071OEC’s This Week in Trees

Busy week it seems… This week we have 35 news items from British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, USA, Canada, Italy, Russia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Chile, Panama, China, Mongolia, India, Indonesia, World-wide.

British Columbia:

1) B.C. first nations are emerging as major players in the province’s timber industry, with access to at least four per cent of the province’s annual allowable timber cut. In comparison, B.C.’s largest forester, B.C. Timber Sales, has access to between 13 to 20 per cent of the province’s annual allowable cut, or 10.4 million to 16 million cubic metres of timber per year, according to the Ministry of Forests and Range. The province’s goal is to eventually see first nations have access to eight per cent of the total annual allowable cut of 80 million cubic metres. B.C. has signed 101 first nations forestry agreements since 2002, which have included more than $115.3 million in shared forestry revenues and access to almost almost 15.8 million cubic metres of timber, the ministry said. First nations now need to capitalize on their timber and create jobs by producing value-added products, ranging from milled wood, to wood pellets for heating fuel, to furniture, said Frank Brown, member of the Heiltsuk Forestry Committee in Bella Bella. “We have to add value to the wood instead of selling it as a round [log],” Brown said, adding that many bands do not currently have the capacity to produce and sell such products. “Never before have we been granted this access to tenure. The responsibilityis on us to maximize on this opportunity,” he said. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/index.html

2) Recent logging at the YMCA’s Camp Thunderbird has drawn the attention of Coun. John Webb and spawned the suggestion that it could jeopardize future property tax exemptions given by the district. Camp Thunderbird is one of several community organizations that benefit from an annually awarded property tax exemption. Sooke’s Mayor Janet Evans said Camp Thunderbird does enjoy a tax exemption, but the district does not get involved in any other way. In November 2005, the Y began a one-year pilot program of selective logging at Camp Thunderbird as part of its annual fund raising effort. In a February 8, 2006 entry to his Internet blog, Webb wrote, “Given the efforts of many people in the community to develop a green spaces strategy I was quite upset to find out that this was taking place. Especially galling in light of the fact we provide the Y with a tax exemption every year for this property.” Webb reported that through discussions with Y CAO Jennie Edgecombe, “I registered my strong displeasure as an individual councilor (and) that I would do what I could to end the tax exemption if we did not get a satisfactory conclusion to this.” Webb continued, “If the Y wants to continue as a part of this community I think that they should stop the logging. If they don’t, I will try and convince my fellow councillors (sic) to join me in ending the tax deduction and bring attention to what the Y is doing.” In the mean time, she said the Y would be looking for alternative fundraising methods. The contractor responsible for the selective harvesting is concerned that Metchosin council does not understand fully all the arguments supporting the program. http://www.sookenewsmirror.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=32&cat=23&id=599105&more=

3) VICTORIA – The Sierra Club of Canada, BC Chapter welcomes the conclusions of the Forest Practices Board urging cautious management of Haida Gwaii goshawks pending land-use planning which will address the needs of this isolated subspecies. “Given that we don’t have a provincial Endangered Species Act, we are pleased that the Board’s recommendations fully endorse our concerns about goshawk habitat,” said Kathryn Molloy, Sierra Club Executive Director. Goshawks are large hawks that depend upon mature forests for nesting. The Haida Gwaii subspecies is nationally listed as “threatened” which means that its immediate nesting territories are protected as Wildlife Habitat Areas. However, this subspecies requires large swathes of foraging habitat, which is not provided for under provincial or federal legislation. Because the population is so genetically isolated, it is feared the subspecies may become extirpated within 10 years. “This case illustrates the need for umbrella legislation at the provincial level to protect endangered species. So far, the province has been content to act like an absentee parent, leaving it to federal regulators and bodies like the Forest Practices Board to step in when things get too dire,” said wildlife biologist technician Jacques Morin, chair of the Sierra Club local group on Haida Gwaii. “British Columbia needs to take full responsibility to protect its own endangered species, because we all depend on the health of our ecosystems,” Molloy stressed. The Forest Practices Board’s conclusions are in a response to a complaint filed by the Haida Gwaii local group of the Sierra Club of Canada, BC Chapter. The complaint raised concerns about inadequate protection of foraging habitat, especially in view of the provincial policy that establishment of any Wildlife Habitat Areas may not reduce the available timber supply for more than 1 percent. http://www.sierraclub.ca/bc/

4) In January, Stephen and Chi Lippman arrived on Cortes Island from West Vancouver to take possession of their new 153-acre property, purchased from Island Timberlands for $1.4 million. The family, perhaps unwittingly, walked into a maelstrom of public protest regarding traditional public access across their property to a popular beach. Inside the community hall, the Lippmans faced a sign that read “Save Hank’s Beach.” David Shipway, who co-founded the Cortes Ecoforestry Society, and helped produce ecological maps of the island, points out that the controversy on Cortes Island reflects a larger issue throughout BC: forest companies converting forest land into private residential land without public scrutiny. The sell-off amounts to an unregulated form of subdivision. Normally this would trigger a public process, including the protection of public access. Years ago, our community made agreements with MacMillan-Bloedel to preserve this access, but they ducked their commitments through a series of land deals. In 1875, the BC government formed an “Indian Reserve Commission,” which hastily carved up the province, without treaties, ignoring the claims of First Nations. BC simply assumed title to the land and we are still unraveling the legal mess today. Although BC First Nations have stated that they would not seek private land in their land claims, Kathy Francis, treaty negotiator for Klahoose, called Lippman and explained the historic use of the land and the band’s working agreement with the logging companies. “He was rude to me,” she claims. “We’ve used the land continuously. We’re not going after private land, but I’m not saying we’re not interested in it or the public access.” In the 1950s, MacMillan Bloedel picked up BC land at about a dollar per acre, as many homesteaders defaulted on land taxes. In the 1980s, as forestry disputes raged throughout BC, Cortes islanders began negotiations with MacMillan Bloedel and local loggers. The islanders achieved what they believed was an agreement to preserve certain forest lands, including public access rights. Meanwhile, MacMillan Bloedel had drafted a secret plan, unknown to its own community negotiators, to unload the land. In a series of corporate deals in the 1990s, MacBlo sold its entire 741,300 acres in BC to Weyerhaeuser, the world’s largest private owner of softwood timberland, with operations in 18 countries. Weyerhaeuser then sold this land to Brookfield Asset Management (Brascan), which assigned the Cortes Island land to its subsidiary, Island Timberlands, which sold contiguous forestry lands to different buyers, without typical subdivision procedures such as public hearings to preserve community interests. http://thetyee.ca/News/2006/02/28/HanksBeach/print.html

