070OEC’s This Week in Trees
This Week we have 33 news items from: Alaska, British Columbia, Oregon, California, Montana, Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, New York, Connecticut, Virginia, Canada, England, Ireland, Poland, Liberia, Uganda, Papua New Guinea, Japan, China, Philippines, Indonesia, Australia and World-wide.
Alaska:
1) On the days when Michelle Stone needs to find some peace and quiet, she goes looking for it 30 miles out the Juneau highway. Stone, who is physically disabled, first must find someone to drive her to the spot – one of Juneau’s most beloved trails, the Boy Scout Camp Trail. It’s worth the effort, though. The Boy Scout Camp trailhead – a public access point to Eagle Beach and wildflower-dotted meadows – has been a Juneau recreational spot for at least 70 years. What is now the trailhead was once the end of the Juneau road system. Just hundreds of feet away, a remnant of an old, Depression-era picnic shelter remains as a reminder of the historic end of the road. But if a new federal plan goes through, the trailhead of the Boy Scout Camp Trail and its immediate surroundings could be put up for sale to a private buyer. Stone said Friday she is worried about losing access to the easy walking trail. The Boy Scout Camp Trail is one of a limited number of places where Juneau residents with physical limitations – such as the disabled or small children – can take an easy walk through the woods on flat land, she said. As a disabled person living on a limited income in Juneau, “I’m really cut off already,” Stone said. “That whole area out by Eagle Beach is like a sanctuary to me.” The proposed U.S. Forest Service sale is restricted to 6 acres, but in addition to the trailhead, it includes some shoreline access at the confluence of the Herbert and Eagle rivers and timber on either side of the Boy Scout Camp Road. The 6 acres were originally deeded to the Forest Service in 1935 by Juneau homesteader C.L. Gelsinger. At the time, the spot was already a popular recreation spot at the end of the Juneau road system, said Diane Mayer, with the Southeast Alaska Land Trust. The Bush administration seeks to discontinue a previous formula for funding the rural schools and roads program with timber dollars. The 6-acre plot at the Boy Scout trailhead was selected because it is one of many “noncontiguous areas” of the national forest system that is outside the regular forest boundaries, Massey said. http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/022606/loc_20060226010.shtml
2) Except for some renovations to the admin building, the mill is mostly decaying, beaten by Ketchikan’s notorious rainfall and nearly a decade of lying idle. Drivers entering the site pass under old archways where menacing-looking scraps of metal hang from the rafters like daggers. Wind blows through busted windows of forlorn buildings that once bustled with workers. At night, after the ferry workers go home, it gets spooky. “If someone wanted to make a horror film, this is the place to do it,” said Mike Hannan, who works at the site. A night watchman who used to work for Ketchikan Pulp said when he sees wet paw-prints on the concrete floors of the buildings at night, his mind conjures up images of werewolves. “It’s sad, certainly,” said Leary at a conference table inside the Cold War-era administration building. “Almost 600 people worked at Ward Cove.” What’s happened to Ward Cove is a snapshot of Ketchikan’s recent history as the former mill town attempts to rise from the ashes. Tourism has taken off, creating seasonal jobs and bringing in some $77 million in visitor spending last summer. Ketchikan’s economic backbone broke in 1997 when the Ketchikan Pulp Co. shut down. “We lost a $54 million payroll. In one day it was gone,” said state Rep. Jim Elkins, R-Ketchikan. The mill, which chemically digested wood for products like rayon and cellophane, had operated for four decades and was the cornerstone of the economy. But it died because of logging cutbacks, lower-cost competitors, environmental lawsuits, pollution fines and other factors. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, got Congress to approve $110 million in “disaster funds” for the region, which also lost a pulp mill in Sitka in 1993. Some are happy with tourism’s growth: It brings jobs and economic opportunity. Ketchikan, dubbed the Gateway to Alaska, is the first Alaska port that cruise ships hit when they steam up the coast from Canada. “There’s a reason 60 jewelry stores exist. When you have 10,000 people arriving in a day, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to say, ‘Hey, I need to be in that business,’ ” said Coates. Ten years ago, loggers roamed the streets and filled the bars of downtown Ketchikan. These days, the Great Alaska Lumberjack Show — a seasonal performance of chopping, climbing and log rolling for tourists — has eclipsed Ketchikan’s real-life logging industry. http://www.adn.com/money/story/7482816p-7392903c.html
British Columbia:
3) A BC forest policy center for strategic analysis; a Canada-US Forestry Commission, and a world forest organization for multi-stakeholder dialogue, research and monitoring that would provide guidance to existing decentralized and fragmented multi-lateral forest-related processes. The report comes to these conclusions after documenting critical environmental, social and economic changes facing British Columbia in the global era. Forest degradation, community development, and the development of a sustainable forest sector are now so inexorably intertwined, the report finds, that it is virtually impossible to analyze one outside of the other. The analysis, which distinguishes “seat of the pants” from narrow conceptions of individual self interest, to broader community-oriented conceptions, finds that choices made by BC and Canadian actors tend to fall to the left or middle of this spectrum, with only limited efforts to find proactive, long term, win solutions. The authors call for the need to assess whether the “ratcheting up” of environmental standards is occurring, and the processes that encourage or discourage it. Importantly, the authors also find that in many policy areas, more concerted, proactive, and long term solutions need to be undertaken if global challenges are to be fundamentally addressed.
