038OEC’s This Week inTrees

This Week we have 35 Stories from British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, Colorado, Michigan, Louisiana, Maine, Canada, Morocco, Gambia, Uruguay, Brazil, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Australia.

British Columbia:

1) Industrial clear-cut logging is rapidly denuding the most prized areas of Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest, posing a dire threat to coastal communities, Kermode and grizzly bears, wolves, salmon and other threatened species, according to an extensive analysis to be released today by the David Suzuki Foundation. “Most people don’t realize that the forests on the central and north coasts and on Haida Gwaii are rapidly disappearing, despite assurances that they have been ‘saved’,” says Jim Fulton, Executive Director of the David Suzuki Foundation. “Logging corporations still have a green light to haul out the best old-growth cedar, clear-cut log in salmon watersheds and destroy the habitat of the Kermode bear.” The Suzuki Foundation’s third annual Coastal Status Report analyzed logging plans in the region over the past four years and found that destructive forest practices are still the norm in Canada’s rainforest. Research findings include: 1) 92% of small fish streams located within cutblocks are being logged to their banks, without adequate buffers, 2) 78% of logging in Canada’s rainforest is in old growth forests—home to majestic old growth cedar and sitka spruce, 3) 74% of logging in the Great Bear Rainforest and Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) continues to be done by clearcutting, 4) 83% of logging is in critical nesting habitat of the Northern Goshawk, 5) 46% of logging is taking place in the region’s most productive salmon bearing watersheds – harming salmon, a staple food supply for First Nations, and vital habitat for grizzly bears, white “spirit” bears, wolves, migratory birds and endangered and threatened species. http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Campaigns_and_Programs/Canadian_Rainforests/News_Releases/newsforestry04300501.
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2) In the 1990’s concern over the fate of the GBR resulted in protests, blockades, and finally international marketplace pressure to force change and end the conflict. At that time, when environmentalists first sat down with local communities, labor unions, the logging industry, and the mining industry, 7% of the region was protected and the majority of participants at the planning table were saying no to any new parks. Now, the proposed agreements would stop logging in 5 million acres of rainforest or 33% of the Central and North Coast regions. In addition, Haida Gwaii will also see over 43% of its land base protected, for a total of 1.1 million acres. This would be the largest temperate rainforest protection decision in Canadian history. There is plenty of rainforest outside the system of protected areas. In order to ensure we protect the ecological integrity of these forests, the agreements include a commitment to Ecosystem-based Management, which dictates that 70% of the rainforest must be maintained as old growth. This includes riparian protection, cedar cultural zones and other ecological standards. To be successful in the Great Bear Rainforest and Haida Gwaii, solutions must go beyond preserving lands and protecting ecological integrity they must also respect indigenous cultures and strengthen local economies. These agreements will bring significant investment dollars (over $110 million) for aboriginal communities so they can diversify their local economy away from an industrial extraction model, and funds to support locals who will act as strong stewards for their traditional lands. This will ease the pressure to use resources for short term gain to address the over 80% unemployment rates they face in their communities. Also, integral to these agreements is a commitment to a new relationship between the provincial government and indigenous people, allowing for a more just approach to land-use decisions for indigenous people in this region. These agreements present a rare opportunity to establish a world-class land-use model that combines economic opportunities and aboriginal aspirations along with conservation and community development, sustaining the entire region’s ecosystem and the communities within it as a single, unbroken whole. http://www.forestethics.org

3) Some of the world’s last herds of mountain caribou could be abandoned and left to die out under a provincial government action plan being studied in British Columbia. A draft copy of a confidential list of options put forward yesterday by B.C.’s Species at Risk Coordination Office suggests actions ranging from trying to rebuild all 12 herds in the province to abandoning five small herds and trying to save the rest. B.C. has virtually the entire world population of mountain caribou, but because of habitat fragmentation and other factors, herds have declined more than 50 per cent in the past 10 years, leading to fears the animals could vanish. The draft plan is aimed at saving mountain caribou, but for the first time, it officially proposes writing off some remnant herds in the southeast corner of B.C. “Abandon caribou management efforts for those populations less than 10 animals and those populations disjunct from core populations,” the report states in its list of options. “I think it’s shocking that the government is actively considering abandoning some mountain caribou herds,” said Candace Batycki of ForestEthics, an environmental group that has been fighting to save the caribou. “It’s not responsible to put options like this forward. It’s not up to government to decide that these animals can disappear. A government simply cannot condemn any animal to extinction,” she said. Asked whether it is not reasonable for an advisory body to give politicians a full range of options, Ms. Batycki replied: “No. Not options like this. I think the only ethical option is to try to recover all the herds.” B.C. has 12 mountain caribou herds, with an estimated total population of about 1,700 animals. Six of those herds now number 50 or fewer. All of the herds are in decline, and there are estimates they will become extinct within seven to 20 years unless action is taken to reverse the trend. Habitat change, predation, disturbance and climate change are all driving down the numbers. “Of particular concern is forest harvesting, which removes and fragments suitable mature and old forests, and back-country recreation activities, which may affect both short-term behaviour of caribou and longer-term habitat use,” the draft report states. http://www.theglobeandmail.com and www.forestethics.org

