086OEC’s This Week in Trees

This week we have 36 stories from Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey, USA, Turkmenistan, Uganda, South Africa, Brazil, Uruguay, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and World-wide.

Alaska:

1) “None of the proposed cutting units we visited were laid out with full regard for wildlife habitat, or with acknowledgment of the rarity value of extremely large, old trees,” according to the report, the first in a series planned in the Sitka environmental group’s Ground-truthing Project. Tongass National Forest spokesman Dennis Neill said Friday his agency’s biologists will take “a deeper look” at the report’s findings, but he said the national forest only adopts findings that have been “peer reviewed” by other scientists. Neill also disagreed that current Tongass practices harm wildlife habitat. “We devote a great deal to maintain the viability of species,” Neill said. The major objective of the Ground-truthing Project – similar to other forest audits that environmental groups have funded elsewhere in the United States – is to assess how well fisheries, old-growth trees, wildlife and other resources are being protected in the Tongass, said Kenyon Fields, the project’s manager for the Sitka Conservation Society. “Whether it is cedar trees being disproportionately targeted, or widespread removal of deer habitat … the (report shows) comprehensive effects of Tongass logging are clearly mounting,” Fields said. The two biologists hired by the Sitka Conservation Society- Richard Carstensen, of Juneau, and Bob Christensen, of Lemesurier Island – said they plan additional surveys of Tongass timber units this summer. Their initial report is based on their 2005 summer surveys at 12 national forest timber sales. The report’s timing is noteworthy because the Tongass has just launched its own court-ordered review of its land management plan. Among its findings, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Forest Service had erroneously doubled the estimate of marketable timber in the Tongass. Just last week, biologists spent a week at meetings in Ketchikan discussing the forest plan’s conservation strategy, which also will be reworked. In general, the project is an effort to get beyond the “us versus them” mentality that has dominated Tongass timber debates for decades, Christensen said. “We’re trying to build trust here with good information,” Christensen said. http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/041706/sta_20060417001.shtml

British Columbia:

2) Although new to the demonstration game, the Eagleridge bluff protesters, are determined to be in this for the long haul because they can go home for showers and drop into local restaurants for food. “This is an urban setting. This isn’t the wildness of Clayoquot Sound. We will be able to go back and forth to our homes,” said Perry, the father of three daughters. “We can jump in the car and go down to the road to Starbucks. We will always be reasonably clean and not hungry.” Perry estimates there will be “dozens” of people pitching tents Monday night to occupy the bluffs above Horseshoe Bay. One of those will be Trish Panz, a physiotherapist and mother of two teenage children, who never imagined this fight would go unresolved and lead to such a demonstration. Most members of Perry’s grassroots group, the Coalition to Save Eagleridge Bluffs, are not card-carrying environmentalists who plan to chain themselves to trees on remote logging roads; they are, instead, bankers, physiotherapists and other professionals erecting a tent city in West Vancouver — one of the most exclusive communities of million-dollar homes in Canada. They hope their unusual demonstration will shame the provincial government into changing its plans to build an expansion of the highway through the scenic bluffs above Horseshoe Bay. The group argues a tunnel, or a third lane added to the existing route, would protect the environment and the view. “This may be unprecedented globally for this major issue to be erupting almost downtown in one of the most beautiful cities in the world,” said Perry. When asked if she is willing to be arrested over this demonstration, Panz responded: “We’ve all obtained legal counsel on that issue and I’ll leave it at that. Indeed, the group of neophyte protesters even took a course on civil disobedience so they could learn some tricks of the trade. One of their teachers was well-known protester Betty Krawczyk, a great-grandmother who served several months in jail in 2003 and 2004 for blockading a logging road in the Walbran Valley on Vancouver Island. Krawczyk could have avoided jail time by signing a promise not go near logging operations, but she refused. The group also has the support of West Vancouver Mayor Pam Goldsmith-Jones, who posed nude in a fundraising calendar put out by the coalition and provided city hall-funded public relations advice for the group. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=d85e90ff-82b9-401c-8ee4-6458d4548192&p=2

3) B.C. Timber Sales is an independent agency within the ministry of forests responsible for auctioning off Crown timber under its jurisdiction. It controls more of the provincial forest harvest than any other licensee. The damage occurred on the Little Lamb Creek forest service road, southwest of Cranbrook. An investigation by the Forest Practices Board showed that BCTS originally proposed the logger, who was not identified, construct a separate access road to the timber. But the logger went to the minister of forests and received approval to upgrade the existing Little Lamb Creek road. The road, an old mining access, runs parallel to the creek. In some spots it encroaches on the creek. The board audit showed the licence holder did not follow the conditions of the road permit. Portions of upgraded road had unstable cutslopes and plugged ditches. Fine-textured waste material had been stacked in steep piles, where it eroded into the stream. A B.C. Timber Sales crew attempted to repair the damage by cutting cross-drains and ditches and stabilizing the slopes. “However, the crossdrains may have had the unintended effect of accelerating delivery of the sediment to the stream,” the audit report states. “While BCTS’s remediation works were well-intended, it used practices inconsistent with the object of reducing sediment delivery.” The road is still in use. The ministry of forests intends to permanently de-activate it this year. ghamilton@png.canwest.com – © The Vancouver Sun 2006