Oregon:
4) BOARDMAN— The rows on rows of poplars sprouting next to Interstate 84 are helping to revive the wood products industry in the high desert. Potlach Corp. has planted 17,000 acres of the fast-growing trees to supply an $8.1 million sawmill to be built in the middle of the plantation. The company says it will employ about 55 people when it starts up in December, and turn out about 6,000 log trucks worth of molding, millwork and other lumber each year. The company began planting the poplars in 1993, planning to grow each tree for six years before turning it into chips for paper mills. Potlach shifted its strategy in 1999. It began raising the trees to mill into lumber, which requires bigger logs. The trees now grow for 11 years until they measure about 12 to 14 inches in diameter at chest height and 70 to 80 feet tall, Sullivan said. Workers prune the trees’ branches so the wood boasts clear grain, without knots. Water from the Columbia River flows to the trees through a computerized drip irrigation system that conserves water and delivers fertilizer at the same time. The first trees grown on a full 11-year cycle will be cut this year, Sullivan said. Potlatch until now has shipped logs to a mill near Pendleton. The plantation also attracts deer, elk and an occasional cougar from the arid land surrounding it. The Oregon Economic & Community Development Department will ask Gov. Ted Kulongoski to provide $150,000 toward the project, said Jill Miles, a business development officer with the department in La Grande. It would be in the form of a “forgivable loan” the company would not have to repay as long as it delivers on the project and the jobs that come with it. http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-14/114098935113680.xml&storylist=orlocal
5) Donato’s nationally recognized research suggested that commercial logging sets back recovery of forests in the first years after wildfires by crushing seedlings that grow naturally in the wake of fires and by creating tinder that invites future conflagrations. Those findings are at odds with the official line of the Northwest timber industry and its supporters, including Reps. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Brian Baird, D-Wash., who used the hearing to launch what bordered on a star chamber attack on the 29-year-old student’s integrity as much as his research. That Walden and Baird are pushing a bill to expedite post-fire logging by easing environmental laws may be, of course, sheer coincidence. Irony abounds. Although Donato’s findings are far from the last word on logging charred forests, they were peer-reviewed and published by the editors of Science magazine, one of the nation’s premier scientific journals. On the other hand, the spiritual sire of the Walden-Baird bill is a 2002 report by John Sessions, a professor at the OSU School of Forestry. Sessions’ report contended that up to 2.5 billion board feet of timber could be commercially harvested in the area of the 2002 Biscuit fire in Southwestern Oregon — in contrast to a 278 million board-foot cut that same year in Oregon and Washington combined — with salutary effects on the Siskiyou National Forest. The Bush administration seized on those findings to propose one of the largest timber cuts in history. The record shows that Sessions’ academic specialty is road engineering, that he was hired by the board of county commissions of timber-dependent Douglas County, that his team did not include one forest conservation biologist, that his work was not subjected to peer review and that he tried to quash the Donato article before Science magazine printed it. “It is unfortunate when people prematurely draw policy implications from single studies before the scientific process has finished its job,” wrote Hal Salwasser, the dean of OSU’s School of Forestry. “Part of scientific integrity is making sure you don’t make generalizations beyond the limitations of your data,” intoned Baird. Well, yes. But remarkably, the comments of Salwasser and Baird were not directed at the Sessions report, which wasn’t peer-reviewed, but at the Donato report, which was. Last week a lot of folks came to Medford not to praise Donato, but to hang him. And John Sessions? No noose for him. In fact, the congressmen didn’t call on him to defend his research or his censorship efforts. But that may have been sheer coincidence, too. –Les AuCoin http://www.oregonlive.com/commentary/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1141086357203870.xml&coll=7
California:
6) The Central Valley city of Manteca is planning a 200-acre “urban forest” for land that cannot be built on because it could be flooded from the San Joaquin River. The trees would be irrigated by treated water from the city’s sewage plant, once a $48 million expansion and upgrading of the facility is completed. Funding for the future forest remains elusive. Manteca Mayor Willie Weatherford says the city could use builder fees and federal funds. City officials say the treated waste water will be cleaner than the water in the nearby San Joaquin River. http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=1433
Montana:
7) As he drove past, his headlights picked up a young woman kneeling beside the driver’s side front tire. He saw that she had a flat and was struggling to remove the wheel’s lug nuts. Thomas said she was trying to twist them the wrong way. He hit the brakes and threw his truck in reverse, parking on the shoulder 50 feet behind the Volkswagen. He climbed out of his truck and cautiously identified himself to the woman, looking around as he did so. Thomas had heard of assaults in situations like this one where a group of men waited to rob whoever pulled over to aid the woman with a flat tire. But this woman appeared genuinely distressed, and grateful for Thomas’s help. As he knelt to remove the lug nuts he explained how Volkswagens were odd; the nuts unscrewed in the opposite direction of American cars. He had just gotten the final lug nut off when the woman paced back toward the direction of his truck and started shouting. “Cease and desist!” Thomas remembers the woman yelling. She had wandered close enough to his truck to see the logo for Champion International, one of the largest timber companies in Montana at the time. Thomas backed away from the car as the woman continued to hurl insults at him like “tree-killer” and worse. Without another word he climbed back in his truck, pulled out, and continued on toward Libby. At the time, Thomas was unsurprised by the woman’s reaction. It was fairly typical when people discovered his line of work. The incident with the woman paled next to some of the other experiences he had throughout the 1980s. Someone had once defecated in the cab of his truck. At the time, the spite for loggers in western Montana was a relatively new development, corresponding with the rise of the environmental movement and the beginning of a decline in the supply of extractive resources in the West. In the 1960’s, if you walked into a bar in Missoula and said you hucked logs, they’d seat you at the head of the table, Thomas said. By the late 1980s however, if you revealed yourself to be a logger, you were liable to get thrown out of the same place. On this morning, Thomas is working on a thinning project in Pattee Canyon. With the sun rising, and six inches of fresh snow on the ground, it is a pretty spectacular workplace. The work here is done for the season, and Thomas was supposed to have cleared out the day before. All that’s left to do is move the Overhead Stroke Delimber from one end of the recreation area to the other to load it onto a truck and get it out. An Overhead Stroke Delimber is a machine that picks up a felled tree, strips its branches off, cuts the log to a desired length and stacks them. With the snow, it would be easier to load the delimber onto a truck and drive it out Pattee Canyon Drive than move it to the back end of the recreation area, where the transport truck has to travel up longer, steeper Deer Creek Road. But as part of the Forest Service contract, Thomas must use Deer Creek Road, so as not to disturb any of the homeowners along Pattee Canyon Drive. Driving his truck along a rolling access road, Thomas notices the tracks of a cross-country skier, and those of a dog, running alongside. “Doggone it,” he said of the ruts and mounds in the snow his truck was leaving. “Someone’s already been up here skiing and they’re not going to like this.” http://www.newwest.net/index.php/topic/article/6544/C38/L38
