps-like mandibles that

researchers suspect the ant uses to capture prey. M. heureka not only

constitutes a new species, but a new genus and subfamily of ants as

well. The new subfamily, one of 21 ant subfamilies, is the first new

one to be named by scientists since 1967.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,423117,00.html

 

19) Understanding this recolonization of degraded forest lands by

pioneer species will critical to efforts to rehabilitate restore

forests around the world. A new study, published in the open-access

journal Tropical Conservation Science, looks at the process by

examining the 13 most common pioneer tree species that make up early

successional forests in the Central Amazon. Tony V. Bentos and

colleagues found that the pioneer community " showed a variety of

phenological patterns but as a whole tended to be characterized by

annual flowering and fruiting, either continuously or seasonally. "

They suggest that those species with continuous reproduction, starting

at small diameters, may produce the most rapid cover; that those

dispersed by bats and birds are likely to be spread more widely than

those dispersed by primates or terrestrial mammals; and that a mix of

bird- and bat-dispersed species is likely to facilitate recruitment of

mature forest species and will provide a highly diverse seed rain into

secondary forest. The research is significant given the global-scale

transition from large extents of intact primary forest towards

human-dominated landscapes characterized by a matrix of agricultural

land and secondary vegetation. Because this anthropogenic matrix is

dominated by pioneer species, understanding the traits of these

species may help both project the future nature of forests and

facilitate restoration of ecosystems. " In this landscape, pioneer tree

species will play three quintessential functions, " the authors

explain. " First, as the critical first elements in the colonization of

clearcuts and abandoned agriculture, they determine, together with

landscape history, the rates of change and trajectories of secondary

successions. " " Second, during succession, pioneer trees play critical

community and ecosystem functions—providing resources for pollinators

and seed dispersers, building soil structure, recycling nutrients, and

accumulating carbon stocks. Third, the future of fragments of mature

forest appears to be increasingly dependent on the quality of the

matrix or surrounding secondary vegetation, " they continue.

http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0915-bentos_tcs.html

 

20) Isolated native Indians in the Amazon forest of Brazil and Peru

remain threatened by advancing loggers despite growing international

attention to their plight, a senior Brazilian official said on

Thursday. " Pressure from Peruvian loggers continues, it's a concern, "

Marcio Meira, head of the government's Indian affairs agency, Funai,

told the foreign press association in Brasilia. Brazil's Acre state

along the border with Peru is one of the world's last refuges for such

groups, but increasing activity by wildcat miners and loggers puts

them at risk. Dramatic pictures of pigment-covered Indians from the

region threatening the photographer's aircraft with bows and arrows

were carried in May by media worldwide. The Peruvian ambassador to

Brazil subsequently told Meira his government was concerned about the

issue and preparing measures, without detailing what these were.

Brazil has 26 confirmed native Indian tribes that live with little or

no contact with the outside world. There are unconfirmed reports of an

additional 35 such groups. Many of them live in the forest like their

forefathers did centuries ago, hunting and gathering. More than three

months after the photographs sparked an international media frenzy,

Funai officials continue to witness logging activity in the region.

" There is evidence. We see timber floating down the river which

originates in Peru, " said Meira. Survival International, a group that

campaigns for tribal peoples' rights, said last week that the Peruvian

government had not lived up to its promise of publishing an

investigation into accusations of illegal logging.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKN1134175920080911

 

21) Amazon mayors are up for election next month and that may prompt

them to turn a blind eye to illegal logging, speeding the rate of rain

forest destruction, Brazil's environment minister warned Wednesday.

