Earth’s Tree News – 109

For you today we have 40 articles from: British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, New Jersey, Virginia, Canada, European Union, Guyana, India, Afghanistan, China, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and World-wide.

British Colombia:

1) The Canadian Forest Service of Natural Resources Canada is planning to launch a new Forest Communities Program (FCP) beginning in April 2007. This new program will appeal to existing or newly constituted community-level organizations across Canada interested in assisting resource-based communities in the development of innovative approaches to meet the challenges of forest sector transition and forest resource sustainability. The Program is seeking proposals from interested not-for-profit organizations that are, or wish to become, community-based sites and participate in the achievement of the Forest Communities Program’s vision and objectives. The program is intended to facilitate the development and sharing of knowledge, tools and practices to empower forest-based communities to participate in informed decision-making on the forest land base, allowing communities to sustain and grow forest resource benefits while capitalizing on emerging forest-based opportunities. http://www.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/cfs-scf/national/what-quoi/forest_com_e.html

2) “The recommendation by the Pulp and Paper Industry Advisory Committee to reduce major industry taxation by 50 per cent and then cap it would trigger an immediate 41 per cent increase to the residential taxpayer in our city and we already have one of the lowest dependencies on major industry,” said Campbell River Mayor Roger McDonell in an April letter to Rich Coleman, the provincial minister of Forests and Range and minister responsible for Housing. Based on recommendations by the B.C. Competition Council, the provincial government is considering imposing a tax cap for heavy industry, restricting the amount of taxes municipalities could collect from heavy industry such as Catalyst’s Crofton pulp and paper mill and its sister mill outside Campbell River. In March, the competition council recommended the tax cap as a way to save the coastal forestry industry from falling into worse shape. “Unless these issues are addressed and the conditions are created to allow industry to be competitive, and to attract the capital required for reinvestment, the decline of the forest industry will continue,” said council co-chair David Thompson in a news release. http://www.cowichannewsleader.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=9&cat=23&id=681481&more=

Washington:

3) The family in the REI catalog takes day hikes. They also play board games or relax in hammocks. But when it’s nighttime, they all gather around the campfire and tell stories of bears, mountain lions and ephemeral beings. Then they retire to their tents. If statistics were sitting around that same campfire, they would also have a tale to share — that sometime soon this imaginary family might be the only one left in the woods. The rise in video games, television, the Internet and fuel costs are the main contributors to a significant drop-off in the numbers of people visiting U.S. national parks, according to a Nature Conservancy-funded study to be published this month in the Journal of Environmental Management. But it’s not just the nationals seeing declining rates. Closer to home, the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission notes that overnight tent use in state parks has decreased by a quarter of a million visitors since the early 1990s. The state parks lost more than a million visitors between 2004 and 2005 alone, partly attributed to a parking fee put in place in 2003. The fee has since been lifted. Even U.S. Forest Service officials admit they don’t see the visitors they used to. Usage of once popular campsites is down nearly 10 percent. When he considers the societal changes over the past 40 years, he’s not surprised to see his campgrounds sparsely populated most days. “In the 1970s, the kids’ argument was there’s no television out here,” he says. “Now, it’s there’s no television, no video games and no Internet.” Looking toward the banks of the Naches River, Funston concludes: “It (the great outdoors) hasn’t changed, but we have.” We built the majority of the campgrounds in the 1960s and ’70s when people were camping and hiking,” Frayer says. “We are trying to figure out how to maintain the sites so they can be used how people want to use them.” Frayer also attributes the switch in recreational activity to a generation of families short on time and long on choices. “A family might go out for the day, but then little Billy has to go to baseball,” he says. And little Billy has a lot more say these days on how family members will spend their weekends, Frayer adds. The 55-year-old Frayer says that when he was a boy, “your parents would tell you we are going camping and you will have a good time.” http://www.yakima-herald.com/page/dis/286463743712608

Oregon:

4) “I think the woods are growing faster than we are treating the problem,” said Bill Lafferty, fire program manager for the Oregon Department of Forestry. A March report from The Nature Conservancy agrees. Based on the database known as LANDFIRE, it concluded that the thinning and prescribed burning projects on mostly federal lands around the state the past 10 years have not made significant progress in the forests that need to be treated with thinning and controlled burns to reduce fire danger. In Oregon, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management have been treating 208,000 to 368,000 acres a year with thinning and controlled burns, the report said. Given that Oregon has 34 million acres of forests and woodlands, and 91 percent of them need treatment, the amount of work has to increase more than three times over to get at the backlog of work, the report said. Cathy Macdonald, conservation director for The Nature Conservancy, said better funding would help the Forest Service and BLM plan more treatments, and better markets for small trees would help pay for the work. “I think there’s just been a lack of consensus of what we need to do,” she said. One study of fire scars on trees estimated that 794,000 acres would burn in a typical year before settlers and the Forest Service started putting out fires, the report said. The last time Oregon wildfires came close to that historical level was 2002, when nearly 1 million acres burned. Since then the acreage has been well below the 20-year average of 393,000: 161,000 acres in 2003; 26,000 in 2004, and 150,000 in 2005. Even on the 2002 Biscuit fire, which burned through 500,000 acres, most of the area is not consumed. A satellite assessment by the Forest Service showed 19 percent of Biscuit was unburned, and 41 percent burned at low intensity, leaving green trees standing while clearing out brush and small trees. http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-15/115187935833790.xml&stor
ylist=orlocal

5) Tim Holt could be onto something when he suggests that video games are underused as teaching and communications tools. Holt, a senior research assistant in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, is developing a forest-interactive video game. It would enable various forestry professionals to “visit” a virtual forest together. The mind reels at the possibilities: Foresters could “meet” in that virtual forest, which could be programmed to simulate various management scenarios. Researchers could explore realistic, three-dimensional, interactive simulations resulting from a particular plan for logging, replanting or thinning. The computer even could be programmed to simulate night and day, seasons, forest fires, drought, floods or landslides. http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2006/07/02/news/opinion/edit02.txt

California:

