067OEC’s This Week in Trees

This week we have 34 news items from: British Columbia, Oregon, California, Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida, USA, Canada, Israel, Nigeria, Ghana, Pakistan, India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Australia.

British Columbia:

1) Golden Ears in Maple Ridge, Duffey Lake between Mount Currie and Lillooet, and Wells Gray north of Clearwater are among the first proposed sites for commercial lodges in parks under a controversial new B.C. government policy, according to provincial freedom-of-information documents. The documents, obtained by the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, contain a draft policy also suggesting that any such lodges must be compatible with park management plans, that proponents may have to fund environmental studies, and that the public and first nations must be consulted.The process of granting permits for commercial lodges would likely be opened up to competitive bids only where there is more than one application at the same location. And lodges are not meant to be exclusive to guests, but open to the general public, including restaurants. Government income from such operations, amounting to perhaps three to five per cent of lodges’ gross revenues, should go back into park management, according to the draft policy dated May 2005. Conservationists have decried the provincial policy as an ill-advised effort to commercialize wilderness areas. WCWC campaigner Gwen Barlee said in an interview that lodges should be located on the periphery of parks, not inside where they compete with natural values. “Lodges are not appropriate recreation,” she said, adding she is concerned that the public won’t be sufficiently consulted on the issue. “Parks are about protecting and preserving our environment.” http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/index.html

2) Tall maples, dripping moss. Hemlock and cedars. We measure a spruce 25 feet in circumference, in an open park-like area. The feeling standing under these giants, the vastness . . . Yet how do we bring people here to see for themselves? The slopes are so steep, let alone the mud, brambles, rotten salmon, ferns so thick and tall you have no idea where you are walking. We slithered down a muddy stream into a bramble patch to get here, and that was one of the easier routes. We have already tried paddling upstream on what used to be a creek, but is now a raging torrent. We got nowhere. There are easier trails near the base of the creek, where you can walk among Sitkas almost as big as these, or stroll down to the ocean. In the summer, the creek bed will bring relatively easy access up to this area of even bigger trees, but the trees may not be here. Logging has already begun, up above. We passed trees spray-painted with big blue numbers. They will be the first to go when the helicopter logging starts down here. If we want to save some of this area as a park, we can’t wait. This is Muir Creek, 15 minutes’ drive west of Sooke, home to big trees, bears, otters and salmon-spring, coho and chum. The second largest yew tree in the Big Tree Registry of B.C. is on Muir Creek. The cedar for the “World’s Tallest Free-Standing Totem” came from here. In a wood cabin, the former cookhouse for the Elder Logging Company, the neighbours gather to discuss what we can do to save a part of the forest that surrounds us. Dreadlocks and gray, balding heads, dogs and babies crawling on the rug, it is the start of the Muir Creek Protection Society. After much discussion, it is decided that the creek can best be protected as a park. The area is already well used for swimming, fishing, kayaking, wind-surfing, hiking and rockhounding, despite being privately owned land. The mouth of Muir Creek gives access to a stretch of ocean beach known for its fossils, from the Cenozoic era, 25 million or so years old. Both the CRD and the Sooke Museum websites give instructions to visitors on how to get here; there is even mention of the local swimming hole. The land around Muir Creek is already being used as a park but it is not a park. It can be logged anytime. The cedar is measured. Twenty-nine and a half feet around. That’s over nine feet in diameter. We move off through the waist-high ferns. Every fallen log and flat rock is laid out with the remains of bear and otter dinners. Two eagles swoop over our heads but I am too busy struggling for a footing on the steep, muddy slope to get a picture. We climb past an enormous Douglas fir snag then scramble up to the top of the embankment. The sounds of logging are suddenly loud around us. http://www.muircreekprotectionsociety.org/index.htm

3) In the early 1990s, BC’s first systematic regional land use planning processes began. The results gave us protected areas and Special Management Areas (SMAs) for improved logging practices. In our area, the West Kootenays, the SMAs were announced by government in a glossy brochure sent around to every household. It promised community forest boards to guide management of these areas. The Slocan Valley where our office is located received an SMA covering most of the central valley corridor. Silva Forest Foundation gained conservation funding for an excellent ecosystem-based plan for the Slocan Valley. The government refused to implement it, even in the SMA. The Ministry of Forests stalled for two years on the SMA guidelines and proceeded to log the SMAs without them. In the Cariboo-Chilcotin, industry forest development plans staked claims to tens of thousands of cutblocks in the SMAs while the Ministry of Forests stalled on the guidelines. In the Slocan Valley, up to 400 people at a time stood on four or five blockades in the Slocan Valley to save their SMA from being logged without guidelines or a Community Forest Board. The government and logging company just arrested or sued anyone who stood in the way. These events ring warning bells about the coast. The government says EBM won’t be fully implemented until 2009. That’s worrisome to VWS, but the worst is, we fear it may take much longer than that. In the 1990s the Ministry of Forests was stalling on the guidelines because, behind the scenes, industry was pressuring government, and the MOF was continually changing draft SMA guidelines until they yielded the amount of forest they wanted to log. The government put a cap of 2% on the amount of forest that could spared for Special Management. By the time MOF was done, the government-approved Slocan Valley SMA that had been so wildly celebrated in the press was reduced to two or three tiny stands of trees. When it came time to legislate the land use plan, even these pitiful areas were not included. The process left about 92-93% of our low- to mid-elevation forest to be logged with no protection but the Forest Practices Code. And then the Code was gutted. During the planning process, the government capped protection at 12%. It turned a deaf ear to pleas that the caribou could not survive with that amount of logging. Over the last 15 years, as this became increasingly apparent, the governments of the day cold-bloodedly refused to do anything about it. Since the early 1990s, we’ve seen untold millions of dollars and millions of person-hours spent on the technical details for reforming forestry practices. Almost all of it has gone into the trash can as the government clamped a tight ceiling on the amount of forest that could be spared, or some naïve environmentalist negotiated it away, or the Ministry of Forests simply “disappeared” what it didn’t want. –Anne Sherrod [wildernesswatch@netidea.com]

