210 – Earth’s Tree News

Today for you 36 new articles about earth’s trees! (210th edition)
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–British Columbia: 1) Marmots, 2) Save Egmont’s water, 3) Save the Firs along Koksilah River, 4) BC’s land trusts, 5) Lands of Haida Gwaii, 6) reforesting Beetle land,
–Washington: 7) State to log a tiny bit lass this year
–Oregon: 8) timber sale named Annie’s Cabin, 9) BLM problems, 10) Film about BLM,
–Massachusetts: 11) 900-acre parcel in the southern Berkshires saved
–New Hampshire: 12) White Mtn. NF Logging Challeng 13) New England Wilderness,
–Vermont: 14) Community Forest Collaboration
–USA: 15) terms of greenwashed exploitation, 16) Why no fire thinning results?
–Canada: 17) Alberta’s oil sands, 18) Edéhzhíe, 19) W. Newfoundland Model Forest,
–UK: 20) Lidar scans vegetation
–France: 21) Greenpeace speaks out to save the Congo
–Greenland: 22) Once was forested
–Ukraine: 23) best surviving riverine forests in Europe
–Guyana: 24) Exporting non-renewable forest logs is inherently flawed
–Ecuador: 25) Save Yasuni National Park
–Brazil: 26) Juruna peoples reclaim lost lands
–China: 27) a link between rapid city growth and rainfall patterns
–Bhutan: 28) existence of illegal felling
–Vietnam: 29) Grey-shanked doucs
–Philippines: 30) Tarsier Conservation Project
–New Zealand: 31) Greenpeace suppressing truth about their support for logging rare unentered forests, 32) Gisborne to double in size because of logging industry,
–Malaysia: 33) Plantation Industries Minister Peter Chin is a liar and a thief
–Indonesia: 34) Palm Oil Industrial Cluster, 35) plan to rehabilitate 1.1 million hectares,
–World wide: 36) risks of large-scale production of biofuels,

British Columbia:

1) Well, first of all, the public needs to know that wild-born Vancouver Island marmots are now totally extinct, having passed away into oblivion, without obituary, several years ago. That means that all of the 200 marmots that are alive today are laboratory-bred specimens which have been born and raised in captivity. These lab-born animals are slated for release onto the empty former sub-alpine colony sites with a hope and a prayer that they might somehow make themselves at home again, re-occupy a cold and lonely burrow and reproduce. For this purpose, the VIM Project has managed to secure some of the naturally treeless meadows and ridges around their final Green Mountain redoubt where wild Vancouver Island marmots made their last stand on this Earth. Every year, the distribution of lab-bred marmots over the extinct colony sites offers much-coveted PR photo-ops for government and logging industry officials who are depicted cuddling the cute animals as they are released. The second thing that the public needs to know is that the protection and restoration of critical Vancouver Island Marmot habitat is not part of the Recovery project. Aside from several small sub-alpine colony sites above the tree line which have been protected, the forested connectivity corridors which once provided essential safe-access for marmots between their many mountain-top colony sites are entirely unprotected. Wild marmots once traversed the thickly forested valleys between their colony sites to spread out their gene-pool to avoid inbreeding. Not any more. These areas of marmot habitat are now dedicated as perpetual logging zones, where having cleared the old-growth forests from the valley bottoms to the tops of the mountains, the logging companies are now stripping away second-growth down at the bottom again. The cutting has been so voracious that the companies are now hacking into stands of timber as young as 30 years old. One can see truckloads of these ‘pecker-poles’ any day on the Island Highway, headed for the ocean log dumps from where they are exported in the round to feed American saw-mills. http://www.ingmarlee.com