" No mayor wants to be seen as unpleasant on the eve of an election, "

said Environment Minister Carlos Minc. " I'm very worried ... I've

flown over the Amazon and I've seen the forest burning. " Mayors across

Brazil, campaigning for re-election on Oct. 5, are under constant

pressure from local ranchers and loggers who want to clear the land

for cattle, soy crops and wood, Minc told reporters. Amazon

deforestation jumped 69 percent in the past 12 months, the first such

increase in three years, according to the National Institute for Space

Research, known as INPE, which monitors forest destruction.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/10/america/LA-Brazil-Amazon-Destruction.p\

hp

 

22) From this Sunday, September 7, you will be able to defend the

Amazon forest. It´s the beginning of a new web site, Globo Amazônia,

that will bring exclusive news content about the region and an

interactive map with real time information about the forest. With this

map, you can follow up on the deforestation and fires in the Brazilian

Amazon, a huge area of 5,2 million square kilometers. And more: you

will be able to protest against all this, while our news teams

investigate these cases and ask proper authorities for solutions. It´s

very simple to use the map, which was especially developed to be used

with Google's Orkut. Orkut's full version of this map (see here how to

use it) allows users to protest against the destruction of the forest,

invite friends to participate in the surveillance and get the latest

news on the region. Right now there are more than 1,900 fires in the

Brazilian portion of the Amazon. The number is not an estimate or a

projection, but real data based on satellite monitoring taking place

at the very moment this text is written. This information, previously

accessible only to governmental specialists or environmentalists, is

now at hand to any Internet user thanks to a new map of the region

developed by Globo.com and Globo Television, the largest Brazilian

network, after an idea born in the Fantástico TV show's newsroom. The

map - called Amazônia.vc, or Amazon.you - is fed with the most recent

satellite data provided by Brazil's National Institute for Space

Research, known as Inpe. The data is updated up to six times a day,

which means that it is possible to check up on a fire on the same day

it is happening and, moreover, protest publicly against the

destruction of the forest. In Amazônia.vc, it is possible to see, all

in one screen, the data of two systems used by the space research

institute: the Fire Monitoring System and the System of Deforestation

Detection in Real Time, known as Deter. The former receives

information from European and American satellites that track the

radiation emitted by the flames. Deter, which is updated monthly,

shows the deforested areas in the Amazon. Images captured by Terra, a

satellite launched by the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration (NASA), go through a filter and are analyzed by a team

of Brazilian researchers who register all the newly cleared locations.

It is the most complete system of deforestation monitoring on the

planet.

http://g1.globo.com/Amazonia/0,,MUL751482-16052,00-KEEP+A+WATCH+ON+THE+AMAZON+AN\

D+PROTEST+AGAINST+ITS+DESTRUCTION.html

 

23) A group of Greenpeace activists gave Brazilian President Luiz

Inacio Lula da Silva a fireman's outfit Wednesday in a symbolic

request asking him to do more to combat forest fires in the Amazon.

The members of the environmental organization had to leave the suit

with security after being prevented from walking into Lula's

presidential palace to hand it to him personally. They also left three

other fireman's suits for Lula's cabinet chief-of-staff and the

agriculture and transport ministers. " Fires cause are the most

aggressive and devastating destruction of the forest, " one Greenpeace

activist, Marcio Astrini, told reporters. He explained that farmers

and cattle ranchers in the Amazon used fire to clear the land for

their activities, contributing to deforestation of the protected

region. Brazil's environment ministry estimates that in the 12 months

to July, 12,000 square kilometers (4,600 square miles) of the Amazon

were cleared, mainly by ranchers and soya farmers. That was an

increase over the 11,200 square kilometers recorded in the previous 12

months. Brazil is considered the fourth biggest emitter of greenhouse

gases in the world, and 75 percent of them come from deforestation.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gb_uN0mZtohFfsGQ7HguT0d5jcwQ

 

 

Mediterranean forests:

 