4) Citizens of the Alberni Valley on Vancouver Island are bracing for a “Perfect Storm” of forestry-related issues that are hitting the region. Local interests are being ignored in the new regulatory regime established by a government that is sympathetic to industry, and apparently unsympathetic to healthy local economies. In the region west of the Beaufort Range, a number of events and trends are causing concern. Large tracts of private forest land have been removed from the publicly controlled Tree Farm License 44 without consultation with area First Nations. Private forest land is managed differently than public forest land. Logs are being shipped out of the region at record high levels, yet local mills are operating in a climate of uncertainty. The rate of harvest is increasing and there is fear that this will result in catastrophic “fall-down” effects in the near future. The rapid liquidation of premium quality mature timber inventories may lead to the retirement of our big log mills. Smaller diameter logs are being shipped out and there is no sign of investment here in a small log mill. The land holding companies are laying off their employees and becoming fully contracted-out operations. Contractors are coming in from outside the region. They may have no connection to the community and the dollars they earn may leave to stimulate other economies elsewhere. Wildlife is under pressure as diverse species habitats disappear to be replaced with even-aged stands of fewer commercial species. This upsets the entire ecological balance in this region. The ownership structure of the major companies is changing. Now, private capital and large block investment funds create a shell game of mergers and acquisitions. In the last decade, the major forestry holdings in the region have changed hands three times. The trend is away from stock ownership to income trusts. An ad hoc committee of citizens is organizing to learn what is going on and to seek community consensus on a course of action. The recent boil water orders in Beaver Creek are the lightning rod issue that has inspired many local citizens to come forward with their concerns. Now additional concerns are being articulated. The ad hoc committee hopes the meeting will result in formation of a steering group that will provide broadly based community leadership. Keith Wyton, email: keith@sarita.net

5) Clearcutting vs. Thinning: On October 11, 2005, a former government employee and the Carmanah Forestry Society (the co-complainants) filed a complaint stating that the planned harvesting of a cutblock would remove scientific information contained in a proposed sequential thinning experiment. This complaint raises two issues: the proposed sequential thinning experiment and the harvesting of a cutblock in the coastal Douglas fir ecosystem. The Board investigated: The complainant had difficulty finding support for the research proposal at both the district and regional level of the MOFR. Ultimately, MoFR district management said that an operational trial could proceed, noting that compromises may have to be made to the trial strategy. It would require a silviculture prescription prepared by a forester and approval by the district manager. “The complainant expected that thinning the stand continuously would yield greater volume, provide better financial return, and promote greater biological diversity than other forms of forest harvesting or thinning. A sequential thinning regime differs from what the complainant views as traditional thinning, which applies strict spacing limits on a stand. His approach was to assess and select each individual tree that would be left on site. The selection of each tree would consider species, density, tree canopy position, growth rates, and harvesting cycles. This thinning regime is similar to traditional selective harvesting practiced in uneven aged forest stands with multiple tree species. The objective of the proposed operational trial was to maximize the variety of tree species and emphasize old-growth characteristics. The strategy was to thin each canopy layer and maintain all of the layers in perpetuity. In summary, the complainant rated the value of the research much higher than MoFR. That is understandable considering that he developed the idea; promoted the trial under difficult circumstances; and managed to get the ministry to consider including the trial in some sort of tenure to a university or college. This opportunity has been lost to the complainant as of 2002. The complainant requested that the MoFR rescind the cutting permit and reinstate the original research trial. Revoking the cutting permit is not specifically empowered by the Forest Act. In fact, the Forest and Range Practices Act provides some assurances to licensees that once approved, cutblock approvals will not be revoked. The approved harvesting will not result in the loss of invaluable data. Neither the Forest and Range Practices Act nor the Forest Act empowers the ministry to revoke cutting permits. Complaint Investigation Report – File 050683 BC Ministry of Forests

Oregon:

6) Yesterday, the director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy agreed to a demand by Congressman David Wu (D-OR) to investigate continued reports of scientific manipulations and censorship by the Bush Administration. One of the examples cited by Congressman Wu involves the on-going controversies surrounding a new report from researchers at Oregon State University, which found that post-fire logging may actually hinder forest regeneration and increase fire risk, something that conservation groups have argued for years based on their own monitoring and reports, as well as the best available science. This is just the latest in a string of twists and developments about the OSU report, which looked at the impacts of post-fire logging following the 2002 Biscuit Fire. Shortly after the report was made public, some of the more outspoken pro-logging professors at OSU’s College of Forestry (which receives 10% of its funding directly from a tax on logging) wanted the nation’s top scientific journal, Science, to withhold publishing the study. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/NFPA/blog/comments.jsp?blog_entry_KEY=20709&t=

California:

7) Trees, being among the largest objects that most people will ever own, tend to be visible to all who pass or live nearby. Trees bestow benefits and may present problems and risks that go beyond the lines of private property. And since many trees have life spans far exceeding those of people or an individual’s tenure as owner, those benefits, problems and risks may go beyond the time frame of private ownership. There is a public interest, and for me as a professional, a public trust regarding trees. In that light, the role of steward applies.A steward is not an owner, but a manager entrusted by the owner with responsibility to perform a service or care for something on the owners behalf. When that something is a large, long-lived tree, the owners may include people long since passed, generations yet to be and the living community at large.When we remove an old tree we may be thwarting the intention of the planter or denying its benefits to the community or to a future generation. We might also be preventing a catastrophic tree failure. Likewise, when we plant trees we might be fulfilling the wishes of our forebears, improving the beauty and livability of our neighborhoods and creating a beneficial legacy for those who follow us. But if our planning is not thoughtful, in spite of our good intentions, we might be setting up problems for the future. In a sense, whether we are employees of public works or parks departments, commercial arborists or owners of private property, we are tree stewards.Bill Pramuk is a registered consulting arborist with Britton Tree Services Inc. Please email questions to bpramuk@pacbell.net

8) Willits — This is one of the finest community efforts Ive seen in the entire time Ive been here, said Brooktrails attorney Chris Neary. He was referring to the development of a proposed plan for Brooktrails 2,500-acre forest, a year-long process of constant modification in response to community concerns. The plan, which rules out pesticide use and commercial logging, was completed last fall and acceptedbut not adoptedby the Brooktrails board, which proposes a section-by-section review. On Jan, 24, the board passed a resolution honoring those most engaged in the planning process, including both members of the ad hoc planning group and outside advisors and professionals. The entire planning process was a project of the Reecreation, Greenbelt and Conservation Committee. Mary Ziady, a committee member who presented the developing plan at a series of public meetings, gave out certificated of appreciation to six other individuals, doing her best to sum up their contributions in a few words. http://www.willitsnews.com/Stories/0,1413,253~27831~3241806,00.html

