051OEC’s This Week In Trees

This week we have 34 news items from: British Columbia, Oregon, California, Mississippi, Texas, New Jersey, Georgia, Canada, Belgium, Ukraine, Brazil, India, Thailand, New Zealand, Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, World-wide,

British Columbia:

1) Independent B.C. lumber producers are calling for closer scrutiny of the province’s trend toward supermills as the industry grapples with increased global competition. “If the people of this province really want big, monstrous mills all over the place, I would rather they tell me sooner than later, so I can go and do something else,” says Ken Kalesnikoff, owner of the Kalesnikoff Lumber Co. Ltd. mill based near Castlegar in the Kootenays. Supermills refer to facilities that can produce hundreds of millions of board feet of lumber per year. But the trend toward supermills will not slow down anytime soon, predicts Craig Campbell, a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Campbell told a recent Vancouver Board of Trade forum on the future of the lumber industry that B.C.’s move to embrace large mills will continue as the province grapples with rising global competition for wood. Kalesnikoff says industry and government players must find a way to reap the maximum value from the province’s timber supply and find a balance between “spaghetti mills” – the supermills that produce mostly two-by-fours all day long – and “higher-value mills” that produce specialty products. The lumber producer wants to know where the province’s forestry industry is going over the next 10 to 20 years so he can prevent his family’s history, he says, “from going in the toilet.” http://www.businessedge.ca/article.cfm/newsID/11444.cfm

2) The marmot is being used as a ‘guinea pig’ in a diabolical experiment which is funded primarily by the logging companies which own marmot habitat. The ancient forests which surround the marmot colonies have been virtually exterminated, while the second growth forests at the foot of the mountain are being logged down to 30-40 year rotation cycles. While several of the treeless marmot meadows have been protected, industrial logging continues apace in the valleys through which wild marmots must travel from peak to peak to prevent genetic inbreeding. Marmot habitat includes this animals connectivity requirements between its colony sites at the tops of the mountains. The Marmot Recovery project and its logging company financiers are playing Russian Roulette with Canada’s most endangered species to manage marmot populations in a perpetual logging zone. Just like the liquidation/conversion management scheme which which converts ancient forest to nursery-bred tree plantations, marmot scientists now annually broadcast a fresh crop of lab-bred marmots across the extirpated colony sites, with a hope and a prayer that they might take. –IL (From the original story: “…They are totally wild and it’s amazing how wild they stay, even after coming from zoos and breeding centres. In an hour, they’re feeding themselves, exploring, eating the flowers. It’s a wonderful feeling. They keep that wildness in them and know what to do.”) http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Artic
le_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1134774610081

3) EVENTS COMING UP: January through April (dates TBA…): – Ancient Forest Conference – multitudes of speakers, hikes – WCWC/Valhalla Wilderness Society presentation on the BC Inland Rainforest and the Vancouver Island Conservation Vision – Major Rally for Vancouver Island’s Ancient Forests – Presentations on the Department of National Defense “surplus lands” (old-growth Douglas fir/garry oak), Marine Protected Areas, Crown land privatization, and the proposed Okanagan-Similkameen National Park Reserve – Protest to defend the habitat of Spotted Owls – Guided hikes to various wild areas Stay tuned…Happy Holidays, and THANKS for your support! Ken Wu, Cassbreea Dewis, Alexander Watson, Susan Shields WCWC Staff in Victoria http://www.wildernesscommitteevictoria.org/

4) This afternoon I shared a meal with the people protecting Cathedral Grove. The wind was blowing at 90 km per hour and a heavy rain was falling. The stove kept the tent warm with the freshly donated firewood. The people camped there on this shortest day of the year were full of enthusiasm about protecting the trees threatened by BC Parks. BC Environment Minister Barry Penner stated he may have to close this Provincial Park to the public. Would that be so that he and the BC Liberals can cut down the old growth trees, bulldoze the floodplain, and fill in the area with gravel for a parking lot in Cathedral Grove? The camp cheer and steadfast determination to protect the trees of this international landmark were encouraging to me. It would be great if people would drop by during the holiday season with good cheer, food, etc… richard boyce [oldforest@shaw.ca]