6) Pacific Lumber and some local forest activists, entangled in the case Pacific Lumber Co. v. Remedy et al. and associated cross-complaints since 2003, have agreed to settle instead of going to trial. Palco had accused the treesitters of trespassing following a series of sits in the spring of 2003. Five treesitters filed cross complaints against Palco and treesit extractor Eric Schatz, alleging a number of things, including assault, negligence, forcible entry and battery. Jeny Card — whose forest name is Remedy — dropped her cross-complaint earlier this year, but she was still facing Palco’s charges and the potential of having to pay the company’s legal fees and costs if she lost. Now she and Palco have settled, and they’ll manage their own expenses. The other remaining cross-complainants have also settled. Only one defendant, Kim Starr (not a treesitter, but an activist associated with those events and others), has not settled and still faces Palco’s charges. Last week, in an e-mail noting the settlements, Schatz’ attorney Andy Stunich said the treesitters “knew they would lose at trial,” which had been set to begin June 19. “It is too bad that the protesters wasted so much in the way of Sheriff Department resources and judicial resources,” wrote Stunich. “However, at least they are not going to waste jurors’ time with an unnecessary trial. That they dismissed their cases speaks volumes about the lack of merit of their cases.” Daniel Kosmal, who represented two other treesitters who had filed cross-complaints against Schatz and Palco — Kristi Sanchez and Scott Petersen — said this Tuesday that both sides agreed that they would not reveal the terms of the settlement, except for one: that in the future, Pacific Lumber would give treesitters 10 days notice before removing them. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/06/27/18283101.php

7) In 1847 a German botanist, Stephen Endlicher, named the coastal redwood trees Sequoia sempervirens. According to Sequoia National Forest authorities, Endlicher presumably was honoring the Cherokee Chief Sequoya or Sikwayi, who invented a phonetic alphabet of 86 symbols for the Cherokee language. In 1854, a French botanist, Joseph Decaisne, applied the name to the giant sequoias, which are closely related to the coastal redwoods. The Sequoia National Forest is one of 19 in California. Its landscape is as spectacular as its trees with groves scattered over a narrow 260-mile belt, no more than 15 miles wide at any point. The trees range in elevations between 5,000 and 7,500 feet. While these trees are similar to the coastal redwoods, giant sequoias are slightly shorter are more massive. These trees are also considered to be the largest tree in the world in terms of volume. General Sherman Tree is the largest living organism on the planet, according to Sequoia National Monument authorities who boast that their tree stretches 275 feet high and has a diameter of 36.5 feet. http://www.ridgecrestca.com/articles/2006/07/02/news/local/news06.txt

Idaho:

8) The trees prevent rafters from using that section of the river. It would seem an easy problem to solve. Trees block the river so someone removes them, right? Not so when multiple agencies collide. U.S. Forest Service land surrounds the logjam. The water floating downstream belongs to the state, but the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation controls the flow. Wait, it gets more complex. Although the logs came probably came from Forest Service lands, they now lie in state water and belong to Idaho. Yet, no state department claims management of the trees. A spokesman said the Idaho Department of Lands would have only minimal involvement in the situation. And, although the Idaho Department of Water Resources controls the rights to water in the river, it would only step in if the agency that removes the logs proposes to alter the stream channel, said Michael Keckler, with the department.That puts the bulk of the decision back on the Forest Service. The Forest Service typically doesn’t remove trees and other natural debris that falls in streams and rivers on its lands, said Scott Nannenga, Minidoka District ranger. The Boise, Payette and Sawtooth forests operate under the same resource-management plan that recommends letting the trees stay. Biodegradable material like wood plays a part in the natural processes of a stream. http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2006/07/02/news_localstate/news_local_state.3.txt

Montana:

9) MISSOULA A federal judge in Missoula says he will decide promptly a request to keep the Forest Service from removing some trees, in a Bitterroot Valley project.U-S District Judge Donald Molloy held a hearing Friday, on a request for an injunction against the Forest Service. That request came from the Wildwest Institute in Missoula, and the group Friends of the Bitterroot. They want to prevent the Forest Service from moving removing trees in a project under the Bush administration’s “Healthy Forests” initiative. The Forest Service says thinning trees is necessary to reduce wildfire risk, and improve forest health. http://www.kbzk.com/Global/story.asp?S=5105807

Arizona:

10) PHOENIX The fate of more than a (m) million acres of roadless national forest land is up for discussion as Arizona begins studying what areas to protect. Open houses begin Wednesday. They’re aimed at educating the public. In return, the state wants the public to comment on what lands could be opened to road building. The first meeting takes place in Safford. It’ll focus on roadless areas in the Apache-Sitgreaves and Coronado National forests. The Forest Service has final say on the issue because roads provide forest access for mining and logging operations, all-terrain vehicles and other recreation. Those arguing for protection say wildlife habitat and other environmental aspects are at risk and need continued protection. http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=5103654&nav=HMO6

11) Rounding a bend on the trail, pine trees hold up a cathedral of sky. Their scent mixes pleasantly with the smell of a monsoon rain rolling over the Mogollon Rim. Three tiers of benches made of concrete and flagstone and another bench at the back made from two halves of a felled pine, face the rustic wooden pulpit and cross. A carefully placed bouquet of bright silk flowers lies at the base of the cross. Menter says there are ashes of people who also loved the church buried there beneath the cross. Next to the cross, stand two trees. Between them, Menter prepared the monthly communion. When her husband was still alive, the Menters used to come every Saturday before services to sweep and make sure it was clean. The chapel looks as though it might hold 50 worshippers. “I’ve seen as many as a hundred people in attendance,” she said. “I remember dad used to act as usher and take the collections,” Hand said. “(Dad) was 96 and had dementia when he passed away, but he always asked about the chapel.” So, the family decided that instead of flowers from mourners they would take donations to fix up the little chapel or perhaps buy hymnals for it. Normally, a rotating minister from the Payson Ministerial Fellowship gives the service at 8:30 a.m. every Sunday, from Memorial to Labor Day. Because the chapel is on Forest Service land, the church closes when the forest closes. This year, they were only able to meet four times, said Todd Arnold, fellowship secretary and pastor of Shepherd of the Pines Lutheran Church.Until it is safe and the forest reopens, there will not be any services at the little chapel in the woods. http://www.paysonroundup.com/section/frontpage_lead/story/24155