Colorado:
8) FORT COLLINS — Colorado’s ubiquitous aspen trees are an average of 120 years old and may be threatened by fire suppression and hungry elk and cattle, a state forest service report says. Last year aerial surveys last year found thousands of acres of potential aspen die-offs in Colorado’s prime aspen viewing and harvesting areas on the Western Slope. ‘‘That’s the first time massive die-offs have been reported in Colorado,’’ said Wayne Shepperd, a research silviculturist for the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins. In some areas, conifers are replacing aspen, and elk and cattle are eating young aspen suckers. He said it remains unclear how serious the problem is. It could be a cyclical event as old aspens die. It also is possible that entire root systems are dying. ‘‘This might be that. I certainly hope not,’’ said Shepperd. Aspen trees are among the first to grow after fire or other disturbances, including logging and blow downs, according to the report. Eliminating these disturbances could eradicate aspen stands, the report said. http://www.aspendailynews.com/article_13059
Illinois:
9) In spring, puffs of white dapple the greening river bluffs in East Peoria as black locust trees blossom. In fall, silver maples blaze a rich orange across miles of the steep landscape. And beneath those trees, the bluffs are dying. While they won’t disappear anytime soon into the Illinois River that, once more powerful than the Mississippi, carved them out after the last ice age, they’re eroding “at a very high rate,” said Wayne Ingram, a consulting engineer advising the city on the issue. “I sure wouldn’t build (a house) near a bluff” either along the river or elsewhere in this city of deep ravines, said Tom Lerczak, natural areas preservation specialist with the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission.It’s an ironic problem for the city that’s received 13 consecutive annual awards from the National Arbor Day Foundation for promoting and preserving the beauty of its trees. It has too many of them – too many native to this area that are now growing in the wrong places, and too many of an “undesirable” species imported here with good intentions at the time that have since spread like, well, locusts. Thousands of trees now grow on the river bluffs from the McClugage Bridge five miles south to Cole Street where, before Europeans arrived 200 years ago, perhaps a few hundred grew. And there wasn’t a black locust or, most likely, a silver maple among them, Lerczak said. Beneath isolated canopies of oak, ash, hickory and other hardwood trees, prairie grasses anchored the bluffs in an “open forest” or “savannah” ecology, he said. Occasional fires, ignited by lightning or by American Indians to clear brush for better hunting, kept silver maples, cottonwoods and other softwood trees from invading beyond their natural settings in moist ravine bottoms, he said. The black locust, native to the southern Appalachian Mountains, arrived courtesy of the Illinois Department of Transportation, which used the fast-growing ing, shallow-rooted species to cover slopes left barren by road projects, including Interstate 74 five decades ago. People who settled this community – first called Little Detroit in 1833, then Coleville, Fondulac and Bluetown before its incorporation as East Peoria in 1889 – built homes atop and along the bluffs, and in the process snuffed out fire’s growth controls. Silver maples rose from bottomlands and now strangle the very soil they grow in. http://www.pjstar.com/stories/022606/TRI_B93FGTR6.045.shtml
Ohio:
10) Strimple Avenue residents were puzzled one day to see tiny flags on their front lawns. But they soon knew why: Marathon Oil wants to cut trees and bushes growing above its pipeline on the north side of the street. It’s a scene that is being repeated throughout several North Side neighborhoods. Marathon says it’s about homeland security, though there is no federal rule that requires the company to cut the trees. Marathon plans to clear all vegetation taller than 3 feet in a 50-footwide path above the underground pipeline so it can survey the line from the air. There is a 30-foot zone now. “Sept. 11 heightened our awareness,” said Chris Fox, a Marathon spokeswoman. “We don’t make money doing this. It costs us millions of dollars.” Marathon Oil plans to remove trees along all 5,500 miles of its pipeline through 13 states. The company has finished clearing about 87 miles of the 100-mile pipeline stretching from Heath through Columbus to Dayton. Marathon says it’s about homeland security, though there is no federal rule that requires the company to cut the trees. Marathon plans to clear all vegetation taller than 3 feet in a 50-footwide path above the underground pipeline so it can survey the line from the air. There is a 30-foot zone now. Strimple Avenue dead-ends on the west side of I-71 across the freeway from Woodward Park. Columbus officials are fighting the idea of clearing a 50-foot path through the park and its nature preserve. Last week, crews sliced through Blendon Woods Metro Park, off Rt. 161 near I-270. Metro Parks Director John O’Meara said it looks like the park has “a big gouge” taken out of it. Trees estimated to be 100 years old are coming down. The cleared pipeline path runs through the nature center and by picnic areas. “The reality is they had an easement that said they could do this,” O’Meara said. Grasses and wildflowers will replace the trees, but, O’Meara said, “it won’t be the same.” The pipeline passes through these Northland subdivisions: Woodward Park, Forest Park East, Minerva Park Place, Waltham Place, Western Creek, the Ravines at Strawberry Farms, Strawberry Glade, Strawberry Farms, Woodstream West, Woodstream East, Gould Park, Cherry Park and Albany Park. Paul said the pain might be uniquely felt in his subdivision. The pipeline affects 132 property owners in Forest Park East. “There are very mature trees that do sit in the right of way and are likely to have to go,” Paul said. Meanwhile, Strimple Avenue residents vow they won’t let their trees fall without a fight. “That they can come in and take away the rights of the people without negotiating is wrong,” said Tina Krempasky, a Strimple Avenue resident. http://www.columbusdispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/02/26/20060226-C1-01.html
New York:
11) The people of Erie County own about 3,500 acres of excellent 80-to-100-year-old-forest. Our Forestry Department has taken County Executive Joel Giambra in with the mistaken argument that those hilly, wooded acres of ours are more valuable as a cash timber crop than for soil conservation, animal habitat and recreation. Criticizing reasoning like that is consistent with the Feb. 16 News editorial criticizing the county’s addiction to one-shot, quick-fix money, $848 million of it since 1999. But cut down a forest and you don’t just have debt. You have lost all the benefits that forest provided. Its water purification and flood control, its animal and plant habitat, its hiking trails won’t be back for another hundred years. These forested hills, green in summer, white in winter, are a major Erie County asset. They are an essential part of what draws people to live here. The other day I hiked through the forest shambles where The News photographed Giambra behind a team of horses. Instead of the sustainable forestry that was advertised, I found stumps; virtually every hardwood tree over 20 inches in diameter has been cut down. The forest floor is churned to mud where horses dragged tree trunks, sometimes directly across small streams, pouring silt into Buffalo Creek. Two hundred saw-logs line the expensive new gravel road like so many coffins. Earth Spirit, an organization that occupies quarters in our forest, and a commercial logger will share 32 percent of whatever cash comes in. An estimated $50,000 of our FEMA money went to build the gravel road. The salaries of our forester and our county executive, hired to protect our forest, should be figured into this deal, too. There won’t be a whole lot of cash coming to us for our sacrifice. In the spring of 2004 the Parks Department called a public meeting to introduce its logging plan to the citizens of Erie County. We reviewed it carefully. I personally sent it to four experts in forest ecology. They all agreed that it was a timber extraction plan with very little regard for sustainability, despite its claims of environmental sensitivity. Four organizations banded together to ask that it be revised – the Audubon Society, Foothills Trail Club, Adirondack Mountain Club and Sierra Club. We made our concerns known and were told that the plan would be revised and that we would have a chance to review it before they started chopping. That never happened. The next thing we heard was that all the sugar maple in our county forest at Route 16 and South Protection Road was on the ground ready for sale. There was no prior public announcement and no opportunity for public input. http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060227/1036772.asp