4) The Kamloops Forest District stopped issuing permits for salvage of beetle-killed lumber in September, a move one contractor says will only help spread the devastating pest. Forest district manager Shane Berg acknowledged his office stopped accepting permits for the small-scale salvage program halfway through its budget year, in part because the single staff member assigned to the post is overwhelmed. Despite “turning the tap off” early, the Kamloops office has tripled its forecasted volume of small-scale salvage logging and there is another 100,000 cubic metres of timber from previous applications that will be awarded and logged this year. But a logging contractor said Monday parts of the district “are just hammered (with beetle) and they don’t want to do anything about it.” The contactor asked not to be named because he depends on the forest service administration for award of contracts. He said he recently surveyed a hard hit area north of Kamloops with “mile upon mile” of infestation by beetle. He was surprised when he was told the Kamloops office wasn’t issuing any more permits. “There’s no reason to do a hold on it. … You can move wood (in winter) without spreading it around the province.” The salvage program was originally intended on singling out two or three attacked trees in a stand. It was expanded, along with the scope of infestation by mountain pine beetle, to allow logging of small clearcuts, less than one hectare. This compares to large-scale logging by licencees that sees clearcuts 40 hectares or greater. “The magnitude of the salvage program in the past three years has made it a different kind of work,” Berg said. http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/

Washington:

5) It’s moss. Perhaps the perfect plant for prisons. At least that’s what Evergreen State College scientist Nalini Nadkarni figured when she enlisted inmates at the Cedar Creek Corrections Center to help with her moss research. For two years, a procession of prisoners have watered, rotated, weighed and collected data on trays of forest moss. Some have considered it another pointless chore. But others have filled notebooks with data and remembered scientific names. The point, Nadkarni said, is to find out whether moss can be commercially grown for florists. She wants to put a stop to the organized gangs that illegally strip it from Northwest forests — a problem that’s gotten so bad that the U.S. Forest Service is enacting new rules to limit harvests and give local landowners better control. The minimum-security men’s prison, in a state forest 23 miles southwest of Olympia, is home to about 400 people who have four years or less remaining on their sentences. “The ones that grew mushrooms and pot, they’re excellent. They really know how to grow stuff,” said Georgia Harvey, the correctional-program manager. “They’re my best gardeners; they are excellent gardeners.” On a recent visit to the prison, Nadkarni showed up wearing different socks (“chaos theory,” she explained), bubbling with energy and curiosity. A self-described Hindu-Jew, she has a doctorate in forest ecology from the University of Washington, a fascination with life in the treetops and a determination to share her love of science with ordinary people. She was escorted to the greenhouse, where inmate Jeff Curbow was tending the plants and moss, for token prison wages of about 35 cents an hour. Nadkarni admired a gourd covered in dry moss that a former prisoner made. Curbow said he rotates the moss once a month. To replicate natural conditions, inmates used to capture rainwater that had dripped through nearby trees by using funnels and two-liter Pepsi bottles, he said. They had to stop when the trees were cut down. “Growing stuff is all trial and error,” said Curbow, who’ll be released next summer after serving several years for burglary. “You pick up a little stuff each year and it grows better.” Curbow said he repaired and improved a watering system for the moss, after previous inmates built a special hut for it. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002579673_moss24m.html

Oregon:

6) So much for the Forest Service’s silly snit fit. After a federal District Court in California ruled July 2 that the Forest Service had to take public comment on all projects, the federal agency responded with a punitive, massively out-of-proportion suspension of nearly 1,500 activities nationwide – from mushroom picking in the Willamette National Forest to the cutting of an 80-foot spruce in New Mexico that was to serve as the U.S. Capitol Christmas tree. The Forest Service disingenuously argued that all such activities were affected by U.S. District Judge James Singleton’s order. The overreaction was a transparent Bush administration ploy aimed at creating a public uproar by halting trivial, everyday activities that obviously should not require an extensive public process. By doing so, it hoped to build support for legislation that would even further reduce already-diminished public participation in logging decisions on national forests. http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/10/24/ed.edit.forestservice.phn.1024.p1.php?section=opinion

7) An innovative project to preserve a rare stand of Oregon white oak trees is about to begin on the southern slope of Mount Talbert. Starting next month, crews will kill or cut down more than 100 young Douglas firs that are crowding out the dying oaks, some more than 200 years old. The oaks were first preserved by the regular burning practices of Native Americans then by logging. It will be the first step to improve the property since the undeveloped butte came under public ownership as a park. Metro, the Portland area’s regional government, helped buy the 183 acres that make up Mount Talbert to preserve it as a natural area. When the final 40-acre parcel was purchased from private owners in 2000, it was being targeted for residential development and timber harvesting. It is the last undeveloped butte in the north part of urban Clackamas County. Metro is scheduled to complete the first public access, which will include a parking lot and public restrooms on the north side of the mountain, by fall 2006. The butte’s fir trees have been logged extensively over the years, however, second- or third-growth forests have returned. Moist fir and cedar forests grow on the north side of the mountain, while the oaks grow on the south side where conditions are sunnier and drier. The oaks have never been logged. Open oak woodlands once dominated the Willamette Valley, providing a home to more than 200 species of animals, said Jim Morgan, science and stewardship manager for Metro. Today, only about 20 percent of the valley’s oak habitat remains. The end of routine burning practices by Native Americans was a big reason for the demise of many oak woodlands, Morgan said. The fires once killed off faster-growing fir trees and maples, leaving fire-resistant oaks to thrive. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1130149790160980.xml&coll=7