5) The Squamish First Nation now controls a large swath of what it considers its traditional territory — the scene of contentious environmental battles over the years — with the purchase of Tree Farm Licence 38 from International Forest Products for $6.5 million. The Squamish and Interfor sealed the agreement on Monday with an official signing in Squamish. The deal will see the first nation gain timber harvesting rights to 218,000 hectares of land northwest of Squamish, which includes the Squamish, Sims, Ashlu and Elaho rivers. Besides the cash payment, Interfor also secured a log-supply agreement that will continue to see the Squamish sell the company timber at market prices. Chief Bill Williams, co-chair of the Squamish Nation chiefs and council, said the land area represents about one-third of the area it is claiming as its traditional territory. He added that Monday’s purchase will give the first nation harvesting rights to 109,000 cubic metres of timber. That will be added to 98,000 cubic metres of timber harvest that the Squamish had acquired from the province under a Forest and Range agreement. “We’re taking over a very substantial forest tenure in our traditional territory,” Williams added. “It is important for the Squamish Nation to continue to be an economic generator of jobs in our traditional territory.”
He added that operations in the tree farm licence will continue on a business-as-usual basis. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/index.html

6) Chief Forester Jim Snetsinger is worried and so is the Deputy Minister of Forests and Range, Doug Konkin. And they should be, as the latest projection for the beetle epidemic shows 80 percent of the province’s lodgepole pine forests to be dead or dying within ten years. Early in December, the Ministry organized a one-day symposium and a follow-up workshop in Prince George called “The Future Forest Ecosystems of BC – Exploring the Opportunities.” In a note to the invited workshop participants, Snetsinger noted, “…factors such as climate change, the increasing impact of fire and biotic disturbance agents pose significant concerns. These concerns have raised the question of whether the current management paradigm will be able to respond effectively to the challenges.” The symposium was a real wake-up call. On day one, speaker after speaker outlined the problems that forestry faces and provided a litany of management failures, the impacts of which are being further exacerbated by climate change. On the second day, Deputy Minister of Forests and Range, Doug Konkin, opened the workshop with concerns about the current forestry paradigm that focuses on timber values. Above all, he called for better cooperation between practitioners and researchers through adaptive management in order to address such complex issues. That morning, the eighty invited participants from industry, government, universities, consultants and ENGOs broke into six groups to further explore the challenges and come up with some ideas for change.
http://www.watershedsentinel.ca/

Oregon:

7) CARVER – A Clackamas County family’s private grotto of talus caves and old-growth forest — a haven for pileated woodpeckers, songbirds and several colonies of bats — will be preserved forever. Jeff Pratt, owner and second-generation protector of the 29-acre site once known as Grant’s Park, held a quiet dedication this month to mark negotiation of a conservation easement with the Three Rivers Land Conservancy, an organization dedicated to preserving natural sites in the Clackamas, Tualatin and lower Willamette river basins. Jeff and Lita Pratt inherited the property and live on five acres adjoining the easement. Their dramatic holding of cliffs, caves and forest above the Clackamas River was untouched by ax or saw because the terrain made logging too costly and development too difficult. The easement, purchased for $100,000, protects the site from development and grants the Lake Oswego-based land conservancy access four times a year. The land will not be open to the public, and the Pratts hope to keep the specific location largely unknown to protect the caves and the bats, which are now in hibernation. “My dad was adamant about not preserving this place for our own pleasure or exploitation but more because we had a responsibility to preserve it for itself and the creatures that were on it,” Pratt said. “I think he was farseeing enough to realize this would become an urban community.” An underlying issue for Pratt was allowing him to expand or relocate his own home and property in case, for example, the road was widened or realigned. A friend in forest management helped him work through other scenarios, such as insect infestation or a forest fire, catastrophic events that might require replanting the forest, an act rarely allowed in conservation deals. Pratt also reserved a small amount of timber for harvest in an area he described as a buffer to the old growth. Pratt and his siblings also practice sustainable timber harvest on 80 nearby acres. “In the West,” Cronlund said, “land trusts are moving toward this model of negotiating with landowners and making prescriptions for tree removal or other sustainable management techniques,” an arrangement that makes partners of landowners and preservationists. The conservancy plans to spend additional money to spray herbicide on ivy that originally was planted near the roadhouse and has taken over the bottom half of the property. “These places need to be cultivated if they are going to survive,” Cronlund said. “If you leave them alone, invasive species will cover them.” http://www.oregonlive.com/metrosouth/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/metro_south_news/1134714564155700.xml&coll=7

8) Trees are sometimes taken for granted in this neck of the woods. They’re buzzed down or ripped out of the ground more often than they’re planted. To some, they’re more valuable as firewood than a scenic resource. But Dale Shaddox wants to change that. The new city manager wants to see Brookings protect its trees with the same vigor its old loggers used to cut them down. “We need to develop a comprehensive plan to manage trees,” Shaddox recently told the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission. “It’s my personal agenda to bring trees to the top of the priority list here.” Shaddox isn’t proposing a moratorium on tree cutting, but he would like to see the city start planting them instead of cutting them down. The deforestation of the north end of the Harbor Hills has alarmed many people. A local group called Friends of Trees shares Shaddox’s alarm. “I’m not a conservationist or an arborist, but I am a concerned citizen about the trees that are being taken out at the time of a development,” said Pauline Olsen, of Friends of Trees. http://www.currypilot.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=11965

