045OEC’s This Week in Trees

This Week we have 34 stories from: British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, Ohio, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, USA, Canada, European Union, England, Russia, Kenya, India, Japan, New, Zealand, Indonesia and Philippines.

British Columbia:

1) In his address to the nation on Canada Day Prime Minister Paul Martin singled out Cathedral Grove as one of our nations ecological treasures. No where has the National media covered the fact that Cathedral Grove has been occupied for 2 years by activists in tree sits in the canopy to protect it from a massive parking lot by BC Parks and a highway widening by BC Highways. That is not to mention the threat from the adjacent logging and development by the Brascan corporation… I have taken direct action as has my wife and children in desperate attempts to save the last remnants of extremely endangered plant and animal communities. Right here in my backyard in Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island we had to stand under the helicopters and in front of the chainsaws to save a floodplain and an incredibly rich salmon river. I am proud of these actions in fact I couldn’t look myself in the mirror if I had stood by and left these precious forests to the bull dozers and faller bunchers. I personally do not believe in anything clandestine and take full public responsibility for my actions. I do however totally understand the frustration of those who are driven underground by the extent of the persecution and public perception encouraged by your coverage labeling activists terrorist. Those who care so much about the all life and the integrity of complex, mysterious and indescribably beautiful ecosystems that are being routinely and callously destroyed in this country and around the world that they are willing to put themselves and families on the line are heroes not terrorists. — P. Carson

2) The coastal rainforests and waters are a vital natural, cultural and economic resource for First Nations, coastal communities and British Columbia as a whole. To be successful , land use agreements must not only preserve the lands and protect its ecological integrity—they must also respect indigenous cultures and strengthen local economies. Having inherited the responsibility to protect and restore their lands, waters and air for future generations, British Columbia’s coastal First Nations continue to work to create an ecologically and economically sustainable future. Years of work – science, community forums, stakeholder dialogues and government to government negotiations – have forged agreements among diverse parties around land-use for the North and Central Coast and Haida Gwaii. These agreements represent a new, more holistic approach to conservation and through them three unprecedented breakthroughs have emerged for this unique and threatened region. The first is a commitment to a new relationship between the provincial government and First Nations. The second sees the total size of the Great Bear Rainforest’s protected areas quadrupled to secure many of its most sensitive and intact valleys and islands. The third and, in many respects, boldest breakthrough is a commitment by the people of the region to rebuild a sustainable relationship with the forest itself. This relationship is termed Ecosystem-based Management, and to many coastal First Nations represents a scientific articulation of thousands of years of cultural practice and traditional resource use. http://www.theworldlink.com/articles/2005/11/22/news/news05.txt

3) If all goes according to plan, the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) could be in the logging business by early 2007. But the primary aim of the Whistler Community Forest wouldn’t be making money by cutting down the Whistler region’s considerable forestry resources, although officials wouldn’t mind seeing its project at least pay for itself. No, the primary objective is local government control over how the region’s resources — including flora, fauna and aquatic environments — are allocated and managed. Using the award-winning Whistler 2020 sustainability document as a guide, RMOW officials are forging ahead with a plan that, if approved by the B.C. Ministry of Forests (MOF), would see the RMOW enter into a partnership with B.C. Timber Sales (BCTS) to jointly manage the harvesting of 10,000 cubic metres of timber per year in an area covering 55,000 hectares surrounding the community. MOF an d RMOW officials who presented the plan at a sparsely attended open house last Thursday at Spruce Grove Field House said a lot has to happen for Whistler’s Community Forest to become a reality. However, Heather Beresford, RMOW stewardship coordinator, said she’s confident it’ll eventually be approved — a realistic expectation for completion is early 2007, she said. “We’re excited about the partnership with B.C. Timber Sales because they have been operating in this area and they have a lot of expertise,” she said. “The main point is not to make big dollars. We obviously want to recover costs, and there will be a revenue sharing sharing agreement with BCTS. But the main objective is forest and watershed management.” http://www.whistlerquestion.com/madison%5CWQuestion.nsf/0/EA5B0AA22D7F1DF7882570C3006C8BF8?OpenDocument

4) A deal is close for the purchase of a large tract of private forest for a new park at the summit of Mount Benson, the dominant feature on the skyline behind Nanaimo. “What I can tell you is we’re close to an agreement,” said Gail Adrienne, executive director of the Nanaimo Area Land Trust. “What we’re hoping is the end of November.” A draft agreement is in the hands of lawyers, but “nothing’s been signed yet” and some details remain to be worked out, she said. NALT has led the Coalition to Save Mount Benson to buy the 213-hectare site and has the Nanaimo Regional District on side. “They could manage 50 per cent and we would fundraise for the rest,” said Adrienne. The group’s most recent newsletter said the gap between a coalition offer and the owners’ price “has narrowed to a point where it is only a matter of how best to close that gap and sign a sales agreement.” NALT’s website said 11 years ago, owners Pennclan (Ontario) Ltd. and Eastbourne Financial Services Ltd. paid $585,000 for the land, which was listed for sale in 2000 for $1.2 million. About a third has been logged but clear-cut areas aren’t visible in the city. Most recently, they offered to sell for $1.6 million, which NALT said is much higher than current timber and real estate appraisals. It has first right of refusal on a sale but is near the end of a six-month deadline. http://www.canada.com/victoria/story.html?id=06fb5f3d-5691-46c3-a452-0bca4413d57a