Colorado:

12) The fate of roadless lands isn’t so certain. They were left behind when wilderness boundaries were first carved into the nation’s public forests in the 1960s and occasionally expanded over the next four decades. Instead of the Maroon Bells, think of a place like Basalt Mountain. East of the old logging roads that climb up its slopes from Missouri Heights and spread like fingers near the mountaintop are thousands of heavily forested hillsides that stretch toward Ruedi Reservoir. The Basalt Roadless Area has stunning features like the red sandstone spires that form Seven Castles, but nothing quite spectacular enough to qualify it as wilderness. Now a Colorado task force is trying to decide how to manage lands recognized as roadless in the U.S. Forest Service’s official inventory. Dennis Larratt, director of the Colorado Off-Highway Vehicle Coalition, accused people who want to prevent road construction for gas extraction and logging of being hypocrites. Those same people calling for protection need those resources in their daily lives, he said. For some of the 84 roadless areas in the White River National Forest – which stretches from Rifle to Summit County, and surrounds the Roaring Fork Valley – protection is virtually guaranteed, by topography if not by regulations. The North Independence Roadless Area, for example, stretches from Hunter Creek Valley on the outskirts of Aspen to the Midway Pass trailhead up toward Independence Pass. Its steep slopes and thickly forested lands north of Highway 82 make it impossible to develop. But other roadless areas around the Roaring Fork Valley are much more accessible – and inviting for activities like logging or gas extraction. The Aspen Times took a look at three of those roadless areas – Red Table Mountain, Basalt Mountain and Thompson Creek. On the following pages, we try to describe what’s at stake. http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20060701/ASPENWEEKLY/107020066

13) The Pawnee montane skipper butterfly was nearly wiped out four years ago by the largest wildfire in Colorado history. The one place in the world where the butterfly lives was right in the path of the Hayman fire, which burned 138,000 acres and destroyed 133 homes. Today, the fragile skipper with a 1-inch wingspan is a symbol of forest revival. The fire site is now a mosaic of ruin and revival. It’s a patchwork of lush ground cover and wildflowers, not seen in centuries, set against a barren landscape of charred sticks. People and animals are returning too. Campers and horseback riders were in the forest last week. Rangers report deer, mountain lion and bear sightings. Bald eagles have disappeared, but the three-toed woodpecker – usually seen in Alaska and Canada – has turned up in the woods. Still, noxious weeds have taken root in the most severely burned areas, forcing out the native plants that wildlife munch on. A silty sediment from runoff has clogged some drainages and forced the closing of four campgrounds. And while the tiny burnt-orange butterfly is staging a comeback, it will take five centuries for the entire forest ecosystem to revive, scientists say. “Hayman is the crown jewel of all things bad about fire,” said Merrill Kaufmann, a forest ecologist retired from the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins. “There are many thousands of acres that don’t have a surviving tree on them.” “We’ve never been able to study the effects of a catastrophic fire like this before,” Botts said. “Where other fires (in our area) have been 1,000 or 2,000 acres, this one was 138,000 acres. “This will tell us what restoration treatments are most beneficial in future fires.” The Hayman fire began June 8, 2002, in the Pike National Forest, southwest of Denver, and raged for six weeks. It was the most severe fire the forest had seen in 700 years, according to the U.S. Forest Service, and it took 2,500 firefighters working every day to put it out. The fire burned half of the tiny skipper butterfly’s habitat – the only place on Earth where two plants crucial to the skipper meet – Blue Grama grass, where larvae feed, and the Prairie gayfeather, which provides nectar. There were about 116,000 skippers in 1987, when it was federally listed as threatened. Scientists estimate that about 5,800 survived the fire. While the skipper is staging a comeback – from an estimated 0.02 per acre in 2002 to 0.80 per acre in 2005 – the fire burned an important winter roost for up to 40 bald eagles at Cheesman Reservoir. http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_4006675

South Dakota:

14) The Black Hills is actually the site of the first timber sale by the Forest Service to the Homestake Mining Company in 1899. That sale was called Case No. 1. The timber industry has changed a lot over time. In the beginning it was primarily to supply timber and lumber to the mining industry and mining towns as well as the rail lines. “There are not that many forests in the system that have this kind of history of active management,” said Aaron Everett, forest programs manager for the Black Hills Forest Resources Association. The forest has more than 100 years of management with good documentation. The timber industry has evolved into a combination of commodity and value added markets, Everett said. Now there are 12 primary processing facilities. There are also 14 secondary manufacturers in the Hills area he said. The kind of conditions the Black Hills Forest Resources Association was trying to get with its proposal for an alternative to the Phase II forest plan was not the usual thinning with even spacing but more of a clumpy grouping, uneven age forest, meaning that there would be some old trees, little seedlings and some middle-aged trees. “They (the trees) are all in the same stand, but they don’t have to be in a configuration that lends itself to a wild fire blowing through the whole thing or the bugs getting into the whole thing,” Everett said. The Forest Service didn’t entertain that notion in a formal sense. The plan doesn’t prohibit that, but what the Forest Resources Association was asking them to do was mix in the alternative with what had been done traditionally, it works well. “You would have more diversity out on the forest,” Everett said. “Conditions would ‘sorta, kinda’ move back to what’s historically in the range.” Everett added that the alternative would provide a more appealing visual look and would provide for some of the species the Forest Service is concerned with because when you manage in this manner you come up with some big trees. Everett said the big trees would be in dense pockets that the whole stand would not be. There would be good shrub growth in areas like that just by virtue of the light hitting the forest floor. http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1300&dept_id=156923&newsid=16876762&PAG=461&rfi=9