24) The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)

estimates that there are over 50,000 fires each summer and that more

than 90 per cent of them are started by people, either deliberately or

accidentally. The fires, together with unrestrained urban sprawl,

over-exploitation and land misuse in other parts of the region,

threaten to deplete the Mediterranean forest ecosystems, one of the

world's richest stores of biodiversity. The Mediterranean basin is

home to over 25,000 different species of flowering plants, half of

which are unique to the basin. Climate change threatens to make

matters worse. Not only will the more intense and frequent heat waves

and hotter summers, predicted by climate change models, make forest

fires more devastating, rising temperatures and lower rainfall pose

their own problems of adaptation for the region's flora and fauna,

threatening the survival of many. " Mediterranean forests face

important threats…forest fires, climate change, agriculture, urban

developments are eroding biodiversity, " said Juan Antonio Prado, FAO

director of forest resources. Environmentalist group WWF says the

number of large-scale forest fires in the Mediterranean has increased

dramatically over the last few decades. The heat waves of 2003 and

2004, which provoked huge blazes across the northern Mediterranean

climatic region, particularly in Portugal, were a taste of the sort of

searing summer weather that can be expected with climate change. In

2007, Greece had its worst ever fires.

http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=3370

 

Tropical Forests:

 

25) Land Use, Nature Conservation and the Stability of Rainforest

Margins in Southeast Asia, by Gerhard Gerold, Michael Fremerey, Edi

Guhardja: The stability of rainforest margins has been identified as a

critical factor in the preservation of tropical forests, e.g., in

Southeast Asia, one of the world's most extensive rainforest regions.

This book contains a selection of contributions presented at an

international symposium on " Land Use, Nature Conservation and the

Stability of Rainforest Margins in Southeast Asia, " in Bogor,

Indonesia, October 2002. It highlights the critical issue of

rainforest preservation from an interdisciplinary perspective,

comprising input from scientists in socio-economic, biological,

geographical, agrarian and forestry disciplines. The contributions are

based on recent empirical research, with a special focus on Indonesia

- a country with one of the highest and, at the same time, most

endangered stocks of rainforest resources on earth.

http://wow-rebates.com/land-use-nature-conservation-and-the-stability-of-rainfor\

est-margins-in-southeast-asia-environmental-science-and-engineering-environmenta\

l-science-gerhard-gerold-michael-fremerey-edi-guhardja/

 

 

26) Tropical rainforests, whose true worth and unrealized global

treasure has been so blatantly been ignored, are being destroyed at a

disastrous speed. Every year during the dry season, thousands of fires

set by ranchers and nomad farmers light up the tropical sky. Today

roughly 1.5 acres of rainforest are destroyed every second. It's hard

to imagine that we would knowingly destroy something so valuable;

could it be that we are destroying them before we realize their worth?

Before we truly understand their biodiversity? And even before we

fully understand the life and the ecosystems they support? Massive

deforestation brings with it many horrifying consequences – air and

water pollution, soil erosion, the release of carbon dioxide into the

atmosphere, the eviction and decimation of indigenous Indian tribes,

and the extinction of many plants, animals and creatures. Fewer

rainforests mean less rain, less oxygen for us to breathe, and an

increased threat of global warming. Confucius said, " A man who has

committed a mistake and doesn't correct it, is committing another

mistake. " Clearly deforestation is man's mistake. So how do we correct

this mistake? Can we correct this mistake? If deforestation ceased

today, it would help immensely, but unfortunately would not be enough.

We have lost complete species, both in plant and animal life; however,

all is not lost. What we can hope for in bringing deforestation to an

end is a new beginning; new species to evolving and the rebirth of

this diminishing treasure. With the rapid loss of Earth's rainforests,

it's time to correct our mistake. There is no simple solution or quick

fix, but there are definitely steps that can be taken to stop the

deforestation and restore not only the damaged ecosystems, but the

beauty of life that's been lost.

http://www.paradiseearth.com/2008/09/4-steps-to-saving-rainforests.html

 