Connecticut:
12) Ensconced in river valleys and dotting hillsides in western Connecticut are about half a dozen groves of big trees. Their value is neither in the commercial market for wide, knot-free boards nor in their old-growth ecological characteristics; they are too small and isolated to be significantly useful for these purposes. Rather, their worth lies in their ability to capture our imagination and stir curiosity about Connecticut’s forests. Such incalculable benefits cannot be measured even in units as large as centuries. The last truly ancient stand of big trees was in Colebrook and fell to lumbermen in 1912. Connecticut’s oldest trees are likely found in inaccessible places along the trap-rock ridges that stretch from New Haven’s West Rock to the Barndoor Hills of Simsbury and Granby. In these high, wind-bitten places are stands of oak, hickory and ash that may exceed two centuries in age. But rather than grand magisterial groves, these are pockets of shrunken, wizened trees typically 6 to 8 inches in diameter and no more than 30 to 40 feet tall. They are tenacious, surviving extreme temperatures, drought, thin soils and the wind that shapes some of them into forms that are the envy of any bonsai aficionado. Tucked behind the West Cornwall firehouse on Route 128 are a few magical acres that contain Connecticut’s best stand of large second-growth trees, some of which may be almost two centuries old. This grove of sylvan giants – known as Gold’s Pines – has the state’s tallest tree. Rising almost 145 feet, it is 32 inches in diameter at breast height. Even more impressive is a massive 43-inch-diameter pine more than 134 feet tall. Although the area was probably timbered around 1740, it likely grew trees again by 1820, a time when many small, infertile patches of farmland similarly situated were being abandoned in favor of rich Western acres. Since 1883, they had been protected from logging by the Calhoun family, who donated the site to The Nature Conservancy in 1967, perhaps Connecticut’s longest legacy of purposeful land conservation. From among the columnar trunks of the few towering giants that remain, you can peer through to the devastated hillside where several misshapen trees and weathered trunks stand sentinel over a hodgepodge of massive fallen logs and branches now woven with a tangle of sun-loving honeysuckle and raspberry. Young hardwoods, taking advantage of the light available in the wake of the fallen pines, are growing rapidly. Cherry, oak, birch, ash and maple will dominate this site, growing on the rich organic layer left by the pines. http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/commentary/hc-plcleff0226.artfeb26,0,7049429.story?coll=hc-headlines-co
mmentary
Virginia:
13) Forest Hill Park on Forest Hill Avenue in Richmond—“We came here to plant a few trees and make the place look better,” he said. The volunteers split into groups and scattered along a ravine to plant sycamores, oaks, dogwoods, maples, crepe myrtles, poplars, birches and other trees. Pugh said he and his friend Craig Foster, who had his daughter Riley, 3, with him, live in Henrico County, but they often come to the park. “We ride these trails on our bikes a lot,” Pugh said. “We want to do what we can to bring it back. It’s been neglected for so long that it’s good to see something is being done about it.” Asked if he enjoyed the outdoor activity, Alexander said, “Yeah. I’m hungry,” and walked toward his father. “Yeah, me, too,” Riley said. http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid
=1137834362261&path=!news&s=1045855934842
Canada:
14) Join us on March 23 for the National Day of Action targeting Office Max OfficeMax has failed to meet our challenge to clean up its act and transform its environmental leadership. Every day thousands of acres of Endangered Forests from the Boreal and Southern forests are sold at OfficeMax stores around the world. It is time for the company to change its purchasing practices and protect Endangered Forests. In response to OfficeMax’s destruction of Endangered Forests, ForestEthics and Dogwood Alliance are spearheading a National Day of Action. People like you will be organizing and holding simultaneous events in protest of Office Max at their stores across the country. Mark your calendars and organize an event at your local OfficeMax on March 23, 2006. To get involved with the day of action, add your action to the list, and get fact sheets, postcards, or other materials for your event. Or send an email to Perrin de Jong of ForestEthics at perrin@forestethics.org or Eva Hernandez, Dogwood Alliance at eva@dogwoodalliance.org. And if you know of friends, family members, or organizations who would be interested in making a stand against OfficeMax on March 23rd, please forward this email to them. The greater our presence, the faster OfficeMax cleans up its act. We are calling on OfficeMax to: 1) Stop purchasing paper from Endangered Forests, including Endangered Forests of the Southern U.S. and Canadian Boreal. 2) Achieve a 30% average in post-consumer recycled content for all paper grades that OfficeMax sells. 3) Reduce demand for virgin fiber by phasing out all sales of 100% virgin paper and reduce paper use in its internal operations. 4) Stop sourcing paper from suppliers that convert natural forests to industrial pine plantations. http://www.forestethics.org/officesupplies
15) He learned industrial realities in 14 years as a heavy equipment operator before he turned professional artist in 1990. He worked on oilfield well sites and construction projects from northern Alberta to Antarctica, disrupting natural features from forests to penguin colonies. “I’ve cut down thousands of trees with bulldozers,” he confessed, adding, “It never felt right, that abuse of the land. “I realized it was not sustainable. Now I paint.” As an income source “it’s not nearly what cat-skinning (Caterpillar equipment operating) was, but it’s not something I would ever trade back. There’s no way I’m going back.” To fortify his changed livelihood on his family legacy, he has copyrighted his spread as a work of art. The action mimics strong legal foundations of pharmaceutical, computer software and publishing corporations, he pointed out. Around his home and studio, his property is studded with artwork such as a 33-metre-long ship sculpted with willow stalks, winter ice forms, nest-like structures in trees, statuesque towers and a “lifeline” or visual autobiography composed as a white picket fence built in annual sections left to weather naturally. His legal move vastly increased the amount of compensation he is potentially entitled to demand from any oil or pipeline company wanting access to his place, because changing his property would be copyright infringement. “Now instead of maybe $200 a year for crop losses, we’d have to be paid for maybe $600,000 or more in artistic property disturbance.” Lawsuits have been threatened several times,. But no oil and gas companies have risked a winner-take-all court case that would attract public attention and start other landowners thinking. Making the copyright claim stick has been a moral boost for the artist and his family. “It gave us the confidence to say this is as legitimate an undertaking as the industry. “We can empower ourselves. We can defend ourselves. We’re running a business.” Von Tiesenhausen emphasizes his message in the language of corporations — money. Taking a page from the books of business consultants, he demands $500 an hour from companies that want to take up his time talking to him about his land. “I demand $500 an hour. They pay. It keeps the meetings really short and they don’t do it nearly as often as they used to,” the artist said. “I meet presidents of oil companies. I show them I’m a guy trying to make a go of something that’s honest and valid. It’s what they understand.” http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/business/story.html?id=a271ed7f-d512-4a26-9b32-226ba7bfb1ea&k=3