15) This movement is apparently centered in the Roscommon area, smack-dab in the heart of the Huron-Manistee National Forest region. This area also has a lot of private inholdings on the national forest, and it seems the owners of some of those cottages are cheesed about the possibility of clearcutting adjacent to their property, supposedly spoiling their view. I have heard a few snide comments about the complainers being downstaters and latecomers to the north woods, but they have a right to their opinion, too. Personally, I don’t get too excited over a vista of dense jack pine, red pine and scrub oak, but maybe that’s just me. It should be noted that the thick forest that blankets the sand plains today is partially a creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, which planted millions of trees across vast clearings and sand prairies. In fact one sandblown CCC camp in Ogemaw County was nicknamed the “Gobi Desert.” Although the plains supported the huge stands of white pine that fed Michigan’s logging industry, there were historically plenty of wide open spaces as well. That’s why it’s still known as the “plains.” Within living memory, the sand plains of the north-central Lower Peninsula supported such grassland species as sharptail grouse and prairie chickens. When the remaining wide-open spaces disappeared, so did the birds. http://www.record-eagle.com/2006/jul/02bruce.htm

Wyoming:

16) Elevated wildfire danger for landowners in the Buffalo Valley has prompted U.S. Forest Service officials to consider burning and cutting trees on thousands of acres several miles east of Moran. Forest service fire experts, Jackson Hole Fire and EMS, and Grand Teton National Park officials will answer questions and take comments on the proposed plan at a public meeting at the Moran School at 7:00 p.m. tonight. The proposed Randolph Mountain hazardous fuels reduction plan could include up to 4,500 acres of “prescribed fire treatments,” including controlled burns, according to Kevin Pfister, north zone fire management officer for the Bridger-Teton National Forest. As part of those treatments, a logging plan to reduce dead and dying timber in the area would affect “far less” than 1,000 acres in the area, he said. Private land near Randolph Mountain “is pretty high on the ‘communities at risk list,’” said Pfister. After cutting and burning, any future forest fires would burn with less intensity making it safer for firefighters and more cost effective for the forest service. While the project could save landowners from property damage, the work would take place in the grizzly bear recovery zone. Wildlife experts have also found a goshawk nest in one of the treatment areas and elk regularly use the land to raise their young. The Forest Service considers goshawks a sensitive species, but Pfister said that the area with the nest could be avoided during the fuel reduction work.
The planning process is just beginning and the final project design will integrate public comments, Pfister said. “As we go through the planning and talk to folks up there… it will change quite a bit between now and when the ranger signs a decision on it,” he said. Contingent upon the planning process, the fire treatments could begin as early as next year. http://www.jhguide.com/article.php?art_id=634

New Jersey:

17) DENNIS TOWNSHIP — Scott Mauger might have been the most unpopular man in Cape May County on Saturday. As superintendent of Belleplain State Forest, he was the one to tell arriving campers they will get the mud-caked boot on Tuesday if the campground closes in the wake of the state-government shutdown. Campers who were already settled into their campsites Saturday were oblivious to their impending eviction.
With phones ringing and arriving families waiting impatiently at the counter, Mauger was too busy to circulate the bad news from his bosses in Trenton. State campgrounds, including those at Belleplain, Parvin State Park and Bass River State Forest, are slated to close at 8 p.m. Tuesday. When asked about the reaction he expected from vacationers, he just shook his head. “We have people who are traveling from as far as Arizona,” he said. The bureaucratic effects of the state shutdown swirled across southern New Jersey on Saturday. http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/story/6489971p-6341811c.html

Virginia:

18) If you’re looking for Joe Murray, don’t look in his office. Don’t look in the classroom, either. Or the lab. It’s not that he never spends time in these places, but if you wander around the campus of Blue Ridge Community College, you’re more likely to find Murray up a tree. Or planting a tree. Or digging around the base of a tree. Murray, assistant professor of biology at BRCC, is a tree expert. But those words are not adequate to describe his passion. Some students call him The Lorax, the Dr. Seuss character who claims to “speak for the trees.” One guy calls him Treebeard, a tree with human qualities in the “Lord of the Rings.” When talking about a particular tree, such as an American elm in the BRCC Arboretum, he calls it “he” and “this guy.” For Murray, everything goes back to the forest: “How do trees grow in the forest? What is the soil like in the forest? How do trees get water in the forest? What’s on the floor of the forest?” When Murray arrived at BRCC in 1998, he inherited care of the BRCC Arboretum from his predecessor, Anne Nielsen. The arboretum today consists of 800 trees — all native to the Valley and Piedmont regions — on 11 acres. Also on campus is the Millennial Grove, planted in 2001. The grove began as 25 saplings taken from trees that have witnessed historic events around Virginia. Also in 2001, Murray oversaw the installation of a handicapped-access path through part of the arboretum. “He’s taken the arboretum to a whole other level,” says James Perkins, BRCC’s president. http://www.rocktownweekly.com/saturdaymagazine_details.php?AID=5105&sub=Feature

19) Matthew C. “Twig” Largess of Jamestown, R.I., a certified arborist with the International Society of Arboriculture, led a walk through the forest, which is slated to be logged. Members of the Friends and environmentalists from the region and Connecticut joined Largess on an hour-long amble over trout-bearing streams and through American beech, shagbark hickory and Eastern hemlock. “Some of these trails are thousands of years old,” Largess said, indicating that they were used by American Indians who reportedly had a village near the North Street entrance. “This has the potential to become an old growth forest,” he said. “If we leave it untouched, it could be the most ancient forest in central Massachusetts…. This is what this area used to look like in pre-colonial days.” The narrow river forest, which comprises the state park and West Side’s Mittineague Park across the Westfield River, is a special environment that contains an extraordinary variety of tree and bird species, Largess said. The forest contains 252 bird species and at least 42 distinct species of trees. Largess added two more to the list – pussy willow and American elm – during the walk. “I call for a bio-blitz, a massive environmental study (of the area) before anything is cut,” he said. “Two large trees produce enough oxygen for a family of four for a year. This is the oxygen supply for Springfield.” The state plans to cut 2,700 trees, including clear-cutting the red pines that line the entrance road into the park. Largess warned that the Russian olives near the entrance are an invasive species which will take over the whole stretch of land once the pines are cut. “I’m not anti-logging. I’m anti-logging Robinson State Park,” Largess said. He pointed to trees marked for removal that were on the edge of a bluff. “When they cut those down and you have a major rain event, all those trees and stumps will slide down right into the river,” he said. Donna Jago and Kathie Breuninger, members of the Friends, showed a letter from the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, dated June 2, notifying them that logging activity could begin as soon as 10 days after receipt. Previously, state officials had said the logging would not begin until the ground froze. The midpoint of yesterday’s hike stopped at a trio of tulip poplars. One trunk, marked in blue, was more than 10 feet in diameter and more than 100 feet tall. “This tree is right next to a stream, and it’s been marked to be cut. Why?,” he asked. Largess and two others tied a yellow ribbon around the three trees in protest. http://www.masslive.com/chicopeeholyoke/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-4/115174004129840.xml
&coll=1