27) The world's tropical forests, which circle the globe, are

interestingly diverse. Ranging from the steamy jungles of the rain

forests to the dry forests and savannas, they provide habitat for

millions of species of plants and animals. Once covering some 15.3

billion acres (6.2 billion ha), these tropical forests have been

reduced through cutting and clearing by 210 million acres (85 million

ha) between 1985 and 1990. All types of tropical forests are defined

and their products and benefits to the environment are presented and

discussed. Modern forest practices are shown as a means of halting

forest destruction while still providing valuable forest products and

protecting and preserving the habitats of many endangered species of

plants and wildlife. The Luquillo Experimental Forest is presented as

a possible model to exemplify forestry practices and research that

could manage and ultimately protect the tropical forests throughout

the world.

http://redapes.org/news-updates/a-student-guide-to-tropical-forest-conservation/

 

World-wide:

 

28) The forests of the future may need to be managed as much for a

sustainable supply of clean water as any other goal, researchers say

in a new federal report – but even so, forest resources will offer no

" quick fix " to the insatiable, often conflicting demands for this

precious resource. This new view of forests is evolving, scientists

say, as both urban and agricultural demands for water continue to

increase, and the role of clean water from forests becomes better

understood as an " ecosystem service " of great value. Many factors –

changing climate, wildfires, insect outbreaks, timber harvest, roads

and even urban sprawl – are influencing water supplies from forests.

Preserving and managing forests may help sustain water supplies and

water quality from the nation's headwaters in the future, they

conclude, but forest management is unlikely to increase water

supplies. " Historically, forest managers have not focused much of

their attention on water, and water managers have not focused on

forests, " said Julia Jones, a professor of geosciences at Oregon State

University, and vice chair of a committee of the National Research

Council, which today released a report on the hydrologic effects of a

changing forest landscape. " But today's water problems demand that

these groups work together closely. " Because forests can release

slightly more water for a decade or so following timber harvest, there

have been suggestions that forests could be managed to increase water

supplies in some areas, " Jones said. " But we've learned that such

increases don't last very long, and often don't provide water when you

need it most. " The science of how forest management affects water

quantity and quality, Jones said, has produced a solid foundation of

principles, but forests in the United States are changing rapidly, and

additional research may reveal ways to provide a sustainable flow of

fresh, clean water.

http://www.thecreswellchronicle.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=5763

 

29) This WRM bulletin is a contribution to the activities to be

carried out on September 21st, International Day Against Tree

Monocultures. Friends of the Earth International, Global Forest

Coalition and World Rainforest Movement agreed to join forces for

raising awareness on this day about the social and environmental

problems resulting from the expansion of such plantations. In line

with this collaborative effort, the editorial of the bulletin has been

jointly produced by the three organizations. More importantly, the

articles included reflect a broad range of impacts and struggles in

different continents and on different types of plantations. We hope it

will serve as a useful tool for 21 September. Why an International Day

Against Tree Monocultures? The first and more important is that many

people –in South and North- are totally unaware about the social and

environmental impacts resulting from large-scale tree monocultures and

believe that planting trees is always positive. They are also unaware

of the fact that these plantations are not aimed at improving local

peoples' livelihoods, but at feeding wasteful consumption in the

North. The above situation results from a combination of factors,

among which the fact that the voices of local peoples' struggling

against plantations are silenced through fear, repression or by being

made invisible by the media. Both fear/repression and media

invisibility result from the economic and political power of

plantation companies, usually also involved in investments in the

pulp, timber, palm oil or rubber industrial sectors. The companies'

power –expressed through different mechanisms- result in partial or

total control over government and media, who become " partners " of

their investments. As a result, whenever local people stand up for

their rights against plantation companies they are defined –together

with their supporters- as " troublemakers " .

http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/134/viewpoint.html

 