9) The heaps of logs and branches on Pacific University’s campus are more than moss-covered remnants from five diseased white oak trees that crews are cutting down this week. The wood is the Pacific University’s gift of firewood to the community. There are more than 200 trees on Pacific University’s campus, including native white oaks as old as 200 years that were planted by Forest Grove’s first settlers. Now some measure up to 120 feet tall. Earlier this year, arbor crews examined the native white oaks and recommended five of those trees — about 3 percent of the university’s white oak population — be removed because of unsafe root decay and leaning. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/argus/index.ssf?/base/news/1135117919237580.xml&coll=6

10) Kudos to Linda Goodman, regional forester for the Pacific Northwest Region of the U.S. Forest Service, for writing a letter to clarify that the Forest Service is still engaged in the practice of logging old-growth forests on federal lands (“Old-growth logging continues,” Dec. 15). Goodman demonstrated remarkable honesty in acknowledging that her agency continues to flout public opinion and ecological health by targeting our remaining ancient forests for conversion into fiber plantations. Given that 75 percent of the old-growth forests in Western Oregon have already been logged and that there are hundreds of thousands of acres of dense, flammable second-growth plantations crying out for thinning, one can only hope that the Forest Service will soon join with the overwhelming majority of Oregonians who believe that old-growth logging should be a thing of the past. –GEORGE SEXTON Conservation director Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center Ashland http://www.oregonlive.com/letters/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/113504192628430.xml&coll=7

11) In the 1980s in the North Santiam Canyon east of Salem, OR, Ancient Forest activism was peaking after years of dogged effort. This is the area of the famous 1986-89 North Roaring Devil blockade and tree sit (the second ever pro-forest tree sit; the first coming in the nearby South Santiam’s Millennium Grove actions of 1985). North Roaring Devil protection efforts went on for three years, over sixty folks were arrested for non-violent Civil Disobedience at the logging site; sixty-three acres of five-hundred-plus year old trees were leveled; but, in the end, a lawsuit stopped the logging of an additional 170 acres and even led to the Willamette National Forest Plan being thrown out and redone. The entire area is now a part of a 49,000 acre reserve. Naturally, this effort gained a lot of notoriety. It was the first such effort to garner national attention to the plight of our fast-vanishing old growth forests, bringing in reporters from around the world. By 1988, things also got going eight miles away in the Little North Fork Santiam drainage when a concerted effort was mounted to stop Forest Service plans to liquidate Opal Creek’s wondrous Ancient Forest. The successful (now designated Wilderness, 35,000 acres preserved) Opal Creek endeavor led to even more attention coming to the Santiam area. In 1995, sixty miles south at Warner Creek, activists mounted an occupation of a planned post-fire (an arson) “salvage” logging area. People from around the country came and camped out in the snow and rain for a year before a lawsuit ended the threat of logging there. Then… On Oct. 28, 1996, an arson fire broke out at the Detroit Ranger Station, the Ranger District responsible for both Opal Creek and the Breitenbush River area of the North Roaring Devil. A truck was burned and graffiti reading “Earth Liberation Front” was painted on the building. Two days later, the Oakridge Ranger Station (yep, Warner Creek) was burned to the ground. The big question at the time was; not so much who was doing these arsons, though that was high on everyone’s minds; but why here? Why in the two areas where activists were winning? COINTELPRO; industry’s arson, insurance fraud & strategic PR campaigns to divide & conquer its opposition of responsible citizens. ELF and its alleged crimes are far more likely to be one or all of the above rather than “us.” Just look at the targets. Just look at the results. Did they help us? Did they advance our cause or set us back? Even if one believed there were some willing dupes from within our ranks who played a role in “ELF” actions; were they directed, encouraged or manipulated by the FBI or industry agents?” http://counterpunch.org/donnelly12202005.html

12) Traditionally, urban trees chopped down because of disease, age, or development have been sent to the dump. But increasingly, entrepreneurs and small businesses are identifying ways to more constructively use the estimated 3.8 billion board feet of timber – about 25 percent of the annual hardwood lumber production in the United States every year – that is removed from cities and suburbs annually. That’s roughly enough wood to build about 275,000 new homes, and only a small fraction is now recycled. More arborists and city officials are using the timber from these trees for firewood or wood chips. Warmbold and a handful of others are trying to take that a step further, turning unwanted oaks, pines, and ash trees into flooring, cabinetry, custom molding, and high-end furniture. “We’re about repairing things and not throwing them away,” Warmbold says. Warmbold and his wife, Maria, started Citilogs, six years ago in Pittstown, N.J. They salvage trees from urban parks and suburban homes and have clients all along the East Coast and in Chicago. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1221/p14s02-sten.html