4) The report further noted unused logging roads were properly broken down and overgrown, existing roads were well maintained, and logging debris was burned to reduce fire hazards, while also retaining enough underbrush for wildlife. “There wasn’t much to find,” Coombs said. Coombs said logging cutblocks distributed around Mount Prevost, Mount Sicker, Mount Tzouhalem, Stony Hill, Mount Richards, and Maple Mountain are small, about two to five hectares. He said North Cowichan ensures contractors use “green tree retention” – leaving spaced trees – old growth and wildlife habitat trees. North Cowichan is one of the few municipalities in Canada to own and manage a forest. Municipal forester Darrell Frank said North Cowichan started appropriating land at the turn of the century, typically from logging companies that didn’t pay their taxes. The municipal community forest was established in 1946. “That council had the foresight to put a portion of land into the municipal forest reserve, and most has been there ever since,” Frank said. “It is an unusual but wonderful asset to have.” Coombs agreed, saying almost all forestland in B.C. is held by private companies or is provincial Crown land. “It’s the only one really under municipal control,” he said. North Cowichan allows a16,000-cubic metre timber harvest per year using contracted fallers, but markets the trees itself. The municipality reaped profits of up to $800,000 in the mid-1990s, but these days logs are cheap. Last year saw a $27,000 profit. “If the market is weak we log less,” Frank said. “Over the past 20 years we have under cut. We could cut a lot more.” rank said profits help keep taxes down, but some has been funneled to the Forestry Legacy Fund, which helped fund projects like the bandshell at Waterwheel Park in Chemainus or the Sportsplex track near Duncan. Frank said the audit report held no big surprises and it will be business as usual in the forest. “The pride in what we do and in the ownership of the forest is borne out in the audit,” he said. http://www.ladysmithchronicle.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=18&cat=23&id=630176&more=

Washington:

5) Citing “overwhelming evidence” about the decline of what became a focal point in the battle between environmentalists and the timber industry in the 1990s, the Seattle chapter of the Audubon Society launched a legal assault Tuesday on Weyerhaeuser Co. and the state agency that regulates timber cutting. Joined by the Kittitas Audubon Society, the Seattle group cited five spots in southwest Washington where the state allowed extensive logging by Weyerhaeuser near owl nests. The logging, and more that is planned, violate the Endangered Species Act, the environmentalists contend. While Weyerhaeuser told the government years ago that it would establish a long-term plan to protect spotted owls on its extensive Southwest Washington holdings, the plan was never completed. Instead, company biologists carefully monitor the owls, Weyerhaeuser says, and logging is designed to maximize owl survival by leaving intact areas considered important to the birds. On Tuesday, the environmental groups filed an official notice to Weyerhaeuser and to state Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland of their intention to sue. “We’ve got protections across the state for spotted owls, and those do not extend to Weyerhaeuser,” said Alex Morgan, conservation director for Seattle Audubon. “You’ve got one bad apple that is not living by the rules that other landowners have to live by. … Instead, we have an entire region of the state that has zero protection for spotted owls.” Responded Frank Mendizabal, a company spokesman: “We are not aware that any of our operations, either ongoing or proposed, pose any threat to any northern spotted owl.” http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=b&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/267189_owls1
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6) Rainforest Action Network followed the wood harvested from the disputed land to houses built by Weyerhaeuser subsidiary Quadrant in Federal Way and around the Puget Sound area. The Rainforest Action Network wants Weyerhaeuser to stop buying logs from the disputed land. Weyerhaeuser buys wood from a company that has a government license to log the Grassy Narrows land. That wood is processed and transformed into lumber used to build stairs and other parts of a house. Weyerhaeuser spokesman Frank Mendizabal said Tuesday that the company’s products and houses are made with wood certified as coming from sustainably managed forests. “Quadrant and Weyerhaeuser stand behind the ‘Built Green’ designation,” Mendizabal said. Tuesday afternoon, Bonnie Swain, a Grassy Narrows member and nominee to the board, visited a subdivision in Federal Way built by Quadrant. As she toured the neighborhood filled with new homes, she saw stacks of wood made from aspen, poplar and birch trees that surround her village in Canada.“I am walking through my forests right now,” she said.RAN members representing many Weyerhaeuser shareholders nominated Swain to the board in a symbolic gesture to bring attention to the movement. The Grassy Narrows cause is the latest for the Rainforest Action Network, which has called on Weyerhaeuser to improve its environmental policies. RAN and Weyerhaeuser have been talking for several years and continue to meet. Last year, RAN brought members of the Haida Nation in British Columbia to Weyerhaeuser’s annual meeting to highlight another land dispute in Canada. http://www.thenewstribune.com/business/story/5673902p-5087914c.html

7) The tree is outside the offices of Washington Congressman Brian Baird. Baird supports a bill to accelerate logging of burned-out areas of national forests. A recent Oregon State University study indicates that more harm than good is done by so-called “salvage logging”. The study says the bulldozers and other heavy logging equipment and activity obliterates new growth and interfere with the forests’ natural recovery process. It also indicates that even burned-out trees have ecological value. They decay and create humus and natural fertilizer which feeds new generations of trees. The study set off a furor, with some OSU professors trying to prevent its publication. But it was published anyway, and then attacked by Baird and Oregon Congressman Greg Walden. The Baird-Walden bill, in turn, is being attacked by environmentalists such as Adriene Haley. He climbed the tree outside Baird’s Vancouver office to protest it — and to protest what he calls the power and influence bought by timber industry money. Baird, Walden and others argue logging helps the forest recovery process. Haley had planned to stay perched in the tree until Earth Day — April 22. But police officers convinced him he had made his point, and Haley finally came down. http://www.koin.com/news.asp?RECORD_KEY%5Bnews%5D=ID&ID%5Bnews%5D=3460

8) The fact is that most forest fuel-reduction projects are not controversial at all. Very few have been challenged in court, as a 2003 Government Accountability Office report confirmed. Where controversy erupts, it is almost always over proposals to log large, live trees under the pretense of improving forest health. “There are a lot of things we can all agree on,” says Emily Platt, executive director of the Gifford Pinchot Alliance. The Portland-based organization has formed a partnership with the Forest Service and logging companies and mills in Washington’s Lewis County to offer thinning sales on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest (HCN, 9/27/04: Life After Old Growth). The Pinchot Partnership produced its first tangible result last October, when a Woodland, Wash., logging contractor purchased 4.2 million board-feet of small-diameter trees for just over $1 million. The Smooth Juniper timber sale was an important victory, which came out of an agreement among all the parties to stop logging in roadless areas and old-growth stands. Instead, the partners agreed to make timber available to local mills through innovative thinning prescriptions, remove unneeded forest roads and conduct citizen monitoring. The Smooth Juniper sale included full scientific review and public comment. It was not appealed.Before the collaboration began, the Pinchot was “one of the most-appealed forests,” Platt says. “There hasn’t been a single appeal on the (forest) in three years. “We haven’t needed to change any of the laws,” she adds. “And if the Forest Service is pursuing these common-ground projects, it’s not having to spend a lot of time and money on litigation.” …Also, without limits on appeals, it’s hard to get buy-in from people in the timber business, says Bonnie Wood, who oversees the forest health program for the Forest Service and BLM in Oregon and Washington. “People say, ‘What is the point in my being here, when a postage stamp can stop this?’ ” http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=16229