30) Global woodland experts will press international climate change

negotiators today to look beyond the trees as they work to save the

world's forests from destruction. A new blueprint hammered out at a

series of World Bank meetings Tuesday maintains that avoiding the

razing of tropical forests -- which currently accounts for more than

20 percent of carbon dioxide emissions -- will require countries to

make major changes in everything from building roads and bridges to

the way it subsidizes biofuel production. " Experience has shown that a

narrow focus on the delivery of a single commodity, such as carbon, at

the expense of multiple forest values is unlikely to succeed. Current

climate change negotiations, however, are failing to reflect that

knowledge, " a draft version of the statement warns. The destruction of

C02-trapping trees in Indonesia, Brazil and other parts of the world

spews more carbon into the air than every car, bus and truck on the

road in the world. Yet while climate leaders agree that tropical

forests must be protected, figuring out how to do it has become one of

the thorniest negotiating issues as nations work to create an

agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. Many experts contend

that harnessing the $60 billion carbon market represents the best

chance for saving tropical trees. But others remain concerned that

simply paying governments and landowners for protecting forests

ignores the deeply rooted problems of poverty, land rights and

agriculture production that lead to forest destruction in the first

place. The statement is the result of several meetings over several

months with dozens of climate change, international forestry and

indigenous peoples leaders trying to find a new way to approach

avoided deforestation. Final meetings at the World Bank will wrap up

this afternoon, and leaders hope to launch the proposal next month at

the International Union for Conservation of Nature meeting in

Barcelona, Spain. The world loses about 32 million acres of forest

cover each year to the timber trade, to cattle grazing and to crops

like palm oil, soybeans and corn. Nigeria's National Forest

Conservation Council, for example, has estimated that forests there

will be cleared entirely in 12 years at current rates because of a

heavy reliance on wood for fuel.

http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2008/09/17/2

 

31) This month's World Rainforest Movement Bulletin focuses on the

International Day Against Monoculture Tree Plantations on 21

September. The Bulletin explains why a campaign against industrial

tree plantations is important, includes materials for campaigns as

well as news and analysis from around the world about struggles

against plantations. One article looks at FSC's record in certifying

of plantations. If FSC is to take its own standards seriously, it must

stop certifying monoculture tree plantations (a fully referenced

version of this article is available here): Asia Pulp and Paper is

probably the most controversial paper company in the world. It has

destroyed vast areas of forest in Sumatra and replaced hundreds of

thousands of hectares with monoculture plantations. In December 2007,

the Forest Stewardship Council announced its " dissociation " from APP

after the company starting using the FSC logo. FSC issued a statement

saying that it has " a duty to protect the good will and integrity

associated with its name and logo for consumers and for our trusted

partners and members. " At last, it appeared, FSC had noticed it is

greenwashing environmentally and socially destructive companies.

Unfortunately, the dissociation from APP remains a one-off. FSC's goal

is " to promote environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and

economically viable management of the world's forests. " FSC should not

certify industrial tree plantations, for the simple reason that they

are not forests. FSC should no more certify plantations that it should

certify fields of lettuce. Industrial tree plantations are neither

environmentally responsible nor socially beneficial. They are often

only economically viable as a result of generous government subsidies.

Veracel is perhaps the most egregious example of the many companies

that should never have been certified by FSC. Since the company

established its monoculture eucalyptus plantations in the south of

Bahia state in Brazil, rivers, streams and springs have dried up. As

the company's plantations have expanded the area of land planted to

food crops has decreased. Rural people have lost work and moved to

cities, many living in overcrowded and dangerous favelas.

http://www.fsc-watch.org/archives/2008/09/19/FSC__Stop_certifying

 

32) There are some environment groups, such as Greenpeace, that fear

credits for anti-deforestation initiatives could open the door to

credits for commercial reforestation. Critics of commercial forests,

often called " carbon sinks " , argue that it is difficult to guarantee

the longevity of planted forests and therefore their carbon benefits.