Canada:

20) On their short hike through the woods to the ferry landing, Jonas and Roy Mouse paused as they often do, heads bowed and caps in hand, at a rosary-draped cross that marks the spot where their aged mother collapsed and died several years ago. The cross stands alongside an oil pipeline that was dug through their forested homeland and that the brothers say for eight years drove away animals that they hunt and trap for a living. Today, the brothers, members of the Dehcho First Nations, are facing another encroachment on their aboriginal way of life: an even bigger 800-mile-long natural gas pipeline that would bisect the tribe’s traditional territory and help spawn industrial development in Canada’s vast boreal forest, one of the last intact stretches of the Earth’s original forest cover. For three decades, the Dehcho have been resisting the $7-billion project, which is backed by other native groups in the Northwest Territories. But the Dehcho are under mounting pressure to drop their opposition to a project that would serve North American energy markets as the United States strives to reduce dependence on the Middle East. Jim Prentice, minister of Indian affairs, declared that the pipeline, which still needs regulatory approval, would be built along the Mackenzie Valley with or without the tribe’s blessing. However, Prentice’s remarks only stiffened resistance from the 4,500-member tribe, the largest native group along the pipeline and the only one with an unresolved claim to its traditional lands. Grand Chief Herb Norwegian said that if the government tried to expropriate Dehcho land for pipeline construction, the tribe would retaliate with litigation and possibly blockades. “People think of a pipeline like a garden hose in your yard,” Norwegian said. “But a pipeline of this magnitude is like building a China Wall right down the valley, and the effects will be there forever and ever.” Many Dehcho fear that hundreds of trucks would disrupt their quiet communities, that construction camps would breed drug and alcohol abuse, and that the massive project would drive away caribou, moose and other wildlife that sustain people like the Mouse brothers. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-pipeline2jul02,1,5055843.story

European Union:

21) The potential for woody biomass as fuel for off-the-shelf cost-effective energy plants for some reason is being overlooked. Government pronouncements and speakers rarely mention bioenergy, except in the odd comment about biodiesel, or ethanol in petrol. Yet, in central Finland, up to 45 per cent of industrial and household energy consumption is produced by power plants burning woody waste. This is mainly sourced from thinning or harvesting of private forest, or timber processing waste. Overall in Finland, the world leader in industrial bioenergy production, it is more than 22 per cent. The European Union has a short-term goal of 12 per cent of energy to be produced from renewable sources by 2010. Austria already produces about 18 per cent from wood, with central heating or power plants in many towns. The smaller plants are often supplied with their wood chip fuel by farmer syndicates. In Sweden, the figure is almost 20 per cent. The Swedes have recently decommissioned two nuclear plants, and are decommissioning their remaining seven nuclear plants as soon as they can replace them with renewable energy sources, mainly with wood-fuelled plants. The Germans are aiming to similarly decommission all their nuclear power plants. In Bavaria, taxes on fossil fuels are used to generate subsidies for municipalities to develop co-generation plants fired by a mix of municipal waste and woody waste. Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries use the same general principle. There, heating oil and vehicle fuels are taxed on the basis of their energy value, and part of the revenue raised is used to lift the price paid for chipped forest thinnings and harvest waste delivered to the power plants. In Finland some incentive subsidy is paid for the thinning process and to offset transport and chipping costs. http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/seeing-the-wood-waste-from-the-trees/2006/07/02/11517
78811377.html

22) This year 4th to 20th August —> Ecotopia invites you to the mountains of Slovakia. It will take place in a rural community Zajezova – a playground for those interested in forms of alternative living, traditional crafts and permaculture. Ecotopia is a yearly two-week meeting of activists from around Europe involved or interested in environmental and social justice issues. It’s a horizontally organized camp, with veggie kitchen…Daily programme consists of workshops, and activities related to running the camp (cooking, building, etc). Ecotopia is open for everyone, individuals and groups, to meet and share knowledge and skills. We would also like to offer it as a space where grassroots groups can have their meetings. The content is completely determined by the participants themselves. This year, the main theme is Art and Activism and we expect a lot of workshops to be around creative dissent. http://www.ecotopia2006.org

Guyana:

23) Flying over Guyana’s rain forest a short time ago I allowed myself to become optimistic about this vast tract of trees, all consuming massive amounts of carbon dioxide and giving us (and other countries) oxygen in return. I then remembered hearing that the population in Brazil was about 90 million and that 28-years later it would be 200 million. In twenty years it will more than double again. The Brazilians in response to poverty and population pressure have started to open their interior, a mistake we all are going to pay for in time. Unless their population growth is controlled they will in time start affecting the production of oxygen for the rest of the world. This is not fanciful but a fact. So the preservation of our rain forest is of the highest importance. We have not got a burgeoning population and neither do we want one. We just want the trees, and there has never been a better case for preserving them and planting them than there is now. In time the developed world will find a way to help Brazil conserve its rain forest. Meantime Guyana can do its bit. http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article_sunday_features?id=56498567

India:

24) Even as a case for the provisional grant of permission to the Hero Honda Motors Limited is being put forward at the Single Window Clearance Agency meeting tomorrow, the project will entail the felling of 50,000 small and big trees. Environmentalists decried the granting of the dense forest land for industrial purposes. They said it would set a wrong precedent and others would demand green areas for industrial purposes. Himparvesh president Gyanendra Bhardwaj said they would oppose the proposal as such attempts defeated the very purpose of conservation. He added that the existence of a shisham research institute where plantation had been raised for studying mortality would be defeated if this project was allowed to be set up. He said the commercialisation of green cover would encourage more industrial houses to demand forest land. Deputy Commissioner Rajesh Kumar said field reports were yet to be received and the case was yet to be sent to the government. http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060630/himachal.htm