Washington:

5) Tuesday’s 3 ½ hours of arguments focused on part of the forest plan known as the Aquatic Conservation Strategy, which set out criteria for protecting watersheds. The courts interpreted the criteria to mean that before approving logging, road building or other projects, federal agencies must find that each will either maintain or improve watershed quality as described by the Aquatic Conservation Strategy. The logging held up by failure to meet those criteria was on 4 million acres designated for logging under the forest plan. In response, the Bush administration reworked the conservation strategy’s language. While logging or road building that takes place in stream or lake corridors (known as “riparian reserves”) is still restricted, now such work that takes place upland does not automatically have to clear any hurdles with regard to its effect on the watershed — even though such logging can affect erosion . Previously, projects that did not help improve watersheds. Government lawyer Ruth Ann Lowery told the judge that it was difficult if not impossible for any project to meet the old standard, leading to unreasonable restraints on logging and other activity. “The harvest of timber is a legitimate and long-standing goal of the Northwest Forest Plan,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with the agencies trying to fix their plan to make it implementable.” http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002641093_forestplan23m.html

Oregon:

6) U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said Monday he has introduced a bill aimed at improving federal response to damage caused by wildfire and other catastrophes. Smith’s bill builds on legislation introduced this month by Reps. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Brian Baird, D-Wash. Both are aimed at speeding projects to log dead timber and plant new trees after storms and wildfires — particularly in the wake of the 2002 Biscuit Fire in Oregon, where delayed logging has set off an ongoing controversy over what to do about dead and burned trees in national forests. “Recent experiences in Oregon demonstrate that we need a new approach to restoring our forests from the ashes,” Smith said in a news release. “Black forests do not help fish, wildlife, water quality or recreation. To achieve these goals, we need to keep Oregon’s forests green.” “It’s clear that the Forest Service has all the authority they need to do responsible fuel reduction” after a fire, said Sean Cosgrove, a forest policy specialist for the Sierra Club. “They just need to have the direction from Congress to do that, and they need to place their money where it will do the most good — which is reducing fuels (such as small trees and underbrush) around communities,” Cosgrove said. “Trying to create new avenues for salvage logging large trees is just going to create more controversy and leave good projects undone.” Smith said his bill, dubbed the Forests for Future Generations Act, would hasten the federal response to catastrophic events by requiring prompt evaluations of forest damage and providing quickened timelines for rehabilitation projects. http://www.theworldlink.com/articles/2005/11/22/news/news05.txt

7) Portland’s Forest Park: Since its creation as a park in 1948, the city has taken mostly a hands-off approach to management, leaving the park to mature on its own. Most park users and residents accepted that as the best course. Now forest and biology experts say it’s time for the city to engage in more aggressive habitat management, including potential restrictions on human activity in some areas, planned thinning of underbrush and stronger measures against invasive plants. “I don’t think the forest will be as healthy as it could be if we continue to manage it on a hands-off basis for another 50 years,” said Paul Ries, Oregon state urban forestry manager. “We need a big-picture approach. That would be a complete look at the threats and best management practices.” Marcy Houle, a biologist who did a comprehensive study of Forest Park wildlife in the 1980s, said “explosive growth” around the park is the biggest long-term threat. She said the city needs to renew its vision of the park as a wildlife and nature area — a dream first voiced by visionaries more than a century ago. “There needs to be areas we truly set aside for wildlife,” said Bob Sallinger, urban conservation director for the Portland Audubon Society. “It’s probably the most critical thing we need to think about.” http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/1132820752100600.xml&coll=7

8) When Rick Abbott, a silviculturist with the North Umpqua Ranger District, decides whether a Douglas fir remains in a proposed thinning project, he pulls a marble from his pocket. If a marble comes up green, the tree goes. If it comes up red, the tree stays. The marbles represent a percentage of trees that must go or stay per acre and keeps the decision based on a random procedure.”We’re trying a new technique which randomly promotes ‘gappiness’ and ‘clumpiness'” in thinning projects, Abbott explained to a group of field trip members touring proposed thinning projects in the Umpqua National Forest on Tuesday. In the Lobo Density Management Stewardship Project, the Forest Service’s goal is to leave sites in areas designated for harvest with late-successional and old-growth characteristics. One area may require 50 Douglas firs to remain per acre while the other may require 80. However, any Douglas fir that is less than 12 inches in diameter in the more than 1,000 acres of the proposed thinning project will be cut in the process. Those downed trees will make way for other species of trees like hemlock, cedar, sugarpine and white fir to grow alongside giant Douglas firs. “What we’re trying to do here is create multi-stand conditions,” Abbott said. There are 23 units that consist of 40- to 50-year-old trees that are being proposed for thinning in the lower and middle Steamboat and Steelhead Creek areas. The total boundary area for the units is more than 38,000 acres. There is an estimated 32,346 board feet existing per acre. The UNF expects to produce 6 to 9 million board feet from timber sales in the thinning units. http://www.newsreview.info/article/20051123/NEWS/111230037