Carbon sinks are also blamed for negatively impacting local

biodiversity and indigenous groups. " We acknowledge that something has

to be done about protecting forests, but we do not support a

market-based approach that doesn't take into account biodiversity and

human rights, " says Joris Den Blanken, European climate change policy

director for Greenpeace. Forest-based credits are not the only

solution to deforestation on the table. Also under debate is the

possibility of auctioning future ETS emission allowances and

earmarking a proportion of the resulting windfall for forest

preservation. Under the present system, such allowances are allocated

for free. EU member states, however, are understood to be opposed to

Brussels dictating how such funds should be spent. Potential changes

to the ETS will be discussed by European heads of state at

mid-October's Council meeting and a final vote by the European

Parliament could take place as early as December.

http://www.climatechangecorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=5649

 

33) The review, published September 15 in the journal Trends in

Ecology and Evolution, singles out deforestation associated with

plantation development as by far the biggest ecological impact, but

finds that the links between the two are often much more complex than

portrayed in the popular press. Co-author Matt Struebig, from Queen

Mary, University of London, explains: " Most land-cover statistics do

not allow us to distinguish where oil palm has actually driven forest

clearance. Oil palm certainly has directly replaced tropical forest in

some areas, but oil palm companies also often have close links with

timber or paper pulp companies, giving additional motives for

deforestation. " Within countries, oil palm is usually grown in a few

productive areas, but it looks set to spread further. Demand is

increasing rapidly and 'its potential as a future agent of

deforestation is enormous', the study says. Most of the suitable land

left is within the last remaining large areas of tropical rainforest

in Central Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Where oil palm

has replaced tropical forest the impact on wildlife depends on what

species survive in the new oil palm habitat. The study confirmed that

oil palm is a poor substitute habitat for the majority of tropical

forest species, particularly forest specialists and those of

conservation concern. Emily Fitzherbert continues: " By compiling

scientific studies of birds, bats, ants and other species, we were

able to show that on average, fewer than one-sixth of the species

recorded in primary forest were found in oil palm. Degraded forest,

and even alternative crops such as rubber and cocoa, supported higher

numbers of species than oil palm plantations. " Even this estimate is

likely to be optimistic, because forest habitats are more difficult to

survey and some species inhabit plantations briefly before going

extinct. There is little potential to help wildlife within

plantations, so ensuring that new plantations do not replace forest

and protecting what is left of native forest in and around plantations

are the only real options for protecting the majority of species, the

researchers say.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080915121221.htm

 

 

34) Most plants have UV shielding, but not always sufficient for

complete protection. Only a small proportion of the UV-B radiation

striking a leaf penetrates into the inner tissues. When exposed to

enhanced UV-B radiation, many species of plants can increase the

UV-absorbing pigments in their outer leaf tissues. Other adaptations

may include increased thickness of leaves that reduces the proportion

of inner tissues exposed to UV-B radiation and changes in the

protecting waxy layer of the leaves. Several repair mechanisms exist

in plants, including repair systems for DNA damage or oxidant injury.

The net damage a plant experiences is the result of the balance

between damage and protection and repair processes. Ozone depletion

results in greater amounts of UV-B radiation that will have an impact

on terrestrial and aquatic biogeochemical systems. Biogeochemical

cycles are the complex interactions of physical, chemical, geological

and biological processes that control the transport and transformation

of substances in the natural environment and therefore the conditions

that humans experience in the Earth's system. The increased UV-B

radiation impinging on terrestrial and aquatic systems, due to ozone

depletion, results in changes in the trace gas exchange between the

continents, oceans and the atmosphere. This results in complex

alterations to atmospheric chemistry, the global elemental cycles,

such as the carbon cycle, and may have an impact on the survival and

health of all organisms on Earth, including humans. Once in the

atmosphere, trace gases such as CO2 interact with the physical climate

system resulting in alterations to climate and feedbacks in the global

biogeochemical system. Since atmospheric CO2 concentrations play a

central role in determining the distribution of heat in the

atmosphere, the multiple complex components of the physical climate

system such as wind, air-sea momentum, heat exchange and precipitation

are influenced. There are also similarly complex interactions between

biogeochemical cycling on land and the integrated climate system that

have important implications for organisms on Earth. At this stage it

is not possible to predict the overall effects of these complex

interactions. http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=42690

 