8) Sustainable Forestry Network is a grass-roots, non-profit Political Action Campaign (PAC), located in the state of Oregon. Our purpose is to educate the public as to the ecological, spiritual, and commercial values of our forestlands, as well as ensuring that the legacy of our natural heritage is passed on to our children through the implementation of sustainable, non-destructive forest use policies. Sustainable Forestry Network has a grassroots campaign underway to to qualify the Oregon Forest Restoration Initiative for the November 2006 ballot. Using the State of Oregon’s citizen initiative process, Sustainable Forestry Network must collect approximately 80,000 signatures of Oregon registered voters by July 1, 2006 to qualify for the ballot. Your help is needed in this effort to stop the devastating and unnecessary practice of clearcutting on private and state forest lands throughout Oregon. Let’s work together to protect the state’s remaining 4% of old growth forests, and to stop hazardous chemical herbicide and pesticide use on forest lands. The Oregon Forest Restoration Initiative does not propose a ban on logging. It is a carefully thought out proposal that requires that timber on private and state forestlands be harvested by selective logging as an alternative to the current wasteful practices. It also protects and helps restore the remaining old growth stands in Oregon. Finally, the measure seeks to restore our soil, air, and water quality by requiring the use of safe, organically certified weed and pest control methods on state and private forest lands in Oregon. http://www.efn.org/~forestry/

9) The Statesman Journal must have been hard up for a lead article and headline: (Study: Logging imperils 3 Oregon forests, Oct. 12) If anything will knock storms, earthquakes or wars off the front page, it’s the cutting of trees. Come on, editors, your bias against the timber industry is showing again. What would any reasonable person expect a report by 136 environmental groups, advocating zero cut, to conclude? Such inflammatory headlines followed by an article full of easy quotes from both sides of the issue and a forest service employee who I assume is supposed to be neutral do a great disservice to your readers. This type of reporting can be only one of two things, an I-don’t-care attitude or a staff to lazy to find out if there are any facts to support such an outrageous headline. — Tom Hirons, Gates http://159.54.226.83/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051026/OPINION/510260309/1050

California:

10) Environmental groups have vowed to stop a plan by the Bush administration that would eliminate federal Endangered Species Act protections for a secretive seabird that nests in California redwoods. Environmentalists in San Francisco, Garberville, Portland and Tucson said Tuesday that they will sue if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delists the marbled murrelet, a rare dove-size bird living in forests and oceans along the Pacific Coast. Last week, the agency confirmed that by the end of the year, it will propose removing the threatened species status for the marbled murrelets living in California, Oregon and Washington. The Bush administration is reviewing several other species for delisting, including the western snowy plover in the Bay Area. The murrelets in those three states were listed as threatened in 1992 after scientists realized they were indeed a rare bird and their forest habitat was rapidly disappearing. Since then, the 8-inch murrelet has served as the key obstacle stopping Pacific Lumber Co. and other timber concerns from logging old-growth forests in Humboldt, Del Norte and Santa Cruz counties. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/26/BAG62FE5IB1.DTL&type=science

11) State of the National Landscape Conservation System: A First Assessment, which was released today by The Wilderness Society and World Resources Institute. The report grades BLM’s Conservation System in seven categories, based on a review of more than 35 indicators ranging from natural resource monitoring to management accountability. The Conservation System as a whole scores no higher than a woeful “C” in any category. The NLCS incorporates the BLM’s National Monuments, National Conservation Areas, Wilderness, Wilderness Study Areas, Historic Trails, and Wild and Scenic Rivers. California has some of the most diverse lands in the system, including Headwaters Forest Reserve, Carrizo Plains National Monument, and Santa Rosa San Jacinto Mountains National Monument. Inadequate funding and staffing have left the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) ill-equipped to manage its premier Western lands, putting nationally significant lands like California’s Headwaters Forest Reserve at risk. “Conservation is supposed to be the top concern for national gems like Headwaters Forest Reserve, but the findings of this report raise some serious questions about the Bureau of Land Management’s national priorities,” said Geary Hund of The Wilderness Society’s California Office. NLCS was created to safeguard landscapes that are as spectacular in their own way as our National Parks,” said former Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt. “There is clear evidence, however, that we are at risk of moving backwards and failing to adequately protect these special American lands. http://www.wilderness.org/Library/Documents/StateOfTheNLCS2005.cfm

12) Environment California announced today that they will encourage California residents to petition the U.S. government to 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 the government issue, amend or revoke federal rules. The announcement comes as pressure mounts on the federal government to protect these wild forests from logging, mining and other destructive activities. The petition will include protections for 4.4 million acres of national forests in California including parts of the Los Padres National Forest. http://www.environmentcalifornia.org/envirocalifforests.asp?id2=19958

Montana:

13) The U.S. Forest Service violated environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act, when it failed to go through a public process to consider the dangers of fire retardant drops that have killed thousands of fish, a judge has ruled. The Forest Service decision not to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act on the dangers of using toxic fire retardants “appears to be a political decision,” District Judge Donald W. Molloy in Missoula, Mont., wrote in the decision released Tuesday. Judge Molloy ordered the Forest Service to prepare a formal environmental analysis of the effects of fire retardant on the environment and consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the potential harm to endangered fish, but did not bar the Forest Service from using fire retardant until it complied. Andy Stahl, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, which brought the lawsuit, said the group did not ask the judge to bar the use of toxic fire retardants. Instead, the organization based in Eugene hopes the ruling will lead the Forest Service to stop fighting wildfire like a war and start managing it as a natural part of the ecosystem.”For 100 years the Forest Service has fought fire rather than manage it,” said Stahl. “It’s a wake-up call to say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to look at the big picture.’ … There are alternatives and we need to get smarter about fire.” http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20051025-1346-wst-wildfireruling.html

14) BUTTE — Environmentalists have dropped their appeal of a logging project near Maverick Mountain Ski Area after the U.S. Forest Service agreed to stay out of old growth areas in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. The Ecology Center, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council appealed the project last month, alleging the forest had violated several federal laws. The project had called for logging on 824 acres about 35 miles northwest of Dillon in the Pioneer Mountains, slashing and burning another 1,014 acres and building two miles of new roads. In return for dropping the appeal, new Forest Supervisor Bruce Ramsey agreed not to log 294 acres of old growth forest and eliminated plans for the new roads. “With them taking out new roads, (the project) will lose a lot less money,” Garrity said. “I don’t think taxpayers generally support timber sales that lose money, specially ones that cut down old growth.” http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?tl=1&display=rednews/2005/10/27/build/state/53-logging-project.inc