5) “It’s depressing to see,” said Steve Dodge, a British Columbia forestry official whose office is along the Quesnel River. This town of 10,000 sits in the heart of the province’s vast evergreen woodlands. Steam billowing from the kilns of a half-dozen sawmills and pulp plants enshroud the town, which proudly calls itself the “Woodsmart City” in homage to the timber industry that sustains it. At the province’s Ministry of Forests and Range in Quesnel, forestry officer Pelchat saw the beetle expansion coming as “a silent forest fire.” He and his colleagues launched an offensive to try to stop or at least delay the invasion, all the while hoping for cold temperatures. They searched out beetle-ridden trees, cutting them and burning them. They thinned forests. They set out traps. But the deep freeze never came. “We lost. They built up into an army and came across,” Pelchat said. Surveys show the beetle has infested 21 million acres and killed 411 million cubic feet of trees — double the annual take by all the loggers in Canada. In seven years or sooner, the Forest Service predicts, that kill will nearly triple and 80 percent of the pines in the central British Columbia forest will be dead. Pelchat is now spending his time trying to plan recovery through replanting. In this area, a mature pine forest takes 70 years to grow. West Fraser is spending $100 million to upgrade the mill. Other companies have added shifts and proposed new plants to make chipboard or wood-fuel pellets. Property values in Quesnel are rising, rents are up, the local shopping center is flourishing again and unemployment has dropped, said Nate Bello, the mayor of Quesnel. But the boom will end. When what people here call “beetlewood” is removed or rots out — and no one is sure how long that will take — the forestry industry “will be running at about half speed,” Bello acknowledged. He sees his chief challenge as figuring out how to convert Quesnel from a one-industry town to something with a more diverse economic base. He and city officials talk of attracting retirees and small, computer-based businesses, and even of luring tourists to the area, despite the stark industrial tableau of sawmills and pulp plants. Some people in town say those are quixotic plans. “This town is going to die,” scoffed Pat Karey, 62, who spent 40 years at the sawmill. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/28/AR2006022801772_2.html

Washington:

6) A Seattle-based environmental group requested Tuesday that the state ethics commission investigate a Department of Natural Resources official who took a job as a timber-industry lobbyist after overseeing a controversial timber-regulation plan. The Cascade chapter of the Sierra Club said in an eight-page complaint that Debora Munguia’s job switch may violate state law. Days after the state’s last document to cement the deal went to the printer in December, Munguia announced she was going to work for the Washington Forest Protection Association, the lobby for Washington’s big timber companies. “We have a strong interest in protecting forestlands and endangered species, and when a state employee who has worked on the (plan) which benefits the timber industry immediately turns around and goes to work for the timber industry, it raises some questions we’d like to have examined,” said Becky Stanley, a Sierra Club volunteer who signed the complaint. The law prohibits a former state official from being involved “in any transaction involving the state in which the former state officer or state employee at any time participated during state employment.” The plan, known as a Habitat Conservation Plan, is expected to win approval soon from federal wildlife authorities. It would give the timber industry 50 years of protection from prosecution under the Endangered Species Act for harming salmon and 49 other kinds of fish. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/261176_ethics01.html

Oregon:

7) U.S. Forest Service officials said Tuesday they soon will auction the first burned timber within undeveloped roadless areas. The roadless cutting is likely to be the most controversial part of a Bush administration plan to salvage thousands of truckloads of logs blackened by the 500,000-acre fire in Southwest Oregon. Environmental activists prize the roadless lands because they are considered undisturbed, with potential to become protected wilderness. Gov. Ted Kulongoski asked the administration to keep loggers out of Biscuit’s roadless areas, which were protected by a rule issued at the end of the Clinton administration. The Bush administration replaced that rule with a new process. Kulongoski is pursuing two strategies — a lawsuit and a petition — to reinstate the Clinton-era roadless protections. The governor will urge the Forest Service to hold off on its roadless cutting in the meantime, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. Trees less than about 16 to 20 inches in diameter have decayed to the point they are not worth cutting, said Rob Shull, resource staff officer at the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. But enough larger trees remain in some places to make timber sales practical, and sawmills have shown an interest in buying the wood. The Forest Service plans two timber sales this spring in the roadless areas, Shull said. Loggers will be required to remove logs by helicopter to avoid damage to soils. He said neither sale is remote. The logging would take place on fingers of roadless land within a mile of more developed acreage where roads exist, Shull said. They are lands judged as having the least potential to be designated wilderness, he said. Activists have been jailed for blocking access to earlier Biscuit logging projects, and Shull said authorities expect further protests of the upcoming roadless logging. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/114118352278680.xml&coll=7

California:

8) Maps vindicate activist: Before a packed San Luis Obispo courtroom, Judge Charles S. Crandel accepted a D.A. motion to have tresspassing charges dismissed against activist Joey Racano for a July 7th, 2005 tree ‘sit’ in Los Osos, California. “Your honor, due to new information, we move to dismiss the charges”, said Deputy D.A. Nancy Fede. “So moved”, said Judge Crandel, “Mr. Racano, you’re free to go”. “Thank you your honor”, said I. “And may I add that I am aware of your career accomplishments and it has been an honor to come before your bench” I said. Judge Crandel, arguably the numero uno Clean Water Act lawyer in the world before being seated on the bench, was the lead lawyer for alaskan fisherman against Exxon, represented Earthcorps against San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, and represented Ballona Wetlands Action Network against Playa Vista! “Thank you” he modestly replied http://www.calhounscannon.blogspot.com