25) The ministry of environment and forest (MoEF) has given nod to the Brinhanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for converting forest land for the middle Vaitarna dam. The nod was necessary, as constructing the dam would submerge about 634 hectares of forest land. “The government of India has given permission for diverting forest land for the middle Vaitarna project. On the basis of this, we will go back to MoEF with a request to grant us the final environment clearance, which is required to start the project,” said Manukumar Srivastava, additional municipal commissioner, BMC. The dam, which is a part of the Mumbai-4 project, once completed, will add 455 million litres of water per day (MLD) to Mumbai. The amount of investment for the dam comes to Rs 1,600 crore. It is partly funded by the Centre under the National Urban Renewal Mission (NURM). The corporation has already sent a proposal to the Union government for sharing 35 per cent project cost under NURM. The state is expected to share 15 per cent of the total cost and the rest 50 per cent, will be raised by the corporation. The civic body has already paid Rs 88 crore to purchase land from the state government in Beed district for afforestation. “This total amount is not exactly the land cost. A major portion of it – Rs 58 crore – is the present net value of the land, which is going to submerge. The remaining cost is for the alternative afforestation (in Beed district),” said Srivastava. The project is scheduled to be completed by 2011. “By that time, water requirement of the city will also increase. And the project is to ensure that we do not run short of water,” he added. http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?leftnm=lmnu2&subLeft=1&autono=96862&ta
b=r

Afghanistan:

26) In a country known more for conflict than conservation, a joint effort by the government of Afghanistan and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been launched to protect the region’s unique wildlife and develop the country’s first official system of protected areas. Specifically, five areas being considered by this project for protected area status include the Pamir-I-Buzurg, Little Pamir, and the Waghjir Valley–all located in the high Pamirs in an area called the Wakhan Corridor–and Bande Amir and Ajar Valley, located in the Central Plateau region. Other priorities in the 3-year biodiversity project include initiating a legislative review of environmental policies; developing a baseline of information on wildlife populations, rangeland status, and diseases affecting both livestock and wildlife such as Marco Polo sheep; working with local communities to help them sustainably manage their natural resource base; and setting up a wildlife monitoring program. “Conserving Afghanistan’s unique biological diversity is an important element of USAID’s overall reconstruction program in the country,” said Alonzo Fulgham, Mission Director, USAID / Afghanistan. “We are pleased that one of the premier conservation organizations in the world, the Wildlife Conservation Society, will be partnering with us in this effort.” Source: Wildlife Conservation Society

China:

27) Afforestation is a positive activity, which should not call for any global concern. However, considering the rate of deforestation which is hyper-geometrical and the rate of afforestation which is hypo-arithmetical, it has left the entire global populace with great concern. Apart from China which stipulated that citizens of the Peoples Republic of China ranging from 11 to 60 (55 for females) years old, excluding the aged, the weak and the disabled, are obligated to plant 3-5 trees every year, or devote equivalent amount of efforts to the work on nursery operation, forest management and other related afforestation activities (Compulsory Tree Planting Campaign in December 1981), with the result of more than 3.4 million ha of fast growing and high yielding timber plantation (20.5 billion trees) at present; campaigns from other regions have been more of political propaganda. http://www.thetidenews.com/article.aspx?qrDate=06/29/2006&qrTitle=Deforestation%20and%20affo
restation:%20A%20global%20concern%20(II)&qrColumn=ENVIRONMENT

28) A WENZHOU court has sentenced a 58 year old woman to plant 13,620 trees in two years as punishment for starting a forest fire, since she couldn’t afford the fine, Guangzhou Daily reported today. The woman, surnamed Ji, burned joss sticks and candles, a Chinese tradition that honors and memorializes past relatives, on March 9, 2004, but carelessly burned the nearby grass, which caused a forest fire. The fire destroyed 13,620 trees, covering an area of 176 mu, and caused a direct loss of 129,000 yuan (US$16,125). The destroyed forest belongs to citizens in Xikeng Village, Lucheng District. The district court sentenced Ji to a 6-month jail term with one-year probation. Ji was supposed to compensate for the loss, but her family couldn’t afford the fine, so the court sentenced her to plant 13,620 trees in two years. http://www.shanghaidaily.com/art/2006/06/30/284739/Woman_sentenced_to_plant_13_620_trees.htm

Cambodia:

29) The World Bank on Friday pledged to overhaul a much-criticized forestry program in Cambodia, saying it would increase local participation and better address environmental concerns in future projects. The comments came in response to an internal review that found the bank’s US$4.6 million (?3.7 million) forestry program in Cambodia allowed illegal logging to flourish, failed to alleviate poverty and largely ignored the concerns of local residents. “Many poor communities depend on access to forest products for their livelihoods,” Ian Porter, Country Director for Cambodia, said in a statement. “This is too critical an issue for the World Bank to simply walk away.” According to the World Bank review, the program did not investigate complaints of illegal logging of resin trees by one of the logging companies taking part in the program and also failed to examine the “negative impact” the deforestation was having on local people. Cambodia’s tropical rain forests were dramatically depleted during decades of civil conflict, when warring factions sold timber to finance their activities. Later, in the 1990s, the government handed out contracts to politically connected logging companies that further contributed to forest destruction. The World Bank’s program, which ran from 2000 until last year, was ostensibly set up to help logging companies meet government requirements to encourage sustainability. But the U.K-based Global Witness and other non-governmental organizations say the program lent credibility to a system that handed out concessions to government cronies and allowed illegal logging to continue. The NGOs filed a complaint in 2005 over the program.

