039OEC’s This Week in Trees

This week we have 31 stories for you from British Columbia, Oregon, California, Montana, West Virginia, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, USA, Canada, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Colombia, Cameroon, Angola, Malawi, India, Philippines and Australia.

British Columbia:

1) Thank You for the over 1000 people who wrote letters over the past 2 weeks to defend Vancouver Island’s public forests and jobs! Before the rally today, we were still short by over 100 letters to reach our 1000 letter target – but enough of you came forward at the rally with letters for our Forest Protection Mailbox to push us over the top! The Campbell government knows that for every letter written, hundreds of people feel the same who haven’t taken the time to write. Thanks to all of the letter-writers, the over two hundred people who came out, the speakers and scores of volunteers who made it happen! With tenacity and persistence in growing this movement, we will succeeding in getting a new Land Use Plan for Vancouver Island to systematically expand protected areas across the Island, based on conservation biology science and open public input. spread the word, volunteer! http://www.wildernesscommitteevictoria.org

2) The Ministry of Forests and Range has reached agreement with Canfor to compensate the company for the loss of their logging rights through the timber reallocation process. Under the agreement, the company will receive a total of $62 million for replaceable harvesting rights, timber licence areas and associated improvements, including roads and bridges, on Crown land. The majority of the timber being returned comes from the Prince George, Vanderhoof and Mackenzie timber supply areas. Timber reallocation is a cornerstone of the provincial Forestry Revitalization Plan. Reallocating 20 per cent of the long-term replaceable logging rights held by major licensees will open up new opportunities in the forest economy. Volumes and areas from these agreements will be available to community forests, woodlots, First Nations and new logging entrepreneurs. Government has previously signed agreements with International Forest Products, Western Forest Products, Weyerhaeuser, TimberWest and Teal-Jones, and is continuing discussion with the other major tenure holders. It is expected that the timber reallocation process will be complete by March. http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/mof/plan/

3) The B.C. Ministry of Forests and Range announced last week that Hixon-based Dunkley Lumber Ltd.’s annual allowable cut on Tree Farm Licence 53 will increase 76 per cent to 880,000 cubic metres a year. The increase, aimed at harvesting lodgepole pines killed by the mountain pine beetle epidemic before they loose their value, is on top of higher than normal cut levels. The 1999 pre-pine beetle allowable cut on the licence was 239,500 cubic metres per year. The increase will continue until 2008, when the annual allowable cut will drop to 219,000 cubic metres per year. “We’re pleased the government recognized the need to harvest the wood now. [But] we would prefer to harvest green pine stands – healthy pine stands – that would last us a whole bunch of years,” Dunkley Lumber general manager Blair Mayes said. “It’s the best of a bad situation.” The forest licence area covers approximately 88,000 hectares near the communities of Hixon and Strathnaver, of which 95 per cent is productive forest. Approximately one-third of that area is covered with lodgepole pine stands, Mayes said. Dunkley Lumber’s logging two primary logging contractors have been building up their capacity in anticipation of the announcement,
http://www.pgfreepress.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=26&cat=23&id=519842&more=

Oregon:

4) On Wednesday, November 2nd, the Forest Service will auction large swaths of forest in the Fall Creek area, Willamette National Forest. This is the latest auction that will result in the salvage logging of fire-burned old-growth trees that are ecologically integral to the life of the forest. The estimate quantity on this sale is 4.422 million board feet, or roughly 500 logging trucks full of timber. Gather @ 8 am outside of the Eugene Grower’s Market, 454 Willamette. We will carpool to the auction site in the Middle Fork Ranger District (46375 Highway 58, Westfir, OR). Bring musical instruments, costumes, food, and creative ideas for resistance. http://www.forestdefenders.org