2) Watersheds are sensitive places. We’ve been kicked out of two of them already on this trip. And if you think a couple of hikers might do some damage to the drinking water, what do you think logging will do? Here in Egmont, they’re trying to stop the logging of their drinking water watershed, currently a 100 year old second growth forest. Check it out at http://www.saveourwatershed.com/ Almost all of the forest around here is second growth. The big old trees left are all on steep slopes, logged by helicopter – a dangerous and expensive job. Talking to a faller for a heli logging company by Clowhom Lake, I’m glad I’m not up there, balancing on a tiny board 30 feet up in the air, reaching out to do tricky cuts with a 42 inch chainsaw… But the economics for the tight-grained wood in those slow growing trees drive the operation. Someone’s getting rich from it. And as the faller says: “It’s all government bulshit” But it’s a beautiful time to be paddling these bays. Warm sunny days under bright blue skies, and dark starry nights. Last night we paddled well into dark, watching some of the most amazing phosphorescence I’ve ever seen. Along the shore, we startled schools of small fish. They zipped away from our raft in every direction, leaving glowing trails of bubbles behind them, like underwater fireworks. It was awesome. http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/blog/?p=127

3) Almost twenty years ago, two Vancouver Island loggers, Louie Van Beers and Don Hughes, put down their chainsaws and refused to cut down an exceptional stand of old-growth Douglas Firs along the Koksilah River southwest of Duncan, BC. Due to their heroic actions, this incredible stand – part of the 1% of BC’s remaining old-growth Coastal Douglas firs which haven’t been logged yet – was voluntarily set aside by the company of the day. However, TimberWest, the current owners of the land, were moving to road and log in and around the Koksilah Grove this past spring. However, the company now seems to be open to negotiating a solution for the Grove, which we believe must be bought and protected by the BC government. Find out about this incredible forest and WRITE a BRIEF LETTER to Minister of Forests Rich Coleman on whether you think the BC government must purchase these private lands to protect this spectacular grove, and to also protect the remaining old-growth forests on Vancouver Island and the Southwest Mainland! See the Koksilah Old-Growth Photos (the second item in the Photogallery) and Info on what YOU can do at: http://www.wildernesscommitteevictoria.org/gallery.php

4) 2007 marks a milestone year for BC’s land trusts. With over half a million acres of lands protected by land trusts in British Columbia (an area larger than the size of Greater Vancouver), these groups are geared to be playing an increasingly important role in conserving BC’s natural and cultural features into the future. Since 1997, over 32 land trusts have formed across BC, working as charitable non-profit organizations to protect BC’s natural and cultural heritage. Land trusts work with British Columbians to care for areas through conservation covenants, land acquisition and stewardship agreements with private landowners, businesses, other non-profit groups and government . This year, the Land Trust Alliance of BC is celebrating the successes of the groups and individuals involved in conservation, and ensuring their sustainability by launching the Raising Awareness of Natural and Cultural Diversity campaign. The LTABC has recently received a $30,000 grant from the Vancouver Foundation, which will be used in conjunction with $40,000 from the Real Estate Foundation of BC and $25,000 from the Bullitt Foundation to provide support for- and promote the work of land trusts in British Columbia. The outreach portion of the campaign features communications with government, professional groups, other non-governmental organizations and the general public. The general media aspect of the campaign will be centered on the People Protecting Places case studies developed by the LTABC, which showcases examples from ten of the thousands of individuals in BC who have left a legacy of natural and cultural heritage in the Province. The professional outreach program will offer individuals and groups the opportunity to network and learn from each other- developing a strong conservation network for British Columbia. In order to achieve this, the LTABC has recently signed as a co-partner for the 2009 BC Land Summit, along with the British Columbia Association Appraisal Institute of Canada (BCAAIC), the British Columbia Institute of Agrologists (BCIA), the British Columbia Society of Landscape Architects (BCSLA), the Planning Institute of British Columbia (PIBC), and the Real Estate Institute of British Columbia (REIBC). This work with conference partners along with LTABC workshops this fall will raise awareness among professionals about how to include conservation options into their professional practice. http://www.landtrustalliance.bc.ca