California:

9) Imagine opening your mail one day to find a bill from the state for $11 million dollars. That’s what happened to three local people recently when the Calif. Department of Forestry and Fire Protection sent each a letter demanding reimbursement for the cost of suppressing and investigating the Straylor fire in July and August of 2004. The blaze was located on land owned by Pat Oilar, a McArthur, California, hay producer and owner of Oilar’s Agricultural Services, who had contracted with a logging company to remove some timber. The fire subsequently burned nearly 3,500 acres, some in the Lassen National Forest and some on BLM land. According to California law, the owner of the land where the fire started is ultimately responsible. For that reason, CDF sent the bill to Oilar. The other two who received a letter were loggers on the job – Russ Hawkins, owner of Dell Logging, and an equipment operator, Dustin Lopez. Oilar questions the state’s conclusion that the logging on his land was the cause of the inferno that required the work of more than 1,500 firefighters and the crash of a helicopter that injured the pilot and two observers. “There was a skeleton crew out there that day,” he said, explaining that those loggers went home early the day of the fire, leaving one person to do the fire walk – a precaution taken to prevent an outbreak. “About an hour later, CDF dispatched a fire crew.” Perplexed by the state’s claim of negligence, Oilar said, “To my knowledge, and to the knowledge of the people that called me on the radio, there was no operation going on when the fire started. … Everything was legal. http://www.lassennews.com/News_Story.edi?sid=2970&mode=thread&order=0

10) Beginning in the 1980s, an old-growth redwood grove in Van Duzen River County Park began losing some of its redwoods. The meandering Van Duzen River began scouring a high bank, undercutting the roots of redwoods, some of which were 500 to 1,000 years old. When such big trees fall into a salmon-bearing river, it’s generally not considered a total loss; the wood helps form habitat for fish. But people would track the valuable old logs when they floated downstream and plunder them from the river. Beginning in 2003, Bill Matson with the watershed improvement group and others began putting in place a different approach. It was a combination of using weirs planted with willows and of cabling together huge logs and boulders against the river bank. The project was funded by the county — whose contribution of about $35,000 came in part from the sale of salvaged fallen redwoods — Fish and Game, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and Palco, which donated about $21,000 in rock, heavy equipment and personnel. Since the project began, deep pools have formed, and gauges sunk in the sand along the bank show that sediment has accumulated behind the willow weirs instead of being scoured away. The pools are refuge for both adult chinook salmon that run up the river during the first significant rainfall, and for young salmon growing in the river. ”Deep water is good,” said Matson. “But when you get deep water with cover, it’s precious.” http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3248835

11) The Cleveland National Forest, as national forests go, is about as close as you can get to an urban wilderness. Twenty million people plus live within a few hours’ drive. For Tina Terrell, who grew up near the projects of urban Philadelphia, it’s a perfect match. Just over a year ago, Terrell, 41, was appointed supervisor of the 434,000-acre forest, much of which lies within San Diego County. “I’m in the business of people management,” Terrell said recently during a lengthy interview at the forest’s headquarters in Rancho Bernardo. Her answers came fast. Those who know her describe her as having “high energy.” Between 1984 and 1989, Terrell counted trees all over the eastern United States – eight states in all. “The first thing I realized is that foresters get up way too early,” she said. “I’m still struggling with that 20 years later.” Terrell is charged with protecting the 24 endangered species of animals and plants in the forest, and making it safer by reducing fire risks. But she also has to meet the recreational demands of a diverse group of users, and appease all its various neighbors. On its boundaries are state parks, federal Bureau of Land Management property, county parks, private property, numerous Indian reservations, county open space preserves, Camp Pendleton, and growing communities such as Alpine and Ramona. Terrell is in charge of 440 employees – about one for every 10,000 acres – and these days spends much of her time in meetings and making speeches. To this day, Terrell remains the only African-American to graduate with a forestry degree from Penn State, and she is one of two black female supervising foresters in the Pacific Southwest Region, which includes 18 forests, all in California. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20051125-9999-1mi25terrell.html

12) Giant Trees Are Falling As Court Ponders Appeal Bonanza Logging Plan on Pacific Lumber’s land Threatens Marbled Murrelet Scotia, Humboldt County-As old growth forest advocates await a Ninth Circuit Court decision, Pacific Lumber (PL) subsidiary Scotia Pacific (ScoPac) has brought their chain saws into an ancient grove of redwoods containing trees up to 15 feet in diameter and comprising the largest chunk of in-tact unprotected habitat for the federally listed Marbled Murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus) in California. The murrelet, is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and as endangered under the California ESA. Permission granted by US Fish and Wildlife Service for ScoPac to log this critical habitat flies in the face of a 2004 report commissioned by that same agency that stated that current logging practices in Northern California threaten the small seabird with an 80% probability of extinction in the next 55 years, and a 100% probability of extinction in the next 95 years. The murrelet population is suffering an annual 4-7% decline at present due to increased predation (which can be brought on by forest fragmentation) and loss of habitat. The 250-acre plan (1-05-097 HUM) named “Bonanza” by PL/ScoPac contains 192 contiguous acres of occupied nesting habitat. In addition to the legal challenges filed by he Environmental Protection Information Center and the Western Environmental Law Center, Humboldt Forest Defense and Earth First activists have erected tree-sits in the branches of some of the massive trees, and have been showing up daily at the logging road gate outside Scotia, and also held a demonstration at PL offices in Scotia.