New Jersey:

9) KINNELON — Behind Borough Hall is a pristine thicket of trees where a glacial lake once lay. When Councilman Robert Collins looks at it, though, he sees lacrosse players. The borough is starved for playing fields, and this parcel of flat land in what is otherwise steep, rocky terrain would be an ideal space to build them, he said. Nothing is official yet, but the Borough Council is discussing a preliminary plan to build soccer, football, lacrosse and baseball fields on the 35-acre parcel. The number of sports programs run by the borough has tripled, from 10 to 30, over the past decade. One of the fields is perpetually wet in the spring, so the lacrosse teams practice in the high school parking lot. The parcel in question is part of a 1,252-acre publicly owned property that stretches from the Rockaway Township border to the edge of Silas Condict Park. The borough was among the funding sources that bought it from developer David Lam late last year through the state Green Acres program, and is scheduled to close on the property in the spring. When the borough arranged the land’s purchase, it envisioned the tract for passive recreation such as hiking and horse trails. But the recreation program has grown so fast that the three existing sports fields aren’t sufficient, Collins said. The number of sports programs run by the borough has tripled, from 10 to 30, over the past decade. One of the fields is perpetually wet in the spring, so the lacrosse teams practice in the high school parking lot. http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk0NSZmZ2JlbDdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5Njg4ODY1OCZ5cm
lyeTdmNzE3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTM=

Massachusetts:

10) Hoping to take advantage of an upswing in the lumber market, state forest management officials recently solicited bids for the removal of white pine trees from about 75 acres in the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest. Cutting down the trees is necessary, they say, for the ultimate goal of restoring approximately 200 acres of white pine tree plantations to native pitch pine and scrub oak habitat, which supports a wider diversity of plant, insect, and animal life. “We are trying to sell the timber so it covers the cost of cutting. We hope to have this cost the towns and taxpayers nothing,” said Vanessa Gulati, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) spokesperson. Tom Robinson, owner of Island Timber, is not so sure. “I would be very skeptical that someone can cut trees down in the state forest for a profit without state funds being used,” he said. John Varkonda, state forest supervisor, said that while the lumber market is good enough right now to make this possible, “the project is by no means a done deal.” Contractors are going to have to do research to figure out a cost-effective way to remove the timber from the Island, he pointed out. The white pines, a non-native species, were planted to provide a lumber industry on Martha’s Vineyard that was unsuccessful. However, the trees for the most part flourished, adapting to the Island’s environment and multiplying in great numbers. “Even if we decided not to deforest them, the white pines grow well and could take over the native forest many years from now,” Mr. Varkonda said. While many people would question why that is a bad thing, foresters and conservationists say the white pines do not provide the biodiversity needed to sustain the state forest’s unique species. Unfortunately, the more unsightly scrub oaks and pitch pines do. “Martha’s Vineyard’s state forest has the highest concentration of rare species anywhere in the Commonwealth supported by the scrub oak and pitch pine,” said Mr. Rassman. “There is a whole host of rare species relying on them.” For example, the imperial moth, found only on Martha’s Vineyard, uses pitch pine for its caterpillar food plant, said Matt Pelikan, Martha’s Vineyard Program Manager for the Nature Conservancy. A lot of insects also are associated with scrub oaks, he said, particularly moths. http://www.mvtimes.com/news/2006/03/02/state_forest.php?date=20060302

North Carolina:

11) DURHAM, — Predators are, ironically, the key to keeping the world green, because they keep the numbers of plant-eating herbivores under control, reports a research team lead by John Terborgh, a professor of environmental science at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences. The research, reported in the March 2006 issue of the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Ecology, was supported by the National Science Foundation. Their results support the so-called “green world hypothesis,” first proposed in 1960 by United States scientists Nelson Hairston, Frederick Smith and Lawrence Slobodkin. Despite being almost 50 years old, the green world hypothesis has been almost impossible to test until now. “Since the landmark paper by Hairston et al, ecologists have been debating whether herbivores are limited by plant defenses or by predators,” wrote the authors. “The matter is trivially simple in principle, but in practice the challenge of experimentally creating predator-free environments in which herbivores can increase without constraint has proven almost insurmountable.” Within Venezuela’s Caroni Valley, an area of 4,300 square kilometres was flooded in 1986 to create a lake (Lago Guri) containing hundreds of islands that were formerly fragments of a continuous landscape. Terborgh and his team monitored the vegetation at 14 sites of differing size. Nine of the sites were on predator-free islands, while the others were on the mainland or on islands with a complete or nearly complete suite of predators. They found that, by 1997, small sapling densities on small islands were only 37 percent of those of large land masses and by 2002 this had fallen to just 25 percent. Most of the vertebrates present in regional dry forest ecosystem had disappeared from small islands, including fruit eaters and predators of vertebrates, leaving a hyperabundance of generalist herbivores such as iguanas, howler monkeys and leaf-cutter ants. “Mere numbers do not do justice to the bizarre condition of herbivore-impacted islets,” the authors wrote. “The understory is almost free of foliage, so that a person standing in the interior sees light streaming in from the edge around the entire perimeter. There is almost no leaf litter, and the ground is bright red from the subsoil brought to the surface by leaf-cutter ants. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-02/du-pkt022706.php

Arkansas:

12) The Potlatch project, if developed would use gasification and catalytic processes to covert biomass into a crude oil and further refined into fuel products and other chemicals. Applied on a wider scale, the technology could reduce the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels, increase viability of agricultural operations and provide additional forest management options for landowners while creating new high paying jobs and increasing tax revenue, legislators were told. Due to the size and risk involved, Potlatch would construct the refinery in four phases. “I don’t want to mislead anybody to think this would be an easy thing to do. It’s complicated and has big risks,” Smith said. “It would be the first-of-a-kind plant. No one has attempted to marry biomass gasifiers to a gas-to-liquid plant and integrate both units with a pulp mill.” Smith said if all goes well it would not be out of the question to have a facility up and running by 2009. State Rep. Allen Maxwell, one of three Southeast Arkansas lawmakers who sponsored an interim study proposal to study forestry and agriculture’s growth potential and economic impact on the state’s economy, fielded a question from one lawmaker who asked if the proposed biorefinery would have effects outside Southeast Arkansas. Maxwell said, and Smith confirmed, that Potlatch will share the technology with other industries. Any industry would be able to use the technology. http://www.pbcommercial.com/articles/2006/02/28/news/news1.txt

Tennessee:

13) KNOXVILLE—Greenpeace student activists delivered an oversized gold medal today branding Kimberly-Clark “the world’s number one forest destroyer” along with 10,000 petitions in the group’s escalating campaign to pressure the company, which is the parent company of such brands as Kleenex and Scott, into adopting more environmentally-friendly practices. The students, dressed as Olympic athletes, held a mock medal awards ceremony outside of the company’s headquarters. “Greenpeace and Knoxville-area residents are calling on Kimberly-Clark to stop using wood fiber from forests that are endangered, and to switch to recycled fibers,” said Ginger Cassady, Greenpeace forests campaigner. “Kimberly-Clark wants Olympic viewers to have ‘Kleenex moments’ of pride about our athletes, but the real Kleenex moment today is about Kimberly-Clark’s decision to wipe out our forests.” It takes roughly 90 years to grow many of the trees that Kimberly-Clark uses to make Kleenex tissues and Scott toilet paper. The majority of these trees come from North American ancient forests, which are more than 10,000 years old. Greenpeace is pressuring Kimberly-Clark to stop using wood fiber from ancient -forests, unless the wood has been certified under the Forest Stewardship Council system, which certifies the environmental soundness of the logging operation. “In today’s world, it is responsible corporate citizenship to use recycled paper for throwaway paper products. I was appalled to discover that a company right here in Knoxville is taking part in destroying one of the last remaining ancient forests. It’s time for Knoxville residents to demand the end of these practices,” said Sarah Priddy, a University of Tennessee- Knoxville freshman. http://kleercut.net/en/node/694

USA:

14) A Bush administration official couldn’t name one person Tuesday who supports a federal plan to sell national forest lands to fund rural schools and county roads. But if lawmakers don’t like the land sales and want to continue the popular $800 million program that offsets the loss of timber receipts, they need to offer an alternative funding source to land sales, said Mark Rey, assistant agriculture secretary for forests and conservation. “It is the only proposal on the table,” Rey said from Washington in a news teleconference. “However unpopular it is, it exists in a universe of one.” The Bush administration has proposed selling 150,000 to 200,000 acres of “small and isolated” tracts of national forest lands chosen from 309,000 acres listed Tuesday in a Federal Register notice. The public has until March 30 to comment. The Bush administration altered its proposal to allow states, counties or land trusts to purchase the forest lands before they are placed on the auction block. “Even though some of these parcels serve public needs, they do not serve national forest needs,” Rey said. http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060301/NEWS01/603010347

15) Several factors have contributed to this decrease in U.S. timber and solid wood exports. First, domestic demand has increased, absorbing materials that were previously exported. Second, the capability of many offshore producers has grown. Other regions can now service markets that were formerly supplied by the United States. For example, countries within Europe, such as Austria, are now supplying European markets. These countries are also exporting more into Japan, which used to be a major market for the United States. European markets are also being serviced by the former Eastern Block countries, especially those in the Baltic region. Third, U.S. exports were really impacted when the government made large areas of the Pacific Northwest off limits in order to protect the Spotted Owl. …There are no places where wood is as prevalent in construction as in North America. You do see it in some countries like Australia where wood framing is used in houses and wood is used in roofing. But you don’t have the same level of structural panels. There, the external wall of the house will be a single skin of brick with sheet rock as the internal wall. In many countries, especially in Latin America, masonry is the norm. There have been a few isolated areas where we are seeing some changes. For example, Louisiana Pacific has set up an OSB manufacturing facility in Chile. They are working with local builders to use more OSB in low cost housing. They have met with some success in doing that. As a sidebar to that example, the framing used in those homes is actually steel studs. So they are using more wood, but it doesn’t include wood framing. If you look at Europe again, the market heavily favors masonry. Wood is used in fitting out interior, roofing and flooring. But the main structure of the house is typically masonry. I think a lot of it is tradition. People build houses in a certain way because that is what they are used to. The perception is that masonry is there for the long term; wood houses may be seen as flimsier and therefore, worth less. Also, in other parts of the world, people don’t have the same mindset about houses as in the United States. Here it’s not unusual for a house to be changed or taken down and replaced within a number of years. So you could say the main factors are how people view their house, the longevity of the house, and the tradition of how builders have learned to build homes. Using new materials is something that builders have to learn. http://www.palletenterprise.com/articledatabase/view.asp?articleID=1903

16) PE: Mills are getting more efficient as medium sized companies go away. Are these trends that you have seen? What is your viewpoint on those aspects of the U.S. market? Doug: If we look at mills going out of business, definitely the smaller mills have been and will be challenged in the next downturn in demand. That is an issue of scale more than anything else. It is completely an issue of their cost competitiveness versus the big mills that are being put in the United States and Canada. The availability of loggers is also a big issue. Loggers are doing it tough. The guys who really know their business are still profitable. But a lot of loggers are not. Many are just consuming their capital staying in business. You can only do that for so long and then you are out. That is a big strategic issue for the whole forest products industry not just in the U.S. south. This applies to Canada as well. The logging business has not been a good business. It is tough to see new capital coming in and to be able to earn the cost of capital. In the southern U.S., urbanization is probably the biggest risk to the loss of timber land. This is a much larger factor than even environmental concerns. Timber land is bought and developed for housing. And people don’t cut down trees in their back yard. http://www.palletenterprise.com/articledatabase/view.asp?articleID=1903