California:

13) ForestEthics, a California-based forest conservation advocacy group, helped Santa out this year by compiling a list of catalog companies that rank naughty or nice based on their environmental practices. “Most of these companies never thought about where their paper comes from,” said Dan Howells, paper campaign director for ForestEthics. “We raise issues for any company that has a catalog.” In spite of growing Internet sales, the catalog industry mailed more than 18 billion catalogs in 2004, an increase of 5.3 percent from 2003 and more than 40 percent in the last 10 years, according to the Direct Marketing Association. At issue is the more than 100 million trees’ worth of bulk mail that arrives annually in American mailboxes and peaks during the holiday season – the equivalent of deforesting all of Rocky Mountain National Park every four months, according to calculations using data from the U.S. Forest Service and conservation groups that ForestEthics has posted on its Web site. Of the 19 companies examined by the environmental group, only three – Dell, Williams-Sonoma and Norm Thompson Outfitters – made the “nice” list, which is composed of companies that are “showing leadership on issues that are important for forest protection,” Howells said. http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/11962/

Mississippi:

14) Logging crews will be busy for many months. Heavy equipment drags large southern pines across the forest floor. Katrina left behind a hefty harvest. “The Desoto National Forest took a huge hit,” said forester Wayne Stone while pointing to a forest map. “The red was the places that were severely damaged. More than two thirds of the canopy down,” he explained. Stone is a timber sales forester who helps organize the bids to sell and salvage the downed trees. A crew from Texas worked on Wednesday to remove pine logs from a three thousand acre tract. Removing the downed trees erases the Forest Service’s biggest fear: Wildfires. “We have a huge fire problem. A potential fire problem. We’ve got in some places fifty, sixty, seventy tons of material on the ground,” Stone said. The abundance of toppled trees in South Mississippi has driven timber prices down. Before Katrina, timber sold for about $50 a ton. Since the storm the price has dropped to around $15 a ton. http://www.wlox.com/Global/story.asp?S=4275123&nav=6DJI

Texas:

15) While maintaining and enhancing the bottomland hardwood forest ecosystem is the main focus of the management at the Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge, its 19,000 acres offer an assortment of recreation for the public. “Fishing is, by far, the biggest use we see,” said refuge manager Stuart Marcus. “But we also see a lot of interest in wildlife observation, hiking, bird-watching, paddling and hunting.” The refuge’s largest tracts are open to day use. But they offer limited facilities. Only a couple have maintained trails, usually along old logging roads. Champion Lake is an 800-acre shallow reservoir that’s more swamp than lake. Studded with cypress and tupelo draped with Spanish moss and subject to nearly drying out during summer droughts, the lake holds a modest fishery. It has an excellent bird population that in spring and summer includes a large roost of colonial nesting wading birds and during autumn or winter can be home to good numbers of ducks, mergansers and osprey. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/3541325.html

New Jersey:

16) Traditionally, urban trees chopped down because of disease, age, or development have been sent to the dump. But increasingly, entrepreneurs and small businesses are identifying ways to more constructively use the estimated 3.8 billion board feet of timber – about 25 percent of the annual hardwood lumber production in the United States every year – that is removed from cities and suburbs annually. That’s roughly enough wood to build about 275,000 new homes, and only a small fraction is now recycled. More arborists and city officials are using the timber from these trees for firewood or wood chips. Warmbold and a handful of others are trying to take that a step further, turning unwanted oaks, pines, and ash trees into flooring, cabinetry, custom molding, and high-end furniture. “We’re about repairing things and not throwing them away,” Warmbold says. Warmbold and his wife, Maria, started Citilogs, six years ago in Pittstown, N.J. They salvage trees from urban parks and suburban homes and have clients all along the East Coast and in Chicago. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1221/p14s02-sten.html

Georgia:

17) Northeast Georgia’s landscape is not the same. The recent ice storm has left majestic trees broken, but not dead. “Usually if we have an ice incident like this, if we can handle the needs locally, we’ll do that,” says District Ranger Shawn Alexander. Alexander and the Georgia Forestry Commission cleared trees from major roads after the storm. Other trees are up for the taking. “Any tree that’s down, that’s dead or fallen,” Alexander says of available trees. But there are laws to keep the landscape and you out of trouble. The laws can be confusing. Regulations vary from national to state to private property. http://www.wneg32.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WNEG/MGArticle/NEG_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=112876883
3035&path=

Canada:

18) They’re called reindeer in Europe and caribou in the US. And while this one, the rare mountain caribou, may not be as famous as Rudolph, he’s just as special—and one of only 1,670 left in the world. This year, ForestEthics protected 215,000 acres of the Inland Temperate Rainforest of British Columbia, home of the mountain caribou. We also kept the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement, which protects five million acres of rainforest, from being weakened by the new government of British Columbia. On November 3, we raised the pressure on Victoria’s Secret for sending out a million catalogs a day, with over 150 protests and events. Then, just last week, there was a great article about us in Time Magazine. And those are just a few of the highlights. We couldn’t have done it without you—and we need your help to make 2006 even better. I hope you’ll make forest protection part of your holiday season this year. And, of course, you have all of our best wishes for a wonderful New Year! http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=66117068&url_num=4&url=http://forestethics.org/donate

19) Alcan, the giant Canadian aluminum company, has also been breaking with its usual stay-mum tradition. “If we spend $400,000 in total on advertising in a year, that’s a lot,” said Daniel Gagnier, senior vice president for corporate and external affairs. Nonetheless, Alcan in the last few months has run ads in The Globe and Mail in Toronto showcasing its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. It has also run ads in environmental publications seeking applicants for the $1 million Prize for Sustainability it began awarding last year (the first one went to the Forest Stewardship Council). Ads in Quebec newspapers noted that it had planted 100,000 trees in that province – to offset the additional greenhouse gas emissions that it thinks inevitably resulted when 10,000 people converged on Montreal this month for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change. Mr. Gagnier does not pretend that the ads, all of them created by CGCom in Montreal, will help Alcan sell more aluminum. His primary audience was internal. “Every time we survey our 70,000 employees, we hear that they want to be proud of our environmental leadership,” he said. “Outsiders may not remember the Alcan ads a few months down the road, but our employees will remember them with pride.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/business/22adco.html?pagewanted=print

20) Members of the logging road blockade at Grassy Narrows First Nation support calls for sanctions against Abitibi. The company’s decision to close its Kenora mill only adds to the list of reasons for the lifting of Abitibi’s license to manage the Whisky Jack Forest, according to some. “We’re going to have to do something,” said band member Joe Bill Fobister. He noted residents have been losing land from their traplines for many years, but they are still lobbying the province and the courts in an attempt to protect both their land and their traditional way of life. Abitibi officially announced it would be permanently closing its operations in Kenora last Thursday. Union leaders and local politicians have called for the province to review the forestry giant’s wood rights for the area, since the proceeds of the logging will no longer benefit the local economy. Blockade member Roberta Keesick said Monday the multinational’s decision came as no surprise to her. “These mills, that’s what happens. They’re not here for us,” she said. “Abitibi’s there for profit, and when they’re done they leave.” Protestors set up the blockade three years ago, in an effort to back their demands for an end to clearcutting in the forest, which they claim is part of their traditional land use area. They have gained national and international attention as they argue in favour of their aboriginal treaty rights against governments and big business. The community is expected to hold a meeting in the near future, where their next steps on the issue of logging will be discussed. They are already proceeding with a lawsuit challenging the province’s 20-year management plan for the forest. http://www.kenoradailyminerandnews.com/story.php?id=203314

Belgium:

21) The PEFC Forest Certification has been established as a system of voluntary promotion and certification of sustainable forest management. It consists of two fundamental elements: Sustainable Forest Management Certification, which guarantees the survival of the forest for future generations, and the Chain of Custody Certification, guaranteeing a system to verify the flow of wood through the production process. The Chain of Custody Certification is the necessary complement to the Sustainable Forest Management Certification, since it is the mechanism that makes it possible to verify, via traceability, that the wood used in the production of pulp comes from forests managed according to sustainability criteria. Moreover, obtaining the Chain of Custody Certification increases internal process efficiency, improves the market appeal of our papers and demonstrates Torraspapel’s sense of responsibility and commitment towards the environment and sustainable development. The Zaragoza mill, which has a production capacity of 380,000 tons of pulp, base paper and coated paper, also holds the ISO 9001 quality certificate and ISO 14001 environmental management certificate. http://www.packagingessentials.com/indnews.asp?id=2005-12-21-20.47.18.000000

Ukraine:

22) A tree falls in the forest and the camera follows it down. The trunk crashes through the undergrowth in a cascade of leaves and dust, which hangs like smoke in a shaft of new sunlight. For a moment the birdsong and the dry background sizzle of insects fall silent. The last leaves twirl slowly earthward. Crash. There goes another one, this time noiselessly, and then another, with a cracking, rumbling bass note as it thuds into the earth. The trees fall this way and that. Slowly and inexorably toppling, they take longer to drop than one might imagine. The camera keeps moving, tracking and panning between the trunks, some so close that they loom unfocused, like bodies passing before the camera. A moving shadow preceding a falling trunk as it drops into the frame. The camera’s slow passage allows us to linger even on a fly, hovering and zigzagging in the air, the bright patches of green beech leaves, the sky seen through a break in the canopy. The editing is restrained, the track of the camera measured and purposeful. But what is the purpose of Ori Gersht’s The Forest, currently at London’s Photographers’ Gallery, and shown in conjunction with a series of photographs of landscapes, farm buildings and trees. As the images smear into a blur, or judder, or approach blankness, it is hard to know whether the cause of these aberrations was the hand that held the camera shaking uncontrollably, or the view itself is being convulsed in some kind of seizure or earthquake. As in Gerhard Richter’s famous October 18 1977 cycle of blurred and frequently unfocused paintings, derived from photographs, it is as though the images were afflicted by a kind of hysterical blindness, an inability to look made manifest, palpable and concrete. The sensation is very like fainting. http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1671151,00.html

Brazil:

23) ALTAMIRA, Brazil, Dec 22 (Reuters) – Amazon land activist Deurival Santiago has the look of a hunted man. Unshaven, his eyes bloodshot and his head bowed, the 53-year-old sits in the back room of a safe house near Brazil’s muddy Trans-Amazonian highway as logging trucks roll by outside. A friend watches the gate for gunmen he says were hired to kill him after he clashed with land grabbers advancing on the prized eastern flank of Brazil’s Amazon rain forest. Activists like Santiago often protect peasant settlers in jungle areas where the government still has little control. That puts them in conflict with large-scale loggers, ranchers and land speculators pushing into an area of Para state known as the Terra do Meio, or Middle Land. It’s the main battleground in the fight to slow destruction of the world’s largest rain forest. “I had to run because I was going to die that day,” says Santiago, who left behind his wife and children in November in Pacaja, 125 miles (200 km) southeast of regional center Altamira. Brazil this year created the world’s biggest environmental protection area in the Terra do Meio to slow deforestation after U.S. nun and Amazon defender Dorothy Stang was murdered in February 60 miles (100 km) from Altamira. Two Brazilian men were convicted on Dec. 10 of her murder. The government raised funding for settlement of peasant migrants to farm and selectively log small areas, without totaling destroying the forest. But President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has not committed enough resources to police the rain forest and ensure the 30 percent reduction in deforestation during 2004-2005 becomes a permanent trend, federal officials and activists say. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N14270970.htm

24) The city of Vitoria in Brazil, owes its name to the “victory” of the colonialist Portuguese against the original indigenous inhabitants of the land. Today, the same name has a totally different meaning. The indigenous Tupinikim and Guarani peoples have retaken the lands that were stolen from them by the giant pulp mill corporation Aracruz Cellulose. They have been joined in the struggle against the company and its plants by other local communities and organizations from civil society who, through uniting in the struggle, have weakened the company’s power. They have thus become a symbol of victory for peoples all over the world who are fighting against similar corporations. Peoples throughout the world are also uniting at the local, national and international levels to put pressure on large scale tree plantations that have been depriving them of their livelihoods and destroying their lands. These struggles have brought us together in Vitoria, in Espirito Santo, Brazil to strengthen the local peoples’ movements against corporations that are advancing large scale monoculture tree plantations. With that aim:
We support the struggles of local peoples for land rights and access to land
We support the struggles of local peoples for autonomy and self-determination.
We support the struggles of local peoples against pulpwood plantations and pulp mills.
We support the struggles of local peoples against oil palm plantations.
We support the struggles of local peoples against carbon sink plantations.
We support the struggles of local peoples against biomass plantations.
We support the struggles of local peoples against the certification of large scale tree plantations.
We support the struggles of local peoples against genetically modified organisms
(GMOs) and opposition to the introduction of GMO trees which would greatly
We support the struggles of local peoples who are defending their right to water, biodiversity, soils, foods, medicines, fuel, etc that come from the land.
http://www.wrm.org.uy/

India:

25) If relocating the 66,000 families that live in India’s 28 protected areas is not feasible, the solution, according to tiger task force chairperson Sunita Narain, is to include the tribals in the protection of this endangered species, giving them a share in the profits from the tourist trade in the sanctuaries. Is the very fact that the tiger is such a magnificent beast, paradoxically, a major obstacle in the path of its preservation? This is what Sunita Narain, director of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and editor of its fortnightly magazine Down To Earth implied at the inauguration of the annual congress of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists, held in conjunction with the Vatavaran environmental film festival in New Delhi recently. She was also the head of the tiger task force appointed by the central government, which presented its report this August. http://www.infochangeindia.org/analysis106.jsp