Oregon:

9) The Final chapter of the saga of the Biscuit Burn is still unwritten. Ecologists prove logging it is unhealthy, firefighters warn it’s dangerous, economists assure it’s wasteful. Dozens of arrests have stymied the threat to a fraction of their promise. Still, Bush and Big Timber come back for more – this time Kalmiopsis Roadless Areas auctioned off under the guise of salvage logging! The Oxygen Collective and many others are directly challenging the Bush Administration’s rapidly advancing plans to post-fire clearcut forests in Oregon’s largest unprotected roadless areas this summer. For four days in April the Oxygen Collective will be traveling via a 40-foot biodiesel bus through western Oregon for four scheduled appearances featuring music, speakers, video, slides of direct action and a few unannounced surprises.The Oxygen Collective has been at the forefront of both public education and popular protest of Biscuit logging. We will be offering a multi-media presentation reviewing the Biscuit saga up to now and highlighting how the latest logging proposals will create detrimental national precedents. http://www.o2collective.org

10) Adopted by the Board of Forestry in 2001, the two management plans encompass 632,000 acres of state-owned forests in western Oregon. The northwest plan covers the Tillamook, Clatsop and Santiam State forests. The southwest plan covers scattered tracts of state-owned forestland near Philomath, Veneta and Grants Pass. Information discussed at the workshop will include recent results of a modeling project that calculates harvests under different management scenarios, and findings from a recent public opinion survey about state forest management. The workshop is open to the public. Public comment on the content of the workshop and adapting the Northwest and Southwest Oregon Forest Management Plans will be taken the following day, April 28, from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. at the Board of Forestry meeting in the same location. Both meetings will begin at 8 a.m. at Oregon Department of Forestry headquarters in the Tillamook Room – Building C, 2600 State St., in Salem. http://www.oregon.gov/ODF/news/NR5625.shtml

11) Deschutes National Forest managers have learned the hard way to tread lightly in the Metolius Basin. The residents of Sisters, Black Butte Ranch and Camp Sherman, a vocal and politically well-connected bunch, have kept vigil over these pines for decades. In the early 1980s, when they learned that the Forest Service planned to log the basin’s old-growth ponderosa pines, they formed the Little Buck Consensus Group and fought the proposal for a year and a half. What the agency had envisioned as a 10 million-board-foot old-growth clear-cut dwindled to an 800,000 board-foot thinning sale. In 1989, the Forest Service developed a Metolius recreation plan that called for more campgrounds, plus footbridges, viewing platforms, and 200 miles of mountain bike trails. Locals — now organized as the Friends of the Metolius — opposed the recreation plan, which threatened to draw hordes of visitors and change the basin’s rustic character. They also opposed the continued clear-cutting of old-growth ponderosa pines. The Friends of the Metolius had other ideas as well: a Metolius National Conservation Area, a shift from clear-cutting to selective logging, and sharply reduced timber harvests. They even hired a forester to work with the agency on the details of creating a conservation area. Oregon’s congressional delegation again leaned on the agency. When the Deschutes forest plan finally came out in 1992, it designated an 86,000-acre Metolius Conservation Area, to be managed for clean water, scenic views, and forest protection and restoration. After the ice storm of 2001, Friends of the Metolius approached the Forest Service with a new plan — this time for aggressive restoration. They called it the Metolius Heritage Forest Demonstration Project. At first, forest managers didn’t believe the group was serious. Then, its members contributed $50,000 toward the costs of preparing an environmental assessment and carrying out a pilot project. The project covered 11 separate plots, ranging in size from three to eight acres. Some were thinned by hand, others by machine. One plot was managed to restore western larch, which has nearly disappeared from the Metolius; another, called the “Turn of the Century Forest,” was opened up to resemble photos of the forest from 100 years ago. “We had to shift gears,” Anthony says. “We were happy to do fuel reduction in the other parts of the Deschutes National Forest. But we had kept our hands off the Metolius. All of a sudden, we couldn’t go fast enough.” http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=16229

12) Melcher makes his selection, pushes a button on a control panel, and moves the grapple into a steel embrace with a 12-inch-diameter pine. A retractable saw blade slices through the tree near its base. Working a joystick and more buttons with remarkable grace, he rotates the tree horizontally and pushes it through a series of blades that strip the limbs and bark. Then, he lays the pulp log gently on a pile and moves on to the next tree in the stand. With a chainsaw, Melcher could thin an acre of these woods in a day. Using the harvester machine, he can accomplish 10 times as much. Sixty percent of the logs he decks — those between 5 and 16 inches in diameter — are destined for a sawmill 70 miles away, where they’ll bring $300 per 1,000 board-feet. Those smaller than 5 inches will bring just $25 a ton when chipped at the mill. If Melcher is lucky, he will make a modest profit on this job. More likely, he says, he’ll break even after paying for fuel and labor. Still, the project keeps a crew of six employed in winter, when things are slow for loggers over on the west side of the Cascades. As old-growth timber sales dwindle on the Northwest’s public land, and as the Forest Service turns its focus toward “forest health” projects, logging contractors such as Melcher increasingly look to small trees and thinning sales. The question is: Do they pencil out? The Melcher Logging Co. produces about 40 million board-feet a year — enough to keep 33 employees busy, plus the independent truck drivers who haul their logs to the mill. So far, thinning provides just 15 percent of that. To make thinning sales of low-value trees work economically, the Forest Service can’t put them out to bid in the usual way and expect the timber’s value to draw bidders. Instead, the agency uses “stewardship contracts,” which pay logging contractors by the acre to take some trees out and leave others behind. The cost of cutting and transporting stacks of skinny trees is far higher than that of larger trees, he says. And even if biomass becomes economical, there could be a downside, according to a May 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office. Mass harvest of the skinniest trees could lead to overuse of mechanical treatment at the expense of prescribed burning, and it could increase erosion, stream sedimentation and access into remote roadless areas. And environmentalists wonder: Does it make sense to use gobs of gasoline to get biomass out of the woods? http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=16241