Thailand:

30) SATUN – Thailand’s southern Andaman Sea coastal province of Satun on Sunday remained covered by a blanket of smog, believed to be caused by forest fires in nearby Indonesia.The provincial public health authorities warned the public to suspend regular outdoor exercise to avoid excessive breathing of the toxins in the atmosphere. Satun residents have reported reduced visibility for several days since thick layers of smoke and fog enveloped all areas of the province, especially in the afternoons. Locals believe the smog originated with forest fires in Indonesia and was carried into the province by the prevailing winds. It has become equally hazardous for ships at sea and for highway traffic, they said, saying the the local trawling fleet has been affected. Abnormally unhealthy air quality and concerns regarding potential hazards from breathing the air prompted local health officials to announce the warnings to local residents, especially those suffering from allergies. http://etna.mcot.net/query.php?nid=23029

Vietnam:

31) The management of a protective forest in central Vietnam is to be prosecuted for illegally logging the land they had been originally tasked to control, local police said Monday. The forest, situated in Binh Dinh province, had been severely devastated, an official of Binh Dinh’s Bureau of Forest Management said. Initial investigations showed that the forest management had cooperated with private businesses to log without permission from relevant authorities. Managers will stand trial for their wrongdoings instead of being fined solely for the amount of trees they cut – which exceeded 44cu.m – allowing police to turn the case into a criminal investigation. Investigations into the case are continuing, police said. http://www.thanhniennews.com/society/?catid=3&newsid=17316

Philippines:

32) The forest protection campaign has been complicated by some police officers seemingly not upkeep in their jobs against illegal activities, forest rangers complain. Forest rangers have reportedly asked for police assistance in cases when the poachers are armed, but in several instances, police have also presented other equally important tasks to respond to the call. For this, PSSupt Evangelista said he would relieve police elements implicated in the illegal practice or those who are uncooperative in the campaign. “Tell me who is not going with you and I will relieve him,” Evangelista assured Committee members and forest rangers present at the meeting that police officers will be dealt with accordingly. He also candidly admitted that police officers are sometimes implicated in illegal timber poaching activities. He wants forest guards to inform him about [who are implicated in] this by texting him. Evangelista went on to say that there are police environment and natural resources officers in each station, and said he now doesn’t wonder why very few reports on illegal forest activities have been submitted. He also cited that senior officers in the force always send young officers for trainings, which they should have gotten themselves. While Bohol strictly has no illegal logging activities in the absence of wide forests here, authorities join in saying that timber poaching still continues and warnings have been left unheeded. http://www.pia.gov.ph/news.asp?fi=p060628.htm&no=85

Indonesia:

33) Within the past week, floods and landslides struck again, this time in Sulawesi and Kalimantan. Hundreds of people were killed in Sinjai, Bulukumba and three other South Sulawesi regencies, in Gorontalo and in Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan. Thousands of other people were displaced, their belongings and houses swept away and the supporting
infrastructure in the areas severely damaged. These latest disasters may be too much for the country to bear, with the government admitting a shortage of emergency funds to provide survivors with decent humanitarian relief. It was perhaps a coincidence that the office of the State Minister for the Environment released Tuesday its latest report on the widespread environmental degradation the country is suffering. The report highlights the increase in forest conversion, in which forests are razed to make way for mining or other business purposes, and illegal logging. Such practices have led to the country’s
deforestation rate shooting from 2 million hectares per year to 3.5 million hectares last year. Floods, as in the case of Jakarta and other flood-prone towns, are generally associated with heavy rainfalls in areas where denuded forests or barren hills have rendered water catchments useless. Landslides worsen the effects of flooding and are caused when the roots of harvested trees disintegrate and lose their ability to hold soil in place. Various studies have found a much higher frequency of landslides in clear-cut areas than in uncut forests, and that slide in cut areas tend to be more intense. Forestry Minister Malam Sambat Kaban was quick to blame the South Sulawesi disaster on the accumulative failure of decades’ worth of reforestation programs. Unless bold measures to conserve the environment and prevent deforestation are taken, including legal prosecution of those who plunder forests, cause forest fires and the corrupt officials who aid them, disasters will continue to haunt Indonesia. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20060629.E01&irec=0

34) The Indonesian Pulp and Paper Association (APKI) is upbeat that the industry will be able to phase out the use of timber from natural forests and convert entirely to the use of timber from forestry plantations by 2009, as required under a 2004 decree of the forestry minister. Association chairman Muhammad Mansur said Wednesday that by 2009, five million hectares of forestry plantations would have been developed to meet the raw materials needs of the pulp and paper industry. Currently, there are only 2.8 million hectares of forestry plantations across Indonesia, which are managed by seven pulp producers. According to Bambang Setiono, an analyst from the Center for International Forestry Research (Cifor), 60 percent of raw materials for the pulp and paper industry came from natural forests adjacent to forestry plantations in 2005 and the first part of this year. “If by 2009 the pulp firms have yet to phase out the use of natural-forest timber, we will prevent them from operating,” Mansur said. Of the seven pulp firms, only PT Musi Hutan Persada and PT Tanjung Enim Lestari use plantation timber alone for their pulp and paper production, says APKI. Mansur said that for 2006, the association expected pulp production to come in at 5.8 million tons, representing 90 percent of national production capacity of 6.4 million tons. This year’s forecast is 7.4 percent higher than last year’s 5.4 million tons. http://www.thejakartapost.com/misc/PrinterFriendly.asp

Malaysia:

35) Malayan Sun bears feed on succulent jungle fruit like those of the strangling fig and wild durian trees and defecate miles away, dropping the seeds in a new spot, where they grow into trees.This is how the jungles regenerate and feed the scores of animals that depend on it. But logging, poaching and a lack of knowledge about these creatures are threatening their survival and the forests they roam. The future doesn’t look too bright for the Sun bears, says researcher Wong Siew Te, who is from Penang. The burly, spiky haired Wong, with a lifelong love of wildlife, has spent eight years studying these bears in the dense jungles of the Ulu Segama Forest Reserve and Danum Valley Conservation Area, 81 kilometres from Lahad Datu on Sabah’s east coast. And the more he studies this elusive creature, the more anxious he is about their future. Sun bears make their home in the lowland tropical hardwood forests of Southeast Asia. These same forests, a bumpy one-hour flight from Kota Kinabalu and a rough three hours off road, are also highly valued for their timber. So the Sun bear’s habitat is shrinking fast, says Wong. Logging not only reduces suitable habitats for bears, it also brings in legal and illegal hunters. Hunters can travel hundreds of kilometres during a hunt and shoot several animals at night with the aid of spotlights — a hunting practice banned in many countries, says Wong, who’s now studying the bears for his doctorate thesis. Bears are poached for body parts and captured as pets. There are a few restaurants in the peninsula where tourists can still eat bear meat and paws, says Wong. In Sabah, the small forest patches give Sun bears little chance of survival. The largest unbroken stretches of forest rest in the Sabah Foundation Concession area and the Imbak Valley conservation area. However, poor logging practices and poaching plague the area. http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/nst/Sunday/Focus/20060702143307/Article/index_html