15) Flushed faces and white knuckles abound, it’s safe to say that the 60 or so attendees at last night’s Northern Rockies Nature Forum “Healthy Forests: An On the Ground Look” lecture care about Montana’s forests, logging, and the political processes synchronizing the two. Unsynchronized, however, and despite equally excited concern, was the four-person panel in the front of the room. Two environmentalists, one logger and one Forest Service employee talked apples and oranges to an audience with little patience for fruit salad. Most animated were Craig Thomas—a local logger for Johnson Brothers Contracting—and Matthew Koehler—director of the Missoula-based conservation organization Native Forest Network. Thomas, a self-proclaimed lover of trees (which he kept calling logs), considered his company’s thinning in Pattee Canyon a stellar example of restoration logging. And while Koehler coined much of the HFRA’s fuel reduction program a guise for industrial felling of old growth, he conceded a need for thinning, which would both reduce the threat of burning homes and create local jobs. Koehler pointed his suggestions at the Middle East Fork of the Bitterroot, which seemed most relevant considering it’s the first HFRA project to get underway in Montana. And while Thomas’s reliance on the Pattee Canyon project felt heavy, you got the sense that both he and Koehler actually ventured outside their offices and dirtied up their hands a bit. Neither man, however, appeared very apt to change their minds or even open their ears to what the other was saying, hinting at, if not validating the tired stereotypes between their respective causes. http://www.newwest.net/index.php/topic/article/4045/C37/L37

16) The roar of chain saws filled the air on the south side of Mount Jumbo on Thursday afternoon, as crews from local fire departments worked side by side with state and federal firefighters to reduce the risk of unstoppable wildfires in Missoula’s backyard. The firefighters knocked over hundreds of small ponderosa pine trees that had taken advantage of a 100 years of fire suppression to plant their roots along the steep hillside. The hope is their work on the 10-acre parcel will lead to a showplace for Missoula-area residents interested in the long-term health of the city-owned portion of Mount Jumbo. “We are looking to create a demonstration project that will give people an idea of what can be accomplished in forest restoration and fuel reduction on Mount Jumbo,” said David Claman, the city’s conservation lands manager. http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2005/10/28/news/top/news01.txt

17) By the early 1990s, citizens and environmental groups had become adept at forcing the agencies to face up to their failures to provide all things to all people, and administrative appeals and litigation succeeded in dramatically reducing the cut, at least in the Inland Northwest. The timber industry, and its supporters in the government, fought back with a slick public relations campaign that can be summed up in 2 words: “Forest Health.” From that day forward, all timber sales were cloaked in the rhetoric of improving “forest health.” The trouble is, the agency still wasn’t learning the science of ecosystems. Natural, vital ecosystem processes such as fires and native tree pathogens such as bark beetles and fungus began to be portrayed as “catastrophic”, “unhealthy” and so forth. Contrast that view with a quote from a 1994 paper by FS research scientist Alan Harvey and others: ”…Pests are a part of even the healthiest eastside ecosystems. Pest roles—such as the removal of poorly adapted individuals, accelerated decomposition, and reduced stand density—may be critical to rapid ecosystem adjustment. …In some areas …the ecosystem has been altered, setting the stage for high pest activity… This increased activity does not mean that the ecosystem is broken or dying; rather, it is demonstrating functionality, as programmed during its developmental (evolutionary) history. Although usually viewed as pests at the tree and stand scale, insects and disease organisms perform functions on a broader scale.” Especially beginning in the mid-1990s and continuing to this day, the issue of fire was exploited as an opportunity to get people to accept more logging. Logging to prevent so called “uncharacteristic” fires. “Most philosophies and approaches for ecosystem management put forward to date are limited (perhaps doomed) by a failure to acknowledge and rationally address the overriding problems of uncertainty and ignorance about the mechanisms by which complex ecosystems respond to human actions. They lack humility and historical perspective about science and about our past failures in management. They still implicitly subscribe to the scientifically discredited illusion that humans are fully in control of an ecosystemic machine and can foresee and manipulate all the possible consequences of particular actions while deliberately altering the ecosystem to produce only predictable, optimized and socially desirable outputs. http://www.newwest.net/index.php/main/article/4068/

Colorado:

18) A proposal to trim a list of plants and animals used to monitor conditions on the White River National Forest would gut the agency’s efforts to keep track of ecosystem health, said Tim Snowden, a former Forest Service biologist who worked in both the Dillon and Holy Cross ranger districts in the late 1990s. Snowden, offering formal comments on behalf of the Sierra Club, said the plan to change the Management Indicator Species (MIS) list suggests that the Forest Service is trying to shirk its stewardship duties by minimizing the number of plants and animals it needs to study. “It’s like they’re saying, ‘Let’s put something on there that won’t give us any bad news,'” Snowden said. “It looks like they are trying to avoid having to do any monitoring.” White River forest ecologist Keith Gietzentanner said previously that the new list would enable forest managers to use their limited resources more efficiently. Snowden was critical of nearly every part of the agency’s proposed changes, for example panning the designation of lodgepole pine as an indicator species. “Using this and elk for the montane life zones, the Forest could theoretically clear cut tens of thousands of acres while their wildlife evaluations would show no effect or beneficial effect on MIS,” Snowden wrote. “Meanwhile, the Forest is deleting habitat like pinyon-juniper … that is increasingly threatened by oil and gas development.” The list slanted toward species that thrive on human-caused habitat alteration, Snowden said. “To a biologist like myself, this gives the appearance that the Forest Service has no intention of legitimately monitoring habitat loss and the effects on species on the Forest. Snowden said the list is totally lacking when it comes to species that would indicate the health of Engelmann Spruce-subalpine fir habitats in the subalpine life zone. “This forest type has a host of species that evolved requiring old growth and mature conditions, including lynx, pine marten, southern red-back vole, northern goshawk and red squirrel,” he wrote, pointing out that none of those species are represented on the list. “This type of habitat has some of the greatest pressures on it, including ski area development, logging, mining, water storage, transportation and housing development. These pressures should be impetus for the Forest Service to have several indicator species … that show the effects of old growth and mature forest loss,” Snowden continued. http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20051023/NEWS/110230026

