034OEC’s This Week in Trees

This week we have 33 news stories from: British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Kentuchy, USA, Canada, European Union, Mauritius, China, Cambodia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Borneo, Philippines and World-wide. To subscribe send a blank e mailto:this-week-in-trees-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

British Columbia:

1) From what I’ve heard, Field’s sawmill in Courteney has run out of sources for good quality Yellow Cedar, it’s primary profit-maker in the last 20 years, and Elk Falls is also experiencing a rapid decline in log quality in all species. Falldown: Northern Vancouver Island’s “guts and feathers” public forests cannot provide sawmills with anything to compete with other sources of cheap old growth, like Eastern Russia. Recent satellite images show that the middle ranges of Vancouver Island north of Strathcona Park are now approaching timber exhaustion. Good private second-growth logs on the South Coast nearly all get exported in the round to US mills that pay more. From David Shipway, Cortes Island cortecos@island.net

2) It’s too bad yellow-cedar has never developed much of a public profile. it’s a great symbol for how natural forests and industrial forests collide. I’ve been amazed in my recent work in Whistler with how many of the yellow-cedars at all elevations are +/-1000 years-old, and many places on Vcr. Island and the Sunshine Coast had (if lucky, still have) much older ones. Obviously a sawmill reliant for their existence on ancient yellow-cedars has a limited shelf life, just like a coal mine. Logging 1000 year-old yellow-cedars is timber mining. These old trees and old forests will never develop again in our industrial model. The depressing part to me is that much of the industry still clings to the notion that virtually all forests originated from firest in the late 1600s, a notion which they interpret to justify clearcutting. The fact that many forests have much more complex histories, often with much longer time lines, isn’t part of the discussion. From Bob. Bob@SnowlineResearch.ca

3) Back in May the 2005 Global Forest and Paper Summit http://www.globalforestpapersummit.com/ in Vancouver was congratulating BC’s forest industry for its record-breaking earnings of $1.5 billion in 2004. It seems like one minute there is a disaster forestry story and the next a boom story. Excuse my naive question, but how this can be when presumably forest statistics are available in BC and forest economics is a science? — Karen Wonders kwonder@gwdg.de

Washington:

4) Improving the bottom line in our business districts by attracting shoppers is one benefit trees provide. Researchers at the University of Washington compared the attitudes and values of urban residents and business people regarding trees in retail business districts. Those surveyed demonstrated a preference for shopping in areas with trees. Not only that, those surveyed said they would be willing to pay up to 12 percent more for goods sold in a community with a quality urban forest, and were also willing to pay more for parking to shop there. Urban forests help reduce crime levels in our communities. Researchers from the University of Illinois found that apartment buildings surrounded by trees and greenery were dramatically safer than buildings devoid of nature. In fact, buildings with high levels of greenery had 52 percent fewer total crimes, including 48 percent fewer property crimes and 56 percent fewer violent crimes. As most real estate agents know, homeowners are well advised to maintain the trees on their property and to plant trees, since their mere presence increases property values. And these days, while everyone’s talking about ways to promote sustainability and reduce energy consumption, it’s important to note that trees provide windbreaks and shade, reducing energy consumption and lowering our utility bills. http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/10/12/ed.col.ries.1012.p1.php?section=opinion

Oregon:

5) Yesterday (Sunday), another attempt was made to murder a treesitter in the Sten timber sale in the McKenzie watershed. The activist reported that “bullets whizzed through the branches over his head.” On Friday hired climbers came to the base of the tree and threatened to remove the sitter. Forest Service Law Enforecement officials have done nothing to protect activists from violence at Sten, despite names being given and official reports being filed at the Willamette National Forest headquarters in Eugene. The same white pickup with toolbox (license # YBK 722), whose driver previously fired both .45 caliber shells and hunting arrows at treesitters, has returned and travels throughout the area with impunity. Meanwhile, Forest Service officials spend our tax dollars in ticketing and harassing activists, hiring climbers (to remove treesits and threaten the sitter), repeated surveillance of other concerned citizens, and even hiring an infiltrator (dressed in white) to try and talk the sitter into abandoning his tree. Freres Lumber of Mill City is currently decimating the old growth ecosystems of the Sten timber sale. Logging, hauling, and bulldozing continue within 100 meters of the tree “Katrina” which has been occupied for over a month. The treesitter was visited and cheered on last Thursday by a large group of schoolchildren from Eugene. http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/10/326489.shtml

California:

7) Large chippers and mechanical tree cutters rolled into the thin forest of Martis Valley this summer, taking out tall pines to make way for golf course fairways, roads and homesites. Similar scenes to the tree clearing for the Eaglewood subdivision are occurring all over the Sierra Nevada, but nowhere faster than in Nevada and Placer counties. The situation is a microcosm of the changes that have overtaken the Sierra Nevada, especially around Truckee. Once a land prized for its plentiful natural resources — timber, minerals and grasslands — the mountain range’s forests that have long accommodated tourism and recreation are now being carved up for real estate development. And Placer and Nevada counties have been showing the effects of the new economy, converting forest land to housing faster than any other counties in the state over the last seven years, according to the California Department of Forestry. Between 1998 and 2004 Placer county converted 2,102 acres to subdivisions. In Nevada County 1,942 acres of timberland became subdivisions in the same period. The loss of forest for housing in the two counties represents 51 percent of the state’s overall conversion in the last seven years, according to the CDF. “[The loss of timberland] is always a concern,” said Allen Robertson, deputy chief for environmental inspection at the California Department of Forestry. “Foresters don’t like to see timberland converted to non-timber-producing uses.” http://www.sierrasun.com/article/20051011/NEWS/51011005

8) High up on Frowning Ridge, the poison oak is potent and rattlesnakes slither through the bushes, but chain saws and tractors are removing the area’s greatest risk. UC Berkeley and several other agencies are clearing tens of thousands of eucalyptus and Monterey pine trees from the Oakland and Berkeley hills, hoping to prevent future fires from turning into catastrophes. For university officials, most of the work is focused on the hundreds of acres of wilderness south of Grizzly Peak, mostly within the Oakland city limits. Officials estimate as many as 150,000 eucalyptuses and Monterey pines are on UC Berkeley’s hills; they plan to remove up to 50,000 trees. Neither species is native to the East Bay, and both present major problems for firefighters and fire-prevention planners. Each played an important role in the spreading of the deadly 1991 Oakland hills fire. Eucalyptuses were first imported from Australia and have flourished across California. They grow 15 feet per year and crowd out native plant and animal species, and their bark sheds during fires, carrying embers a mile or more. A couple of hundred feet from Grizzly Peak Boulevard, two men cut tree after tree Friday on a hillside with spectacular panoramic views of San Francisco Bay. After each tree fell, one man sprayed the stumps with blue-tinged herbicide to stunt future growth, a practice that keeps 50 percent to 90 percent of the trees from returning, Klatt said. But the task appeared nearly fruitless in some parts of the site. Three-month-old eucalyptuses — already 8 feet tall — had sprouted from freshly cut stumps. Some eucalyptus clusters included three generations of trees. “This is a testament to our failure,” Klatt said. “Miles to go before I sleep.” http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/12864441.htm

Colorado:

9) An ardent environmentalist who is a Democratic member of Congress has offered a refreshing point of view on providing more flexibility toward helping control a worsening insect infestation in timber stands. U.S. Rep. Mark Udall of Colorado said this week some federal rules on timber harvest need to be streamlined to help combat the bark beetle infestation that is browning and killing huge stands of pine trees in national forests in his state and across the West. Udall suggested allowing governors to declare an emergency to deal with the beetles and a streamlining of federally required environmental reviews of logging and other projects to deal with the insect and its damage. He plans to introduce legislation to expand the federal Healthy Forest Act, an initiative of the Bush administration, to give states and communities more leeway to go after the beetles. http://www.chronline.com/Main.asp?SectionID=16&SubSectionID=101&ArticleID=24196

10) There’s a potential upside to all those trees in the West killed by beetles and drought. It’s called biomass, a catchall term used to describe a variety of ways wood and other biological waste and byproducts can be used to create energy. In August, the Western Governors’ Association awarded the state of Colorado $100,000 to pursue biomass projects. It may not sound like much, but as the state and nation face dwindling energy supplies and soaring prices, it’s part of a growing trend to look at solutions. “We’re hoping it will help the state not only increase awareness of biomass possibilities, but that it’ll get things stimulated,” said Gayle Gordon from the governors’ association, based in Denver. “In theory, it’s a great source of energy that also helps reduce fuel hazards in forests.” http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/10/11/news/regional/1bec077314531d55872570960072e056.txt

New Mexico:

11) High temperatures were the underlying cause of a massive die-off of pinyon pines in the recent Southwest drought, a research team reported Monday. One of the authors, David Breshears of the University of Arizona, said the findings suggest global climate change could cause similarly fast changes in other ecosystems. He said it will take decades for the region’s pinyon woodlands to recover. Consequences may include widespread erosion and loss of vital food for wildlife and a subsistence pine nut crop for Indian tribes and other rural residents. The report, published online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, comes amid a flurry of research — and debate — on weather-related costs of climate change. For millions of pinyons, also spelled pions, the immediate cause of death was infestation by bark beetles. During years of drought across the West, several beetle species ravaged millions of acres of forests in many states. But drought and higher temperatures made the pinyon tree, hardier than most pine trees, more susceptible to insects. The species that the team studied is found mostly in the Four Corners states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. The pinyon is the official tree of New Mexico, the hardest-hit state. Pinyons grow more slowly and are smaller than the statuesque pine species common in wetter mountain ranges to the north. But pinyons are better acclimated to harsh conditions across the desert Southwest and Great Basin. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20051011/a_drought11.art.htm

Texas:

12) Last summer, 76-year-old Benny Griffin was offered $94,000 for some of the best hardwoods that grace his 300 acres of rare, untouched East Texas forest, what he calls his “pride and joy.” Griffin, a retired electrician who now raises cattle, said he turned down the offer so he could leave a place for the squirrels and deer, and to avoid disturbing the sanctuary he and his family have enjoyed for more than 50 years.”We wanted to leave this with nature,” Griffin said recently as he walked through the forest near this community in Polk County, just east of Livingston. “Nature’s taken care of it, didn’t it?” Most of the hardwoods he wouldn’t sell were destroyed — broken, snapped in two or pulled up from deep roots — by tornadoes that spun off Hurricane Rita three weeks ago. Griffin estimates that the hurricane tore through about 200 acres of his land near the small East Texas town of Big Sandy. “If there’s any place in East Texas that’s tore up worse, I don’t know about it,” he said. Across East Texas, the pines, cypresses, oaks and magnolias that have inspired and sustained the region for centuries are sharing in its devastation. Hundreds of thousands of acres of trees — which provide the shade, culture and lore of this forest region — were damaged, leveling state parks, wrecking natural forests and threatening a timber industry integral to the region’s survival. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3389268

Massachusetts:

13) Activists from Greenpeace USA and the Harvard Environmental Action Committee (EAC) protested yesterday about the use of non-recycled, old-growth wood pulp in tissue products produced by Kimberly-Clark Corporation—the world’s largest manufacturer of tissue products. The groups also protested the provision of the federal budget reconciliation bill that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a protected wilderness area in Alaska, to oil exploration. The event drew nearly 40 Harvard undergraduates who were asked to call Kimberly-Clark executives and Cambridge’s congressional representatives. At the end of the event, a group of 21 students joined the event organizers for a photo, clad in Harvard sweatshirts and posing behind a large Greenpeace banner. Greenpeace activist Hunter said that other companies—including Staples and CVS—use much larger shares of post-consumer wood pulp in manufacturing their products. The low post-consumer content, plus Kimberly-Clark’s use of tree fiber from Canada’s ancient Boreal forest, has made the company the target of a joint campaign run by Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace Canada. “We want students to know that when they use Kleenex and other products from Kimberly-Clark, they are buying [into] ancient forest destruction,” Hunter said. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=509012

Kentucky:

14) Jim Bryan’s job is not about immediate results. The progress of his work is measured in years, decades even. “That’s the thing about forestry,” he said. “You have to look a long way into the future. It takes so long for a forest to grow into a mature stand.” But the process of reforesting hundreds of acres of former farmland has begun at little-known Green River State Forest, which so far encompasses 1,107 acres near Baskett beside where the Green River flows into the Ohio River. But it will be many more years before Green River State Forest truly resembles its name. “It will be 30 to 40 years before it looks like a forest,” Bryan said. “It will be 60 years before it’s a mature forest.” Ironically, the state of Kentucky’s original plan for the site wasn’t greenery, but gasoline. Green River’s main tract is a 701-acre property stretching from Tscharner Road to the Green River the state bought in 1978 when it anticipated that giant synthetic fuels chemical plants would be built to convert western Kentucky coal into gas and other fuels to relieve the energy crisis of the day. The subsequent collapse of crude oil prices, and the Reagan administration’s cool attitude toward government-subsidized synfuel plants, brought such ideas to a crashing halt in the early 1980s. The state later briefly considered the Baskett site for a state prison, but ultimately decided to use it as the basis of Kentucky’s first state forest consisting primarily of bottomland hardwoods. http://www.courierpress.com/ecp/gleaner_news/article/0,1626,ECP_4476_4143650,00.html