Indiana:

9) EDINBURGH – Researchers, foresters, lumbermen and gawkers watched with interest as saws ripped through the densely grained wood at Wertz’s mill in Edinburgh Thursday, releasing a rich, musky scent. Scientists at Hillsdale, Purdue University and Hanover College are studying pieces cut from the logs last month. And the old tree isn’t the only one buried in the Jackson County gravel pit. “There’s more down there, but you never really know what’s there ’til you pull it up,” said dredge operator Eugene Meeks, who found the tree. Anthony Swinehart, an associate professor of biology at Hillsdale, said the tree’s age won’t be known until the results of a radiocarbon dating test are available in a couple of weeks. Based on how deep the tree was buried, he and others estimate its age at 6,000 years. But it could be much older – perhaps up to 30,000 years. Swinehart said the tree, apparently about 300 years old when it was felled, was probably uprooted and deposited in its final resting place by a glacier during the last ice age. Researchers at three universities, including Hillsdale College in Michigan, are awaiting radiocarbon test results to pinpoint the age of the tree, which a southern Indiana dredge operator found under 40 feet of sand and gravel. But there’s more than scientific knowledge at stake. The owner of a lumber mill now treating some of the chocolate-colored wood with chemicals said it could command top dollar for fine furniture or plaques if it can be properly preserved. Amos-Hill Associates mill President Richard Wertz said the tree inspires awe. When it was found at Lee’s Ready Mix County Materials gravel pit near Brownstown, 60 miles south of Indianapolis, its root crown and much of the bark was still intact. “You wonder what kinds of animals walked by this tree when it was standing and if it was ever seen by a human,” Wertz said Thursday. http://www.newsday.com/news/science/wire/sns-ap-ancient-tree,0,3765805.story?coll=sns-ap-science-headlines

Ohio:

10) NELSONVILLE – A new plan for managing Ohio’s only national forest calls for giving high preservation status to 11 percent of the land while designating about 8 percent for logging. Conservationists are upset, arguing that timber harvest activities could spread beyond the 18,000 acres slated to be cut. Wayne National Forest covers nearly 240,000 acres in three units spread across 12 southern and southeast Ohio counties. The U.S. Forest Service released the 10- to 15-year plan, four years in the making, this month. The plan selected from six alternatives provides the best mix of habitat, recreation and natural resources such as timber, oil and natural gas, the agency said. It is to be implemented in March, but an appeals period is open through mid-May. The Buckeye Forest Council maintains that the plan is biased toward logging. The council and other conservation groups had lobbied for alternative plans that called for preserving more land. “I expect that this unbalanced, indefensible acceleration of logging will lead to more protests and lawsuits as citizen groups are forced to challenge an agency that is severely abusing its authority to protect our public resources,” said Heather Cantino of the Buckeye Forest Council. http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/13906724.htm

11) Ohio’s only national forest is considering selling 420 acres as part of a federal plan to raise money for rural school districts. The plan for Wayne National Forest is part of a proposal to sell about 300,000 acres of national forests and public land across the country. The Bush administration’s land-sale proposal is included in the president’s 2007 budget recommendation to Congress. It would be the largest sale of forest land in decades if Congress approves it. “The last thing we should be doing is selling off our forest,” said Ellen Hawkey, conservation program coordinator for the Ohio chapter of the Sierra Club. “We should be putting resources in to grow our forest, to expand the size by acquiring new land.” “We are very concerned about the future of the Wayne, especially if it is attacked on both fronts,” Hawkey added. “The land sale is a really short-sighted policy for school funding in rural areas,” she said. “Our public lands are a legacy for future generations and the policy should be geared toward preservation.” Managers of Wayne National Forest have begun receiving calls as word emerges locally that 420 acres have been proposed for sale, Sammon said. “A decent amount are from people who want to know, ‘Is it going to be my hiking trail or where we go camping or go horseback riding?’ ” he said. Other calls have included people looking to buy vacation property, and one real-estate broker, Sammon said. The acreage includes eight separate pieces of land ranging in size from 22 acres to 151 acres. Among them, two each are in Washington and Monroe counties; and one each in Hocking, Perry, Gallia and Lawrence counties. Wayne National Forest’s land acquisition staff assembled the list based on certain criteria after getting a call from Washington in December. It’s unknown how much money the acreage would fetch at sale. “The appraisals haven’t been done on the parcels yet. We could not attach a dollar figure,” Sammon said. http://www.columbusdispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/02/19/20060219-C1-00.html

New Jersey:

12) Although the state of NJ has refused Citgo’s gift of 392-acre Petty’s Island in the Delaware River, the environmental community hasn’t given up! Citgo is now offering to give a conservation easement on the island to the federal government in partnership with one or more private land trusts for FREE and to clean up ALL contamination to government environmental standards. Citgo is also offering to donate $2 million to a land trust to manage and conserve the island. Taxpayers will not be liable for any environmental clean up costs. Save Petty’s Island from development!WE, the undersigned citizens, hereby petition our Governor, U.S. Senators, and Congress person’s to take action to preserve Petty’s Island and its endangered American Bald Eagles and other threatened and endangered species. We urge them to call on the New Jersey Natural Lands Trust and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to accept Citgo Corporation’s offer to clean up Petty’s Island and to grant a conservation easement as a free gift to the public so that the island will become permanent open space and stay home to the many animals/birds and plants that live there. We say NO to building on the island, as it would upset the natural environment found on Petty’s Island by encroaching on the habitat of the wild. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/364152105?ltl=1126047988#body

Florida:

13) MANATEE – Forest rangers in Manatee County have named their brand new monster tractor, “Elvira.” “It’s because she looks mean and tough,” forest ranger Larry Holder said Friday of the just-delivered $250,000 John Deere-850J, which can easily shove 20-foot fallen trees to the side to create fire lines during wildfire season, which has recently begun. It is hoped that Elvira, which makes grown men sitting in her track look tiny, will be able to eat some of the unusually big stuff that Hurricane Charley and other storms sprayed around the ground in a five-county area the past two years. “We’ve got a lot of wildfire fuel on the ground, and the recent freeze further dried out the kindling,” said Ty Alexander, a supervisor with the Myakka River Fire District, which includes Manatee, Sarasota Hardee, DeSoto and Charlotte counties. “Now, the fire danger has gone way up.” Wildfire season is December through June, when Florida is at its driest. But due to the amount of fuel on the ground, and the recent freeze that killed small green plants and turned them into even more fire fuel, Manatee and the other four counties are now in a “moderate fire danger” alert, Alexander said. Elvira plays a large role because heavy debris on ground causes an access problem for firefighters. “Mainly, we can’t get into a fire because of the blow-down,” said Rick Christman, a forest service supervisor based in Charlotte County. A 52,000-pounder whose 36-inch tracks are powered by a 185-horsepower diesel engine, Elvira stands much taller than the district’s John Deere 550, which couldn’t handle really big timber, Alexander said. Elvira has a cage to protect the firefighter operating it, Alexander said. “Elvira has size and power,” said forest ranger Eugene Clark, who disappears behind tinted windows when he sits in Elvira’s air-conditioned cab, complete with portable forest service radio. Elvira came “stock” to the district, but got some after-market treatment with an added fire suppression system for putting out fires that might start underneath her as she crashes through burning brush, Alexander said. http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/nation/13908665.htm

USA:

14) ST. LOUIS — David Baltimore, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist and president of the California Institute of Technology, is used to the Bush administration misrepresenting scientific findings to support its policy aims, he told an audience of fellow researchers Saturday. Each time it happens, he said, “I shrug and say, ‘What do you expect?’ ” Dr. Baltimore spoke at a session here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Though it was organized too late for inclusion in the overall meeting catalogue, the session drew hundreds of scientists who crowded a large meeting room and applauded enthusiastically as speakers denounced administration policies they said threatened not just sound science but also the nation’s research pre-eminence. The session was organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit organization that has been highly critical of the Bush administration. “Administrative legitimacy has been violated as much as scientific legitimacy,” said Sheila Jasanoff, an expert on science policy who teaches at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. “You can’t get the most solid possible basis for making a decision unless you have not just the most credible and legitimate form of science but also the most credible and legitimate administrative process.” Leslie Sussan, a lawyer with the Department of Health and Human Services who emphasized that she was speaking only for herself, drew applause when she said she saw the administration’s science policies as “an attack on the rule of law as a basis for self-government and democracy.” http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0219-04.htm

Canada:

15) Previous governments had promised to have eight per cent of Quebec protected by the end of 2005 but the Charest Liberals have pushed that back to the end of 2008. “It’s gone on long enough,” Desrochers said. “It’s time to change things.” Not a single province met the original 2000 target date, but British Columbia has now set aside more than 12 per cent of its territory as parks and protected land and Ontario has protected about nine per cent of its lands, according to the coalition. The coalition has identified two areas it wants protected – the 7,200-square-kilometre Pascagama forest in western Quebec and the 9,000-square-kilometre Vallee des Montagnes Blanches, a birthing ground for woodland caribou in the Saguenay region. There has been an overwhelming response to the online petition launched last week, said a coalition official. Organizers originally hoped for 10,000 signatures but had nearly 45,000 by Sunday. The petition will be presented to Charest. Desrochers said Quebec has to move quickly to identify areas to protect. “The longer we wait, the less territory will be intact,” she said. http://www.940news.com/nouvelles.php?cat=23&id=21929

Israel:

16) Occupation has been difficult for Palestinians in this department. They have to accept large amounts of waste produced in Israel and settlements in the West Bank. They have no legal recourse to contest the landfills or the wholesale destruction of trees. As opposed to trees being planted in Jewish Israeli areas, trees in the occupied Palestinian territories are being uprooted at an alarming rate. Environmental and human rights organizations have estimated that over 1,000,000 trees have been uprooted over the past decade. 400,000 olive trees have been uprooted in the past 5 years alone. Most of the trees uprooted have been alongside the so-called “security wall” that Israel is building on Palestinian communities land. While the state of Israel claims that it was necessary for “security reasons” or for the “natural” growth and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the fact remains that only trees that are owned by Palestinians are uprooted and destroyed without compensation. Furthermore, as reported numerous times in the Israeli press over the past few years, many of the trees that were “uprooted” in Palestinian communities were actually loaded on trucks and brought back to Israel proper and sold in nurseries. Such practices of removing trees owned by Palestinians and replanting in Israeli communities are well known and nothing has been done to deter it. Thus while Jews around the world send money for planting trees in Israel, the Israeli government and settlers in the occupied territories are involved with the wholesale destruction of trees in the Palestinian areas. JNF’s appeal for the universality (“ties between man and the land”) of the planting of trees for the “preservation of vital ecosystems” and its claims as a “guardian of the land” is a hypocritical myth. http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=021806125927

Nigeria:

17) The World Bank has disbursed N23 million to 16 communities in Bauchi State to empower rural people to stop degrading forest reserves. The bank’s team leader to the State, Mr. Africa Olojoba, said the fund was made available under the bank’s environmental support facility. He told newsmen at Lamebura, Bauchi State, that 30 communities would benefit from the four year programme. The communities, he said, were those around the Yankari National Park, Lambebura and Maladumba game reserves. Each of the 30 communities would have a budget envelope of 50,000 dollars, which would be released in traches, he said. “We want a stop to poaching, felling of trees and environmental degradation, which have destroyed parks and animal population,” he stated. Ojoloba had earlier visited community work sites at Yuga, Yankari and Maina-Ma’aji villages. He expressed satisfaction with the level of community support and participation in the programme. http://www.thetidenews.com/article.aspx?qrDate=02/17/2006&qrTitle=Bauchi:%20War%20against%20forest%20degr
adation%20gulps%20N23m&qrColumn=BUSINESS

Ghana:

18) Ho, Feb. 17, GNA – An estimated 12,000 people countrywide have secured permanent jobs under the government’s Plantation Development Programme (PDP) started in mid-2003, as a Presidential Special Initiative (PSI). The Programme, which gave direct jobs to 700 people in the Volta Region, was funded from the HIPC Funds, at a cost of 190 billion cedis. Professor Dominic Fobih, Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines made this known when he handed over the management of the 150-hectare Urban Forest component of the programme in the Ho Municipality to the Ho Municipal Assembly in Ho on Thursday. Professor Fobih hinted that the Forest Plantations, which were developed under the programme, would in future serve as guarantee for securing funding outside the HIPC funds for further expansion with prospects for generating further employment in the sector. He praised the workers for maintaining the trees into maturity and urged them to educate the public to appreciate the need for collectively protecting them as it was in their interest to do so. The Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Mawutor Goh, who conducted the Minister and his team round some of the project areas, said the project had coincided with the beautification programme currently taking place in the municipality. He assured the Minister that the Assembly had therefore identified itself with the project and would deploy the necessary resources to maintaining and expanding it further. Mr Goh said efforts would be made to educate the public to appreciate the aesthetic value of the trees, their importance in purifying the air in the municipality protection of pedestrians from the scorching sun, in addition to being places of rest and relaxation. http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/economy/artikel.php?ID=99537