5) One of the two timber sales on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest failed to attract bidders Wednesday in the forest’s first auction of the fiscal year. Mandatory helicopter logging, high fuel costs, small diameter trees and low timber volume could explain why there were no offers for the Beaver Newt logging project about 31 miles southeast of Jacksonville, U.S. Forest Service officials said. In contrast, the Middle Fork timber project about 10 miles east of Prospect attracted three bidders. Murphy Co., a 125-employee logging company headquartered in Sutherland, won the project with an $803,000 offer, 18 percent more than the required minimum bid. “Beaver Newt was smaller-diameter material, low volume per acre and a lot of helicopter logging,” said John Fertig, a forester with the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. “It had all of the factors to make a higher-cost, lower-volume project.” The 544-acre project included about 2.6 million board feet. About 316 acres of the project was mandatory helicopter logging. The Middle Fork project includes 3.7 million board feet of timber on 146 acres of tree plantations in a late-successional reserve. Under the Northwest Forest Plan definition, a late-successional reserve is generally trees 40 to 80 years old with certain characteristics, such as full canopy. “This is a thinning project, so we can achieve even bigger trees,” said Joel King, Prospect district ranger for the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. “Bigger trees are more resistant to fire, insects and disease, someone can make a living off it, and it puts a roof over people’s heads.” Work on the project is expected to start next summer, said Jon Beck, log procurement manager for Murphy. “Middle Fork is more conventional logging (than Beaver Newt),” Beck said. “It’s tractor and cable logging. The quality of the trees are better on Middle Fork, taller and better grade.” http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2005/1028/local/stories/16local.htm

6) The Diamond Lake Ranger District, in the Umpqua National Forest, recently released an Environmental Assessment (EA) for the proposed Wapiti Timber Sale. The sale is located in the Fish Creek Watershed just east of Roseburg on highway 28. It’s a huge project and one that threatens hundreds of acres of mature and old growth forests. The project area covers 31,142 acres with 69% of the planning area covered by late-successional forests. They expect to get over 26 million board feet of timber from these forests, mostly to “improve elk foraging.” That’s right, clear cutting mature forests to help elk. They also expect build almost 5 miles of new roads within the project area, part
of which is within a 187 acre roadless area. This project is being pushed forward by the Herbert Lumber folks and the Oregon Hunters Association. Asking the public to spend thousands of dollars (not to mention loosing more of our mature forests) on a project to improve elk habitat with clearcuts is just plain silly. What about the millions of acres of clearcuts (or “elk habitat” as the agency calls them) on private land? Shouldn’t those be substantial enough to provide foraging for elk? Please take the time to comment on this project before Nov. 25th. Ask them to protect the mature and old growth forests in the Fish Creek Watershed and focus instead on Stewardship Projects that can address
the restoration and fuels reduction needs in the area. comments-pacificnorthwest-umpqua@fs.fed.us

7) The 2005 wildfire season was declared officially over here the other day. Rain and snow in the mountains have dampened the timber, and the sound of firefighting helicopters and trucks has been replaced by the rifle fire of deer and elk hunters. But the rhetorical heat and smoke of battle continues over how to manage forestland to prevent catastrophic fire – and perhaps more pointedly, what to do with those lands once they’ve burned. A recent report by scientists, fire experts, and forest-protection advocates, though, attacks the rationale for postfire logging – in essence arguing, based on historical data, that forests regenerate better when left alone rather than being logged and replanted. “Logging after fires degrades soils, produces sediment, endangering aquatic species and water quality, increases fire risks, and destroys terrestrial wildlife habitat,” states a report by the American Lands Alliance, a grass-roots group with an office in Washington, D.C. Instead, this group says, “fire should be thought of as a restorative agent for forests.” This includes cycling nutrients back into the soil via mineral-rich ash, which helps seed germination, regeneration of fire-associated plants, and the creation of habitat for wildlife. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1101/p02s01-sten.html

8) Siskiyou National Forest has accepted responsibility for introducing a deadly pathogen know as Port Orford Cedar Root Rot into a previously uninfected area. Port Orford Cedar Root Rot is carried through the soil, spreads rapidly in wet weather, and kills thousands of cedar trees every year. The CWP had warned the Forest Service about allowing logging to continue through the wet season in its court case. The CWP has also exposed the fact that the Forest Service knew they would lose millions in tax revenues, rather than gaining economic revenue as the agency had promised–and in fact, the Forest Service now admits they will be lucky if they have enough money to do the bare minimal amount of replanting–a far cry from the restoration promises they gave to the public in June of 2004. http://www.cascwild.org

California:

9) November 11, 2005 – November 18, 2005, Humboldt Forest Defense: REDWOOD WINTER RENEWAL CAMP. EMPOWERMENT. INTEGRITY. EDUCATION. ACTION. Grizzly Creek Redwood State Park Campground Grizzly Creek Campground is 20 miles south of Eureka on HWY 101, then 17 miles east on HWY 36. Turn onto Highway 36 near Hansen’s Truck Stop. Intention for the camp: to orient, educate, and inspire people toward non-violent direct action to protect what is left of old growth forests here; also to bring attention [and an end] to the corporate domination that continues to divide our communities and wipe out the wildlife, water, air, and security of a healthy and forested future. A MOVEMENT OF CONSCIENCE… Be inspired by our her/history while pressing onward for change. Share plenty of music, hikes, stories, good food, and ideas, and generate powerful action experiences. SPREAD THE WORD! TRAININGS WILL INCLUDE: Non-Violent Direct Action, Legal, Backwoods Skills, Tree-Climbing, PLEASE BRING: camping gear, warm clothes, food, friends, respectful attitude. All types of help needed. Please get in touch if you have a training you want to offer. Camp will be kid-friendly. Call (707) 825-6598 to plan carpooling and get other information. There will be a couple of pre-camp activities to gather momentum for a powerful and inclusive camp. Please call me if you are interested in those- (707)618-9185 pager and voicemail or (707)476-9112 — Verbena

10) Ansel Adams’ stage-managed tableaux, desire often has trumped the facts. It is that history of dissembling that now makes “Turning Back: A Photographic Journal of Re-Exploration” by photographer Robert Adams, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through Jan. 3, poignant. Taking trees as his vehicle to explore the changes to the land since Lewis and Clark first tromped into what then was a primordial rain forest, the photographer’s small, black-and-white works chronicle scenes of clear-cut forests that look as devastated as cityscapes of post-war Hiroshima. But Adams is no simple polemicist, and “Turning Back” functions less as an environmental indictment than as a subtle exploration of the American character. His purpose is not to lobby but to encourage introspection about who we really are, as reflected by the decisions we have made about the land. So quiet images of a turn in a forest road and an East Oregon apple orchard temper the harsher offerings and broaden the perspective.The exhibit is a logical evolution in the work of Adams, a much honored English-professor-turned-photographer whose deadpan images have helped change not just landscape photography but art photography in general with their unblinking gaze on what has been dubbed the social landscape. In this, Adams is part of a group of photographers all plying their own versions of that idea who came to prominence in 1975 in an influential exhibit at the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y., titled “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape.” The exhibit, which also included work by Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, and Frank Gohlke, among others, was among the first to showcase, rather than shun, human incursions onto the natural world http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/13035210.htm

11) Eric Herkins sold his mountain home and lived in a tent so he could buy a tree skidder, a machine that can grab and haul logs. The 43-year-old took the bold gamble a few years ago when trees started dying by the thousands as the bark-beetle crisis raced across the San Bernardino Mountains. “We saw a need,” he said. “I bought a mill and was doing tree jobs before the full-blown beetle attack.” In the early days of the bark-beetle infestation, officials struggled to get rid of the tens of thousands of dead trees being cut down by an army of chain-saw-wielding workers who swarmed over the mountains. It had been generations since timber was taken for profit from the San Bernardino National Forest, and there were few local businesses able to do anything with the logs and waste wood. Instead of putting the wood to good use, officials were left with disposing of it any way they could, using powerful wood chippers, ultra-hot incinerators and simply dumping it in landfills. Some trees were hauled to a lumber mill past Bakersfield. Some wood chips went to a power plant east of Indio. But most of the wood was literally going to waste. In December 2002, a few tons per day of wood waste were going into San Bernardino County landfills. As the crisis accelerated, county landfills were taking in 900 tons per day by August 2003. Those spearheading the effort to rid the forest of dead trees lamented there was no place for the wood to go. That has changed. A cadre of companies and entrepreneurs is now using the timber for wood siding, log houses, table tops, large beams, mulch, energy production and even as stock for chain-saw sculptures. “We use every stick we can,” said Robert Herkins, Eric’s brother. http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_3167234

Montana:

12) Over the last 70 years since mining activity in the area stilled the forest has grown over the ditches, dams and collapsed tunnels that hundreds of hard-rock miners constructed in their frenzy to find gold. While the buildings in the main part of Garnet attracted thousands of tourists every year, very few ever noticed the historic cabins, mills and mining sites scattered about the nearby countryside. This summer, some of those secrets were uncovered when the BLM thinned 26 acres of forest near the ghost town in the Garnet Mountains northeast of Missoula to help protect the area from fire. By the time loggers had finished their work, a whole complex of mining activity was visible to even the untrained eye. A couple of cabins, which had been hidden by thick stands of alder and ponderosa pine, were exposed. There were also any number of ditches and shafts and collapsed tunnels revealed by project’s end. “Before this work was completed, it was hard to understand the magnitude of the work that was done here,” said Craig. “You get a much better feel for the historic landscape. It was really hard to stitch it all together with all the vegetation that was here. http://www.helenair.com/articles/2005/10/30/montana/a06103005_01.txt

West Virginia:

13) The Monongahela National Forest is going through it’s “forest plan revision” process. They have issued a draft revised forest plan. Like all the other proposed forest plan revisions on the national forests in our region, it sets heavy logging levels, allows thousands of acres of clearcutting, allows oil and gas development, doesn’t adequately protect sensitive areas, and doesn’t adequately consider the impacts of the industrial activities which it authorizes (among other problems). Please help us beat back this assault on the beautiful Monongahela National Forest! Please use our handy electronic action alert page and send in your comments now! Remember, it’s easy to personalize each letter by adding a paragraph or sentences anywhere in the text. http://www.heartwood.org/alerts.php

Texas:

14) It took over four years, but the Texas Forest Service was able to count the trees in Houston and actually put a monetary number on what they’re worth. According to the report, there are 663 million trees in the 8-county Houston region valued at over $205 billion. Pete Smith is the partnership coordinator with the Texas Forest Service. “That speaks volumes as to what they’re really worth. That’s just in the landscape. $456 million of annual environmental benefits, that’s a big number. We really didn’t have a good idea that trees were worth that much to us,” he says. Smith says the trees store $721 million worth of carbon and remove over 60,000 tons of air pollution every year. The report points out that while Houston has an impressive urban forest canopy, 17-percent of those trees have been lost since 1992, a total of around 78 million trees. The losses are due in part to changes in how land is used and also because of invasive species of trees that are wiping out other species. Texas Forest Service Director Jim Hull says philosophies are changing. “In the past, maybe there could have been some things done that would have maintained some of these trees, but we’re really looking now at establishing a baseline for the future,” he says. http://www.bloghouston.net/item/2033

North Carolina:

15) Not many things today seem as unending as the interstate. Just a few hundred years ago, though, there would have been something to rival this vast concrete network. If longleaf pine forests still stretched uninterrupted from eastern Texas to southern Virginia, only a three-day drive would put the evergreens to a westbound traveler’s back. “Longleaf pines are in serious decline,” said Brady Beck, Sandhills Game Land biologist. “About 97 percent have been destroyed.” In several short centuries, 87 million acres of the original 90 million have been lost to the naval stores industry, logging, and commercial and residential development. “Much of the Sandhills longleaf had disappeared by the early 1900s,” said Pete Campbell, wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Southern Pines. While loggers then and now value the longleaf for its rot resistance and strength, the tree matures too slowly for the patience of harvesters. To satisfy the industry’s appetite, scoured longleaf stands began to be replanted in faster growing slash pine and loblolly pine between 1930 and 1940. Though this practice has hindered the recovery of the once bountiful trees, it’s not all gloom and doom, death and destruction for the longleaf pine. Longleaf resurgence was jump-started by the discovery of a financially lucrative use for the slow-growing tree that didn’t require reaping, replanting and waiting. “The renaissance of longleaf pine has a lot to do with the pine straw market,” which really took off during the mid-1980s, Campbell said. Pine straw has given landowners an economic reason to grow the evergreen that isn’t bound by the constraints of logging, he added. While the continual raking of needles doesn’t restore ideal longleaf forests, it is a step in the right direction for the North Carolina Sandhills Conservation Partnership. This approach has protected 10,000 acres of longleaf forest in the Sandhills in the last five years. http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051030/APN/510300606&cachetime=3&template=datel
ine

Florida:

16) TOSOHATCHEE STATE PRESERVE – Within the 28,000 acres of this woodland wonderland seven miles southwest of Titusville are two special stands of trees. One is a 1,000-acre stretch of “virgin” (that is, never cut) cypress; the other a stand of pines considered “old-growth” (cut in the past, but has returned to maturity). Both are easily accessed: The cypress are on Jim Creek, about a half-mile down what’s usually a moderately muddy trail from the nearest parking area; the pines about as far down an old grassy road. Visitors to either spot might be disappointed, because the trees there don’t look much different to the untrained eye than the rest of the forest. They’re still spots of interest for outdoors people who long for those places that most closely look like this land did before humans came along. Since Florida has hardly any land that was inaccessible to loggers who pretty much cut down every big tree they came across by 1940, virgin forest is a rarity indeed. And once it’s lost, it can’t be replaced. Old-growth forest is as close as we can come to that ideal. And despite being one of the most recently developed states in the country, Florida actually has a huge advantage in returning its woodlands to an old-growth state. Part of the reason is that the term “old-growth” has a specious meaning here because our forests have been renewed regularly by fire for thousands of years. http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051031/COLUMNISTS0305/510310340/1064/sports

USA:

17) Private timber companies have been getting “green” certifications for the past decade to boost sales among consumers who want to be assured that forests are not harmed by producing the lumber they buy. Now the U.S. Forest Service, battered by court battles over balancing logging against fish and wildlife habitat, is looking into it. A portion of the Fremont National Forest in southern Oregon and the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania will be the first of several national forests to undergo an audit under the standards of two major systems: the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, developed by the U.S. timber industry, and the Forest Stewardship Council, an international group based in Germany that grew out of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The national forest audit will also include Mount Hood and Siuslaw in Oregon, Medicine Bow in Wyoming, Chequamegon-Nicolet in Wisconsin and all national forests in Florida. The Forest Service said it is following a global trend to have third parties declare forest management as sustainable, and needs the public’s confidence as it faces new challenges, such as invasive species, global warming and combatting unauthorized off-highway vehicle trails. Wanting to go slowly, it will just go through the audit process, and won’t immediately seek final certification. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1262126

Canada:

18) Canada’s northern boreal forests, including stands that run from one end of Wood Buffalo to the other, is threatened by future development. That’s the conclusion of a national advisory agency report released today. Boreal forests stretching across the north in seven provinces and all three territories have been affected seriously in recent decades by logging, mining, energy extraction and global warming. Planned, measured, sustainable development of the boreal forest is essential to enable these crucial economic activities to thrive while protecting the equally crucial natural environment, said the National Round Table on the Environment (NTREE) and the Economy. “We are asking the prime minister to convene a national conference inviting all of the premiers, Aboriginal governments and other communities, non-government organizations and industries,” Wendy Carter, co-chair of the NRTEE’s boreal task force, told Today in a telephone interview from Vancouver. “We think the time is now and probably more than now to save our boreal forest,” she said. The region has traditionally been the carbon sink not only of Canada but of the world because the trees and muskeg absorb carbon from the world’s atmosphere and store it. “As the boreal (forest) gets further and further developed and climate change warms the north, there’s the risk that it could turn into a carbon forest,” Carter said. Guy Boutilier, Alberta environment minister and Wood Buffalo-Fort McMurray MLA : “First of all the boreal forest is in our province and ultimately we don’t need a national something. We don’t need a national anything to tell us what we already know is critically important,” Boutilier said. The minister said the Alberta government is already doing its share of preserving and sustaining the boreal forest. http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/story.php?id=193358

Puerto Rico:

19) “The people of Puerto Princesa based on a national survey take pride in themselves as a people with the highest environmental consciousness in the country. The residents of this city are aware that what causes global warming and environmental degradation are illegal logging, indiscriminate, irresponsible mining, and other destructive activities that decimate our forests; carbon dioxide emissions caused by factories, power plants and vehicles and improper solid waste management,” Hagedorn said in a statement. Puerto Princesa City is the country’s first Hall of Fame awardee in the annual search for the cleanest and greenest local government units. Hagedorn said the city maintained its environmental record by banning logging and mining, making tree-planting part of city program, establishing tree nurseries, protecting and rehabilitating its forests with an increased forest cover of 2,000 hectares, carrying out a scheme to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by vehicles, and adopting an economic development plan anchored on ecotourism. http://news.inq7.net/regions/index.php?index=1&story_id=54939