Australia:

36) A DIPLOMATIC row is looming with Papua New Guinea over a claim by Australian Forestry Minister Eric Abetz that the “vast majority” of rainforest logging in PNG is illegal. Senator Abetz said successive PNG governments had turned a blind eye to illegal logging and warned that Canberra would move to ban imports of illegally sourced timber. His comments will anger PNG Prime Minister Michael Somare, who has ties with the forestry industry. The PNG Forest Board is investigating the validity of timber permits issued to Malaysian company Brilliant Investment. The company began logging last year after taking over a concession held by the Sepik River Development Corporation, which Sir Michael heads. Forest Board sources said Brilliant Investment was exporting an average of8500 cubic metres of logs, worth $2million, each month. Sir Michael’s spokesperson, his daughter Betha, said her father headed the Sepik corporation in his role as a traditional chief and that he had never profited from a logging operation. “It is not true to say he has a personal history with the industry,” she said. Senator Abetz said logging in PNG was not conducted in accordance with the country’s own regulations. “Some people would assert that the vast majority of it is illegal,” he told The Australian. “From the evidence I have seen, I would agree.” He said he would soon release a paper on ways of banning imports of illegally sourced timber. Axel Wilhelm, spokesman for Malaysian company Rimbunan Hijau, which accounts for 80 per cent of logging in PNG, denied operations were illegal. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19613615-30417,00.html

37) Eden July 2, 2006 – A rally organised by a coalition of nearly 30 environmental groups took place at the site of the Eden wood chip mill in the south east forests of New South Wales today. Organisers estimate that 600 people attended the event, many of whom had travelled hundreds of kilometers to the site from various parts of New South Wales and Victoria. Eden exports 840,000 tonnes of chips each year, but Australia has enough plantation hardwood to replace this devastation of natural forest. We don’t need native forest woodchipping. No State Forest between Ulladulla in NSW and Bairnsdale in Victoria is safe while the chipmill continues to operate. The South East Fibre Exports’ chipmill does not use wastewood; it only uses whole trees. Forests are clear felled for the sole purpose of chipping and exported, mostly to Japan, to be made into paper. Every tree felled was once home to hundreds of forest dwelling creatures, some facing regional extinction due to woodchipping. Worse still, NSW and Victorian taxpayers subsidise this unnecessary industry through below market prices for their trees. It’s time to stop the destruction and killing. http://www.woodchippingsux.net.au/ also http://www.bloggernews.net/2006/07/rally-in-australian-forests-to-oppose.html

World-wide:

38) Trees clean the air in four ways, and Dr. Nowak has organized these as an easy-to-remember acronym: T-R-E-E. à”T” is for temperature. Transpiration from trees (the process of moisture evaporating, primarily from leaves) affects not only air temperature directly, but also heat storage, wind speed, relative humidity and more. So, cooler air is nice, but how does it help air quality? A great example of this takes place in parking lots every day. Forest Service researchers in Davis, Calif., found trees in parking lots made air 3 degrees cooler. Those few degrees’ difference reduced vehicle surface temperatures by up to 36 degrees, inside (cabin) temperatures by 47 degrees and, importantly, gas-tank temperatures by 7 degrees! Fewer hydrocarbon emissions result from gas that evaporates out of tanks and hoses with reduced temperatures. à”R” is for removal of air pollutants. These are taken out of the air by trees primarily through leaf stomata. Stomata are small “windows” on green leaves that let carbon dioxide in and oxygen out. Fortunately, these stomata also accept gaseous pollutants in small amounts; they diffuse into spaces between leaf cells and from there are handled in various ways. Airborne particles, or particulate matter, are also removed (at least temporarily) from the air by mechanical interception, primarily on leaf surfaces. à”E” is for emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Most trees do emit biogenic VOCs such as isoprene and monoterpenes, which can contribute to the formation of ozone and carbon monoxide. The other side of this story is that in areas with low nitrogen-oxide concentrations, such as more rural areas, VOCs are believed to remove ozone. Additionally, since trees lower air temperature, the net effect of increased numbers of trees in urban areas is an overall lowering of VOC emissions and therefore ozone formation. à”E” is also for energy effects on buildings. Well-placed trees can significantly lower temperatures in buildings by shading them. On the other hand, poorly placed trees can increase energy needs by shading buildings in the winter or blocking summer breezes. With proper placement, however, the savings are quite significant. In fact, it is a double win. Homeowners get a lower energy bill while we all benefit from the reduced energy demand. When energy demand decreases, pollutant emissions from the power plants supplying that energy also decrease, and that generally improves air quality. http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2006/062006/06302006/198684

39) Deforestation presents multiple societal and environmental problems. The immediate and long-term consequences of global deforestation are almost certain to jeopardise life on earth. Also the effects of deforestation can be local and global. In the local forest ecosystem, trees, water, soil, plants and animals are all dependent on one another to keep healthy. When trees are cut this natural balance is upset and the important functions that trees perform such as holding the soil in place, protecting groundwater, and providing food and shelter for plants and animals cannot take place. Over cutting forests and the disruption of the forest ecosystem cause erosion of soil, drop in water tables, loss of biodiversity as plant and animal species become extinct, loss of soil fertility, and the silting up of many water bodies. When the process continues for a long period of time or over a large area there can be total environmental collapse. http://www.thetidenews.com/article.aspx?qrDate=06/29/2006&qrTitle=Deforestation%20and%20aff
orestation:%20A%20global%20concern%20(II)&qrColumn=ENVIRONMENT