Chile:

19) Infinex Ventures Inc. and its Board of Directors are pleased to announce that the Company has signed a Letter of Intent for the sole and exclusive right to acquire an initial 50% interest in the Tesoro 1-12 Mining Claims which are reported to contain Gold, Silver and Copper. The Property is located on the El Indio Gold Belt in Region III, which is approximately 150 kms. East of the City of Vallenar, Chile, near the border of Argentina. A number of outcrops can be observed in the surveyed area as well as signs of mineralization of grantable substances in addition to exploratory workings. Under the terms of the LOI, the Company has agreed to an initial three (3) months due diligence period and a further extension to the due diligence period, in an effort to verify the offered title and additional documentation including but not limited to, Civil Trial C-1912-2001 at the 14th Civil Court of Santiago and Criminal Trial 1160-2002 at the 19th Court of Crime of Santiago of Chile, Ministry of Mines of Chile. http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060209/to287.html?.v=21

Pakistan:

20) LAHORE: 2006 Spring plantation campaign was kicked off in the city on Monday by Housing and Urban Development Minister Syed Ali Raza Gillani who planted a sapling at Race Course Park. Gillani said that trees were necessary for human survival and must be saved. PHA DG Shabbir Ahmed said that the PHA planted 117,000 trees in the last monsoon while 50,000 will be planted this season. The saplings are being sold for just one rupee each at the stalls set up by authority to encourage people to plant trees, he said.
Lahore DCO Mian Muhammad Ijaz also planted a tree at his office and said, ‘Trees should be nurtured like children as they fight pollution and have other benefits.’ The DCO was informed that 120,000 saplings will be planted this year out of which 30,000 will go to schools, 40,000 to former district councils and 50,000 to the general public. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C02%5C21%5Cstory_21-2-2006_pg7_23

21) PESHAWAR: Shisham trees are gradually vanishing from Peshawar, Charsadda, Mardan, Nowshera and Swabi districts of the NWFP due to the killer dieback disease. Shisham, which was introduced in Changa Manga in 1866 to produce coal for railways, has been a valuable source of income for farmers. “My father had planted shisham trees when he was told that the it would solve his financial problems,” said Sher Muhammad Khan, 45, a farmer in Katlang village, in Mardan district. He said that he was planting the seedlings of the species and selling them to fund his daughters’ dowry and higher education of his sons. “Last year 54 shisham trees in my farmland were attacked by cancer which was a great loss for me,” he said. “I started replacing shisham with mulberry and poplar,” said Farooq Khan of Motty Banda, Mardan. Dried up shisham trees can be seen along the shores of the Upper Swat Canal, which links Katlang-Swabi, Michi Canal in Dargai Malakand and Harichand in Charsadda. “The shisham tree, whose botanical name is Dilbergia sissoo, is facing possible extinction. The disease was first reported in 1998 when 20 to 50 percent heavy infestation rate was noted in these areas,” says a study. In the Katlang Forest Range (KFR) in Mardan, 65 percent of mature shisham tress have been infested, while 40 percent of sub-mature shisham trees have died. Infection was found in 25 percent of mature trees and 37 percent of sub-mature trees in the range, according to a study conducted by Sultan Muhammad, a forestry expert. In the Charsadda Forest Range (CFR), dieback has destroyed 30 percent of mature and 10 percent of sub-mature trees. Similarly, at least 40 percent of shisham trees were found infected among mature and 24 percent in sub-mature trees in the CFR. “A national dieback-working group consisting of 10 forestry professionals had been constituted in the Punjab Forestry Research Institute (PFRI) in Gutwala in Faisalabad in 2001 to assess the damages to the plant, conduct research and forward recommendations to the government,” said Dr Nasar Iqbal Warriach, the Biological Sciences Research Division (BSRD) director, Peshawar. The seventh meeting of the group was recently held in Peshawar where a majority of the members agreed that “Botryodiplodia Theobromae, a type of fungus, was the major cause of dieback,” he said, adding that 80 percent of shisham trees had been infected by this fungus. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C02%5C20%5Cstory_20-2-2006_pg7_32

India:

22) Crouching in a dry stream bed, the tracker traces the faint footprint of a tiger in the ochre soil with his finger. “This is from two nights ago. She came up from the water hole and went on that way,” Ramcharithar Uraon says, pointing into a dense forest of bamboo thickets and tapered sal trees in this park in eastern India. The paw print, or pug mark, is the latest sign that park rangers have had of Rani, “the tigress of Betla,” named for the village in the Palamau reserve around which she ranges. Trackers patrol 24 hours a day looking for signs of the big cats: a glimpse, paw tracks, droppings, remains of a kill. The clues are elusive – not just because of the stealth with which tigers creep through the mottled forest, but because India’s tigers are vanishing. The discovery last year that poachers had wiped out every tiger in Sariska, one of India’s premier tiger reserves, caused an outcry and demands for a beefing up of security in the parks. But the threats to the tiger are as varied and complex as the lands they roam: disappearing natural habitat shared with millions of people, a tiger tourism industry that has alienated villagers, a communist rebellion in a core swath of tiger lands and a conservation effort mired in bureaucracy. She says conservationists need to take into account the realities of India, a largely impoverished country of more than 1 billion people – some 800 million of whom must live on less than $2 a day. In Ranthambhore, one of India’s best known tiger reserves, high-end hotels made some $5 million last year, Narain says. Almost none of that went to local people, feeding animosity that has allowed poachers to operate freely and kill dozens of tigers there in recent years, she says. “We have to get away from tiger conservation for the rich, by the rich,” Narain says. “There has to be benefit sharing.” Many tiger sanctuaries have people – often India’s poorest – living inside them. Palamau is a stark illustration. It is home to nearly 200 villages inhabited by 100,000 Adivasis, indigenous tribesmen at the bottom of the complex Indian social ladder. From 1990 to 2004, nine of Palamau’s park workers were killed by militants, who considered all government representatives targets. Others were kidnapped or robbed and their headquarters was torched. Many rangers fled, leaving the tigers with no guardians. The park’s tiger population plunged from an estimated 62 in 1984 to 35. There haven’t been any fatal attacks on wardens in two years, but the reserve still has only half its allotted 130 ranger jobs filled, although that is partly due to bureaucratic obstacles to hiring new people. http://www.forbes.com/business/healthcare/feeds/ap/2006/02/18/ap2537666.html