Venezuela:

20) If Hugo Chavez plays his cards right, Venezuela’s future is secure. It has huge reserves of crude oil and even larger reserves of extra heavy crude and bitumen deposits. It also holds the second largest reservoir of natural gas in the Western Hemisphere behind the United States. But more importantly to his nation’s future, half of the country’s 890,000 square miles are covered in tropical rainforest. Typically, just two and half acres (one hectare) of old growth, “frontier” forest will contain 750 different species of trees and 1,500 different types of higher plants. Rainforests are also the world’s medicine chest from which are derived a host of life-saving drugs, as well as life-destroying narcotics. 25% of the West’s pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients. Of the 3000 plants identified by the U.S. National Cancer Institute as being chemically active against cancer cells, 70% are found in the rainforest. Yet, only 1% of the cataloged plants found in rainforests have been tested by scientists. Writing in Defense Horizons, a publication of the Center for Technology and National Security Policy, National Defense University, Robert E. Armstrong reasons that, “agriculture will become increasingly important as part of the Nation’s industrial base, as it offers the most economical way to produce large quantities of biological materials. Homeland defense will have to consider heartland defense, as agricultural fields will assume the same significance as oil fields”. If genes were the basic unit of commerce,” writes Armstrong, “would we tolerate another state’s environmental policies that allowed for the continued destruction of the rainforest”? http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=article&storyid=916

Columbia:

21) Colombia is a mega-diversity country in terms of biodiversity with large tracts of intact rainforests. The controversial legislation would be a tremendous setback for Colombia’s environmental policy; harming the country’s forests and biodiversity, and the collective social, economic and cultural well-being of communities who collectively own and manage forest areas. About a quarter of Colombia’s national territory is designated as indigenous territory by constitutional law. The new Forestry Law does not consider interests of these local communities, and is therefore suspected to be a ruse to give forests away to private interests that would convert natural forests to plantations under the guise of “reforestation”. Local peoples view these forests as habitat and not something to be exploited merely as a source of timber. The government is keen to promote the economic exploitation of forests, arguing that the sector is underdeveloped. The new law is tantamount to handing over the country’s forests to trans-national timber companies, overtly favoring the timber industry and forest plantations. For the future of Colombia’s forests, the proposed Ley Forestal should not be approved. Please respond to this alert requesting that appropriate changes be made to the proposed “Ley Forestal” to ensure it does not cover natural forest and lands that are collectively owned by indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities; and that it is restricted to forest plantations. Please take action now at http://forests.org/action/alert.asp?id=colombia

Africa:

22) The pictures and measurements in a new atlas show “dramatic and, in some cases, damaging environmental changes” that have swept across Africa affecting nearly all of its 677 natural and man-made inland bodies of water, they said. The damming of river sources, industrial pollution, deforestation, salt mining and climate change, have put Africa’s lakes — which contain about 30,000 cubic kilometers (7,200 cubic miles) of water, the largest volume of any continent — under increasing pressure from spiralling populations, they said. “I hope these images of Africas lakes will galvanize … greater action to conserve and restore these crucial water bodies,” said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP). “Otherwise, we face increasing tensions and instability as rising populations compete for lifes most precious of precious resources,” he said, unveiling the new Atlas of African Lakes prepared by UNEP and the University of Oregon. Of most concern in this area is west Africa’s Volta River basin, which is shared by Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali and Togo and where resources are now strained to the breaking point. It also depicts the damage wrought by large-scale deforestation around Kenya’s Lake Nakuru and a meter (three-foot) drop of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest fresh-water lake, since the early 1990s. http://www.terradaily.com/2005/051031151404.2aih5280.html

Congo:

23) Greenpeace welcomed a decree by President Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to reform the Congolese logging sector this week. New logging concessions will be frozen in up to 40 million hectares of rainforest while the legality of all current logging concessions are examined by an inter-ministerial commission, assisted by a team of independent, international experts. The Congo rainforest is the second largest in the world after the Amazon. It is home to more plant and animal life than any other forest in Africa, including rare species such as the Okapi and the Congo Peacock that are found nowhere else in the world. It is also a refuge for three of the four Great Apes – chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas. Greenpeace has been investigating logging in the Congo and discovered that it does not contribute to sustainable development and prosperity, as the logging industry claims, but creates poverty, social conflict and wreaks environmental havoc. “Until now, the logging industry has been a law unto itself, destroying the rainforest to supply wood to Europe, Asia and the USA. This decree
is an important first step towards responsible and socially just forest management, but this will only be achieved in this post-conflict country with assistance from the international community,” said Verbelen. Filip Verbelen, Greenpeace International forest campaigner on +32 496 161586 Stephan Van Praet, Co-ordinator of Greenpeace Africa campaign on +32 496 161580

Liberia:

24) Forests still span 49.8 percent of the West African nation, said Nyenka, who heads the scientific department of the National Environmental Protection Agency. He said forest degradation during the war years were caused by internally displaced persons and refugees who fell trees for firewood and charcoal, shifting cultivation and logging companies` failure to uphold selective logging and other conservation regulations set by the government. Recalling that in the 1960s forests covered the entire 43,000 square miles of the country, Nyenka said: “Many people fail to understand why Liberia is concerned by desertification”. He explained that the deforestation rate, which was 0.5 percent 20 years ago, reached 1 percent in 1998 and was now 2 percent, according to a survey by the World Resources Institute. “The speed with which our forest is being depleted is high and if this continues, we will be a desert country like Niger or Botswana,” he lamented. http://www.angolapress-angop.ao/noticia-e.asp?ID=387089

Malawi:

25) Southern Africa’s Malawi (yes, it’s a country — look it up) loses about 200 square miles of forest a year to illegal logging for firewood and charcoal; over a fifth of the nation’s forests disappeared between 1990 and 2000. Twenty-three tree species are endangered, streams are drying up, air pollution is increasing, and some rivers get so clogged with silt that hydroelectric-power operations are impaired. Poverty and joblessness are the primary drivers — about 8 million of the nation’s 12 million people earn less than a dollar a day, far too little to buy stoves or devices needed to hook up to the electrical grid. “The problem is that we have nothing else to do,” says one illegal logger. “We have no money … So we have to cut the trees to feed our families.” Studies suggest Malawians could prosper by using the forests sustainably — selling honey from forest beehives, or botanicals for traditional medicines — if they can just escape the daily struggle for survival. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/international/africa/01malawi.html?ex=1288501200&en=5e3dc2af954c8722&ei=
5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

India:

26) The Somwarpet forest department has arrested 55 accused and booked 35 cases of tree theft and transportation within the last 3 months said Somwarpet Range Forest Officer M S Chnnappa. Addressing the media here, Chinnappa said that the officials have busted two major tree smuggling gangs in the region. He said the department also seized rose wood (90 cubic feet), teak( 200 cubic feet), 20 kg of Sandal Wood. They have also recovered one lorry, 4 mini lorries one gun and one two wheeler.He said officials succeeded in arresting a major gang in Belur near here. http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEK20051101040225&Page=K&Title=Southern+News+-+Karnataka&Topic
=0

27) Mangroves, which grow in tidal areas, are widely perceived to protect land against major storms and waves. Laboratory models and anecdotes from the field support that notion, but little rigorous, real-world evidence exists. A 21-kilometer length of coastline in Cuddalore, India, identified from satellite images, provides a “unique experimental setting,” says Danielsen. Because it’s straight and has largely uniform offshore features, he says, the waves probably had the same energy along the entire stretch of coastline. “In areas with maximum tsunami intensity, little could have prevented catastrophic destruction,” he says. But the 4- or 5-meter waves that washed into Cuddalore were modest enough for vegetation to make a difference. Two villages situated along the shore and unprotected by mangroves were obliterated, Danielsen’s team reports in the Oct. 28 Science. Three other villages that were behind a screen of mangroves that was hundreds of meters thick survived. http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=43516

28) After a gap of nine years, the Centre has approved a “working scheme” of the Khasi Hills District Council (KHADC) to harvest trees in the West Khasi Hills district of the state. The rampant felling of trees was banned by a verdict of the Supreme Court in 1996. The verdict of the apex court was of a total ban at that time. However, in 1998 in another landmark judgement, the Supreme Court allowed “harvesting” of trees with prior approval of the Centre. With Meghalaya being a Sixth Schedule state, most forests here are under the direct control of the district councils. With the approval of the working scheme, people in the district can now cut trees in specific areas earmarked scientifically. Alternative afforestation measures would also have to be taken up once the felling begins, to offset environmental degradation, which initially led to concerns among various groups and subsequently to the total ban on the felling of trees. http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/7454_1533764,000800050003.htm