Michigan:

19) A new report by a forest protection group says the increase in logging in National Forests shows no signs of slowing. The uptick in logging is also happening in the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes region. The National Forest Protection Alliance says the U.S. Forest Service needs to re-evaluate its mission. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton has this report: Logging companies are going after more acres in National Forests because trees have regenerated after the large-scale clear-cutting of a hundred years ago. But Jake Kreilick of the National Forest Protection Alliance says the logging is a net loss for taxpayers, because the U.S. Forest Service is heavily subsidizing it by building roads to get the trees out. And Kreilick says it’s unnecessary – because lumber companies have more domestic and global sources for wood than ever before. “The federal government does not need to be in the logging business any more.” But logging companies say with half the nation’s softwood in National Forests, they do need the wood. They say the Forest Service is doing a good job in managing the multiple users who rely on National Forests for recreation, hunting and logging. http://glrc.org/transcript.php3?story_id=2816\

Louisiana:

20) In areas where coastal forests were leveled by hurricane-force winds, the effect of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are apparent. What’s not so obvious is possible long-term impacts the storm surge salt water could have on the health of coastal trees in the next year or several years to come. Jim Chambers, professor of forest ecology in the LSU School of Renewable Natural Resources, gave a preliminary report on the state of Louisiana’s coastal forests to the Governor’s Advisory Panel on Coastal Forest Conservation and Use on Thursday. “Nearly all oaks on Dutch Bayou are down,” Chambers said. In one of Shaffer’s research plots, only four of the 40 trees are still standing, Chambers said. Some kinds of trees fared better than others, Chambers said. “Cypress and tupelo did amazingly well except near the lake (Maurepas) margin,” he said. However, Chambers said, the long-term impact of the salt water on some of the cypress forests probably won’t be known for years. Cypress can stand some salinity, but in some areas the salinity reached very high levels because of the storm surge. The recovery of the forests will depend on how much of that salt remains in the soil, Chambers said. “We’re kind of worried about what those long-term impacts will be,” Chambers said. In the Pearl River basin, several hundred million board feet of bottomland hardwoods was destroyed or damaged, he said http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/102805/new_trees001.shtml

21) New Orleans – A Folsom area man Tuesday admitted setting 70 woods fires in St. Tammany Parish since Sunday, claiming he was doing it for “environmental” reasons, authorities said. One of the fires burned 334 acres of forest Monday and chased seven Factory Road residents from their homes before dawn. George Michailakis, 30, allegedly confessed after being pulled over on North Factory Road by Folsom Police Chief Beau Killingsworth, who had received a tip about the suspect. Michailakis told him and state fire investigator Roy St. Pierre that he began setting the fires, all but one along Factory Road, because of all the downed and dying trees and brush from Hurricane Katrina, Killingsworth said. He thought the burning would help speed the process of new growth in the hard-hit woodlands, the police chief said. The suspect was booked at the St. Tammany Parish jail with 71 counts of arson, including a structure fire. Michailakis also confessed to setting 18 fires in Washington Parish since Sunday, authorities said. St. Pierre said each count against Michailakis carries a maximum prison sentence upon conviction of 10 years and a $10,000 fine. Bruce McDonald, with the North Carolina forestry department, said that in the past month there have been 118 forest fires in St. Tammany, Washington and Tangipahoa parishes, burning 771 acres. He and the 124 other visiting state forestry firefighters stationed in Hammond to assist state agents in the three parishes are from North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Arkansas. Also on hand are firefighters dispatched to the area from the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. McDonald said each morning the visiting crews are leaving Hammond to take up assigned positions in the three parishes in an effort to speed up ground reaction to the forest fires. “We are stressing to people to not burn anything outdoors for the time being,” Casanova said. “All indications are this dry weather will continue for some time and those fallen trees in those woods are getting more dead each day. We estimate that in St. Tammany Parish alone, six times the annual harvest of timber was knocked down by Katrina.” http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/113030672922200.xml

Maine:

22) A land swap between two private owners has protected a prized natural stream and remote old-growth forest east of Baxter State Park, while restoring recreational access to other woodlands nearby. Conservationist Roxanne Quimby and W.T. Gardner & Sons, a Lincoln-based timber company, agreed on Tuesday to trade thousands of acres in an area that for years has been the focus of intensive off-and-on negotiations between timber harvesters, conservationists and state officials. The swap gives Gardner about 14,000 acres along the East Branch of the Penobscot River that are accessible for logging and recreation. It leaves Quimby in possession of 10,400 acres of more remote forestland along Wassataquoik Stream, an ecologically rich waterway that flows out of the state park north of Mount Katahdin. The deal means that Gardner will withdraw plans to build a bridge over the Wassataquoik to reach remote timber stands, averting what was sure to be a pitched battle with conservationists. http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/051027landswap.shtml