23) Mysore and Chamarajnagar forest once possessed sandalwood trees in abundance, bringing the State the status of the “Land of Sandalwood.” It was one the reasons why the then Diwan of Mysore State Sir M Vesvesvaraya set up the Sandalwood oil extracting unit in Mysore. Karnataka can no longer claim to be rich with sandalwood trees, the production of which has touched rock-bottom. In fact, the Forest Department has virtually thrown up its hands in supplying sandalwood to the Government Sandalwood Oil Factory in Mysore, which is the largest consumer of sandalwood in the State. Against the total demand of 12,000 tonnes of sandalwood, the factory has been able to mobilise just around 6,000 tonnes last year. And the maximum supply was from Tamil Nadu through auction. The share from the Karnataka Forest Department is a meagre 70 tonnes. This has also hit the oil production considerably. The production has come down to a mere 26 kg of oil per month against the total capacity of 1,000 kg per month, official sources in the Mysore oil extracting unit said. It is not the factory alone which is facing a ‘crisis.’ Thousands of artisans in this region are also hit. They too are turning towards neighbouring states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala for the raw material. Those who cannot afford the expensive wood outside, have stopped manufacturing sandal wood handicrafts.Officials sources said that Tamil Nadu has cashed in on the drawbacks. “Regulation is not as stringent in Tamil Nadu. Besides, taking note of Karnataka’s diminishing sandalwood resource, the government there had taken up large-scale growing of sandalwood tree. Hence, it is reaping the benefits now,” officials pointed out. “It’s a year since we procured sandalwood. Instead we have taken to using rosewood as an alternative. Most artisans have taken the same decision,” Mohan Kumar of Handicrafts Manufacturing Association said. http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/feb202006/state1917362006219.asp

24) SALEM: A pride of Eastern ghats, Myrobalan (‘Kadukkai Maram’ in Tamil), a tall shady tree which grows to a height of over 100 feet is fast disappearing from the Eastern ghats. ‘Kadukkai’ (Myrobalan) is used as a vegetable dye in tanneries. Since tanneries have switched over to chemical dyes, market forces are altering the lives of tribesmen and that of their environment in fundamental ways. Succumbing to the globalisation wave the tribesmen living in the Eastern ghats indiscriminately fell the trees or burn them down to provide sunshine for their new choice of commercial and exotic variety of crops. In Tamil Nadu, Myrobalan trees grew by natural propagation in Vellimalai, Kalrayan Hills, Kolli Hills, Pachamalai, Javadhu Hills and Yelagiri Hills. Myrobalan seeds (Kadukkai) grown in Kalrayan Hills (Salem district) and Vellimalai (Villupuram district) were preferred by tanneries for its quality over the arrivals from North India. Kadukkai contain 62 percent Tannic acid and Chebulic acid. Nearly 75 percent of Myrobalan grown in the country is consumed in leather tanneries, while twenty percent is exported as extract. Five percent is used in Unani and Ayurveda drugs. According to statistics available with the Forest department, the density of Myrobalan trees is 12,000 trees in 6000 hectares of forest land. In the assigned lands owned by tribals and non-tribals the numbers were double but only 10 percent is left now. According to P S Manickam, secretary, Tribal Centre Karumandurai, ‘‘the people here were lured by middlemen five years back offering Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 per tree. The wood is used for making door frames and minor domestic items. But now the tribals are felling the trees more due to a change in cropping pattern.’’ The forest department also failed to book cases under the Hill Area Protection Act. The numbers are decreasing in the forest lands also. http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IET20060218015555&Topic=0&Title=Southern%20News%20-%20Tamil%2
0Nadu&Page=T

25) For many years, the villagers had to go to other places in search of work, as the only stream of the area coming out from the land of Saita Sisha had dried up. A few years back, Radha found out the cause of the stream getting dry. It was due to the absence of trees in the nearby mountains. Since then, she, along with Jhumki and Sisha, decided to protect the forest. They did not go for any plantation activities, but simply did not allow any one to cut trees from the mountains. Their efforts were recognised by the district administration and NGOs. Radha, since then attended several meetings in various places in the country. They have formed a women’s group, the members of which go into the forest on a rotation basis. The stiffness of the mountain or the fear of wild animals has never deterred them in doing their work, Radha said. The group had seized axe tools to cut trees by men from the neighbouring villages. Only one person has returned to the group to collect his axe by paying a fine of Rs 25, she added. These women have have devised laws of their own. No one is allowed to cut trees for burning them. However, small branches and dried pieces of wood could be collected from the forest, Radha informed. The success of their movement lies in the fact that everyone has obliged to their move. The men folk in the village had objected to the movement fearing dire consequences from the neighbouring villages. But the three women went from one village to another in the neighbourhood and have successfully explained the importance of protecting the forest and have also initiated many women groups, who also have began forming more groups. The village saw its glory days again when the people had sufficient food for them in the forest in the form of fruits, roots and leaves for maintaining their livelihood, Jhumki said. Back in the village, water from the spring has proved to be a boon for the villagers. Encouraged with their commitments, Pragati — an NGO — has extended financial assistance to grow vegetables in the field. Special measures have begun in the village by taking the spring water to different inaccessible places by using pumps provided by the NGO. Though they have been successful in protecting their forest, they are not confident of their right on the forest land and trees, due to the ever changing forest laws. They said that they would fight teeth and nail to oppose any move by the government to snatch away forest land from their hands. The conservator of forests at Koraput Mr SB Samant, however, ruled out any possibility to hand over the forest to any one else for purposes other than forestation. http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=9&theme=&usrsess=1&id=107137

China:

26) You could say he was wrong on cue. A sports shop owner found himself at the wrong end of the law when he imported cue sticks made of wood from a protected tree species. The owner had imported 500 sticks made of ramin worth about $5,000 from China last March. Priced at $10 each, the sticks had passed through China, Taiwan and Hong Kong before it reached Singapore. As the goods had passed uneventfully through other countries, shopowner Anil Kumar Sachdeva, 50, thought he only had to make a routine declaration to the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) for custom clearance. But Mr Bobby Lee, a senior AVA wildlife enforcement officer, said imports of ramin and ramin-made products must be declared to AVA. Said Mr Lee: ‘The moment he declared the shipment, we were alerted to the fact that the sticks were made of ramin, which is an endangered tropical species protected by Cites.’ Cites is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which Singapore signed in 1987. Ramin was put on Appendix II in January last year, which means Cites permits from both import and export countries are required for trade in the wood’s products. Previously, it was on Appendix III, which only requires a certificate from the country of origin. Said Mr Chen Hin Keong, senior forest trade adviser for Traffic, a Kuala Lumpur-based organisation monitoring wildlife trade: ‘Commercial ramin is only found in Malaysia and Indonesia. It needs protection as it’s threatened by illegal logging and illegal trade.’ AVA confiscated all the cues because the shop did not have a Cites permit for the ramin material.The sticks were sold at a public auction for $1,500. AVA holds such auctions whenever it accumulates enough such confiscated items. Mr Lee said: ‘We explained to the owner why he had to surrender the sticks. It was a case of so near, yet so far. http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,102272,00.html

Indonesia:

27) Riau: APRIL will continue to work with WWF and the Government to fight illegal logging and preserve High Conservation Value Forests, even as recent preventive actions by the company drew public protest actions and threats of attacks from illegal loggers.
KOMPAS, one of Indonesia’s leading newspapers, reported protests from the illegal loggers of 2 villages, following the closure of 24 access roads. The local community built these roads to gain entry into the Tesso Nilo National Conservation Area. APRIL, in conjunction with the local government, dug wide ditches across these access roads, to stop entry into and the transportation of logs out of the forest. The newspaper article further said that illegal loggers threatened to use force if these access roads are not re-opened. “APRIL’s anti-illegal logging activities have made an impact and we will not bow to external pressure to stop,” said Mr A.J. Devanesan, President and Chief Operating Officer of APRIL. “However, we understand that poverty is at the root of this problem so our approach to wipe out illegal logging is two-fold – prevention through our own and multi-stakeholder initiatives, and poverty alleviation through the creation of economic and social development opportunities.” APRIL applies the Mosaic Plantation Concept* to its forest concessions, which balances commercial and development needs with environmental and social values. The company plants more than 50,000 hectares of fiber plantations on degraded forest lands annually. APRIL, with offices around the world and manufacturing operations in Indonesia and China, is one of the largest producers of pulp and paper and a leading developer of fiber plantations. APRIL operates one of the world’s largest pulp mills with an annual production capacity of 2 million tonnes in Indonesia. The company is committed to protecting the natural resources in its care through sustainable management of its mills and forestry operations to benefit our stakeholders, both now and in the future. http://www.socialfunds.com/news/release.cgi/5066.html

28) Chinese funded development a ploy to access rainforest timbers, will devastate Borneo’s biodiversity and largest remaining wild orangutan population Indonesia plans to cut a 2,000 kilometer long, five kilom ter wide swathe through one of the world’s largest remaining areas of pristine rainforest to create a massive oil palm plantation. The project would destroy two million hectares of ancient rainforest in Kalimantan, traversing almost the entire border with Malaysia, and slicing through three national parks. These remote rainforests on the island of Borneo are home to countless species of rare birds, plants and mammals including the largest remaining wild orangutan population. This Chinese-funded “agricultural development” is almost certainly a thinly veiled ruse to access timber. Indonesia has huge land areas of abandoned, unproductive palm oil plantations and degraded forest areas that would be suitable for oil palm development. Palm oil plantations – which completely clear the rainforests and are biologically depauperate – are the number one enemy of orangutans. Orangutans need vast areas of interconnected forest to survive, and this ill-conceived project would speed up their extinction. Let the Indonesian President know he must cancel the Kalimantan project, and that new oil palm plantations should be built only in previously cleared and unused areas. Note your protest emails are going to nine addresses, please inform us if some start to bounce. Please take action now at
http://www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp?id=indonesia

Malaysia:

29) KUALA TERENGGANU, Bernama — . The department has wasted no time in demarcating the 63 hectares of the forest reserve where these 53 trees are growing to enable their unhindered growth and to protect them from illegal loggers. “The discovery of the Sarawak Keruing in Terengganu is evidence that the species had not become extinct in the state,” said Forestry Department Officer Mohd Radzi Cho Abdullah. He said the department had carried out two levels of research on the trees, and they were being monitored by a ranger unit of the department. “We are taking steps to ensure that the trees will not be damaged in any way by irresponsible elements so as to ensure that they continue to thrive in the Terengganu forest,” he said. He added, however, that there was no special allocation for the rehabilitation of the species, of which there were 80 varieties in the forests of South East Asia. According to him, only 65 of the 80 varieties had been found in the region so far, and 31 of them in Malaysia. The Dipterocarpus sarawakensis was first detected in Terengganu in 1959 or 1960, in the Sungai Dadong forest in Kemaman, but logging and clearing of the jungle for oil palm cultivation wiped them out from Terengganu soil, or so it was believed. The old people will tell you that ironwood and “cengal” were used a long time ago to build houses along the banks of the Terengganu River, meaning that hardwood species were also found in Terengganu and were not endemic to Sarawak as many tended to believe. History has it that Sarawak Keruing also grew in Terengganu when the Borneo land mass was one with the peninsula millions of years ago. Forestry department records indicate that Sarawak Keruing had also been detected in low and swampy land in the Parit Forest Reserve in Perak. The 53 trees left standing in the Jerangau Forest Reserve in Terengganu are located in what the forestry department refers to as Compartment 31West Terengganu District Forestry Officer Sheikh Abu Bakar Ahmad said the varieties of Sarawak Keruing found in the country included “mempelas”, “belimbing”, “gondol” and “neram”. The Sarawak Keruing takes between 60 to 80 years to mature, and the wood is suitable for the flooring and pillars of houses. http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news.php?id=181145

Philippines:

30) LUCENA CITY-A church group in northern Quezon denounced continued illegal logging in Sierra Madre and compiled video footage to support its report that poachers operate with impunity in the forests of the mountain range. “We have recent video footage showing freshly cut trees right in the bosom of Sierra Madre. The footage would belie the claim of the DENR and their illegal logging partners that what has been transported out of the forest were retrieved old logs remnants of the 2004 calamity,” said Fr. Pete Montallana, chair of Task Force Sierra Madre-Infanta. He said the video footage were taken by three Agta tribe members and a representative from the Social Action Center of the Prelature of Infanta in Sitio Baykuran, Barangay Pagsangahan, General Nakar town at the foot of the Sierra Madre. Montallana said his group would submit the video footage to an independent fact-finding body to prove that officials of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources are in cahoots with illegal loggers in the Sierra Madre. The priest, also coordinator of the Indigenous Peoples’ Apostolate in the Prelature of Infanta and director of the Tribal Center for Development, said the group was willing to lend copies of the video footage to TV stations or concerned officials. This, he said, would show that despite recent calamities, illegal logging continues in the Sierra Madre. “The sight of freshly-felled mature trees is reprehensible. It’s an ominous sign of more calamities to come if the rape of the forest would go unchecked,” Montallana said. http://news.inq7.net/regions/index.php?index=1&story_id=66523

31) GUINSAUGON, Philippines — Lt.-Col. Raul Farnacio, the highest-ranking military officer at the scene of Friday’s disaster, estimated the death toll at around 1,800 — nearly every man, woman and child who lived in Guinsaugon. “Out of a population of 1,857, we have 57 survivors and 19 bodies,” a grim Farnacio said as search efforts resumed today in a drenching rain and high winds that made the task even more miserable. “We presume that, more or less, that 1,800 are feared dead.” A wall of mud and boulders swept down from a mountainside at terrifying speed Friday, burying the eastern Philippines farming village in up to nine metres of sludge. The landslide left Guinsaugon, on Leyte island about 650 kilometres east of the capital Manila, looking like a giant patch of newly plowed land. Low clouds hung over the area after a night of sporadic rain. Rescue workers trudged slowly through the sludge, stretchers and ambulances waiting for survivors or the bodies of victims. The emergency crews were hampered by the thick, soft mud that remained unstable, along with flash-floods spawned by two weeks of downpours that dumped nearly 70 centimetres of rain. An official with a Filipino-Canadian group in Vancouver blamed the Philippines government for the landslides. “I think the recent tragedy is the culmination of government policies regarding mining and logging in those areas,” said Ted Alcuitas, spokesman for the B.C. Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines. Alcuitas said that widespread resource development has caused deforestation, which has made many areas prone to land slides. “This mudslide happened in Lyte province, which has been logged by foreign companies and their local counterparts,” said Alcuitas. Pat Vendetti, a London-based campaigner with the Greenpeace environmental action group, said illegal logging may prove to have contributed to the mudslide.”There were similar landslides at the end of 2004 and the end of 2003, both directly linked to illegal logging on land above villages, and both in the Philippines,” said Vendetti. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies blamed a combination of the weather and the type of trees prevalent in the area. “The remote coastal area of southern Leyte…is heavily forested with coconut trees,” the Red Cross said from Geneva. “They have shallow roots, which can be easily dislodged after heavy rains, causing the land to become unstable. Lerias said even before the landslide, “trees were sliding down upright with the mud.” http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=3ee0d580-a404-465c-9c9a-8e16fd119406&k=90894&p=1

32) SENATE Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. has urged environment officials to draft a “master plan” to protect and conserve denuded forest lands to prevent a repetition of calamities similar to the massive landslide that hit Southern Leyte. Pimentel said the disaster, which buried an entire village, could have been prevented if the heavily denuded adjacent mountain area had been replanted with trees at the initiative of the government. He urged the government to take advantage of financial aid for forest conservation program from foreign governments and non-government organizations involved in environmental protection. “There are many non-government organizations abroad that are willing to extend help for our forest conservation program. But they want to see the sincerity and determination of the government in enforcing such program,” he added. http://www.journal.com.ph/news.asp?pid=2&sid=1&nid=19788&month=2&day=19&year=2006

Australia:

33) MORE than 50 people united in Ballarat yesterday to protest against future logging in the Wombat State Forest. Protesters converged on the steps of the State Government Offices, on the corner of Mair and Doveton streets, before a small delegation took their concerns inside to Department of Sustainability and Environment representatives. Protest organiser David Stephens said residents wanted an undertaking from the government to “listen to the community”. “We’re going to talk to the bureaucrats and give them one last opportunity to engage in proper community consultation,” he said. “If they wish to proceed with this unacceptable industrial logging then they’ll have to meet us in the forest.” Mr Stephens said protesters recognised some forest works were necessary. “We’re happy for proper environmental works to occur, it needs to occur. The wildfire risk in our forest is horrific. There are many towns and many families at risk now because of these industrial practices that have led to an overgrown, regrowth forest,” he said. “We need to undertake genuine ecological thinning and ecological improvement of these water catchments, not driven by the dictates of the large sawlog industry.” Daylesford resident and Wombat Forest Alliance member Tibor Hegedis called on Environment Minister John Thwaites to visit the forest. “If they think that the forest is being managed sustainably, I don’t think they’ve really had a look,” he said. But Wombat Community Forest Management hydrology working group convener Loris Duclos said the forest had been given a wonderful opportunity through the Australian-first CFM trial. Ballarat East MLA Geoff Howard, who met protesters yesterday, said he had asked the minister to review the forest’s timber licenses. http://www.thecourier.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&story_id=460261&category=General%20News&m
=2&y=2006

34) Police and VicForests’ officers are at a logging blockade on the Erinunderra Plateau in East Gippsland. Protesters have built a tripod on Centre Road, blocking access to the coupe. Fiona Yorke from the Goongerah Environment Centre says the protesters are determined to stay in the coupe. “There’s 15 conservationists in the logging coupe at the moment, two people are locked onto a logging machine, another remains up a tree platform and they’re very determined to stay as long as possible and protect this area of forest,” she said. Logging contractor Gary Squires, from Snowy Harvesting and Haulage, says he is frustrated by the protests. He says two contractors had to stay in the coupe on the weekend to protect their equipment. “They’ve had to camp there overnight, it means they effectively can’t work today, the ones that camped there last night, they’re getting no pay for it, it’s just 24-hours-a-day for no productive work,” he said. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200602/s1574078.htm