Thailand:

26) Granted that he really means what he says, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s recent statement that all mega dam projects will be scrapped, is both surprising and welcome news for the environment-conscious public, from a government which has wholeheartedly pursued the path of development and modernisation with scant interest in environment. Scrapping huge dam projects will spare the country’s large tracts of wooded land which otherwise would have been wiped out to pave the way for the construction of the dams. The golden teak forest in Phrae, for instance, will be saved if the Kaeng Sua Ten dam project is shelved for good. This will be a boon for the country’s fast dwindling forest cover in the sense that there will be no authorised large-scale logging normally associated with dam building – although illegal logging still remains a problem to be dealt with by the authorities concerned. Building small reservoirs can partially solve the problem of flood and drought. But in order to tackle the problem more effectively, it is imperative that the government replenish the lost forest cover, especially in watershed areas, through a massive reforestation programme. This is a necessary endeavour which so far has been ignored by the present administration. http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/22Dec2005_news97.php

New Zealand:

27) The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) applauds the sentencing handed down today in the Christchurch District Court to two men and a sawmilling company for milling indigenous (rimu) timber without a consent. West Coast farmer Michael Kevin Milne was fined a total of $6,500 for his involvement in the milling of the rimu, including providing the rimu from his land and procuring the other defendants’ offending. John Richard Groome was convicted and discharged, while his company Kaiapoi Contractors Ltd was found guilty of milling and fined $1,500. Judge Moran considered that Groome and his company were one and the same. MAF was also awarded costs, which will be set by the District Court Registrar at a later date. “Harvesting and milling indigenous timber without the appropriate consent, or beyond the conditions of a consent, threatens the sustainability of New Zealand’s private indigenous forests.” The prosecution followed an investigation by the IFU that began in October 2003 after reports that rimu trees had been illegally harvested and milled from private forest land at Milltown, in Westland’s Arahura Valley. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0512/S00167.htm

Philippines:

28) MORE than a hundred lumad tribal leaders, youths and professionals from Caraga, Davao Oriental signed a manifesto opposing the entry of any logging and mining company in their area. A total of 127 lumads signed in the manifesto expressing their antagonism against the entry of foreign mining and logging operators like the Matuguina Integrated Wood Products Incorporated. In their manifesto, the lumads said the entry of Matuguina in their area would disrupt their peaceful lives. They claimed that Matuguina’s entry is without their “free prior informed consent”, which is in violation of RA 8371 or the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997. The lumads fear that the entry of a logging company in their area would ultimately lead to the destruction to their watershed and the sacred burial grounds of their ancestors. “The flooding of the Caraga river in 1962, 1966 and 1974 and the other floods of the past years are the living testimony of why we are opposing any movement with a goal of removing the natural resources in the forest,” the manifesto read. The lumads also called for the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) to probe the Matuguina entry without the consent. http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/dav/2005/12/23/news/lumads.unite.against.mining.logging.firms.html

Indonesia:

29) “We must spread the importance of preserving mangroves as widely as possible. The school is the ideal place to create love for the environment. Government agencies can’t do it alone.” The task force comprises representatives of Wetlands International, the Global Environmental Centre, the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia, the Forestry Department and the Department of Irrigation and Drainage. The task force will visit the Sungai Pulai forest reserve and observe replanting activities at Tanjung Piai tomorrow. Set up in February this year, it has carried out mangrove replanting in Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Pahang, Perak, Perlis, Penang, Selangor and Terengganu. Up to November, 163.7 hectares in peninsular Malaysia have been replanted with 466,800 mangrove saplings and 7,802 other kinds of coastal vegetation. A much wider replanting and rehabilitation programme, covering about 4,000ha at a cost of RM110 million, has been proposed under the Ninth Malaysia Plan. However, environmentalists today said it was more practical to focus on preserving existing mangroves than spending money and time on replanting. Malaysia has 566,856ha of mangroves, with 436,714ha gazetted as permanent forest reserve. Environmentalists said the remaining 130ha of mangroves, declared as state land, was at risk of exploitation. They want these areas gazetted as well. http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Tuesday/National/20051220080705/Article/indexb_html

30) “The concern is caused by forest damage which has been estimated to reach 59.2 million hectares each year, 2.83 million hectares of which had been deforested,” the minister said during a National Deforestation and Conservation Drive in West Nusa Tenggara province is centered in Mount Gupuk, Plambek Village, Lombok Tengah district, about 50 km east of Mataram, the capital of the province, on Wednesday. In a written address read out by Broto Hadi Sumadyo, head of the Forestry Development Center said that the forests in the country are now in a deplorable condition, as the result of arbitrary ways of past forest exploitation. In order to save forest resources and to rebuild the forestry sector, the forestry ministry has set a target and priority program for the 2004-2009 period, the minister said. The priority program includes the eradiation of illegal logging in state forests and illegal timber trade, revitalizing the forestry sector especially forestry industries, in addition to the forest rehabilitation and the conservation of forest resources, and the employment of people living near forests. Forests and arid land throughout Indonesia were estimated to reach tens of millions of hectares, and should be reforested through hard work depending on existing financial capacities.
http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/index.php?id=7759