Canada:

23) We are very disconnected from the source of many of the products we use everyday — a hamburger is difficult to connect to the cow, and paper is difficult to connect to the trees from which it originated. We decided to close this gap and see the source of paper for ourselves by visiting some logging operations in Manitoba. We had heard that ours was one of the last provinces in Canada to allow logging in provincial parks. Armed with topographical maps, a handheld global positioning system and a pickup full of camping gear, we set off to begin our search in Nopiming Park, northeast of Lac du Bonnet. He had found an open area in the forest devoid of plant growth, covered in what first appeared to be sand. We soon discovered that the “sand” was sawdust more than a metre deep, covering an area roughly the size of half a football field. Behind that we found a huge depression filled with scrap wood from logs that had been milled into boards. It looked like either an old sawmill site or just a dumping ground for by-products of the local logging industry. Among the scrap was a decomposing newspaper printed in September of 1991. We had only been in the park 20 minutes when, by fluke, we found major evidence of logging. We left the vehicle to continue on foot. Two hundred metres later we found our first clear-cut area. With forestry such a huge prime industry in Canada, it was interesting to see it — unlike most Canadians who won’t have the chance — in the pulpy wood flesh. Our first impressions were ones of unnatural destruction and desolation. Fresh, green forest ringed an area of grey and black, eerily quiet wasteland about three kilometres square. Industry claims that logging closely mimics natural disturbances in the forest. What we were walking through didn’t seem very natural. Everything had been taken down — not cut: the stumps left behind appeared as if the trees had been ripped away or even pinched off. Parts of the clear-cut area were now flooded with about six inches of water, making what was once forest now appear more like swamp. From the limited new growth of grasses and brush, we estimated the cut to be three to five years old. The witty humour slowed and the hi-jinx-filled trip turned into a struggle to keep positive while we walked through this dead and dying environment. We wondered if someone at some time felt guilt for this destruction or perhaps now prides in this “progress.” http://umanitoba.ca/manitoban/2005-2006/1026/1017.where.trees.used.to.be.php

24) Kleenex sells 180 billion sheets of tissue paper each year and NOT ONE of them has any recycled content. They can make a tissue that stops the spread of the flu but they can’t make them out of something besides 10,000 year old forests? Kleenex even goes as far as to boast on their website that their tissues are made from 100% virgin fiber. Kleenex and parent corporation Kimberly-Clark are felling ancient forests to flush them down the toilet. Phooey! More than 90,000 folks have sent messages to tell Kimberly-Clark and Kleenex to change their ways. We know that Kimberly Clark is wiping out ancient forests for disposable tissues, but we need your help to spread the word and STOP the destruction. http://www.partylaunch.com/greenpeace/

25) Canada’s international reputation as a boy scout on environmental issues has been in decline for well over a decade, and now a new report ranks it 28th out of 30 OECD countries on key indicators such as cutting greenhouse gas emissions and smog. The damning report was commissioned by the David Suzuki Foundation, an environmental group based in Vancouver, and prepared by a team of scientists at Simon Fraser University. It found that Canada was the worst or second worse performer in the OECD on eight of 29 environmental indicators including per capita production of volatile organic emissions, one of the main components in smog, per capita generation of nuclear waste and energy use per unit of GDP. http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1599452,00.html#article_continue

Morocco:

26) A black goat bleated from his perch high atop a tree here, lost his footing and tumbled to the barren earth below, landing with a thud. Their Berber shepherd smiled. For centuries, the Berbers in this stark coastal corner of North Africa have followed the goats around as they climbed the spiny, evergreen argan trees to eat their leaves and leathery olive-sized fruit. They collect the undigested pits that the goats spit up or excrete and split them to extract the bitter kernels inside, which they grind and press to make a nutty oil used in cooking and cosmetics. The oil was sold in Moroccan markets even before the Phoenicians arrived, yet the hardy argan tree, called the Moroccan ironwood by some people, has been slowly disappearing. Overgrazing by goats and a growing, wood-hungry local population have whittled the number of surviving trees down to less than half of what it was 50 years ago. The tree is a relict of the earth’s Tertiary Period, which ended about 1.6 million years ago, and it grows in only a few other places in the world. It is tenacious, withering and fruitless during extended droughts, and it lives as long as 200 years. But it has never been either germinated from seed or transplanted from cuttings on a wide scale. Enter Unesco, a European prince, a few three-star chefs and an army of grandes dames excited by the oil’s reputed anti-aging qualities. By creating a global market for the exotic oil, the unlikely alliance hopes to raise local awareness about the inherent value of the trees, encouraging more careful grazing and stopping the local population from chopping them down for firewood. Unesco declared a 10,000-square-mile swath of land between the Atlantic and the Atlas Mountains a “biosphere reserve” and provided money to manage the trees’ preservation. Zoubida Charrouf, a chemist and researcher at Mohammed V University in Rabat led a campaign to ban grazing in the trees from May to August, when the fruit ripens to a bright yellow and eventually falls to the ground. To a great extent, the new approach is working. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/27/international/africa/27goat.html

Gambia:

27) The growing threat of desertification is quickly becoming apparent in the North Bank Division. Lush areas once covered with natural vegetation and teeming with different wildlife species are now increasingly vanishing. People throughout The Gambia depend on trees for numerous needs including building, furniture, fuel for cooking and medicinal purposes. Life cannot be sustained in an environment deprived of trees, as it provides livelihood for human, plants and animals. Recently, the menace of chain-saw logging locally termed as the “HIV/Aids of the forest” has deeply established itself in the Bangally forest areas of Nuimi Berending. This forest provides the villages of Berending, Walliya, Kolley Kunda, Buniada, Bakindick and Medina Serign Mass with most forest resources needed for their daily livelihood. But the sound of the chain-saw and the felling of giant trees in this forest has created an alarm in the village and force the community of Berending to search for the forest intruders. The search led to the removal of members of the village development committee and the forest committee that has allegedly approved a permit for the chain-saw operation in the forest. According to investigations, the owner of the chain-saw agreed to pay D500 to the VDC for a mahogany tree that can produce more than D150,000. It’s trunk measures about 12 metres with a diameter of about two metres. The permit to fell this tree was collected from the divisional forestry revenue office in Barra and stamped by the alkalo, village development committee and the forest committee of Berending for approval. But prior to the chain-saw disaster, the department of Forestry has organised a workshop in the village to sensitise the people on the impacts of unsustainable utilisation of forest resources and to avoid the giant teeth of the chain-saw into the already disappearing forest cover. During this meeting, the department appealed to villagers to restrain from using such destructive tools which has been described by women groups present as the “HIV/Aids of the forest.” http://www.observer.gm/enews/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2284&Itemid=32

Uruguay:

28) The construction of two huge cellulose factories on the Uruguay River that threaten to pollute the binational stream illustrates how a model of forestry imposed by neoliberalism in the 1990’s is gaining ground in the Southern Cone. Standing on a makeshift stage in the center of Montevideo, writer Eduardo Galeano addressed the crowd in a calm tone: “There are decisions that are made in 15 minutes but have consequences for centuries.” It was May 27, 2005 during a demonstration against the construction of two huge cellulose factories on the shores of the Uruguay River between Uruguay and Argentina. Until now, as Greenpeace points out, “the governments of both countries have bet that the polemic will peter out and lower its intensity. That seems to be the more popular environmental policy: wager that the people will not find out or mobilize.” But in late April some 40,000 Uruguayans and Argentineans carried out the largest demonstration yet against the paper companies–an “embrace” that joined the two shores of the Uruguay River along the bridge between Gualeguaychú and Fray Bentos, a short distance away from the plants’ location. Apparently this is the only language that governments–whether rightwing or progressive—understand. http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2901

Brazil:

29) BRASILIA – Brazilian police on Wednesday arrested a gang that was forging thousands of logging permits in the Amazon, in the latest government effort to slow destruction of the world’s largest rain forest. Over 400 federal police agents staged dawn raids across four Amazon states and arrested 35 people who produced and sold illegal permits to transport millions of dollars worth of hardwood timber. Brazil’s government says its crackdown on illegal logging and tighter law enforcement have this year slowed deforestation of Brazil’s Amazon by half after it reached its second-highest level ever the year before. “We’ve cut the backbones of these gangs,” Environment Minister Marina Silva, flanked by federal police chiefs, told a press conference. Environmental groups say much of the reduction in Amazon deforestation is due to a slump in farming rather than government action. They fear Brazil’s agriculture frontier will speed its advance on the rain forest once commodity prices improve. Wednesday’s large-scale police operation was the fifth launched against illegal Amazon logging since President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva entered office in 2003 with strong backing from environmentalists. As a result of the crackdown, the center-left government estimates up to 60 percent of Amazon timber is now produced legally compared with around 20 percent in 2000. It expects to quadruple the amount of illegal lumber confiscated this year compared with 2002, the final year of the former government. Lula’s support for Amazon road and energy projects has worried some environmentalists that his government may ultimately increase access to the jungle and speed its destruction. http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2005-10-26T192332Z_01_RID669194_
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Vietnam:

30) HA NOI — WWF Indochina’s Viet Nam Forest Programme released a Vietnamese translation of Reduced Impact Logging Guidelines, a manual first published by the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) is one of several efforts to help promote sustainable forest management practices. Originally written for Indonesia, Reduced Impact Logging Guidelines meets the above objective by providing a reduced impact timber harvesting methodology. Because technical guidelines traverse countries, the Indonesian manual is applicable for logging practices in Viet Nam and WWF Indochina’s Viet Nam Country Programme only had to translate the book into Vietnamese.This effort falls under the framework of co-operation with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) funded project Enhancing Sustainable Forest Harvesting in Asia, which develops technical standards for improving forest management practices. The Vietnamese translation will be distributed to Vietnamese forest managers, logging companies, and universities, in order to provide a useful guide for improving current harvesting techniques. The manual was printed with co-financial support from WWF Switzerland and FAO, with contributions from the Tropical Forest Trust (TFT). — VNS http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=01ENV261005

Philippines:

31) DAVAO CITY — Environment Secretary Michael T. Defensor cancelled last week virtually all logging and wood industry operations in the Davao Region. In a memorandum dated October 20, Defensor directed all ranking personnel of the DENR in Region 11 to “cancel all existing Operation Plans, including Integrated Annual Operation Plan, Mid-Year Operation Plan, RUP, and similar permits.” The memorandum was particularly addressed to the regional executive director, regional technical division forestry, all Community Environment and Natural Resource Offices (Cenros) and Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Offices (Penros), and all Forest Guard Team Leaders in Region 11. The above officials were also prohibited from issuing any form of timber harvesting and cutting permits. Defensor’s order, according to Louie Rabat of the wood industry cluster in Regional 11, would result in the wood industry losing P200 to P300 million. He further said when interviewed Sunday that the stoppage of logging and other wood-related operations would affect other industries as well, especially the banana industry. The environment secretary’s order would put a stop to the operation of at least a dozen plywood plants, sawmills, and mini-sawmills that would run out of raw materials, such as falcatta and gimelina harvested from tree farms, said other sources. Among those who would be affected are Mintrade, San Manuel, Alcantara and Sons, Fancy Panel, Forever Richsons and Omega in Davao City, PPMC-Tagum City, Davao del Norte, Smartply in Maco, Compostela Valley, Baganga Plywood in Davao Oriental, and Magdum Veneer also in Tagum City. http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/net/2005/10/25/environment.chief.cancels.davao.logging.permits.html