Montana:

13) A federal judge has granted a request by environmental groups for an injunction to stop logging beetle-killed trees near Basin Creek Reservoir in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest pending an appeal. Monday’s decision by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy comes about a month after Molloy denied a similar request by the groups. An appeal of that ruling is pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said Michael Garrity of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. In Monday’s decision, Molloy said he granted the latest injunction because logging had already started in the project area south of Butte. If allowed to continue, “there is a chance that a substantial portion of the project will have already been completed by the time the Ninth Circuit considers the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims,” he wrote. Garrity said Tuesday he was somewhat surprised by the ruling, but also “Very happy. “They’re scheduled to clear-cut nearly two square miles and build 14 miles of new roads, which would be devastating to wildlife,” he said. The Forest Service proposed the logging to help reduce the fire danger in the area. The project covers 2,600 acres, with clear-cut logging proposed on about 1,150 of them. http://www.helenair.com/articles/2005/11/22/montana/01mt20051122140.txt

Maryland:

14) “Cemeteries replace trees and brush with grass and paved roads, and from our perspective that is not good,” said Robert J. vom Saal, president of the river association, which has sent protest letters to state, local and federal officials. The state Department of Veterans Affairs wants to expand Crownsville Veterans Cemetery by annexing land along Cypress Branch from the adjacent Severn Run Natural Environment Area. The agency said that it will need more acreage in 50 years to accommodate projected demands for veterans’ burials at the 103-acre cemetery. Because the Department of Veterans Affairs projects that future burial requests will exceed capacity, officials this year began seeking more land.. As for the Severn River site, conservationists said they are not anti-veteran, just against the land transfer. “It is the last remaining opportunity to restore an Atlantic white cedar forest on the Western Shore,” said Keith Underwood, who has a restoration business and devised the plan that would include re-establishing a colony of the trees whose cultivar is 10,000 years old. About $1 million in federal and state grants would be jeopardized because conditions include not disturbing those areas, he said. The few Atlantic white cedars on the Western Shore are remnant populations 50 miles from the nearest colonies on the Eastern Shore. Underwood has proposed getting rid of sediment and installing a natural, water-purifying bog; removing invasive plants; and putting in up to 10,000 Atlantic white cedars, many of which are being raised by schoolchildren who will also plant them. Just as troubling to the Severn River Association is word that the veterans office wants to build a bridge over the stream from the current cemetery to the site it wants to acquire rather than create a second entrance. Underwood said a bridge would create more environmental problems. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/annearundel/bal-md.ar.cemetery25nov25,1,5324850.story?coll=bal-loc
al-arundel&ctrack=1&cset=true

Pennsylvania:

14) Trees at Blue Knob State Park that were damaged last year by Tropical Storm Ivan are being harvested by helicopter, a process rarely used in the region. Poplar is being shipped to Italy, white ash and sugar maples are being hewn into baseball bats, and red oaks are finding their way to top-quality furniture makers in the Midwest and veneer manufacturers in the Carolinas. Helicopter timbering is common in the Northwest, but not in western Pennsylvania, experts said. Chris Jones, a state forester, said the helicopter is being used because many trees blew down steep slopes, and the state wants to avoid erosion that could be created by logging roads. The state set the base bid at $600,000. Hamlin agreed to pay DCNR $629,797 with the understanding that much of the timber would be hoisted by helicopter. While the price may seem relatively low considering the amount of timber – an estimated 1.8 million board feet of Eastern hardwood – the cost of the operation is increased by daily flights of a crew from Columbia Helicopters of Portland, Ore. http://www.tribune-democrat.com/local/local_story_329233428.html

North Carolina:

15) Forest Service plans to ban moss collection. Ricky Walls remembers going into the woods with his mother and grandmother when he was a child to collect moss. They would use a bed sheet to wrap up the moss they pulled from downed American chestnut trees left behind by the chestnut blight. “It’s just hard, nasty work, but it was cash money,” the 52-year-old Robbinsville man said recently. “It was the only cash money we could get a hold of.” Historically, families have collected forest plants like ginseng and sold them to make money. Galax leaves collected in Western North Carolina generate an estimated $10 million to $25 million annually. The leaves are sold for use in floral arrangements. In addition to the restriction on moss, the Forest Service plans to limit commercial ramp collection to 500 pounds a year and extend the springtime restriction on galax collection by two weeks to protect the young plants. “Our plan is to implement these changes at the first of the year,” said Terry Seyden, Forest Service spokesman. Ledford said the agency has already limited ginseng collection to those roots that are at least 10 years old. “(Collecting moss and other plants) is just a dying tradition, and they are just trying to kill it on out,” Ledford said. Kauffman said the Forest Service will continue monitoring the moss growth. Officials could reconsider the ban on moss collection in the future. http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051124/NEWS01/51123072/1001