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England:
16) Non-native trees are being felled to save a wood that is at least 500 years old. The woodland, off Barringer Road in Mansfield, appears on maps from the 16th Century, but is likely to be much older – and was probably part of the original Sherwood Forest. It includes six very rare Wild Service trees, of which there are fewer than a hundred in Notts. But its future is in danger because non-native sycamore and maple trees planted more recently are overshadowing and even leaning on some of the native trees. Mansfield District Council is felling 35 sycamores and maples as part of an operation to secure the future of the woodland. It plans to replace each of them with native oak trees at the earliest opportunity. And more native oak and birch will be planted in the next few years to ensure there will be a greater number of trees in the woods than before the felling. Felling of trees has taken place in Notts before to allow native species such as oak and ash to spread. But the Wild Service tree is a particular concern because it is found in so few areas. It does not germinate easily and grows very slowly. The ancient woodland forms part of the Maun Valley Local Nature Reserve, one of nine designated in the past couple of years by the district council to protect local wildlife sites and encourage more public involvement in conservation initiatives. Coun Eddie Smith, portfolio holder for the environment at the council, said: “It sounds odd to be felling healthy trees in the name of conservation, but unless we carried out this work there is a good chance that trees in the ancient woodland would have been lost. http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=134487&command=displayContent&sourceNode=134482&c
ontentPK=14094327&folderPk=78489
Ireland:
17) IRELAND’S forestry programme has been condemned by European commission officials. The commission is threatening legal proceedings against the government for failing to comply with environmental directives. “If you look across Europe the type of forestry you find in Ireland is virtually unknown,” the senior commission official said. “The Irish forestry policy is probably the most controversial in the community.” Problems identified by the commission include inadequate environmental impact assessments (EIA) of newly afforested lands, “industrial” style single species forestry plantations that harm biodiversity and inadequate protection of landscapes. One serious bone of contention between the commission and Ireland is the type of wood being planted. “The idea of using non-indigenous species to make up the bulk of the forestry estate is simply not a feature of other forestry policies,” said the official. The Forest Service in the department of marine and natural resources has monitored plantations grown by the state-owned Coillte and private landowners. It found that almost 90% of Irish woodlands are fast-growing, non-native, conifer plantations, mostly sitka spruce, which produce poor quality wood used for pulp and for woodchips. The department of agriculture admitted that warning letters had been received from the commission. A statement issued on behalf of the Forest Service said: “Forestry and biodiversity guidelines must be followed as part of all approvals for afforestation, and other grant-aided projects as well as for felling licences. “This includes the need to take the biodiversity values of a site into consideration before work commences.” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-2059168,00.html
Poland:
18) The Bialowieza Forest still exists because Polish and Lithuanian royalty used it for hunting from the 14th century. When, in the 19th century, the land became part of Russia, the tsar reserved it for the same purpose. Today the heart of the tourist park next to the forest is located on the site where the tsar’s palace stood until World War II, when the Nazis destroyed it. I first went to Bialowieza Forest a few years ago. I remember that I was sent to an office in a hotel to find out how to visit the most protected area of the forest. The man there presented me with the following problem. Almost all of the national park is a controlled area and nobody is allowed to visit it without a guide. If a tour group arrived, I could pay a small amount of money to join it. Otherwise, I had to pay a large fee to have my own guide. “Is it likely there’ll be a group?” I asked. “There may be, there may not be.” “But what’s the chance?” “Impossible to say. If a group turns up, that means there is a group, and you can go. Otherwise …” He looked at me and smiled. “There is one other person waiting.” The other person was sitting on the hotel’s front step. Clean-cut and spectacled, he was a Norwegian student. He had some impressive-looking camera equipment – his passion was wildlife photography. In his homeland, he’d taken more than 3000 photographs of wild moose. His last holiday was to North America, where he’d photographed a hundred or so grizzly bears. The Norwegian nature photographer was unable to understand the forest bureaucrat. The photographer believed that all tourists had an inalienable right to good service. According to the Bialowieza website (www.bpn.com.pl), the park contains about 10,999 other species of animal, including elk, stag, roe deer, wild boar, lynx, wolves, foxes, martens, badgers, otters, ermines, beavers and bats. A small, wild Polish horse known as the tarpan became extinct towards the end of the 18th century, when its last numbers were crossbred with domestic horses. Animals that closely resemble the tarpan have been bred back into existence, and a few of them have been let loose in the forest. Apart from that, the park has more than 100 species of birds and birdwatchers from all over the world congregate here. In terms of vegetation, the forest contains maple and oak trees up to 400 years old, and more than 1200 species of plant life. We decided to hire bikes, and he latched a tripod to the back of his. Using a map to navigate, we rode to the park’s log gate. A jeep pulled up and a guard stuck his face out the window to glare at us. Afraid to enter the park, we decided to explore other parts of the forest, of which the protected park actually constitutes about a tenth. The forest bureaucrat had told us that the other nine-tenths appeared more or less the same, perhaps slightly less well preserved. We rode for kilometres out of Bialowieza village along a main road. The forest surrounded us on both sides. We turned onto a dirt track, then another. The forest began to weave its spell on me: it had a fabled atmosphere, perfect for setting a fairytale. http://smh.com.au/news/europe/an-enchanted-forest/2006/02/22/1140284098138.html
Liberia:
19) Liberia has about 43,000 square miles landscape, about 15 per cent, or 560 kilometers of the land is covered by wetland along its coastal range which is yet to be developed. Emmanuel Garsaynee is married with seven children and relies on wood and rafters selling to survive, as he admitted another aspect of the trade, saying that there are hired children who are involved into the process in the name of survival. He was not deterred from the harm caused the environment in falling the trees at will and without specification. He said trees falling is carried on all over the country, in various countries like Bassa, Nimba, Cape Mount, and Bong including Lofa and in Margibi, for more then 20 years without replanting. “I feel that trees falling can not cause problem to the environment, because the trees normally grow within two years after all”. In the wake of the 14-year-old-war and in the most recent past, Liberia’s forest served as the only dependable hide out for protection, shelter and the source of food for devastating families fleeing from factional warmongers. Warlords over the period forcefully exploited the forest for timbers, including other natural resources, such as gold and diamond in support of the war a factor been responsible as well for the lost of the forest on a larger scale. While most ordinary citizens depended and still are depending on the forest for re-constructions as a source of income in rebuilding their shackled lives in recent past, to decision to cancel all concession agreements will be a big blow to their survival. An executive order issued by the office of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has thereby ordered, “all forest concessions in the Republic of Liberia have been cancelled and are with immediate effect considered null and void abinitio”. Meanwhile, under this law the President has established a Forestry Reform Monitoring Committee, led by the FDA and to be assisted by the participation of the Liberia Forest Initiative (LFI). This LFI is to be composed of Liberian and international representatives and international and local civic society groups. Under the Charles Taylor administration, more then 26 million acres of land were granted for concession agreements, far above the 12 million of forest was considered a personal issue between Charles Taylor and his untouchable-investors.Under such period, concessionaires owed Liberian government more than $64 million of which 14 per cent of forest revenue was being collected. http://thevisiononline.net/?p=186