California:

13) While the Forest Service admits that its intensive logging program over the past 40 years has greatly harmed old-growth forests and critters in the Mad River watershed, the agency just can’t break its addiction to clearcutting. A little over 220 acres of the proposed logging call for “regenerating” (clearcutting) mature forest stands, turning them into highly flammable industrial tree plantations. The remainder of the proposed logging would focus on thinning smaller trees. The proposed logging also relies on dragging trees out of the forest with tractors, rather than cable helicopter yarding techniques, which are much more gentle on the soil. Sixty-nine logging units call for tractor dragging, while only seven units call for helicopter yarding. Removing all of the trees the Forest Service wants to log would require the construction of 25 “landings” in the forest to pile logs onto until they could be hauled out. The sale area is so remote that hauling costs will be high, which means the Forest Service will try to sell many big trees in an attempt to make the sale cost-effective to log. Please take a moment to let the Forest Service know that you value the forests, water and wildlife of the Upper Mad River Watershed. Initial (scoping) comments on their logging proposal are due by May 30th. http://www.wildcalifornia.org/actions/number-49

14) The state Department of Forestry erred in approving a logging plan for Sierra Pacific Industries Inc. that involved timber in the Central Sierra, the Fifth District Court of Appeal has ruled. The endangered northern spotted owl and the Pacific fisher nest in the areas involved, the court noted. The Fresno-based court agreed with Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch, which brought the appeal, that the CDF failed to follow provisions of California’s own rules when reviewing the Tuolumne County areas chosen to be cut by Sierra Pacific. In addition, “CDF’s finding that certain information about herbicide use was speculative, even if supported by substantial evidence, does not preclude an inquiry into whether CDF fulfilled its procedural obligation to obtain and disclose information regarding potential herbicide use,” the appeals court ruling says. It also criticized the state agency for disclosures that “were prejudicially inadequate. They inaccurately described the state’s pesticide regulatory program, which led to the overly broad conclusion that compliance with label directions and other restrictions in applying registered herbicides would preclude a finding that such application would have a significant adverse effect on the environment,” the ruling says. SPI owns approximately 1.5 million acres of land in California, including more than 1.1 million acres of timberland in the Sierra Nevada. This is the latest setback for the Redding-based company in trying to log in California. In late March, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked its logging of fire-damaged trees. It said the logging could cause too much damage to the forest. The order remains in effect while legal challenges wind their way through the courts. http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=1779

15) One of our local roadless areas needs some focused help right now. Here’s the scoop:
Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) owns a square of land above Underwood Creek, just east of the South Fork Trinity River, that’s completely surrounded by the Underwood Roadless Area in the Six Rivers National Forest. What’s more, the Underwood Roadless Area area is proposed for protection as Wilderness in the statewide wilderness bill that Senator Barbara Boxer recently re-introduced. SPI has an approved timber harvest plan (THP) to cut most of the old-growth and mature forest on its parcel. The company has asked the Six Rivers National Forest for permission to build a road through the roadless area to allow log trucks to haul away the big trees on SPI’s parcel. EPIC strongly opposes the proposed road, and we’ll all get a chance to comment on that proposal when the Six Rivers releases the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the road project. But even more important than preventing the road, in this case, is securing the integrity of the roadless area and proposed wilderness. The good news is that conservation-minded potential purchasers are interested in working with SPI to get the parcel in question moved into public ownership. To their credit, SPI’s managers have been willing to talk about a buyout, and have agreed to a meeting with potential purchasers. We need to encourage SPI to do the right thing. Please take the time to write to SPI today. http://www.wildcalifornia.org/actions/number-50

16) More than 80,000 acres in California’s national forests could be sold. No other state has more than 20,000 acres on the list. More than half these acres are in northwestern California’s Shasta-Trinity, Six Rivers, and Klamath national forests. More than a third are on the Klamath alone, where 105 parcels are marked for privatization, totaling more than 30,000 acres. One in every ten acres to be sold nationwide is on the Klamath National Forest. Congress will work over the budget starting this spring through the fall of 2006, when spending decisions for 2007 should be finalized. The proposal will thus have to be fought both through comments and by pressuring Congress to drop the idea altogether. Please take a moment and let the Forest Service know that you oppose selling public forest lands for this purpose. Comments on the proposed land sale must be received by May 1 and may be sent by e-mail to c. You may use the template below to send an email today. http://www.wildcalifornia.org/cgi-priv/Actions.pl?function=number&page_id=51

New Mexico:

17) Forest Guardians has also sent the agency back to the drawing board on two projects proposed under the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. In one case, the Cibola National Forest proposed logging and burning on 13,000 acres of sparsely populated backcountry. In the other, the Lincoln National Forest wanted to lift protections for the threatened Mexican spotted owl. In each case, Forest Guardians filed a “pre-decisional objection,” established under the law as an alternative to appeals, and Forest Service higher-ups agreed that there were issues that needed to be addressed. http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=16229

Colorado:

18) A reappraisal of how the Pike and San Isabel national forests should be managed gets under way this spring, the first such review in 22 years. Many aspects of the forests could come into play: ranching, recreation, oil and gas development and logging. For instance: How, or whether, the forests will be thinned where they abut a growing number of rural homes. But the biggest point of contention likely will be about access for off-road vehicles, a pastime that has exploded in popularity in the past decade. The new plan might not impose outright bans on activities or open the door on others, but it’s a critical blueprint to guide decisions. Federal directives require forest plan revisions every 15 years. Although the Pike and San Isabel plan hasn’t been rewritten since 1984, it has been amended 31 times to update uses and requirements, including provisions for timber sales, road construction, utility corridors and fire management standards. Forest officials blamed the delay on diverting resources to other forest plan revisions, lack of external pressure for change and lack of funding. That same lack of funding is to blame for the Forest Service limiting public involvement, the Forest Service said. The White River Forest revision, finished in 2002, spanned five years. The forest’s 2.3 million acres contain 64 percent of Colorado’s downhill-skiing facilities, including Aspen and Vail, and the state’s largest elk herd. The revision drew 14,000 written public responses and faced numerous challenges and appeals from off-road vehicle groups who opposed designated off-road routes, environmentalists who lobbied for better protection of ecosystems and ski resorts that alleged protection plans infringed on their operations. The Pike and San Isabel revision could stir controversy in light of lifestyle changes since the 1984 plan was adopted. http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1316527&secid=1