17) This act of paper monkeywrenching sums up the relationship conservationists had with the Forest Service for three decades. We attempted nearly every act of peaceful hostility — appeals, lawsuits, tree-sits — to obstruct what was then the largest single agency in the federal government and the largest single employer in many rural communities. The Forest Service was destroying our old-growth and wild areas; it had to be stopped. That was then. This is now. Today the Forest Service is broken and demoralized, with a budget built more around firefighting than logging. Biodiversity is threatened less by the prospect of new roads and clear-cuts in wild country than by the ailing condition of old roads and tree plantations. Fewer hands swing sticks to beat the Forest Service out of old growth and roadless areas. More hold carrots to encourage a future mission of restoring forests damaged by a century of abuse. The effect is stunning: 1) On Oregon’s Fremont National Forest, a new plan to restore Ponderosa pine forests on the Lakeview Federal Stewardship Unit was worked out entirely by collaboration among key stakeholders. 2) In Alabama, a new generation of Forest Service manager gives a courtesy call to WildLaw’s Ray Vaughan before deviating from landscape-scale restoration plans. 3) The Gifford Pinchot National Forest, in the Washington Cascades, has shifted from clear-cutting old forests to thinning plantations, as conservationists work with rural leaders and timber reps to design mutually beneficial restoration projects. 4) On the Colville National Forest, in northeastern Washington, conservationists and timber interests are going beyond collaborative design of stewardship projects (to thin dry forests and reduce fire risk to communities) and are steadily negotiating land-use allocations including — wait for it — designated wilderness. 5) On Arizona’s Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, the massive White Mountain Stewardship Contract enjoys across-the-board support. The Center for Biological Diversity engaged early, as soon as the Forest Service had sworn off cutting big trees or outside the wildland/urban interface. 6) Conservation and timber leaders are collaborating on a restoration assessment for the entire southern half of New Mexico’s Gila National Forest, including development of infrastructure to sustain a restoration-based economy. The project has brought almost $3 million to local communities. …Not everyone is on the bandwagon, however. Michael McCloskey, former executive director of the Sierra Club, recently griped to the Christian Science Monitor that collaboration comprises “a lot of talk and little follow-through.” Mitch Friedman http://www.conservationnw.org/

18) Just when the conservation movement has finally gotten cut levels down to bearable levels, along comes Friedman wanting to push them up again. He sounds more like a timber lobbyist than a tree hugger. The numbers he tosses out are astounding. 2.3 billion board feet of timber just waiting there to be thinned? What Friedman is essentially proposing is for the conservation community to actively sign over a large proportion of the federally owned forests to the timber industry, in perpetuity. It’s a sad fact that thinning forests can often have even worse effects than clearcutting them. Many more acres are affected, and vastly more roads required, to extract any given amount of timber volume. But, we are told, thinning just lets a little light into the dense, dark, overgrown forests, and hastens the day when they too will become old-growth. Sounds great, but again, those things that sound too good to be true almost always are too good to be true. And that’s the sad truth about thinning. It requires massive road construction, and depends totally on ground based yarding, which means lots of heavy machinery driving all through a forest to drag logs away, compacting and severely damaging soils, and sending that soil straight into streams and rivers, choking fish. It opens up stands where trees have protected each other from wind, meaning that many of the leave trees end up blowing down. The “emerging scientific consensus” in favor of thinning that Friedman talks about has emerged largely among those researchers whose funding depends upon finding justifications for increased logging. People do not know how to do better than mother Nature in creating old growth forests. Forests are not “restored” by carving roads through them and logging them. Even in drier forests where fire suppression has led to unnatural fuel buildups, there is little or no evidence that thinning is of much benefit. Some places may just have to burn, and that’s not necessarily bad. Burning has far fewer bad effects than the kind of roading densities and ground yarding that would be required for thinning on the scale envisioned by Friedman. Thinning and brush clearing does make sense in areas immediately surrounding houses and communities, but not beyond that. Of course we need a timber industry, and there is no danger at all of it going away. Some of Friedman’s ideas deserve to be tried out – on private lands, not public forests.
— Rick McGuire

Canada:

19) Premier Dalton McGuinty and Natural Resources minister David Ramsay announced the package at the joint conference of the Ontario Good Roads/Rural Ontario Municipal Association last Wednesday in Toronto. The money will be distributed over three years, and includes: 1) $47 million to support the construction and maintenance costs of primary and secondary access roads; 2) $70 million in refunds to the industry as a result of reducing stumpage fees retroactively for 2005-06; and 3) $3 million a year for the next three years by reducing stumpage fees for poplar veneer and white birch. This is in addition to $28 million announced back in September for road maintenance, meaning 100 percent of the cost of primary roads and 50 percent of secondary ones will be covered by the province, as requested by the Minister’s Council on Forest Sector Competitiveness last year. Last September’s announcement also included $350 million in loan guarantees—a step largely dismissed by the forest industry as insufficient and of little help in reducing delivered wood cost. “Families and communities throughout Ontario rely on forestry to build a higher quality of life and create a brighter future,” Premier McGuinty said. “Today’s announcement is a home run by a government that has done more for the forest industry than any other government,” Jamie Lim, president of the Ontario Forest Industries Association, said last Wednesday. The Ontario government did announce in early February that it would provide stable pricing on electricity provided by the Ontario Power Generation over the next three years through a price cap. “All that does is continue the status quo. And the mills are saying the status quo is killing us,” Hampton argued. “I think you’re going to see more paper mill and pulp mill layoffs in the next few months, and maybe even a closure,” he warned. Many forestry industry reps agreed the cost of energy would have to be the next step in a provincial forestry strategy. Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP). “Every single company which has closed a mill or cut back operations in Ontario in the past year has cited energy costs as the primary reason,” he added. http://www.fftimes.com/index.php/2/2006-03-01/24636