29) Philippines:
The controversial logging firm Matuguina Integrated Wood Product Inc. (MIWPI) in Baganga, Davao Oriental is causing woes for other logging operations in the Davao Region. This is according to an official of Smart Plywood Industries, Inc. (SPII) operating in Maco, Compostela Valley, who requested for anonimity. He bared that the company’s plywood processing plant is facing immiment closure for lack of wood raw materials. Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Michael Defensor has ordered to stop hauling of logs and transport of wood finished products such as plywoods. The company official said with the immiment closure, they will be forced to lay off over 500 plant workers. At least 10,000 wood-based workers are facing danger of unemployment if Defensor’s stoppage order will be enforced. “We were just affected by the Matuguina’s case when our operation is legal,” according to the SPII official. Newly-assigned Community Environment and Natural Resources Officer (CENRO) Greg Lagura bared that Defensor issued a memorandum last October 25 that said, “all wood processing plants in the region can resume milling only if stockpiled logs are verified and come from non-questionable sources.” Defensor’s order was a modification of his October 20 memorandum which directed non-movement of logs and wood finished products. http://news.balita.ph/html/article.php/20051031200306600

Australia:

30) GUNSHOTS have been fired near a camp of anti-logging protesters in southern Tasmania. The group of 10 men and women believe the shots were fired on Wednesday night to intimidate them after they set up a temporary village in the World Heritage-nominated Weld Valley. The only access to the camp is a forest road that Forestry Tasmania locks between 5pm and 7am. The activists say they saw spotlights shining from several vehicles between 11pm and midnight before they heard “a number of gunshots”. Group spokeswoman Jenny Weber said: “They were extremely fearful. They were extremely intimidated by it.” Ms Weber said the group had either been subject to intimidation tactics or Forestry Tasmania should have informed them of dangerous practices occurring during the night. “Only people involved in the logging industry have the keys [to the road gate],” she said. “Therefore, how did these people get in the forest to scare the peaceful protesters with guns and spotlights?” Activists returned to the Weld Valley this week after a six-month hiatus, during which Forestry Tasmania did regeneration burns. The group wants to halt construction of a road in the area and 2000ha of forest bordering the World Heritage area to be protected. Ms Weber said the group was “totally committed” to staying for months. The group has filed complaints with Tasmania Police and Forestry Tasmania. Forestry Tasmania said it was not aware of any incidents.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16767294-1244,00.html

31) The Recherche Bay Protection Group held a commemoration on October 28 for the 250th anniversary of the birth of French botanist Jacques-Julian Houtou de Labillardiere. The group used the occasion to call once again on the federal and Tasmanian state governments to save the bay from the imminent threat of logging. The bay, located on Tasmania’s south-east coastline, was the site of landings by French scientists in 1792-93 as part of the d’Entrecasteaux expedition. The French expedition built an observatory and a garden, collected samples of local flora and fauna that are still on display in Europe and made friendly contact with local Aboriginal people. Much of the information that remains about the local Aboriginal language and culture was documented on the expedition. Recherche Bay Protection Group spokesperson Wren Fraser Cameron told Green Left Weekly that “the important thing about the photos is that they link the living botanical museum of Recherche Bay with the established scientific collections in Europe”. The bay is an internationally renowned site of natural and cultural heritage and, according to the Protection Group, government inaction is the main reason that the Bay faces the imminent threat of logging. “It is a shame that we have come together to commemorate the life and legacy of Labillardiere knowing that destruction is awaiting the forest and landscape where he undertook his scientific research”, Cameron said in a media statement. The Recherche Bay Protection Group is holding a rally at 11.30am on November 5 at the Parliament House Lawns. The rally will be calling on the state government to overturn the licence for the logging road across the Southport Lagoon Conservation Area, to buy the private land on which logging is proposed and for a management plan to be drawn up for the National Heritage listed site http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/647/647p2.htm