19) Trainor, who manages the water supply for Grand Junction, Colo., had good reason to be nervous. In December, the BLM announced plans to auction 16,000 acres of land for oil and gas development on and around the forested mesa that supplies water to Grand Junction and nearby Palisade. Natural gas drilling creates an extensive network of access roads and well pads, and both communities worry that their water may be contaminated by sediment runoff and spilled waste fluids. In January, the communities asked the BLM to withdraw the leases to give them time to plan protections for the water supply, including making certain areas off-limits to drilling. Colorado Democrats Sen. Ken Salazar and Rep. John Salazar backed that request, but the agency went ahead with the sale. In a last-ditch effort, the Grand Junction city council dispatched Trainor to the Feb. 9 auction to bid on the mineral rights. The city was “willing to spend quite a bit of money to protect the water system,” says Trainor, but “we felt we shouldn’t have been put in this position to begin with.” All three parcels the city hoped to obtain, however, were nabbed by a Denver “land man,” who bid a total of nearly $1 million on behalf of an unknown energy company. The BLM may still decide not to allow drilling on the leases. Officials are reviewing the protests, according to spokeswoman Denise Adamic, and expect to make a final decision by the end of April. http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=16236

Nebraska:

20) Pine wilt has killed an estimated 5,000 pines in Nebraska since entering the state eight years ago. Since trees infected with pine wilt die from the disease, it is important to take steps to prevent its spread, said Mark Harrell, forest health program leader with the Nebraska Forest Service. Harrell said the pine sawyer beetle is active from May through September, so if trees dying of pine wilt were discovered in the fall and winter, the deadline for safely removing and destroying them is the end of April. “The disease is most common in southeast Nebraska, but has also been found around Fremont, Grand Island, North Platte and Valentine,” Harrell said. Pine wilt is caused by a microscopic, worm-like organism called the pinewood nematode. These nematodes live in pines and are carried from tree to tree by insects called pine sawyer beetles. Once inside the tree, the nematode disrupts the flow of sap, causing the tree to turn brown and die. About 95 percent of the pines killed are Scotch pines, but Austrian pines occasionally are killed by the disease as well. While trees stressed by drought are slightly more susceptible to pine wilt, it easily can kill healthy trees, Harrell said. Trees that die while the beetle is active should be removed within a month of the tree’s death to prevent the beetles from re-emerging and spreading the nematodes to new trees. http://www.theindependent.com/stories/041706/new_pinewilt17.shtml

Vermont:

21) Only Congress has the power to designate official wilderness areas, which are off limits to all logging, snowmobiling, ATVs or other mechanized activity. Now Vermont’s three-man congressional delegation has proposed a bill that would create about 47,000 acres of new wilderness. That would bring the total acreage of wilderness areas in Vermont to about 106,000 acres. The proposal from Sens. James Jeffords and Patrick Leahy and Rep. Bernard Sanders has already drawn fire from those opposing the creation of any new wilderness. The arguments of the critics include the economic, the environmental and the cultural. The economic argument is that Vermont’s timber industry suffers when land is placed off limits to logging. Logging is an essential component of Vermont’s economy, and the national forest is a resource that ought to be managed for the economic benefit of working Vermonters. http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060416/NEWS/604160314/1014/EDUCATION05

Massachusetts:

22) While all state Department of Conservation and Recreation forests and parks in this region have been off limits to off-road vehicles since 1996, within a few months that agency will be holding a yardstick to all state forests and parks to determine the appropriateness of each for future development of ORV trails considered sustainable, based on grading, drainage, materials and other factors. DCR closed Savoy Mountain State Forest on the Mohawk Trail to all off-road vehicles in April 2005 for public safety reasons and concern over the increasing environmental impact on the property. Mr. Briere said the DCR had determined that continued off-road vehicle use at Savoy “would cause severe and irreparable harm to the forest and its trails and would place trail users and park visitors at risk.” Mr. Frey predicted a year ago that within six years some forests and parks in Central Massachusetts would be reopened to riding, a move he believes will greatly reduce the number of instances of illegal riding on public and private property. Mr. Frey said an estimated 90,000 households in Massachusetts own either a dirt bike or all-terrain vehicle and enjoy motorized outdoor recreation. Mr. O’Brien counters that that fact alone strikes at the heart of the problem — the demand for additional trails for ORVs supersedes the commonwealth’s supply of forest and park land where such activity is appropriate. He said DCR is reviewing trail specifications developed by the U.S. Forest Service and several other states where ORVs are popular, including West Virginia and Pennsylvania. He estimated the cost of designing, building and operating 50 miles of trail for ORV use at $1.5 million, a figure that he said is well beyond the financial reach of the DCR. Currently the state provides 185 miles of motorized use trails, but because of poor design, construction and maintenance, many miles of trail have deteriorated to the point where the environment has been endangered and riding conditions are considered unsafe for all but skilled ATV and dirt bike riders, according to the DCR. http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060416/NEWS/604160717/1008/NEWS02

New Jersey:

23) TRENTON – Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson today applauded a New Jersey appeals court ruling that upheld the DEP’s authority to adopt comprehensive stormwater rules requiring 300-foot buffers to protect high-quality waters from the dangers of development. “The court ruling represents a tremendous victory for New Jersey in our ongoing fight to protect the quality and quantity of our water resources. Clean, safe and abundant drinking water supplies are something we cannot afford to take for granted,” Commissioner Jackson said. “New Jersey’s stormwater rules are considered the nation’s most protective largely because they require 300-foot vegetated buffers along Category One waterways to help filter pollutants and safeguard the quality of these waters.” In the 24-page decision released today by the Appellate Division of New Jersey Superior Court, the three-judge panel rejected the New Jersey Builders Association’s argument the DEP lacked the statutory authority to promulgate the stormwater rules, and also noted that the association “mischaracterized these buffers as ‘no build zones.'” “This ruling by the Appellate Division affirms DEP’s broad authority to protect water quality in New Jersey, as well as the need to preserve the remaining pristine waters throughout the state for future generations,” said Attorney General Zulima V. Farber. “The court recognized the close correlation between water quality and the way that land is used along the banks of our sensitive waterways.” “Protecting the quality and quantity of our water supplies not only is essential to our environment and our quality of life, but also is critical to the stability of our economy,” Commissioner Jackson said. For more info contact: Darlene Yuhas (609) 984-1795

USA:

24) The privatization of America’s transportation networks and the privatization of America’s National Parks and public lands are both being coordinated by ideologues form the Reason Foundation. The situations on the roads and in the parks are analogous. Quoting the Reason Foundation’s website we learn: “Robert Poole is the founder, and was the long-time president, of the Reason Foundation, a nonprofit think tank advancing free minds and free markets.” http://www.reason.org/poole.shtml – Quoting the Department of the interior’s website, we learn that Acting Secretary of Interior Lynn Scarlett – “Prior to joining the Bush Administration in July 2001, she was President of the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation, a nonprofit current affairs research and communications organization.” http://www.doi.gov/bio/bioscarlett.htm And finally, quoting Ms Scarlett herself “The organization that I came from invented the word ‘privatization’…” http://www.businessofgovernment.org/main/interviews/bios/scarlett_frt.asp . This interview was conducted by a representative of the accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers. For those who do not know, PricewaterhouseCoopers is directly and ubiquitously involved in bringing about the privatization of virtually all government functions in this nation.

Turkmenistan:
25) The area of forest plantations around Turkmen cities and villages has increased 15 times since the start of the presidential program on the large-scale planting of trees around Turkmenistan’s inhabited localities 8 years ago. 62,3 million saplings were planted in 1998-2005, including 23,875 million saplings in the capital and its vicinity. As the Ashgabat correspondent of Turkmenistan.ru was told in Gek Gushak (Green Belt) joint-stock company, the next stage of creating artificially planted forests and gardens started in Turkmenistan this spring. It was decided to establish a forest park zone in the vast territory stretching from the Kopetdag Mountains to the two large mountain ranges lying to the north from the Karakum lake and from Annau to Geoktepe. This project provides for the establishment of a wide forest belt around Ashgabat that would significantly improve the ecological situation in the capital and its suburbs. As Gek Gushak joint-stock company explained, along with the expansion of the area of plantations the methods of sapling growing are also being improved, and the modern watering technologies are being applied. The drip irrigation technology is widely used along with the traditional methods of watering. The drip irrigation technology will be given the utmost priority in the future. The company’s specialists regard maintaining qualitative care of trees planted in 1998-2005 and vineyards planted last year (work collectives participate in this process) as well as providing the population with appropriate saplings of different wood and bush species as their major task at this stage. The list of the most popular ever-green trees and bushes includes pine-trees and cypresses, juniper and Turkmen archa, ash-tree, elm, white mulberry tree and eastern plane. The customers are also offered ornamental trees and bushes of hardwood as eucalyptus, chestnut and olive tree. Lately, the demand for such fruit trees as apricot and apple trees, pear tree and persimmon, pomegranate and fig trees has grown. http://www.turkmenistan.ru/?page_id=3&lang_id=en&elem_id=8011&type=event&sort=date_desc

Uganda:

26) UGANDA has, for years, been wooing investors, but some of the potential top investors in the areas set aside for tree-planting are facing hostile encroachers. The government is ironically also encouraging the encroachers by insisting that they should not be evicted from the forest reserves. The encroachers in South Busoga forest reserve in Mayuge destroyed trees that formed part of a plantation established recently. In another incident, Nile Ply wrote to the National Forestry Authority (NFA) in February this year, complaining that part of the 450-hectare plantation in Lubanyi forest reserve in Jinja had been invaded by farmers who cleared it for farming. They put the loss at sh117m and wanted NFA to compensate them, but the forestry body declined to pay. This comes in the wake of a directive from the Environment Minister, Kahinda Otafiire, restraining NFA from evicting encroachers from forest reserves. NFA is one of the three institutions that were formed two years ago after massive reforms that have seen the colonial set-up forestry department being replaced. There was hope among the environmentalists that NFA, which is to be funded by donors for only four years, would contribute to the revitalisation of forestry in the country. However, political interference is undermining the gains and the recovery of the forests from a decade of plunder by the encroachers. They had taken over the forests because the forest department suffered many years of neglect and under-funding. But in an interview with The New Vision, two weeks ago, Otafiire backtracked on the issue. “The trees can live side by side with people and that is what we trying to explore,” he said. “We are in the process of rationalisation so that the people and trees could co-exist.” Prior to Otafiire’s directive this year, the NFA had undertaken a survey in the protected areas under its mandate and discovered that 180,000 encroachers were living in the government run forest reserves. They went around the forest reserves in a bid to retrace the boundaries that had defied many years of degradation. http://allafrica.com/stories/200604170898.html

South Africa:

27) Plettenberg Bay – MTO Ecotourism is a division of MTO Forestry, under whose auspices the Tsitsikamma trail operates. Neither this company, nor MTO Ecotourism were willing to comment on the incident in which Taljaard died. Stefan le Roux, Taljaard’s partner for the past 18 years, said he was considering legal action against these companies. The tree hit Taljaard, an accountant from Worcester, on Thursday after a contractor had apparently been busy felling trees near the Lottering plantation, through which the trail runs. Le Roux said about 12 hikers had already completed about 13km of the second leg of the route before passing from the forest to the plantation. There they had to climb over trees. They heard a loud bang and saw a tree of between 30 and 40m in length rolling towards them. The hikers fell down, but the tree hit Taljaard in the side. Le Roux said neither himself nor Taljaard had signed an indemnity form. Liesel le Roux, who did the reservations at the Tsitsikamma trail for the group of hikers, said as far as she knew none of them had signed the indemnity form. The forestry company supported a policy of “multiple use of its land in a viable and environmentally-responsible manner”. According to the website “plantations used for recreational purposes by the public, formed a valuable facet of this policy”. Dirk Nortje, area manager of MTO forestry, said on Sunday he couldn’t comment on the accident. “Neither myself nor any of our employees were present at the time of the accident.” Le Roux said the whole scene was unsafe. “I’m going to take them on,” he said. http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1917944,00.html