20) This week, Grassy Narrows sent letters warning the chief executives of Weyerhaeuser and Abitibi-Consolidated to “immediately cease and desist from all logging and industrial resource extraction on our territory” or face a “fierce international campaign”. The letter follows a decade of failed negotiations, lawsuits, environmental assessment requests, public protests, and a 3-year logging blockade. The letter asserts that decades of unsustainable logging has “poisoned our waters with mercury and other toxins, nearly eliminated our ability to practice our way of life, and robbed us of economic opportunities.” Upon learning of Grassy Narrows’ letter newspapers in Canada, including the Canadian Associated Press and the Globe and Mail, wrote favorable stories about the Grassy Narrows issue. It’s a start! But we need your help in turning the Grassy Narrows issue into the international media controversy we know it deserves to be! Now’s your chance! Please write a letter to the editor to the Globe and Mail at letters@globeandmail.com expressing your support for the campaign to free Grassy Narrows from unwanted corporate logging by Weyerhaeuser and Abitibi on their territory and let them manage their land as they see fit. http://www.ran.org

21) GRASSY NARROWS, Ont. – Frustrated by what they see as an industrial invasion of their territory, aboriginal people in northwestern Ontario are warning two forestry giants to stop logging the area or face an international protest. In a letter sent to Weyerhaeuser Co. Ltd. and Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. on Tuesday, the Grassy Narrows First Nation accused the companies of cultural and environmental devastation. “This letter is your final official notice that you are taking part in the destruction of our homeland,” the letter states. “Know that you face a fierce campaign against you on all fronts – in the woods, in the streets, in the marketplace, in your boardrooms and in the media.” The 700-member community of Grassy Narrows has long complained that decades of unsustainable logging have poisoned area waters with mercury and other toxins and all but destroyed their aboriginal way of life. Negotiations, lawsuits, requests for environmental assessments, public protests and a three-year blockade in the forest have all failed to win an improvement in the situation, the letter states. “The Earth is suffering and we as human beings are suffering,” said Judy Da Silva, a member of the Grassy Narrows environmental committee. http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=f9f432ea-c811-44f9-b300-12af5d6d9afc&k=19356

22) For his Master’s thesis in Biological Sciences, Lucas Habib and his team tracked and captured ovenbirds—a brown songbird named for oven-like nests they build on the ground—through Alberta’s boreal forest, beginning in 2003. For three years, the study analyzed male ovenbirds’ success at attracting a mate, which they serenade with a distinctive, high-pitched song. According to Habib, these songs are being distorted by gas pipeline compressor stations, which are common throughout Alberta’s boreal forest. “We found a notable discrepancy in mating success between the birds in noisy sites and the quiet sites, and there was also a change in the age structure,” said Habib. Male ovenbirds in areas nearest these stations were successful in attracting mates 77 per cent of the time, compared to 92 per cent success rates for those males in quieter areas. While one songbird’s mating troubles may seem minor, Habib said that ovenbirds’ sexual difficulties could indicate a wider effect on all birds that use songs to attract their mates. “I think it’s fair to extrapolate [these results] to other migratory songbirds; ovenbirds are highly territorial, and so are a lot of other ones. So they’re setting up these territories, and they’re packed pretty tight in there,” said Habib. “There isn’t a lot of space for them to move away from the noise, and I think that pattern could apply to other birds.” Compressor stations can be fitted with a muffling device that would reduce the noise generated, but currently, those mufflers are only mandatory on compressor stations close to human habitation. Those mufflers cost around $10 000 each, according to Habib. The Edmonton Journal wrote an in-depth story on his work, and Habib was interviewed by the CBC on national radio. Since then, Habib has been contacted by representatives from the energy industry and the Alberta Government, who expressed interest in the results of his study, once it’s completed. “I don’t think a lot of these people would have been interested in reading my work before, but now that the media has picked it up, they are. So there is some potential [for action],” said Habib. http://www.gateway.ualberta.ca/view.php?aid=5746

Italy:

23) CULTURAL HERITAGE AND SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT: THE ROLE OF TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE Italian Academy of Forestry Science Firenze , Italy 8-10 June 2006 Information: The scientific activity developed on Sustainable Forest Management in the last deacade has shown that a modern approach to this matter cannot deny the understanding of the role of cultural values and traditional knowledge. The problem of cultural values and traditional knolwedge has been also addressed in the resolution n 3 of the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forest in Europe: “Conservation and improvement of the socioculturale dimension of the sostenibile development in Europe “. The meeting in Florence represents a further step in the work undertaken by the MCPFE on this topic and will produce a document with specific indications regarding the implementation of the Vienna resolution n.3, in order to favour the inclusion of the historical, cultural and landscaped values in the criteria of the GFS. Deadline for presentation of abstracts: March 15th ORGANIZED BY: IUFRO Research Group of Forest and Woodland History (6.07.00) IUFRO Task Force on Traditional Forest Knowledge. http://www.forestlandscape.unifi.it/chsfm_2006.asp

Russia:

24) PE: In a recent presentation, you said that Russia has a lot of untapped timber and they are starting to get more infrastructure in place to start taking advantage of that natural resource. How is Russia’s emergence going to impact the market? Could Russia quickly become a major competitor to North America’s dominance? Doug: “Russia’s impact is being felt in a couple of key areas. One of them is as a source of raw wood into China and the Nordic countries of Finland and Sweden. Russia has been sending more logs into China. The Russian government is increasingly looking to attract more investment into sawmills and pulp mills. We would expect to see more Russian sawn wood entering the market. That will be primarily directed at Europe. It will have the effect of driving whoever is servicing European markets today to look for more markets in other areas. Ultimately, some of that displaced lumber will come to roost in the United States because the U.S.is the biggest market. According to our analysis, we could see Russian wood landing in the United States and being very competitive here. PE: Really, is that mainly on the West Coast? Doug: Well, on both coasts because Russia is pretty much as close to the East Coast as it is to the West Coast. You are just dealing with different ends of the country. The analyses we have done show potential for a player in the middle of Russia to be able to service the middle of the U.S. and be very competitive. Russia has some great wood, with trees like the U.S. had about 100 years ago. Large trees with very attractive wood properties – close and straight grain. The tough part is that the forests are a long way from anywhere. Russia has been working on improving the logistics, especially trying to get the rail system working more efficiently. http://www.palletenterprise.com/articledatabase/view.asp?articleID=1903