USA:

15) The National Forest Protection Alliance released its third biennial report listing twelve of the country’s most endangered national forests. The report, America’s Endangered National Forests: Lumber, Landfill or Living Legacy?, also provides a groundbreaking economic analysis demonstrating that the Bush Administration’s push for more industrial logging in our nation’s public forests defies the market realities for wood products. America’s Most Endangered Forests: Malheur National Forest (OR), Siskiyou National Forest (OR), Oregon BLM Forests; Allegheny National Forest (PA); Bighorn National Forest (WY); Daniel Boone National Forest (KY); Los Padres National Forest (CA); George Washington & Jefferson National Forest (VA); Rio Grande National Forest (CO); Tongass National Forest (AK); National Forests in Mississippi; Bitterroot National Forest (MT). Special Mention: Black Hills National Forest (SD) and Nantahala National Forest (NC). Threatened: Carson National Forest (NM); Wayne National Forest (OH); Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area (KY); Flathead National Forest (MT); Kaibab National Forest (AZ); Michigan National Forests: (Huron-Manistee, Hiawatha and Ottawa); Klamath National Forest (CA); Nez Perce National Forest (ID); Umpqua National Forest (OR). “Our national forests face myriad threats from Bush administration policies and Forest Service management, ” said Jake Kreilick, NFPA’s Endangered Forests Project Coordinator. http://www.forestadvocate.org/endangered/index.html

16) On May 5, 2005, the Bush administration repealed the widely supported Roadless Area Conservation Rule, opening nearly sixty-million acres of America’s last wild National Forests to logging, road construction, mining, oil exploitation, and other forms of development. Under the new policy, if governors wish to have roadless areas within their state protected, they must complete a burdensome petition process and file their recommendations with political appointees at the Department of Agriculture. The federal government is free to accept, modify or reject these petitions, while elected officials and citizens outside those states will have no say at all about the fate of these shared national treasures. oday, American Lands Alliance with the Heritage Forests Campaign and other partner organizations is launching a citizen petition drive to request that the Administration reinstate the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule that limited logging and road-building on nearly 60 million acres of national forests. The petition will be filed under the auspices of the “Administrative Procedures Act,” which allows citizens to request that the government, issue, amend, or revoke federal rules. Please be sure to take a moment and sign the petition. http://www.net.org/petition.php?partner=ALA

Canada:

17) FORT McMURRAY, Alberta – Just north of this boomtown of saloons and strip malls, a moonscape is expanding along with the price of oil. Deep craters wider than football fields are being dug out of the pine and spruce forests and muskeg swamps by many of the largest multinational oil companies. Huge refineries that burn natural gas to refine the excavated gooey sands into synthetic oil are spreading where wolves and coyotes once roamed. Beside the mining pits, propane cannons and scarecrows installed by the companies shoo away migrating birds from giant toxic lakes filled with water that was used in the process that separates oil sands from clay and dirt. About 82,000 acres of forest and wetlands have been cleared or otherwise disturbed since development of oil sands began in earnest here in the late 1960’s, and that is just the start. It is estimated that the current daily production of just over one million barrels of oil – the equivalent of Texas’ daily production, and 5 percent of the United States’ daily consumption – will triple by 2015 and sextuple by 2030. The pockets of oil sands in northern Alberta – which all together equal the size of Florida – are only beginning to be developed. Because the oil sands region is so remote, the environmental damage receives little attention from the Canadian news media or public comment from Prime Minister Paul Martin’s government. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/09/international/americas/09canada.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1128863527-qIf3
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European Union:

18) BRUSSELS – Greenpeace has condemned the European Commission for supporting the Timber Trade Action Plan (TTAP), due to be launched in Brussels today by Europe’s leading timber traders’ federations from the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands. “The European Commission must not wait any longer to outlaw the imports of illegally logged timber and wood products. This should be an immediate first step. The demand for cheap timber in Europe is fuelling ancient forest destruction, but the EU response so far is based on weak, voluntary measures which will not solve the problem,” said Connor. The TTAP is a publicly funded, voluntary industry plan that aims to stop imports of illegally logged timber into Europe, but not until 2010. Greenpeace International forests campaigner, Sue Connor, said: “This is more like an inaction plan. It just gives the European timber industry another five years to aim to be legal. The world’s last forests don’t have that time. http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/1011-02.htm

Kenya:

19) A forest in North Eastern Province? Most people would be surprised to learn that Ijara District in North Eastern Province has a forest as good as any in Kenya However, like the Aberdare, the Mau, Karura, Kakamega and Ngong forests, Ijara’s Boni forest is threatened with extinction. The precious evergreen trees, foresters say, are not found anywhere else in the country. We recently set out on a fact-finding mission, following claims that a cartel of unscrupulous Government officers was colluding with loggers to deplete the forest. Situated some 300 kilometres south of Garissa Town, Boni is a costal rain forest that attracts rain between September and November, and April to June. It covers a quarter of Ijara District, stretches all the way to the Eastern part of Lamu District and the Western section of war torn Somalia. “The forest covers an area of 283, 500 hectares in Ijara alone. It has tree species rarely found in other forests,” North Eastern Provincial Forest Officer Stephen Karega said. Community members were furious over a directive issued in June this year stopping tilling the land. “We were told that after harvesting, we should not cultivate the land again,” said Hamdi Muhummed Ali, the chairman of a local farming association, Eldere, pointing to a cleared forest patch. “We have been farming here for long. We don’t cut down trees indiscriminately to warrant the order. We expect the rains in a few weeks yet we haven’t tilled the land for the next planting season,” Dubow Yussuf 60, a mother of seven said. They said the ban was uncalled for, adding that it would condemn them to dependence on relief food. Government established that loggers were using bogus farming activities as a proxy to logging. He said the farmers were enticed with less than Sh5,000 to clear areas purporting to be farmland. But even as the administration’s eyes were fixed on the farmers, we established that the real threat was from external loggers. Residents said they had reported a notorious logger from the neighbouring Lamu District to authorities, but that their information had been ignored. “The logger descends on the forest with power saws targeting hard wood. Intelligence personnel are aware, the police and provincial administration know him, and the forester mingles with him. http://allafrica.com/stories/200510090278.html

Mauritius:

20) Nestling at the foot of Mauritius’s east coast Bambous mountains, Ferney Valley is a thick canopy of lush vegetation, hiding some of the world’s rarest plants and animals within its depths. Soaring ebony trees draped with lianas, orchids and vines dominate fragrant forests where endangered tropical birds fill the air with shrieks and squawks and spring waters feed unique flora and fauna. Unchanged since the first European settlers arrived more than 400 years ago, Ferney Valley is one the last remaining indigenous forests on the Indian Ocean island. However, environmentalists say the forest is under threat as construction gets under way to build a highway through it, primarily to service the island’s lucrative tourism industry. “Given the tiny amount of good quality tropical forest remaining on Mauritius, this development can only be viewed as catastrophic to the native biodiversity,” says Achim Steiner, director-general of the World Conservation Union. Tourism is a key economic pillar for the tiny island of 1.2 million people, host to more than 700,000 tourists a year. With sugar and textile exports threatened by liberalised trade laws, the island wants to fully exploit its tourism sector which generated 23,448 million rupees ($780.3 million) last year — a 20.8 percent rise compared with the previous year. Since the first Europeans arrived on the island in 1598, the natural habitat has gradually been devastated by human habitation, the introduction of alien plants and animals, sugar cane cultivation and tourism. Only 1.6 percent of the original forests remain and the World Conservation Union has ranked Mauritius, off East Africa’s coast, as having the third most endangered flora in the world. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07289977.htm

China:

21) The program, known as the “Heilongjiang Green Belt Protection Forum”, was launched to improve people’s awareness of the importance of the system. The Heilongjiang/Amur valley has been listed by the WWF as one of its five top global ecological priority areas. With rich biodiversity, the valley is 1.84 million sq.km. in size and its Chinese part is 940,000 sq.km Eugene Simonou, advisor of the WWF Amur/Heilongjiang River Basin Program, said that nine teams of university students from China and Russia have taken part in the program. They will investigate the ecological environment and social circumstance of the Heilongjiang River Basin. A group of Chinese and Russian college students attended a recent forum in China’s State Lake Xingkai Nature Reserve on Sino-Russian border. The border lake is famous for its abundant bio-diversity. Zhu Chunquan, forest program director of WWF China, said protection of biodiversity should not be hindered by boundaries, and governments, companies and institutes in the region should work with international organizations to promote biodiversity conservation and build the “Heilongjiang green belt.” Experts say the key species and their habitats in the region are threatened by commercial logging, forest fires, wetland irrigation, over-fishing, pollution and other human activities. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-10/09/content_3599213.htm

India:

22) Goddess Durga is not only fighting the demon Mahishasur this year, she is also taking up cudgels against environmental degradation as the protector of the green in the marquees of Kolkata. With Durga Puja fever on in the city, there are several creatively crafted marquees in the city and the theme adopted by many seems to be ‘go green’. Take the instance of Rajdanga Nava Uday Sangha puja pandal (marquee) in south Kolkata where environmental consciousness is the theme and the goddess is worshipped amidst a sylvan ambience recreated by the organisers. The theme of the puja is complemented by the real efforts of conservation of trees in the locality while visitors to the pandal are presented with fact sheets on trees and their usefulness, forcing them to pause a moment and spare a green thought. The goddess Durga is carved out of an artificial tree trunk to send out the message that the goddess is present even in trees, which are fighting a grim battle for survival in urban areas. The marquee tells the story of a cruel king who ruthlessly cut trees in the forests and how the inhabitants of the forest rose in revolt to dethrone the king and worship the goddess as the protector of the environment. http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEP20051010092454&Page=P&Title=Nation&Topic=0

Cambodia:

23) Environmental watchdog Global Witness accused the World Bank on Monday of condoning illegal logging in Cambodia by failing to implement recommendations from numerous reports about the problem, reports Agence France Presse. The London-based watchdog, which was sacked in 2003 by the government from monitoring the forestry trade because of its aggressive reporting, said Cambodia’s centralized logging program benefited a “corrupt elite.” It said the trade needed to be reformed if the impoverished country’s forests were to be preserved and the welfare of rural residents improved. Global Witness said an external review of Cambodian forest concessions endorsed by a World Bank project had found that none should be allowed to proceed with their plans for further industrial logging. The review, commissioned by the Bank itself, is the fourth donor-funded study of logging concessions since 2000, the group said. “What is remarkable is not so much this review’s findings as the number of studies required to reiterate the same obvious conclusion,” Jon Buckrell of Global Witness said in a statement. “When will the Cambodian government and its donor partners move from commissioning costly reviews to acting on their findings,” he said. In July Cambodia said Global Witness was no longer welcome in the kingdom, writes the news agency. The organization began work in the kingdom in 1999 within Cambodia’s Forest Crimes Monitoring Unit, set up to develop the government’s capacity to detect and suppress rampant illegal logging. http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunicados.asp?nid=107732&src=0

Malaysia:

24) The prospects of Big Brother watching you are very real in Malaysia. Malaysian Remote Sensing Centre (Macres) director Datuk Nik Nasruddin Mahmood said humans could be monitored in Malaysia. “However, we are still at the elementary level. Give us 10 years and we will be able to track a criminal effectively,” he said. At present, the centre gets satellite images from Japan, United States, France and India and then fine tunes them to provide information required by government agencies. The satellite images are used for digital mapping for disaster management, forecasting fish movements, monitoring illegal logging and for the digital mapping of every State. The centre has also introduced a Global Positioning System (GPS) wristwatch for jungle trekkers. It will be introducing the gadget to holiday resorts in Malaysia which can rent it to trekkers. The rental will cost up to RM1,000 for two nights. The centre can also keep watch for illegal logging. “We have completed the digital mapping for forest reserve areas. It is really effective as all the information is in the map. “We zoom in for a bird’s eye view and if the place is damaged, we inform the Forestry Department of the particular State.” http://www.nst.com.my/Sunday/National/20051009085958/Article/indexb_html

Papua New Guinea:

25) As we celebrate 30 years of Independence, it is timely that we examine the effective loss of sovereignty over an entire Province. In the last few years, Malaysian corporate giant Rimbunan Hijau has illegally seized control of almost the entire forests of Gulf Province. Through a series of unlawful deals Rimbunan Hijau has acquired the logging rights for the whole of the Turama, Kikori, Baimuru, and Vailala areas. Willingly sold out by its ‘leaders’, Gulf Province is now at the mercy of PNG’s most notorious logging company with its appalling record of environmental destruction, human rights and labour abuses, people smuggling and other criminal activities. This is an area of about 1.6 million hectares. It has been acquired through a series of illegal deals – all of which have been catalogued for the Government in a series of different reports and investigations. The beginnings of this conspiracy were detected in 2000 by the once-vigilant National Intelligence Organisation (NIO). Rimbunan Hijau was caught by NIO officers bribing politicians and hiring police to panel-beat villagers to get their way. This gave everyone in Gulf a taste of things to come. In a futile attempt to protect the interests of Papua New Guinea, the National Intelligence Organisation conducted a number of investigations into logging operations in Gulf Province and the involvement of Rimbunan Hijau. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0510/S00123.htm