31) JAKARTA: The Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi) urged the government on Wednesday to immediately cancel forest concession rights that have been given to logging companies operating in Southeast Aceh and Aceh Singkli, saying that it would only worsen the deforestation problem in the tsunami-devastated province. Walhi executive director Chalid Muhammad said his organization’s investigation, carried out from September to early December, found that rampant illegal logging activities have taken place in the two regencies. “Our findings show that the logs are being harvested not for the province’s reconstruction purposes, but to be sold on the world market by first exporting it to Malaysia and Singapore,” he said at a media gathering in his office on Wednesday. He warned that more natural disasters would occur in Aceh unless the government moved quickly to resolve deforestation and illegal logging problems. — JP http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20051222.C06&irec=5

32) DEUTSCHE Bank is likely to quit as an adviser on the controversial takeover of an Indonesian pulp mill, amid pressure from environmentalists concerned at the fate of Borneo’s forests. The move by the German lender is a reminder of the pitfalls faced by foreign groups operating in Asia’s fast-growing but risky economies. A withdrawal by Deutsche could lead to a collapse of the proposed $US600 million acquisition of Kiani Kertas by Singapore-listed United Fibre Systems, as other investment banks would be unlikely to replace it for fear of attacks by environmental campaigners. The problems surrounding Kiani Kertas also highlight Indonesia’s struggle to overcome the legacy of three decades of rule by former president Suharto, as the company is owned by a consortium led by a former son-in-law of the onetime strongman. In a letter to one of the environmental groups on Tuesday, and obtained by the Financial Times, Michael Holz, Deutsche’s group compliance officer, said the bank was “on hold pending the outcome” of a January 18 meeting with campaigners. UFS argues that the project has a 10-year supply of sustainable wood, but the campaigners maintain that the combined facilities would have capacity far in excess of available existing sources of plantation timber, creating an incentive to clear more natural forest for plantation. “UFS is lacking a total area of up to 700,000 hectares of fibrewood plantations, if all their projects should be realised at full capacity,” said the environmental campaign group Global 2000. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17643621%255E36375,00.html

Australia:

33) The $45 million Meander Dam has been hamstrung by a series of environmental challenges, including threats to the native quoll. The Tasmanian Conservation Trust says the area to be flooded will destroy 40 hectares of eucalyptus ovata trees, breaching the state’s land-clearing laws. But Tasmanian Primary Industry Minister Steve Kons has rejected the claims, saying no clearing will take place until the ovata is assessed by the Forest Practices Board. “We abide by the umpire’s decision and at the end of the day, there are opportunities where the public interest does play a role in it,” he said. “If other areas can be found to transfer these values – and I think New South Wales has a similar scheme, where one property’s values can be transferred to another – if we can find property somewhere else that has similar or better values, there may be an opportunity to use those.” http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2005/s1534976.htm

World-Wide:

34) The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports outdoor field
trials of GM trees worldwide in 16 countries. While the majority are located in the United States, there are also GE tree test plots in France, Germany, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Sweden, Canada, Australia, India, South Africa, Indonesia, Chile and Brazil. China is the only country known to have developed commercial plantations of GM trees, with well over one million trees planted throughout ten provinces. Most of the research is being focused on Poplars (47%), Pines (19%) and Eucalyptus (7%). The main traits being studied are herbicide tolerance, insect resistance, wood chemistry (including reduction of lignin content), and fertility. The projected social and environmental impacts from the release of GE trees commercially include the increased native forest conversion to plantations; the increased use of toxic herbicides and pesticides; and the loss of wildlife and water sources. Additionally, the contamination of native forests with engineered pollen from GE trees is predicted to lead to impacts such as the increased susceptibility of native forests to disease, insects and environmental stresses like wind and cold; disruption of forest ecosystems which depend on insects; the exacerbation of global warming due to increased forest mortality; and the loss of forest-based foods, medicines, fuel and traditional cultures. Scientists at Duke University in North Carolina in the US have created pollen models that demonstrate tree pollen traveling for over 1,000 km. Because scientists admit that 100% guaranteed sterility in GE trees is impossible, if GE trees are released into the environment, the widespread contamination of native forests cannot be prevented. http://www.globaljusticeecology.org