Uganda:

25) Uganda is chopping itself into severe shortage of wood resources by 2010. We can now sound this warning because the era of electioneering is over and we expect politicians to tackle it soberly. Remember that 2010 is just four years away and the fastest growing wood trees need about six years before harvest. Forest depletion has reached such unprecedented levels that the National Forestry Authority (NFA) issued the above warning. While campaigning in Busoga and other areas recently, President elect Y.K. Museveni reportedly ordered the ministry of Water, Lands and Environment to halt eviction of encroachers on gazettted forests. About 180,000 forest and wetlands encroachers countrywide exploited the presidential reprieve to cut down more trees. Notwithstanding Museveni’s intentions, the encroachers now assume Mr Museveni’s campaign promise is a blank cheque to deplete forests and wetlands. Wood use for cooking and lighting has increased because of the current inadequate supply of electricity. Wood has traditionally provided most heating and lighting for rural communities but most urban homes have now upped their charcoal use to supplement gas or electricity. The government needs to urgently institute precautionary measures to slow down the annual wood consumption from the 25 million tonnes according to NFA estimates. Wood consumption could grow to an alarming 100 million tonnes by 2010 without controls. Close to one million formal and informal jobs could be lost and incomes for households that use forest resources could slump devastatingly if the president does not quickly reverse his order to stop further encroachment. On three occasions late last year in Kibaale encroachers took the law into their own hands and blocked surveyors from the National Forestry Authority to demarcate the boundaries of Gurama Forest Reserves in Nkooko sub country. They confiscated the officials’ tools, threatened to lynch them and destroyed eucalyptus tree seedlings meant for planting along the borders of the reserve. http://www.monitor.co.ug/oped/oped03021.php

Zimbabwe:

26) Harare GOVERNMENT is exploring a forest-based land reform programme with the view of ensuring the full participation of indigenous people in the forestry business. This development comes after the Government last year evicted more than 60 families that had illegally settled in the timber forests of Nyanga and Chimanimani to make way for proper resettlement. In an interview yesterday, Environment and Tourism Minister, Cde Francis Nhema said Government was still consulting on the allocation of land for purposes of professional forestry development. “We would like people who will judiciously manage the forests and ensure the nation remains self-sufficient in its timber requirements,” Cde Nhema said. He said the Government had evicted families who had illegally settled in some places in Manicaland, as it was not in the timber industry’s best interest to have people with no background of the proper utilisation of the forests. Cde Nhema said the Government was committed to sound environmental practices hence the development of policies that promote sustainable environment development in line with set international environmental standards. “Commercial and gazetted forest land should be protected from illegal settlements and let it be known that we do not support the mushrooming of these illegal settlements anywhere,” Cde Nhema said. http://allafrica.com/stories/200603010394.html

Chile:

27) PE: In the U.S., we are starting to see Radiata Pine coming out of South America. Increasingly should we start to see more mills and pallet operations looking to South America as a viable source of lumber? Or is this only the case for those with close access to the gulf? Doug: Anyone who has access to import ports could see that product coming up because there will be a lot of it produced. There are significant increases in the Chilean harvest potential. They have put in place new and expanded pulp and panel mills to take advantage of the residuals of sawmilling. Louisiana Pacific has set up an OSB manufacturing facility in Chile.They are unable to sell into domestic structural markets so they are looking for whatever other markets are available to them. http://www.palletenterprise.com/articledatabase/view.asp?articleID=1903

Panama:

28) 150 Hectares of Forest Burnt Down in Volcan Monday and Tuesday, two fires burnt 120 hectares of forest and bush in Volcan, a popular retirement destination in the Chiriqui mountains of Panama. The first fire started at the path that goes up the Baru volcano, damaging property of ecotourism company Cotoba Cri, which has reforested 800 hectares with trees that provide food for the birds in the region. The second fire started tuesday morning in Cerro Aguacate. The two fires were eventually contained, but later on tuesday another fire had started and destroyed 30 hectares at the time of writing.
http://www.noriegaville.com/today.php?subaction=showfull&id=1141168946&archive=&start_from=&ucat=17

China:

29) Ancient Chinese legend has it that a kind of tree, when shaken, yields leaves that turn into money on the ground. But those living on the dry loess highlands in Northwest China couldn’t see a single tree when they looked around. Now, holding a mobile phone while sitting on a couch in his spacious tree-shaded cave dwelling, this farmer-turned-entrepreneur was talking about the tree business. Yan Zhixiong chief executive officer of Linhai Co, a local forestation company was negotiating with local officials from his county, Wuqi of Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province. If the contract is signed, each of his 200 employees would earn around 1,000 yuan (US$123) a month for planting trees. Yan discovered the business opportunity from a government-backed tree-planting programme that encourages farmers to convert low-yielding farms and barren hills into woods and grasslands. It’s one of six such projects the government launched in 1998. Last November, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) attributed almost all the annual gains in Asia’s forest cover between 2000 and 2005 ?about 633,000 hectares per year ?to China’s widespread tree-planting projects. The expansion offset a net loss of around 1.27 million hectares of forest per year in other areas from 1990 to 2000, said Patrick Durst, senior forestry officer of the FAO’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, in a recent e-mail interview. “It is evident that China’s efforts and commitment to these programmes have been remarkable,?Durst said. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-03/01/content_524942.htm

Mongolia:

30) In Mongolia, 10 million ha of coniferous forest is untouched and 1 million ha degraded, out of 14 million ha. Intact forest tends to be at higher elevations on slopes of 30º or more. Half of the saxaul forest (2 million ha) in the Gobi desert has some level of degradation. In terms of forest structure, 60% of Mongolian forest is composed of larch, 16% saxaul, 10% birch, and 13% pine trees. Across Mongolia, Hovsgol aimag has the largest proportion of forest, with the largest proportion of saxaul forest in Govi-Altai aimag. During the 1970s and 1980s state owned timber harvesting companies were established in Mongolia. Two types of timber harvesting technology were used: harvesting by tractors, which involves driving round the logged area and dragging the log by tractors; and skyline harvesting, where logged timbers are lifted and dragged by ropes in the air. The latter method results in less damage to the forest floor The aim of this study was to reveal the impact of these two technologies on the forest ecosystem. Three different study areas were chosen: harvested by skyline, tractor and control forest. Fifty sample plots (10x20m) were set out in each study area. Samples taken in each plot included number of young trees, vegetation cover, and soil samples, with the following results: Using tractors for timber harvesting is not only destructive but also has a higher negative impact. However it is economically efficient over a short time span, which is why it was a commonly used technique until now. Mongolian forest is fragile and edged with grassland. Therefore grass encroachment to disturbed forest can quite easily occur, resulting in forest being converted into grassland after logging. In order to be ecologically and economically sustainable we need to use techniques that favor the ecosystem. I would suggest using traditional ways of logging for subsistence and local use, and to stop commercial harvesting. http://www.mongolia-web.com/content/view/216/2/

India:

31) The Karnataka High Court today ordered issuance of notice to the State Government, Kodagu Conservator of Forests, his Deputy and M/s Thompson Plantations Pvt Limited on a writ petition, seeking a direction to them to protect valuable forest wealth in 615 acres of land. Chief Justice Cyriac Joseph and Mr Justice K Sridhara Rao issued the notices. B Ganapathi, a gram panchayat member of Madikeri, contended that the said land in Coorg had been leased to a private company and the lessee had mortgaged the property. The Debt Recovery Tribunal had auctioned off the property to recover the loan amount as the lessee had not repaid the loan. Thompson Plantations had purchased the land in the auction and commenced felling of trees. As the forest and revenue authorities had not taken any action to retrieve the land, he had filed the petition to save the invaluable trees from being cut, he submitted. http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=264169&cat=India

32) Karkala– Within 24 hours of attacking a house at Ajekar near here, suspected Naxalites have struck once again by damaging the forest department property at Hamja-Yedamale under the Madamakki gram panchayat in the Shankarnarayana police station limits on Monday February 27 night. The suspected Naxalites damaged the guesthouse belonging to the forest department and destroyed the toilets. The roof and the walls of the guesthouse have been damaged. The guesthouse has been ransacked. The Naxalites said to have gained entry into the guesthouse after breaking open the front door. The forest department staff was on duty in the vicinity during the day but there were none in the night. Taking advantage of this, the Naxalites attacked the guesthouse. Speaking to the reporters forest officer M B Angadi told that the Naxalites have also destroyed 2 small bridges belonging to the forest department at Hamja-Yedamale region. He also said that the Naxalites have destroyed 8 small bridges of the department in the last few days. However, the locals have not been providing the Anti Naxal Force and police with any information about the Naxalites. M B Angadi added that though it is not yet sure as why the people are cooperating with the police, there might be a kind of fear about the Naxalites among the people. The ANF and the police have intensified combing operations in the area following the twin attacks by the Naxalites in the area. The police have found some handbills addressed as People’s Liberation Guerrilla group. The handbills carry a message to the people to join them in big numbers and strengthen the Naxalite movement in order to face the atrocities and injustice inflicted on the poor and downtrodden. There is also a call to protest in unison the construction dam in the area, cutting the trees from the reserved forest for development etc. http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=19080&n_tit=Karkala%3A+Naxals+Strike+Again+-+Forest+Depa
rtment+Property+Damaged

Indonesia:

33) The Executive Director of Wana Aksara Research and Study Agency, Agung Nugraha, said further here Tuesday that besides giving contribution to illegal logging, banks in certain regencies have also served money laundering for funds derived from illegal logging. From interviews, observation and investigation performed in a sub-district in Kota Waringin Timur regncy, Central Kalimantan province, the research and study agency has recorded some 1,500 units of trucks serving the transportation of illegal logs. The agency has observed that most of those trucks belong to leasing companies and illegal loggers have leased the trucks with funds borrowed from banks, according to Agung Nugraha. The very big profit offered by illegal logging has tempted banks to channel loans for the provision of equipment for illegal wood cutting and vehicles for logs transportation, especially with the support given by civilian and military officials, including the local elite, he explained. Agung estimated that logs and sawn timber transported from the locations of those unlawful activities can reach about 4,000 cu.m. a day. With the assumption that the log average price Rp1 million per cu.m., illegal logging backed by banks and the local elite has inflicted a total loss of Rp120 billion on the state per month, he added. Based on Wana Aksara Research and Study Agency’s observation, 20 units of trucks have left illegal wood cutting locations in the forest every one hour. They work 24 hours a day, except in Ramadhan Islamic fasting month and during rainfall. Illegal logging has been prevalent in Indonesian forests since the beginning of the current reform period, according to Wana Aksara executive director. “It is ironic that about 40 percent of companies in the forestry industry are currently troubled by stagnation and 60 percent of those operating in the upstream forestry sector are on the brink of bankruptcy,” he said http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=9562

World-Wide:

34)) The global total forest area is 4.1 billion ha across the 13.5 billion ha covered by the continents. Per head of population, there are 200 ha of forest per person in Africa, 22.2 ha forest per person in Canada and around 10 ha of forest per person in Mongolia. One third of the world’s forest is coniferous and two thirds is deciduous. Most of the deciduous forest is in South America, Africa and South Eastern Asia. http://www.mongolia-web.com/content/view/216/2/