26) Mr Yibmaramba has said that the new forest operation in the Goilala district had the support of the National Forest Board, but this was denied by a board representative. Board officials said the National Forest Service had been told to shut the operation down, but this has yet to be carried out. Industry officials said the operations were illegal since proper approvals had not been obtained under the Forestry Act, and that environmental approvals had also not been granted. Mr Yibmaramba claimed that Nasyl No 98 was engaged by the provincial government as a development partner to build a road from Woitape to isolated areas in the Goilala district and to develop an oil palm plantation. He said the project was approved by the board. The board said Baina Agricultural Development needed to submit revised operational plans limited to four 50-hectare blocks and to apply for a separate timber authority for harvesting of trees along the proposed roadway. It also said the proposed larger agricultural oil palm project would require a separate timber licence for salvage logging. Mr Yibmaramba said Nasyl No 98 had so far spent K1.4 million on road infrastructure and shipment of materials from Malaysia for nursery and water irrigation for the oil palm project. “When this company expressed its interest to come here, we told them, we have land here but we have no money. So the arrangement is to clear the area and in the process, felling of trees and replant the area with oil palm,” Mr Yibmaramba said. http://www.thenational.com.pg/1010/nation1.htm

Borneo:
27) The three Bornean countries — Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam — should develop an integrated conservation policy in order to save the very large blocks of interconnected forests on the island of Borneo. Such a trilateral policy is critical to sustainable development in, and hence the prosperity of, the entire island. Such an integrated policy, however, is not unprecedented. Through the Yaoundi Declaration of 1999, for instance, the central African states Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon committed themselves to conserve the incalculable natural riches of the Congo Basin forests. Borneo’s forest, which is also very rich in biodiversity and natural resources, deserves the same protection. In 2000, an eco-region study revealed the accelerated rate of environmental degradation on the island of Borneo. According to the Indonesian forestry ministry, the country has an average annual deforestation rate of 2.83 million hectares. And according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), about 55 percent of forest in the lowlands of Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of Borneo island) has vanished. If the destruction is not halted, within a decade the whole forest in the lowlands will be destroyed. In 2001, despite some bilateral tension, Indonesia and Malaysia managed to intensify cooperation on the protection of Borneo’s forest. And in 2003 the three Bornean countries figured out the possibility of convening a workshop about Borneo. In April 2005, the government of Brunei Darussalam hosted the workshop “Three Countries — One Conservation Vision”. The results were, among others, an action plan to promote the Declaration of the Heart of Borneo. The initial step toward the formulation of the declaration is expected to happen in 2006. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20051010.E03&irec=2

Philippines:

28) After 19 years, the suspension of the license of Matuguina Integrated Wood Products Inc. (MIWPI) has finally been lifted. Despite attempts of the office of Davao Oriental Governor Ma. Elena Palma Gil to assist the logging company, municipal and barangay officials of Caraga and Baganga are opposing the logging of their remaining forests. The officials noted this opposition especially if the remaining forests would be logged by a group that would only bring out the logs raw and not process the same in their area, so that residents would be benefited in terms of employment and circulation of money locally. Documents obtained by this paper indicated that the logging area is under the name of MIWPI, owned by Davao logger Henry Wee but later sold to loggers in Luzon, particularly the so-called Isabela group that is allegedly fronted by a certain Victor Ang. Meantime, Johnny Chua of Toplite Timber Company denied having anything to do with a forest concession in Mindanao as earlier reported in this paper. Ricardo Castillo, Chua’s representative, said Chua has nothing to do with Matuguina Timber or any other logging concession in Mindanao. He said he is a lumber dealer only in Luzon, particularly in the Manila area. http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/dav/2005/10/10/news/davao.oriental.revives.logging.permit.html

29) BAROBO, Surigao del Sur — Joint ecumenical and government action through the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro) netted P.3 million worth of “hot logs” in this town and nearby Lianga municipality over the weekend. Fr. Jimmy Pañares, Parish Priest of Our Mother Mary Parish here told Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro that determined religious and community efforts to stop destruction of forest has led to the confiscation of 34 cubic meters in this town alone. Barobo Municipal Environment and Natural Resources Officer and Forester Sammy Pascual described the confiscated logs as the biggest haul so far. Pascual said the hot logs that were about to be transported to the log pond of Rexcon, a logging firm owned by the Reyes family, which operates the 1,600 hectares public timberland here through Industrial Forest Management Agreement (Ifma) were intercepted by joint team of the LGU, DENR, and PNP in cooperation of the private sector composed mostly of religious group. http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/cag/2005/10/10/news/church.environment.office.seize.p300.t.in.hot.logs..
html