35) 20 Visually Arresting but Threatened Forests We owe our lives to

trees. Trees provide far more than furniture and fuel. Everyone finds

forests to be beautiful, but not many know how hardworking forests

really are. The world's great forests help make our planet hospitable

to life; they purify the air, manage nutrients, capture greenhouse

gases, create soil, regulate wind and ocean currents, house two-thirds

of the world's plant and animal species, cool the globe, provide

subsistence or jobs to 1.6 billion people, and even play a role in

weather systems. And yet, the world's forests are critically

threatened. Though there are hundreds of endangered forests, the

following forests are visually stunning, ecologically precious, unique

and simply wondrous.

http://webecoist.com/2008/09/13/20-unusual-threatened-forests-around-the-world/

 

 

36) " This is my 40th year in the field. Based on the data in my

library, of the wild habitats that existed in North America in 1968,

almost 50 percent of them are now extinct, " said Krause. " They're so

radically altered that you can't hear the soundscape there anymore. "

Krause's words gave me pause. Sure, animals go extinct -- but

habitats? In the Amazon rainforest lives a tribe called the Jivaro.

They hunt at night, carrying no torches or flashlights. Starlight and

moonlight don't penetrate the canopy. But Jivaro hunters do not need

to see. They listen. The technique resembles the echolocation of

dolphins or bats, but it's more complicated than that. It's a

turn-by-turn aural GPS through a map based on a region's acoustic

complexity. I learned about the Jivaro from Bernie Krause, a

bioacoustician who pioneered the study of human impacts on sonic

ecosystems. I'd called him in search of recordings of extinct animals

-- the roars of Tasmanian tigers, the peeps of Panamanian golden

frogs, calling from the graves of their species. But Krause explained

that he's not in the business of recording vanishing animals, which

are only the most mediagenic manifestations of a larger disappearance.

Krause records vanishing habitats. Yet it makes sense. These spaces

have a character, a balance and composition, as distinct as the

markings on any animal. And they can be changed: wetlands drained,

roads built, properties developed, altering the terrain and species

balances in ways that may be hidden to the eye, but not the ear.

" Imagine walking through the rainforest. As you walk the next few

hundred meters to the next habitat, even though it looks the same

visually, acoustically it's defined differently, " said Krause. " And it

isn't that the rainforest is gone. It's that an important component of

the forest is gone. It's like cutting off your finger, your balls, a

toe, your ear. " Krause has installed natural soundscapes at museums

around the country, with the latest scheduled to debut later this

month at the California Academy of Sciences. That exhibit will include

audio rainforest habitats from Borneo, Madagascar, Costa Rica, and the

Amazon jungles of Brazil and Belize. Three of these -- Borneo, Costa

Rica and Madagascar -- are now gone, said Krause. I asked whether they

would ever return.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/the-sounds-of-v.html

 

37) The study of symbiosis is quintessential systems biology. It

integrates not only all levels of biological analysis — from molecular

to ecological — but also the study of the interplay between organisms

in the three domains of life. The development of this field is still

in its early stages, but so far, the findings promise to revolutionize

the way we view the biotic world. This Essay outlines some of the

challenges facing the field and the implications of its development

for all of biology. At this juncture, biologists cannot be blamed for

finding themselves in a kind of 'future shock', the psychological

state that was described by Alvin Toffler1 in 1970 as " too much change

in too short a time. " Sequencing projects are producing information at

prodigious rates and this information is dramatically altering our

perceptions of the microbial world. Our view of animal and plant

symbioses with microorganisms has been particularly susceptible to

change (Fig. 1). Historically, biologists have mainly concentrated on

the study of the major macrobiotic groups (animals, plants and fungi)

as individuals, characterizing their form and function (or phenotype)

as a derivative of their own genotype alone. The exception to this

trend lies in the focus of microbiologists on microorganisms as agents

that induce pathogenesis. How will new perspectives on microorganisms

as evolutionary partners change the way that we think about biological

systems? First, let us consider why we, as biologists, think the way

we do about these systems. http://www.mydeadspace.cn/blog/?p=277