Uganda:
20) UGANDA is headed for a devastating shortage of wood by 2010 if the current rate of consumption is not regulated. By 2010, the consumption of wood in the country is estimated to hit 100 million tonnes, likely to plunge the country into serious shortages, an expert warns. Mr Robert A. Esimu, the Range Manager of Budongo System, said the country has less than 2,500 hectares of mature timber plantations and if the current rate of deforestation goes un-checked, the country is likely to face a wood shortage as demand for forest products increases due to economic and rapid population growth. Budongo system comprises forests in six districts including Masindi, Luwero and Kibaale. “As we all know, the country is facing a terrible campaign of cutting down trees and the rate at which it is being done exceeds that of planting new ones,” he said. He added: “Considering the increasing industrial wood needs and the electricity shortage in the country, we are now worried that the country might face timber deficit in four years to come.” He, particularly, points out that the demand for charcoal, saw logs and poles is expected to shoot up more than the demand for firewood, due to increased urbanisation. http://www.monitor.co.ug/bizfin/bf02282.php
Papua New Guinea:
21) The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior II docks in Port Moresby today for the launch of a campaign promoting small-scale bush milling in Papua New Guinea instead of large-scale destructive logging. The initiative was part of a campaign to preserve the Asia-Pacific’s remaining ancient “Paradise” rainforests stretching from South-East Asia across Indonesia to PNG and the Solomon Islands, Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s chief executive, Steve Shallhorn, said. The project would help PNG forest landowners mark out tribal boundaries as a protection against foreign timber companies and their destructive logging practices, he said. PNG’s Kuni tribe on the Murray Lakes between the Fly and Strickland rivers in PNG’s Western Province has invited Greenpeace to set up a “global forest rescue station” on their land. Greenpeace volunteers and eco-forestry trainers will work alongside three Lake Murray tribes to establish their tribal rights over about 300,000 hectares by identifying, marking out and mapping their boundaries to deter illegal logging, Mr Shallhorn said in a statement. In 2003, Greenpeace and other environmental groups helped Murray Lakes landowners halt illegal logging in the area by the Malaysian logging company Concord Pacific. “We want to say no to loggers who come in and destroy everything,” Mr Galeva said. Mr Shallhorn said the Paradise Forests were being logged faster than any in the world. Fewer than 1 per cent had any form of protection with more than a quarter of a million hectares of primary forest destroyed by logging companies each year in PNG alone, he said. “Unless action like this is taken worldwide, vast numbers of species of plants and animals will become extinct, rainfall patterns will be disrupted and the global climate will change even faster than it is now. “The Australian Government must ban the importation of illegal and destructively-logged timber and support the efforts by countries that produce timber to combat corruption and strengthen law enforcement institutions,” Mr Shallhorn said. After its Port Moresby visit, the Rainbow Warrior will sail on a “forest crime patrol” to draw attention to ongoing illegal logging across the region and promote sustainable forestry. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18298043-23109,00.html
22) Working conditions were described as “modern-day slavery,” while forests were effectively being “logged out,” the international non-profit organization said in its report “Logging, Legality and Livelihoods in Papua New Guinea”. The report summarizes findings from five independent reviews of the timber harvesting industry conducted since 2000 for the PNG government and the World Bank. The government of the half-island state off the northern tip of Australia received 30 million dollars in cash revenues from logging annually and official inspections at export only ensured export taxes were paid, the report said. “Thus, official export documentation merely launders the unlawful timber into legitimately-produced exports accepted by governments and retailers worldwide,” it said. PNG’s forest industry is mainly focused on harvesting natural forest areas for round log exports, with little plantation production and a limited number of processing facilities. “The sector is dominated by Malaysian-owned interests and the primary markets for raw logs are in China, Japan and Korea,” the report said. “Many of the logs are processed in China for consumption in Europe and North America.” Corruption was an underlying theme in the independent reviews, it said. The report was released on the day environmental group Greenpeace launched an initiative to establish a “global forest rescue station” in a remote part of PNG to support tribal rights against the logging industry. Greenpeace volunteers from around the world would live and work alongside local landowners and eco-forestry trainers at the station at Lake Murray in Western Province, the group said in a statement. They would help three Lake Murray tribes establish their rights over approximately 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres) of tribal territories by identifying, marking out and mapping their boundaries. “We want to say no to loggers who come in and destroy everything,” Kuni clan leader Sep Galeva was quoted as saying. “We want to do small scale logging by the landowners in a way that is sustainable and environment friendly.” Less than one percent of forests in Papua New Guinea had any form of protection and more than a quarter of a million hectares of primary forest were lost each year, Greenpeace said. –Agence France- http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2006/02/papua_new_guinea_rainforest_il.asp
23) A new report makes the not so new or startling observation that Papua New Guinea’s rainforests are being ravaged in an orgy of illegal and corrupt industrial logging carried out by criminal Malaysian timber cartels. There have been dozens of similar reports over the last nearly 20 years that have made identical observations and are now gathering dust. The problem has not been lack of awareness, but rather a lack of vision and initiative to do something about it. Forests.org has long contended sprawling industrial logging must be shut down and PNG’s entire forest sector transitioned to small scale community based ecoforestry. In my opinion the timber boom is so advanced – with the government bought and environmental community pursuing token, inadequate policies – that Papua New Guinea’s rainforests are unlikely to survive in an intact, unfragmented condition. Barring a revolution in thinking and possibly an armed insurrection to stop the industrial criminal pillaging, this ancient rainforest wilderness will surely soon be lost. Trangu, bikpela bagarap kamap long ples na bihaintaim bilong ol pikinini. Sari tumas, stil man pinisim wok pinis, bus igo pinis, na em bai had long karim kaikai. Bai ol asples pait o dai?