Brazil:

28) Peugeot had several objectives in creating the carbon sink. To start, it wanted to take a comprehensive approach to controlling greenhouse gases from human activity. In addition to devising technological innovations to reduce CO2 emissions at the source, the carmaker is committed to making a positive contribution to the initiatives that came out of the Kyoto Protocol, which emphasizes the importance of fighting the man-made greenhouse effect. Thanks to its innovations, PSA Peugeot ranks among the world’s leading manufacturers with the best performance in terms of fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. As for its environmental contribution, Peugeot’s carbon sink was created to study the relationship between reforestation, sequestration of atmospheric carbon and climate regulation through the development of a living, large-scale prototype over a 40-year period. The project also fits in with the commitments of the Group’s corporate citizenship responsibilities. The local population was involved in creating the sink from the very beginning to ensure that it was firmly anchored in the community. An environmental education program was set up in local schools and more than 1,500 students have discovered the usefulness of a growing forest by visiting the São Nicolau tree farm. In addition, some 80,000 saplings have been distributed to owners of small local farms since 2000. As well as the “carbon sink” project, Peugeot is also cutting CO2 emissions at source with its HDi diesel technology, which reduces CO2 emissions by 20% compared to a conventional diesel engine. Combined with their particulate filters, Peugeot diesel engines are amongst the cleanest engines on the planet. Later on this year a new range of petrol engines will be launched in the new Peugeot 207, designed not only to improve performance, but also to further reduce emissions. http://autoweb.drive.com.au/cms/A_106516/newsarticle.html

Uruguay:
29) Amsterdam, Netherlands, Apr 13 2006 -* Dutch banking giant ING announced in a letter to Friends of the Earth International, CEDHA and BankTrack that it is pulling out of a divisive venture opposed by environmentalists and local communities in Uruguay and Argentina. The ING Group wrote in an April 12 letter that its participation in the 1.7 billion USD controversial paper mill project of Finnish company Botnia in Uruguay “is no longer under consideration”. The ING Group had an advisory role to the company and was to arrange a USD 480 million loan package from private banks for the project. The paper mill has been strongly criticized in Uruguay and Argentina for its severe negative environmental impacts. Botnia has already started to build a paper mill on the Uruguay river, at the border with Argentina. The project will have strong environmental impacts as it will pollute air and water and contribute to the increase in damaging monoculture plantations. The project has led to hot protests in both countries. Activists built roadblocks on bridges across the river linking the two countries. The project also brought relations between the governments of Argentina and Uruguay to a breaking point, with both governments indicating that they want to bring the case to the International Court of Justice in the Hague for violation of an international treaty governing the Uruguay river. http://www.rfu.org

China:

30) Dawn redwoods, Metasequoia glyptostroboides: This species, like the Southeastern baldcypress (Taxodium distychum) it resembles and unlike our native coast redwoods, is naturally deciduous. Dawn redwood is one of few living species that was named and classified from fossils alone, long before anyone in the scientific community that uses those Linnean binomials had seen a living individual. In a way, it’s a living fossil, like our coastal Sequoia sempervirens and Sequoiadendron giganteum, their massive relative in the Sierra Nevada. All are relict species, survivors of forests and families that existed over much greater territories in a different world limate several million years ago. Dawn redwood fossils have been found around the northern hemisphere from Spitsbergen through Alaska and our Midwest to Greenland. In 1941, a Japanese paleobotanist, Shigeru Miki, decided that the Pliocene fossils he was seeing weren’t just another Taxodium after all, in fact weren’t quite like anything else, and named them their species binomial. News like this didn’t travel fast across the battle lines of World War II. That same year, a Chinese forester-professor named T. Kan noticed an interesting tree on a roadside in Szechuan. The specimens weren’t identified until they’d passed through many hands over several years, and in 1946 reached someone who’d read Miki’s publication, one Dr. H. H. Hu of the Fan Institute in (then) Peiping. He matched the living samples with Miki’s recently named fossils. Dr. Hu wrote to Dr. Elmer D. Merrill of Harvard and Dr. Ralph Chaney of UC Berkeley to announce the find and request help in preserving the species. Merrill sent $250, enough to fund a seed-gathering trip by Hu’s colleagues, and the seed was redistributed to interested gardens and arboretums all over the world. But UC’s Chaney wanted to meet this old-new tree in the flesh. He’d already met the type specimen, the 480-year-old, 112-foot-tall individual whose seeds had been sent out and whose lineaments were used to describe the species. The hard part was a farther trip, to see a whole forest of dawn redwoods. He saw there a mixed forest of broadleaf trees—birch, beech, oak, sweetgum, maple, chestnut—in which the dawn redwood was a citizen, as its fossils had suggested was the case through its ancient range. “It’s like a botanical alumni reunion,” he said. “This is what much of the world looked like a million centuries ago.” Such a reunion takes place not only in arboretums around the world, but out on city streets, planted with many of those trees now. Continents and climates drift, and humans drift too, just faster. http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=04-18-06&storyID=23936

Malaysia:

31) THE Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) has come up with a relatively simple solution to stop all logging activities in the Belum-Temenggor forest reserves. Just extend the boundaries of the yet-to-be gazetted State Park (Upper Belum) to include the Temenggor forest reserve and all logging activities will die a “natural death”. The organisation’s science and conservation committee chairman, Anthony Sebastian, in making this suggestion, pointed out that the Temenggor forest reserve would automatically be protected once it attains the State Park status. “No logging activities are allowed in State Parks and this seems to be the simplest solution for all parties concerned,” he told reporters during a recent trip organised by the MNS to the Belum-Temenggor area. http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/nst/Sunday/NewsBreak/20060416164647/Article/index_html