Malaysia:

32) Eight. Maybe 10. But nothing more than that. That’s the number of wild milky storks left in the Matang Forest Reserve in Perak, the only place where the species is found. With that kind of figures, and no sign of breeding, the large waterbird is certainly headed the way of the dodo. For the past 20 years, the Matang mangroves have been the final stronghold for this species, once abundant along the West Coast. But the birds received little conservation and were left at the mercy of mangrove destruction, human disturbance and predation. “There is no doubt that the bird is going extinct very soon,” says David Li, waterbird conservation officer at Wetlands International which recently completed a one-year study on the species together with the National Parks and Wildlife Protection Department (Perhilitan) and the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS). In the 1980s, milky storks could be seen feeding in mudflats along the Larut-Matang coastline. In recent years, however, they seek refuge in only the lakes of two mangrove islands – Pulau Kelumpang and Pulau Terong. And their numbers have plunged from the 130 seen in 1989. Perhilitan knew that the population of birds was plummeting, having religiously kept count for the past 20 years, with help from conservation groups. But counting the birds was all that the wildlife agency did; after all, the birds’ habitat comes not under wildlife laws but forestry. Sprawling over 40,466ha along 51km of Perak’s northwest coastline, the Matang Forest Reserve is an active timber production site. Despite the reserve harbouring an endangered species, the Forestry Department has only declared portions of both islands as “protective forest” where logging is prohibited – 1,880ha in Pulau Kelumpang and 103ha in Pulau Terong. Mangrove trees continue to be felled close to the lakes, thus disturbing the birds which are extremely sensitive to noise and human presence. Milky storks require a safe and undisturbed habitat for breeding. The last recorded breeding success was in 1989, when 21 nests were seen in Pulau Kelumpang. None have been spotted since. http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2005/10/25/lifefocus/12385898&sec=lifefocus

Thailand:

33) A study in this week’s (Oct. 28, 2005) Science magazine shows that trees soaked up energy from the huge waves. When an international group of researchers examined land along the coast, they found that trees offered serious protection from the surge of water. The protection was particular strong from dense stands of mangrove trees: Only 0.5 percent of the area behind them was damaged, compared to 15 percent of land behind more open stands of trees, and 35 percent of land without any shelter from trees. Put another way, 96 percent of land sheltered by dense trees was undamaged, compared to 38 percent of land without trees.There is nothing new to the idea that vegetation cuts coastal erosion, but “this is, to our knowledge, the first strong evidence that trees could dampen the destruction from a tsunami,” says Finn Danielsen, an ecologist with the Nordic Agency for Development and Ecology in Copenhagen, Denmark, who was the study’s primary author. After the tsunami, he says, ecologists heard “a lot of stories” about protection from forests, especially from villages in Thailand that had made a point of protecting mangroves. “They said, ‘We have been protecting our trees for a long time, and our village survived with very few casualties thanks to the mangroves.” The neighbors that did not invest time and effort in protecting the forest lost everything.” http://whyfiles.org/shorties/189mangrove/

Australia:

34) Logging has begun at a forest block near Collie, in south-western Western Australia, despite attempts by environmentalists to stop it. The Forest Products Commission is harvesting the Palmer One Block as part of its schedule to supply local sawmills. Protesters have spent the past few weeks appealing to Government representatives to stop the project, saying the removal of old-growth trees will cause salinity problems and destroy the habitat of some endangered species. But after several delays due to wet weather and the scarcity of labour, tree felling began yesterday. The commission says it has had no problem with any protesters so far. It is understood environmental groups are discussing their response during meetings this week. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1489970.htm

35) Our native forests are a most unique and valuable asset. If we invest a lot of money in order to chop them down it seems reasonable to expect that the owners of the forests and the investors (that’s us) should get a return on both the natural asset and the investment. My argument that we make no profit on the logging of our native forests is based on consideration of the following points: 1. Value of loggable native forests, 2. Profit/loss from native forestry, 3. Return to shareholders, 4. Capital gains/losses. As background to these points · WA’s original forest estate is considered to have been about 4 million hectares. · About 2 million hectares have been permanently cleared. · The amount of forest now available for logging is 850,000 hectares, ie. about 20% of the original forest estate. · A further 20% of the original area is in formal reserves, 5% is in informal reserves and 5% is otherwise unavailable for logging. · Much of the forest in the formal and informal reserves has been ogged. · On our behalf, the FPC sells about 500,000 tonnes of native forest logs annually. Since 2001 the FPC has reported the value of our forests in its annual accounts. This value is determined by estimating future costs and revenues and discounting the projected annual cash flows to today’s dollar. The FPC has reported the following as the value of our loggable forests: 2001 $0; 2002 $66.5million (“m”) (2003 – n.21)* ; 2003 $65.5m (2003 – n.21) ; 2004 $72.5m (2004 – n.21) With 850,000 hectares of loggable forests, the 2004 valuation of $72.5m amounts to a value of $85 per hectare. This is equivalent to about · 3% of the FPC cost per hectare of establishing plantations (2004 – p.57), · 40% of the annual FPC cost per hectare of managing plantations (2004 – p.57), and · 2% of the cost of establishing commercial plantations based on information contained in public prospectuses. These extraordinarily low values should be enough to raise eyebrows. http://news.mronline.com.au/modules/news/article.php?storyid=449