USA:

16) Logging of national forests costs U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year, according to one new estimate, as federal land managers try to marry a century-old program that produced lumber to one that squeezes out relatively few products while waging a war on wildfires. Subsidization of logging continues to grow because congressional spending on the Forest Service program has held steady, and in some cases increased, while timber harvest levels have fallen dramatically over the past 15 years, a conservation group’s new study says. The shift from large-scale clear cuts to commercial thinning of forests and fuels-reduction projects has accelerated the government’s losses to an estimated $6.6 billion since 1997, according to Rene Voss of the non-profit John Muir Project of the Earth Island Institute, author of the new study. “The bottom line is that on average over the last seven years, the Forest Service has lost what we estimate to be $835 million annually,” he said. “When it comes to commercial timber sales, it’s just like a big black hole and they keep throwing more and more money into it,” said Steve Holmer, a spokesman for the Wilderness Society in Washington D.C. “Congress is trying to find all sorts of places to try to cut spending after the hurricanes on the Gulf Coast,” he said. “We have a lot more important national issues we should be spending our money on.” http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1124loggingdeficits24.html

Canada:

17) The clean water and stable climate provided by Canada’s boreal forest are worth billions of dollars to the economy and can no longer go unrecognized, says a new report. The report estimates that value at $93.2 billion annually – about twice the total market value of forestry, hydro and oil and natural gas activity. “Ignoring the value of Canada’s boreal wealth to the well-being of the nation is akin to ExxonMobil ignoring the volume of oil and gas reserves and annual production in its annual report,” says the report commissioned by the Canadian Boreal Initiative and written by the Pembina Institute. The report, to be released in Ottawa on Friday, calls on the federal and provincial governments to take an inventory of natural capital assets, including resource consumption, timber growth rates and the ability of forests and wetlands to store carbon. “I think we are getting close to the line,” said David Schindler, a University of Alberta ecology professor, who was a consultant on the report. “In some provinces, especially Alberta, we are going at resources at a rate of destruction that only occurs in wars. We have an oil sands plan that is going to make a toxic pit the size of Lake Erie,” he said. Canada’s boreal forest is among the three largest remaining in the world. It accounts for 25 per cent of the planet’s remaining intact forests. http://www.canada.com/businesscentre/story.html?id=bdb3769b-859b-4619-9940-730257cef4a1

18) The giant forest ecosystem that covers roughly 35 percent of Canada has been dubbed North America’s “giant lung,” inhaling CO2 and exhaling oxygen. Carbon naturally accumulates in forest soil. As long as the forest cover keeps the soil cool with vegetation, the area collects more carbon than it emits. If the vegetation is severely disturbed however, the soil loses that protection. As it warms up, the CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are released into the air. In fact, forest soils that have been disturbed by bad forestry practices, fires, or disease are the largest source of human-induced emissions. That’s why Kellman and her students focus on the soil, its temperature, and other decomposition controls. It tells them if and how human activities alter the exchanges between the soils and the atmosphere. Dr Lisa Kellman, the newly appointed Canada Research Chair in Environmental Sciences, is keeping tabs on the temperature of the soils of Atlantic Canada forests to measure greenhouse gas emissions and to co-relate them with the changing activity of forest management practices. “Basically, if you increase the temperature of the soil, you increase the rate at which dead organic matter in soils is converted to CO2 and returned to the atmosphere,” Kellman explains. “When you cut the trees, the soil warms up.” Other important controls of the decomposition rate in soils include the amount of moisture, quality of the organic matter, and nutrient status. Researchers analyze how these various factors operate together to control rates of decomposition, and therefore the rate at which CO2 is emitted to the atmosphere. http://www.innovationcanada.ca/19/en/articles/climate.html

European Union:

19) THE drive for “green energy” in the developed world is having the perverse effect of encouraging the destruction of tropical rainforests. From the orang-utan reserves of Borneo to the Brazilian Amazon, virgin forest is being razed to grow palm oil and soybeans to fuel cars and power stations in Europe and North America. And surging prices are likely to accelerate the destruction. The rush to make energy from vegetable oils is being driven in part by European Union laws requiring conventional fuels to be blended with biofuels, and by subsidies equivalent to 20 pence a litre. Last week, the British government announced a target for biofuels to make up 5 per cent of transport fuels by 2010. The aim is to help meet Kyoto protocol targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Rising demand for green energy has led to a surge in the international price of palm oil, with potentially damaging consequences. “The expansion of palm oil production is one of the leading causes of rainforest destruction in south-east Asia. It is one of the most environmentally damaging commodities on the planet,” says Simon Counsell, director of the UK-based Rainforest Foundation. “Once again it appears we are trying to solve our environmental problems by dumping them in developing countries, where they have devastating effects on local people.” http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18825265.400.html

England:

20) Many of Britain’s furniture shops, garden centres and building sites are full of illegally logged wood, according to a study that exposes the UK’s leading role in Europe in the illicit destruction of the rainforests. According to research from the WWF, the conservation group, 28 per cent of timber arriving in the UK comes from trees that should still be standing and Britain’s imports of illegal wood are higher than any other country in the EU. Illegal logging causes manifold social and environmental problems, including climate change, lower public revenue, increased corruption, removal of indigenous people from tribal land and habitat loss for endangered animals. In its report, Failing the Forests: Europe’s Illegal Timber Trade, the WWF estimates that the EU is responsible for €3bn (£2bn) of the global
€10bn-€15bn in revenue lost to countries of origin. Of Britain’s annual
imports of about 7.9 million cubic metres of wood, the environmental
group believes 2.2 million cubic metres is illegally logged: 600,000
hectares of forest each year – nearly three times the size of Luxembourg. http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article328508.ece

21) The answer occurred to me halfway through Colin Tudge’s The Secret Life of Trees: in the planet’s terms, we have become stupid. Our heads (even if entirely free of celebrity gossip) are no longer filled with useful, earth-based knowledge. In this country, “citizenship” (according to the Home Office test) involves an ability to date our national days, not to identify the most common of the paltry 39 species of native tree that even the most urban of us live among. An indigenous forest-dweller or an observant pre-industrial peasant farmer is, in this sense, arguably brighter than we are. Tudge maintains that, in the natural world, “each individual must take everything else into account” in order to survive, finding “a limited number of solutions” to the particular problems they are faced with. The lineage of plants has reinvented, over and over again, the form of the tree. It is an “optimal solution”, though manifest in tens of thousands of fabulously different ways. One of the problems facing plants some 420 million years ago was how to be big. They evolved (Tudge keeps using the anthropomorphic “invented”) a plumbing system and lignin, the two basic elements of wood. This magical material consists of “lignin-toughened cells meticulously stacked and interlaced”, and is thus able to suck up and carry water much as animals carry blood. The earliest trees were matchstick-size, but within a few tens of millions of years were growing as high as a 12-storey building, forming swampy forests roamed by giant scorpion-like creatures. http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/books/story/0,10595,1650864,00.html

Russia:

22) A recent study by the European Forest Institute (EFI) found that illegal logging in Russia, which is home to the world’s largest forest resources, distorts Europe’s roundwood markets as well as its own, resulting in the loss of millions of euros every year. According to the EFI study, Russia lost an estimated 170 million euros as a result of lower roundwood market prices in 2002, with 10%-15% of the Russian wood bound for European markets believed to have been illegally felled. Illegal logging activities could be lowering the current market price of roundwood by 5% to 10% on both Russian and EU markets and, thus, reducing the income possibilities for forest owners and logging and transportation operators, the EFI study said. http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051123/42189055.html

23) St. Petersburg– Officials from more than 40 European and North Asian governments will gather for the first time in St. Petersburg, Russia today to discuss a plan of action to tackle the problem of corruption, illegal logging and the trade in illegally logged wood products in the region. Ministers will launch the plan on Friday, 25 November. This is the latest in a series of initiatives around the world to address poor forest governance, weak law enforcement and the lack of laws to prevent products made from illegally logged wood being freely available on the global market. Illegal and destructive logging is having devastating impacts on the livelihoods of indigenous and local communities worldwide and on the biodiversity in the world’s last ancient forests, including those in Eurasia. “Every day that bureaucrats avoid taking action to protect the world’s last ancient forests, a forest area greater than the size of St. Petersburg is destroyed. Governments have the chance to save Eurasia’s ancient forests this week. It’s vital they take tough action and stop auctioning our last ancient forests, the heart of the planet, to the lowest bidder,” said Alexey Yaroshenko, Greenpeace Russia forest campaigner. http://www.taigarescue.org/index.php?view_article=190

24) A long-term loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is helping one of the leading players in the international wood market switch its strategy from only importing raw Russian timber to outsourcing processing facilities to Russia in a landmark deal for the country’s forestry industry. A network of sawmills initiated with this €55 million investment is the first step towards Botnia’s stated long-term goal of building its own pulp mill in northwest Russia. The sawmill will have a capacity of 200,000 cubic metres of wood a year and most of its output will be exported to the Japanese and European markets. It will handle spruce logs, the bark of which will be stripped off to feed the mill’s own thermal power plant and thus produce the heat needed to dry the processed wood. Most of the wood needed by the mill will be bought from external suppliers. Botnia’s local subsidiary, LLC Svir Timber, will, in keeping with the group’s wood procurement procedures, control the origin of timber and only buy raw material from approved wood suppliers. http://www.harolddoan.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6966

Kenya:

25) The Ogiek, the Watha, the Aweer, the Dahalo and the Yaku are besides some smaller aboriginal hunter-gatherer communities and the more or less extinct Jumbo People the original inhabitants of the land, which is today known as the multi-nation state of Kenya. While the Bantu and Nilotic speaking peoples, who form today’s majority tribes, only arrived over time in the lands of this country, the aboriginal people were oppressed and deprived of their rights by the invading tribes, the European colonialists and subsequently the neo-colonial governments as well as today’s multi-national corporations, who rule into the internal affairs of these peoples and withhold from them not only any form of self-governance and self-determination but do not allow even their equal stand as citizens of Kenya. This is now the time when finally justice must be done to the first peoples of Kenya. During the Bomas convention only the Ogiek had some limited access as observers, while the Watha were – despite protests from the real people – misrepresented by fake proxies and the Aweer, Dahalo and Yaku had not even been invited. Ogiek, Watha, Aweer, Dahalo and Yaku are Nations within the international boundaries of Kenya as a country. This must be fully respected in the upcoming talks for a true constitution and the genuine representatives of the First Nations of Kenya must have their say, receive the full respect as well as equal standing and must be given the opportunity to reconstitute their rights also in terms of their homelands.
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051124/NEWS01/51123072/1001

India:

26) She is Ruth Padel, the great granddaughter of Charles Darwin. Thanks to her grandmother Nora who was Darwin’s daughter, Ruth was brought up in an ambience that was full of natural history. She remembers how as a child she wanted to be Bagheera, the panther of Jungle Book, but “now I would be happy to watch Bagheera in the shadows”. For Ruth the tiger is, “the light in the darkness”. Is it a ‘light’ really, given the bad news in the country? Ruth is quick to point out how the tiger is quick to adapt and is the beginning and end of the story. “Save the tiger and you save everything else. They are the traditional guardians of the forest. And forests are so vital for the rivers that take birth there.” She is happy about the fact that India has some of the best wildlife scientists and judges. Yes judges, she reaffirms to my puzzled look if I had heard right. “They have been able to cry halt to some damaging mines, dams and logging.” But Ruth agrees that the forests of India need better management and definitely more protection. “There are no young staff in the forest department especially in the guard level. And you have people so ill equipped like this forest guard in Bihar who has no shoes. The poacher comes in jeeps armed with guns!” http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/nov272005/artic10434820051125.asp

27) Earthquake Aftermath: People whose houses have cracked but not collapsed need tents only instead of food grains and blankets. These people require guidelines for repairing of the cracked houses before the winter sets in and some monetary relief, if possible for people below poverty line. In the garb of repairing cracked houses, people have already started felling Deodar trees in nexus with forest officials and jungle smugglers. The jungle mafias again have a field day. By the end of this year, Kashmir will lose another 10% of green forests. The government will end up losing revenue on account of tax evading at Lakhanpur by traders and also forests under reconstruction/repairing programme. Could anyone wake to save forests? http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?ItemID=12274&cat=11

28) Ranchi: Forest department officials in Jharkhand have sought virgin land status for Saranda forest, Asia’s largest reserve of Sal trees, which could prevent possible large-scale iron mining in the forestland. The three divisional forest officers of Saranda forest, spread over 857 sq km, have written a letter to the forest department headquarters seeking virgin land status for the forest, which has rich reserves of iron. “Our main aim is to protect forest from commercial exploitation. It will badly affect the wildlife and related things. Once the forest is declared virgin land, it will prevent mining,” said K.Z. Bhutia, one of the three forest officials. “As per the draft of virgin land, prepared by the three divisional forest officers, 80 percent area of Sarnada forest should be declared virgin land in order to prevent mining,” an officials posted in the forest headquarters told IANS. “Dalama elephant sanctuary also comes under Saranda and many animals reside in it. Mining will affect the wildlife and create unbalance in nature,” he added. Jharkhand government has recently signed 40 Memorandum of Understanding with several prominent steel companies, which include Mittal Steel and Tata Steel.

Japan:

29) Stressed-out trees are what the carpenter in him responds to–trees that have stood up to strong winds or the extremes of heat and cold. Their fiber develops complex twists, and sometimes also a peculiar texture known as chijimi. When you lacquer wood like that, it gleams. To mark his 30 years in business, Inamoto decided to turn out some distinctive items worthy of the occasion. Twenty years ago, impressed by their gnarled texture, he had bought 300-year-old tochi (horse chestnut) logs. Normally they would be turned into pulp for paper. Sawing the logs, he noticed their impeccable chijimi grain. This was wood of a quality you don’t come across more than once in a lifetime. Instead of paper, he turned them into a table 3 meters in diameter. This summer, it went on display at the Tamagawa Takashimaya department store in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward, and was sold within three minutes. The price: 3 million yen. The buyer was a senior citizens home. http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200511260137.html

New Zealand:

30) Fuji Xerox Office Supply Co. have launched a new brand of copy/printer paper that is the first to contain woodchips from the companies’ own plantations in New Zealand. The brand name, FR, is taken from the first letter of the words Forest and Recycle, and indicates both forest recycling and paper recycling. FR paper is made from 50% virgin pulp and 50% recycled newspaper pulp. The virgin pulp is made of woodchips from sustainable plantations, including those from the companies’ own plantations shipped to Japan from New Zealand. These woodchips have been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international nongovernmental organization set up to promote sustainable forestry. Fuji Xerox and Fuji Xerox Office Supply, which regard the need for environmental protection and resource security as a critical responsibility, are promoting the Eco-Conscious Pulp Plan, in which they select all their virgin pulp from plantations and certified-forest pulp, while keeping the ratio of recycled pulp above 50%. The release of FR is expected to further promote this plan. http://www.greenbiz.com/news/news_third.cfm?NewsID=29163