32) Scientists believe that the Belum-Temenggor forest is some 130 million years old, making it older than the Amazon and Congo forests. Cycads growing there hint at this forest’s antiquity; these palm-like growths date from the Jurassic period and are one of the oldest plants on earth. Over 3,000 species of flowering plants grow there, including the peninsula’s three Rafflesia species – R. kerrii, R. cantleyi and R. azlanii. Belum-Temenggor adjoins two protected areas in southern Thailand – Hala-Bala Wildlife Sanctuary and Bang Lang National Park. When linked up, they form a trans-boundary protected area of some 850,000ha, possibly the largest single wildlife sanctuary on the Malay Peninsula. Such a vast expanse of protected forest will allow plants and animals to thrive. ONE minute we were cruising up a pristine stream flanked by untouched forest full of soaring trees. The next, as we rounded a bend, log debris blocked our path. And the crystal clear water had turned murky. “Last time, this river was very beautiful,” says our boatman. “The water was very clear and tourists like to come here to swim and have picnics.” Well, that is now all but impossible. Logging has left an indelible mark on this stream and many others that feed the Temenggor Lake in the upper reaches of Perak. Loggers have ignored sustainable forestry practices. They have cut trails into riverbanks, flouting the requirement for a buffer zone. Scientists have for years urged for preservation of Temenggor forest and the adjoining Belum forest. The Perak Government finally heeded the call in 2003 but to the dismay of conservationists, it declared only Upper Belum (forest north of the East-West Highway) as the Royal Belum State Park. Forest south of the highway, consisting of Lower Belum and the 149,000ha Temenggor, remains as “production forest reserve” destined for logging. And so, tree-felling in Temenggor has sped up in recent years. Newspapers have also highlighted cases of illegal logging. Much is at risk. Which is why MNS wants the Perak Government to stop logging in Temenggor, turn it into a protected area as part of Royal Belum, gazette the area as a state park, and draw up a conservation management plan for it. THINK the Temenggor forest is worth saving? Then support the Malaysian Nature Society’s Belum-Temenggor Campaign 2006 to urge the Perak and Federal Governments to stop the logging and safeguard the forest for future generations. The MNS is distributing two sets of postcards for the public to sign –http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2006/4/18/lifefocus/13961422&sec=lifefocus

33) SOME 10,000 orang asli, mostly from the Jahai and Temiar tribes, live within Belum-Temenggor. Some groups still live a nomadic life and with each resettlement, they clear forests to build huts and plant padi, vegetables, fruit trees and rubber trees. They also collect jungle produce, including Rafflesia buds which are sold for folk cures. Their traditional lifestyle may have exerted a toll on the forest but the orang asli too are victims of deforestation. Khe Wah, who heads Kampung Chuweh, says fish catch has declined, as has honey-gathering as tualang trees where bees make their nests, have been axed. “We asked to be compensated RM2,000 for each tualang tree but the loggers offered only RM200. That is not enough. There are 40 to 60 bee nests on each tree,” he says. http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2006/4/18/lifefocus/13961433&sec=lifefocus

34) The spectacle of hornbills flying overhead in huge flocks is a visual feast that must rank as one of the natural wonders of the world. First observed in 1992 by bird watchers who counted over 300 hornbills in flight over Temenggor one evening, this phenomenon has not been reported elsewhere in the world. Perak, not Sarawak, should rightfully claim the title of “Land of Hornbill.” After all, it is the only state where all 10 of Malaysia’s hornbill species are found. Sarawak has only eight. And better still, Perak or to be exact, the Belum-Temenggor forest, is one of only two sites where mass movement of hornbills has been sighted. (The other is Ulu Muda forest reserve in Kedah.) So far, only two species – the wreathed and plain-pouched hornbills – have been spotted grouped in flight. The survey failed to locate their roosting site but it is believed to be east of Pos Chiong. Breeding was not seen but since this species breeds in the Hala-Bala Wildlife Sanctuary in Thailand, it is possible that they nest in Royal Belum. But the hornbill population appears to have fallen victim to logging. Hornbills nest in holes found in old, large trees – the very trees eyed by loggers. Recent counts are nowhere near those of previous years. The highest tally during the MNS study was 1,072 birds. The study, which also detected large congregations of helmeted and rhinoceros hornbills in Temenggor, found hornbills to be more common in unlogged forest. Hornbills play crucial ecological roles. They disperse seeds of fruit and forest trees. http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2006/4/18/lifefocus/13961429&sec=lifefocus

Indonesia:

35) Jakarta – A Chinese state company is interested in investing in the forestry sector in Indonesia, Forestry Minister MS Kaban said. The Chinese company intends to invest US$1 billion to set up a wood processing company and an industrial forest estate (HTI) in Papua, Kaban said here Tuesday. The Chinese state company, called China Light, needed a total of 800,000 cubic meters of logs or equivalent to 400,000 cubic meters of processed wood up to 2008. Since 2004, Papua and Irian Jaya Barat provinces have a quota of 1.2 million cubic meters of logs from natural forests. The government currently has a stock of 300,000 cubic meters of logs procured from the seizures of illegal log activities last year. The Forestry Ministry`s director general of forestry production development, Hadi S Pasaribu, said the remaining 500,000 cubic meters of logs could be bought from private forest concession companies operating in Papua. The Chinese company was also planning to develop an industrial forest estate to supply a pulp and paper company which would also be constructed in Papua. The ministry had set a target of developing more industrial forest estates with a total area of 5 million hectares up to 2009. Until 2005, some 2.5 million hectare have been planted with trees. http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=11409

World-wide:

36) “The distinction between restoration of whole ecosystems, including all their features (species, processes, etc.) for their own sake, and restoration of elements or features selected for ulterior reasons, whether these are economic, aesthetic, or whatever, is of immense importance,” says Jordan, “Nothing less than the future of classic landscapes and the noneconomic species that make them up – that is, the large majority of species – depends on it.” I found the full article at: http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/23277/