g.b. http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2006/02/papua_new_guinea_rainforest_il.asp
Japan:
24) “I believe my company has contributed to Japan’s natural environment by preserving forests for more than 300 years since the [company’s] founders started the forestry business,” Yano said. “Forests not only act as carbon dioxide sinks, but also play an important role in preserving mountains, controlling floods and maintaining the ecosystem,” he said. “Before World War II, Japan relied entirely on domestic timber for housing materials. But in the the rapid economic growth [since the war], imports of timber from North America and Southeast Asia rapidly increased,” Yano said. “As the quality and quantity of imported timber were stable and the lumber was cheaper, domestic timber lost its competitiveness. Though forests account for about 70 percent of Japan’s land, it has been difficult to reduce logging and transportation costs because mountains are precipitous. Sluggish sales of domestic timber are damaging forests.” However, some factors have favored domestic timber in recent years, he said. Shipments of imported timber are more expensive because of soaring crude oil prices, and there has been a rapid increase in demand for timber by China and India. “Sumitomo Forestry believes utilization of domestic timber is our mission,” Yano said. http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/20060227TDY08001.htm
China
25) TORONTO, Feb. 27 /CNW/ – Cathay Forest Products Corp. (“Cathay” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement with the Nantong Forest Bureau to establish poplar plantations throughout the Nantong region. Under the agreement with the Forest Bureau, Cathay has commenced planting in Rugao, a county similar to Tongzhou covered by the Nantong jurisdiction. The terms of the agreement provide for cash-free use of the land in return for profit sharing of the harvested wood with the local farmers.
Through its subsidiary, Jiangsu Cathay Forest Company Limited, Cathay will bear the costs of planting, maintenance and harvesting of the fast-growth poplars in return for use of the land for a 25-year term. The contract also provides for a 50% profit share agreement with the local farmers, whose land will be used for the plantations. This structure allows the company to increase the amount of plantation acreage in its property portfolio while minimizing the cash commitment. Nantong is in the watershed area of the Yangtze River along China’s eastern coastline, as such it is criss-crossed with hundreds of kilometres of natural and manmade waterways. It is one of the important coastal cities opening its markets to the outside world, governing more than 8,000 square kilometres and making up one twelfth of the area of Jiangsu Province. There are 6 counties and 146 townships in Nantong with a population of almost 8,000,000. Cathay is building a world-class forest management company through two key activities; the acquisition of standing timber properties in China; and planting and harvesting fast-growth trees in the Yangtze River delta region of eastern China. Cathay expects to begin harvesting and supplying fibre from its plantations to local pulp and paper mills beginning in the fall of 2006. http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/February2006/27/c1760.html
26) During the 2001-2005 period, China planted more than 12 billion, or about 32 million hectares of, trees, raising the forest coverage rate to the current 18.21 percent from 16.55 percent. The SFA also announced China posts two-digit growth in total forestry output value every year from 2001 to 2005, reaching more than 700 billion yuan (about 87.0 billion US dollars) in 2005. Meanwhile, China’s desert area has shrunk by an average 1,283 square kilometers annually in recent years, which marked a reverse for the first time in the period since 1949 when China has reported continuous expansion in desert areas. China witnessed its desert area expanding by an average of 3,436 square kilometers annually till the end of last century, according to SFA. http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/811/2006/02/27/189@55586.htm
27) BEIJING– China will be able to stand on its own feet to meet domestic demand for timber, the State Forestry Administration (SFA) said here Monday. Cao Qingyao, an SFA spokesman, said the Chinese government has been striving to meet domestic demand for timber and logs through fostering fast-growing and high-yield economic forests. He acknowledged that China is working to expand the timber production base to some 13.3 million hectares by 2015, producing at least 200 million cubic meters of logs, ample for domestic consumption. In the meantime, the Chinese government has imposed a rigid ban on logging in natural forests at home, a move some countries accused of resulting in deforestation in and timber smuggling from Russia, Myanmar and some southeast Asian countries. However, Cao said China’s logging ban does not pose any threats to forest protection in other countries. He said, in contrast it’s a responsible approach of ecological protection and will bring benefits to the whole world. He also said that China will impose tough countermeasures to curb the illegal cross-border timber trade and has set up a series of cooperation schemes with neighboring countries to crack down on timber smuggling. Cao expressed the hope that the related countries could beef up management and law enforcement to eliminate illegal logging and timber smuggling from the root. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-02/27/content_4235277.htm
28) NANNING—A supervision station has been established to protect a 1,131-hectare mangrove forest, the largest of this kind in Chinese mainland, in a nature reserve of South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. A Web site http://www.fcghsl.com was also opened last Tuesday to specifically introduce the mangrove forest located at the estuary of the Beilun River across China-Vietnam border, a source with the Beilunhekou National Nature Reserve of the region said. The largest seashore mangrove forest on China’s mainland, the mangrove in the nature reserve boasts a well-preserved mangrove ecosystem with 14 known trees and shrubs, according to the source. Mangrove forests are buffer against tsunamis and storm surges. Since the disastrous Dec. 26 tsunami in 2004 in the Indian Ocean, China has strengthened protection of seashore mangrove forests. Six national nature reserves have been established to protect mangrove forests across the country. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-02/26/content_4229754.htm
Indonesia:
29) Jakarta, Indonesia – Indonesian forest company Sumalindo Lestari Jaya II, a producer of mixed tropical hardwood, has joined the WWF-supported Indonesian Forest and Trade Network. Part of the Sumalindo Lestari Jaya Tbk group, Sumalindo II — with a forest concession of 267,000ha in East Kalimantan — has become the largest forest company in Indonesia to obtain certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the leading international standard of good forest management. The Sumalindo Lestari Jaya II concession is dominated by lowland and mixed hill dipterocarp forest formations over mostly steep terrain. In the absence of accurate digital maps for the concession, the total coverage by these forest communities in the landscape is unknown, but probably comprises more than 90 per cent of the total concession area. The transition from lowland to mountain formations may occur at a variety of altitudes, from 800–1800m, but for the purpose of this assessment (based on information from neighboring Kayan Mentarang National Park), the forest transition is defined as occurring at 1,000m. These are some of the most biologically diverse terrestrial ecosystems in the world. It is estimated that 7,000 to 10,000 species of plants are found in the lowland forests of Borneo, making it richer than the