Australia:

30) Logging operations in Cathcart State Forest were stopped for four hours on Thursday, October 6, by a group of protesting conservationists. The six protestors claim that the Cathcart State Forest, located near Mt Darragh, contains a number of important pristine oldgrowth forest areas, including habitat for the endangered sooty and powerful owl. The group said they felt they had no option but direct action due to the lack of community consultation and the refusal by Peter Duncan, CEO of Forests NSW, to speak to conservationists. Logging in the State Forest resumed at approximately 11am the same day when police asked the protestors to move on. The group, however, stated that until a tenable outcome can be negotiated with Forests NSW, conservationists plan to continue peaceful protests to highlight the plight of native state forests. They said that the two coups currently being logged in Cathcart State Forest, 1377 and 1376, have been identified as south east forest icons due to their high ecological value. The conservationists explained that these coups form part of an 18000 ha forests icons reserve proposal which includes a number of high value, contentious coups, including those currently being logged in Wandella state forest. “We are selling our beautiful, precious native timber for a pittance to an overseas company, it’s just such an unbelievable waste,” Bridie McEntee of South East Forest Rescue said. http://bombala.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&category=general%20news&story_id=43029
4&y=2005&m=10

31) A federal Minister says he is shocked by conditions in a protest camp in a forest on the NSW far south coast. The Minister for Forestry, Senator Ian Macdonald, visited the camp in the Wandella State Forest, near Cobargo, over the weekend. Senator Macdonald says logging contractors are being obstructed from doing their job by people not following the law. He says he is surprised to see how protesters have set up a camp near the logging coupe. “I was quite shocked to see the standard that’s allowed to continue there,” he said. “There were some old humpies, tents, a young child roaming around, a dog, I could only see one person, but it is really an eyesore. I wonder what health regulations are being broken in the camp that is there.” Senator Macdonald says other people would not be allowed to camp in such a way. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1479257.htm

32) The one-time forestry flashpoint of Mother Cummings Peak was yesterday hailed by the State Government as a pin-up example for sustainable forestry practices. Infrastructure, Energy and Resources Minister Bryan Green said the coupe, which was logged in 1998, provoking one of the biggest anti-logging protests in the state’s history, was living proof of the forestry industry’s sustainability. Mr Green visited the coupe south of Deloraine yesterday in a bid to alleviate concerns over looming logging at South Sister, near St Marys, and Recherche Bay in the state’s far south, saying the regenerating coupe demonstrated that anti-logging protests had been unfounded. “It brought into focus forestry in a way that conservationists were saying would destroy this coupe forever,” Mr Green said. “I’m sure that those people protesting at the time, as well-intentioned as they probably were, would not have understood that this forest would be as it is today, with regrowth coming on under a canopy of older trees,” he said. But one of the 130 protesters who was arrested at Mother Cummings, Greens MHA Kim Booth, showed his opinion had not changed, and accused Mr Green of trying to rewrite history. Mr Booth said Mother Cummings had been trashed. “It may have trees growing there, but it is devoid of its original biodiversity. “Minister Green’s disgraceful advertorial on behalf of his political master — the woodchip industry — was like a ghoul dancing on the grave of one of its victims.” He said Mr Green’s visit to the coupe was a sad reminder of lost tourism opportunities, and should be a wake-up call for protecting South Sister and Recherche Bay. Wilderness Society spokesman Vica Bayley said it was the protest action that had changed the logging plan from clearfelling and burn to one of selective logging. “The forest at Mother Cummings was pristine old-growth, with all the associated values. Logging has removed those values,” Mr Bayley said. http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16900791%255E3462,00.html

World-wide:

33) There will be as many as 50 million environmental refugees in the world in five years’ time. That is the conclusion of experts at the United Nations University, who say that a new definition of “environmental refugee” is urgently needed. “In poorer rural areas especially, one of the biggest sources of refugees is land degradation and desertification, which may be caused by unsustainable land use interacting with climate change, amplified by population growth,” he told the BBC News website. The projected figure of 50 million is derived from a number of previous reports, including the 1999 World Disasters Report from the International Red Cross. This calculated that natural disasters in the previous year had created more refugees than wars or other armed conflicts. It said that falling soil fertility, drought, flooding and deforestation drove 25 million people from their homes, with many of these environmental refugees joining already fragile urban squatter communities. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4326666.stm