Indonesia:

31) Environmentalists and foresters suggested on Thursday that more incentives be offered to countries that have vast areas of tropical forests, such as Indonesia, and to timber companies, which all play roles in preventing further deforestation. Forests and livelihood program officer of the Bogor-based Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) Hari Priyadi said that the lack of incentives has made timber companies in Indonesia reluctant to implement “reduced impact logging (RIL)” “The Ministry of Forestry has issued a regulation in 2001 that all companies in Indonesia must implement RIL in their concession, but such a move isn’t effective because the government doesn’t offer any incentives to the firms,” he told a workshop on Thursday at the Asia Europe Environment Forum in Jakarta. The three-day forum, which began on Wednesday, features 12 workshops to discuss various environmental issues and is being attended by around 300 environmentalists from 38 countries in Asia and Europe. “One possible incentive is to implement a procurement policy in big (wood products) buyer countries, such as the European Union countries and Japan. The policy, which is now being discussed in those countries, will require that the government or the public should only procure certified timber products,” he said. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20051125.C03&irec=2

32) Two major Austrian corporations are constructing and financing a huge pulp mill and wood chip mill in South Kalimantan, Indonesia by the company “United Fiber System” (UFS). Andritz AG and RZB of Austria are reported to be financing the destruction of at least 113,000 hectares of largely intact tropical rainforest. The UFS’s pulp project consists of two separate projects on Borneo: a pulp mill is planned for the southern-most tip of South Kalimantan, and the wood chip mill is already under construction on the island of Pulau Laut. Pulp produced will be sold mainly to China, Japan and South Korea. The Indonesian pulp industry already has a shortage of fiberwood plantations, and the construction of these two new projects would result in further over-capacity, compounding the industry’s unsustainability of wood supply. Meeting the fiberwood needs of these new pulp behemoths would require extensive new plantations to be planted. This shortfall severely threatens endangered lowland tropical rainforests found within the concession area and region. A complete loss of aquatic sea life near the pulp mill, loss of mangrove
forests for a deep sea port, and an increase is disease are also expected. European companies with reputations of being environmentally aware are acting in an irresponsible manner when involved in industrial projects which destroy ancient rainforests. Please ask Austrian financing companies to withdraw from the projects and to end their business relation with United Fiber System. Please take action now at
http://forests.org/action/alert.asp?id=indonesia

Philippines:

33) During the time of Tita Cory Aquino back in 1989, our government suspended logging and created a 300,000-hectare forest preserve on the island. A succession of secretaries at the DENR over the past 16 years did not dare lift the logging suspension. In a brusque display of shamelessness, the glib current head of the DENR, Michael Defensor, recently lifted the suspension, just like that! The Samar Integrated Nature Park, covers river systems across 300,000 hectares of natural forest. It is the habitat of 900 species of flowering plants, 197 species of birds, 39 species of mammals. There are endangered species among them. Moreover, residing in the park are the indigenous people of Samar. No wonder, even the Catholic church in Samar is up in arms against the DENR. The issue therefore becomes a battle for popular acceptance. On this score, this cute payback administration can only be in the losing end. San Jose Timber may have all the RIGHT, as DENR claimed, over the forest in Samar, but the timing of the DENR decision sucks. The TLA of San Jose Timber covers about 96,000 hectares! The DENR gave the company the right to cut trees in the huge area. How a single corporation came to acquire the RIGHT over such a huge area of trees — which had been there even before golf became a craze, and trees made way for tees — is beyond the impoverished people of Samar to understand. http://money.inq7.net/columns/view_columns.php?yyyy=2005&mon=11&dd=22&file=7

34) “Nature has an amazing God-given capacity to regenerate,” the late National Scientist Disocoro Umali wrote shortly before his death. “The ruin and debris are soon swept away by nature’s forgiving hand, once the hand of man is no longer lifted against her.” So have the axmen’s hands been stayed? Forest cover here stood at 57 percent in 1934. It is now down to 18 percent — and still skidding. There’s disagreement whether the safety benchmark is 40 percent. Or is it 30 percent? But all concur we’ve long breached danger markers. One group proposes replanting a million hectares by 2020. Fine. “In kahui malabung, namumunga diiton,” the Bicolano proverb says. “A leafy tree shades many.” But beyond good intentions, what? Assessing reforestation efforts from 1930 to 1997, then Environment Secretary Angel Alacala said performance fell far short. “Replanting is not the only way to regenerate forests,” notes international forester Pat Duggan. “In fact, protection of forests after logging is more crucial. Often, thousands of naturally growing seedlings and saplings are found on each hectare of forests. If protected after big trees are logged off, they’ll mature over time to restore forest cover. The number of years needed depends on how carefully the logging was conducted.” http://news.inq7.net/opinion/index.php?index=2&story_id=57568&col=110