whole of Africa. The forest is stratified, with a canopy of up to 45m and emergent trees at tall as 65m. The Indonesia FTN is part of the Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN), WWF’s worldwide partnership between leading non-governmental organizations, companies and communities aimed at eliminating illegal logging and improving the management of valuable and threatened forests. By facilitating market links between companies committed to achieving and supporting responsible forestry, the GFTN creates market conditions that help conserve forests and biodiversity, while providing economic and social benefits for the businesses and people who depend on them. management. Working in parallel with 30 other country Forest and Trade Networks that represent more nearly 300 companies trading in US$18.1 billion dollars of wood products per year, the Indonesia FTN gives its members market access to a vast global network of similarly minded businesses. In addition, member companies can enjoy benefits such as information and training on certification, support for small-scale and community forest enterprises, policy advocacy with governments, and local and global publicity. http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/index.cfm?uNewsID=61600
Philippines:
30) RAMPANT illegal logging continues in Quezon province despite the total log ban enforced by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources following a landslide that killed hundreds of people in 2004. This was revealed by Task Force Sierra Madre-Infanta, a non-government organization, in a video footage showing rampant tree-cutting in the forest of Quezon. The TF presented the video to DENR Secretary Angelo Reyes, who immediately ordered the regional officials in Region IV-A (Calabarzon) to locate the area and confiscate all logs and forest products harvested illegally. “I am giving our regional officials in Region IV-A to submit a well-validated report within 72 hours,” Reyes said. He also directed the regional officials to coordinate with the TF on the alleged illegal cutting of trees in the Sierra Madre mountain ranges. The DENR also clarified that no timber harvesting permits have been issued covering natural forests in Quezon, thus all tree cutting activities in Quezon are illegal. http://www.journal.com.ph/news.asp?pid=2&sid=7&nid=20219&month=2&day=27&year=2006
Australia:
31) THE Tasmanian Greens yesterday launched their economic development policy, detailing how they will transform what they claim is a lumbering state economy into one for the future. Green leader Peg Putt said the only way a small state distant from its markets like Tasmania could survive and prosper in the future was by making a transition to a “clean, green and clever” economy. Ms Putt outlined a vision based on the adoption of leading-edge technologies, knowledge-based industries and with a continual focus on keeping the state environmentally pure and untainted. She believes the lifeblood of Tasmania’s clean, green and clever economy will be small businesses in new-frontier fields such as biotechnology and ones in industries such as agriculture, forestry and fisheries that focus on high-value niche markets. All logging in native forests would end, with the timber industry based only on plantations. Ms Putt pledged $7.6 million towards switching the state’s economy from its muddling position with a foot in both camps of old and new industry, to one that is “transitioning” towards her clean green future. She singled out the Gunns pulp mill as undermining the Tasmanian pristine “brand”. Ms Putt said there would be an associated need for more investment in education in Tasmania to build such a knowledge-based economy, with its focus on innovation and ingenuity. There would be funds available to help forestry workers such as logging contractors retrain as plantation managers or with skills applicable to the new timber industries. http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,18287022%255E3462,00.html
32) RAN and our partners will be coordinating demonstrations in London, Vancouver, Tokyo, and 5 major US cities on March 6th to raise the international profile on this critical issue so that we can help our friends and allies protect these magnificent forests. Will you please join us in signing this important letter to the Prime Minister in Australia, John Howard, to protect the ecologically unique temperate rainforests in Tasmania, as well as prevent the intimidation of the local Australian campaigners? Here’s the situation: 1) Tasmania’s unique temperate rainforests have documented World Heritage value and contain the grand old-growth Eucalypts (the world tallest hardwood trees) and many unique & endangered species, such as the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle 2) The logging company GUNNS clear-cuts an average of 20,000 hectares of these forests/per year (about 44 football fields/per day), then napalms the cleared area, and poisons hundreds of thousandS of the native (including endangered) species each year, and has been greatly accelerating these practices with the full and heavily subsidized support of the Tasmanian government and also with $150 million in federal government subsidies 3) This problem has become the largest environmental campaign issue in Australia, led by groups like the Australian Wilderness Society, and over 85% of the public favors full protection for the old-growth forests. 4) GUNNS has responded to the campaign by continuously suing the lead activists and environmental groups in the infamous “GUNNS 20” case, which has galvanized public attention, been rejected by the courts twice already, described by judges as “embarrassing”, and condemned by many civil liberty legal experts.
I hope you’ll join us by signing onto the letter below. — David Lee at dlee@ran.org, or call our office at 415.393.4404 ex339 http://www.ran.org
World-Wide:
33) The sixth session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF-6) was held from 13-24 February 2006, at UN headquarters in New York. Nearly 600 participants attended the two-week session where delegates addressed unfinished business from UNFF-5 regarding the development of the international arrangement on forests. Negotiations revolved around the Chair’s draft negotiating text, forwarded from UNFF-5, which was to be attached as an annex to a resolution for consideration by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). This text was discussed according to issue clusters, including: global goals/strategic objectives of the international arrangement on forests; legal framework; voluntary code / guidelines / international understanding; means of implementation; working modalities; monitoring assessment and reporting; and the Collaborative Partnership on Forests.Many of the same forest-related issues that have eluded consensus in previous years, resurfaced at UNFF-6 and led to a late final night of negotiations. These include reference to environmental services, new and additional financial resources, illegal logging, and the consideration of a legally binding instrument. Negotiations proceeded slowly with little sense of urgency to force compromise and complete the agreement until the very final day. In the end, however, delegates were able to achieve consensus on all aspects of the Chair’s text, including four “global objectives” on forests: reversing the loss of forest cover and increasing efforts to prevent forest degradation, enhancing forest benefits and their contribution to international development goals, increasing the area of protected forests and areas of sustainably managed forests, and reversing the decline in official development assistance for sustainable forest management. By the time UNFF-6 ended at 11:30 pm on Friday, 24 February, the Chair’s text was adopted and forwarded to ECOSOC. UNFF-7 is scheduled to be held from 16-27 April 2007, at UN headquarters in New York. http://www.iisd.ca/vol13/enb13144e.html