5) The six-hour voyage to the Queen Charlotte Islands — a dagger-shaped archipelago just 30 miles from Alaska that’s also known as Haida Gwaii by its First Nations residents — is a choppy affair, with little to look at but dozens of sleepy, blanket-wrapped passengers Yet as I grip the rail on the wind-whipped outer deck, squinting blearily at the growing landmass ahead, a heightened sense of intrigue creeps over me. It takes a certain type of person to live on this remote clutch of more than 150 rocky islands, complete with wild forests, random rain showers and howling winter storms that regularly threaten to uproot the 5,000 locals and send them tumbling back to the mainland. Fortunately, the elements calm in summer, when curious visitors arrive by ferry from Prince Rupert or by plane from Vancouver. We head up the short but steep Tow Hill hiking trail that winds along wooden boardwalks through a dense canopy of moss-covered cedar, hemlock and spruce trees. The air is cool and damp as my jocular guide points out piles of shells dropped by feasting eagles and “culturally modified trees”– trunks where long strips of bark have been removed by past generations of Haida for hat and basket making. After 20 minutes, we reach the summit and are treated to a panoramic view of a curving crescent beach backed by an enormous bog that’s thick with stunted, gnarly trees. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/getaways/322293_queen05.html

6) The $2.1 million planting program is targeted at areas that are not being logged by companies, and is meant to address environmental issues like water flows and animal habitat, as well as building a future timber supply. “This is just the beginning of our reforestation efforts in the Cariboo,” B.C. Forests Minister Rich Coleman said Thursday. “We’ve done the mapping and the planning, and ordered the seedlings. Now we are ready to get going on the ground,” he said. An estimated 4,000 hectares will be planted in the Williams Lake and Quesnel timber supply areas next summer. Preparation of planting sites, including danger tree falling, will occur this summer. As well, another 8,000 hectares of beetle-attacked stands will be surveyed during 2007 in preparation for planting in the future. B.A. Blackwell and Associates will administer the reforestation activities within the Williams Lake and Quesnel areas. The work will be performed by both private contractors and First Nations. In B.C., the companies that log forests are responsible for replanting them. As a result of logging of pine beetle-killed forests, it’s estimated that forest companies will plant about 12.6 million seedlings in the Williams Lake timber supply area and another 26.5 million seedlings in the Quesnel area in 2007. The beetle epidemic now covers more than nine million hectares in north and central B.C., an area more than twice the size of Vancouver Island. http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=93697&Itemid=159

Washington:

7) Regulators have agreed to slow the rate of logging in Western Washington state forests by about 8 percent under a revised 10-year logging plan. Tuesday’s decision by the state Board of Natural Resources sets the annual harvest on the region’s state trust lands at about 550 million board feet – down from the previous target of about 600 million board feet per year. The board, which tries to balance forest income with sustainable harvests, set the higher logging level in 2004. But that calculation was challenged in court by conservation groups. The parties settled the lawsuit last year, after a King County Superior Court judge rejected the state’s logging plan, saying officials did not adequately consider the environmental impacts. Some 1.4 million acres of state trust lands on the west side of the Cascade Mountains are affected by the 10-year logging plan. Still unresolved is a strategy for protecting the marbled murrelet, a bird that nests in old growth trees. http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20070704/NEWS03/707040353

Oregon:

8) The timber sale name, Annie’s Cabin, comes from a cabin that sits just north of Squirrel Creek on the east side of the Huckleberry Trail. Jim Williams, Annie Miller, and her daughter, Squirrel, used this cabin as their living room (a small trailer was next door) from June 1992 until December 1993. They were BLM volunteers who worked to improve the condition of the Molalla River Recreation Corridor. Jim’s presence made a big difference in the Molalla River Recreation Corridor. He loved this area and worked hard to improve and protect it. Jim spent his last days there and died in October 1993. Annie and Squirrel left two months later. The cabin sits just 250 feet south of Unit #6 of the timber sale. We need to continue to protect Jim’s vision! Annie’s Cabin timber sale, a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposal to thin 566-acres within the Molalla River Recreation Corridor, contract has been rewarded to Freres Lumber Company. This timber sale would severely impact recreational trails designated for hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding created by volunteers. Sensitive species such as Oregon Slender Salamanders, Red Tree Voles, and Tall Bughane have been found within this timber sale project and would also be impacted. Act now to contact Congresswoman Darlene Hooley to tell her office to urge the BLM to cancel this timber sale. 16 of the 25 units of the Annie’s Cabin timber sale either have the Molalla River Recreation Corridor’s Shared-Use Trail System running through units or abutting the units with no buffers. This trail system was created in the 1990s when the BLM closed 13 miles of logging roads converting these roads into trails for hiking, mountain biking, and equestrian uses. In 1994, the BLM approved the development of 12 miles of additional single-track trails in partnership with volunteer organizations. Thinning of Unit #2 would impact Amanda’s Trail, Mark’s Trail, and Sandquist’s Trail, three trails named for early advocates and builders of the trail system. We need to protect and preserve the scenic beauty of these trails that volunteers spent long hours to create and maintain! http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/07/361818.shtml

9) The following are just a few of the resulting assaults on forests, our global cooling factories: 1) BLM’s Western Oregon Plan Revisions: a backroom sweetheart settlement with timber barons to axe old-growth protections from 2.5 million acres of public forests; 2) Fish and Wildlife’s latest Spotted Owl Extinction Plan;; 3) Logging under the guise of “fire prevention”; 4) Forest biomass extraction; 5) Bogus “restoration” on public lands, exploiting Latino immigrants. — What we propose is not the whole solution, only a missing part of the solution: being radical inside the system. Now is the time to seize the mounting concern over climate change. Now is the time to add more uncompromising voices truly advocating for the people and the forest. Now is the time to stop just playing defense and start scoring some points. With public opinion overwhelmingly on our side, why are a handful of timber barons calling the shots? One under-utilized tactic to protect our forests is targeting the pocketbooks of the individuals directly responsible for ecosystem destruction: the timber barons. The boycott of Umpqua Bank, or StUmpqua (whose board of directors are the most notorious clearcutters and pesticide sprayers in Oregon), has already cost the bank tens of millions of dollars. http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2007/06/21/views1.html

10) Directed and produced by Tim Lewis with technical direction by Trip Jennings, Boom, Bust and the BLM premieres this month with screenings in Ashland, Cave Junction, Roseburg, Eugene, Portland and other venues across the Pacific Northwest. This documentary interviews rural landowners, small-scale loggers, citizen surveyors and conservationists who discuss their experience with the BLM and their hope for the future. As the BLM prepares to release a draft management plan in August, this film could not be more timely and relevant for those who care about Oregon’s forests, biodiversity, sustainable management and the various uses of our public lands. The DVD includes an interactive “action tool kit” to help people make their voices heard throughout the WOPR process. Boom Bust and the BLM sheds light on the BLM’s Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR) and the dubious political wrangling behind it. The result of a sweetheart settlement between the Bush Administration and the timber industry, WOPR seeks to remove or severely weaken Northwest Forest Plan protections for forests and rivers on 2.5 million acres of public land. http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/07/361881.shtml

Massachusetts:

11) In one of the largest and most ecologically significant public conservation deals in recent years, the state has acquired a 900-acre parcel in the southern Berkshires that contains pristine old-growth forest, including Eastern hemlock trees that predate the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth. The $5.2 million purchase of Spectacle Pond Farm followed protracted negotiations with its owners, a family divided over whether the land should be developed or conserved. After one side of the family sold its interest in the property to a developer and the other side sold its interest to the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the state stepped in and cut a deal that will preserve it for future generations. “It’s a spectacular piece of property,” said Ian Bowles, secretary of energy and environmental affairs, who announced the deal yesterday. The 900 acres lie between the Otis State Forest to the north and the Clam River watershed to the south. “Finding large blocks of unprotected future conservation land is increasingly difficult, and this is a really important parcel because it connects these properties to the south and north in an uninterrupted corridor of habitat,” Bowles said. Some of the hemlock trees on the property are among the oldest trees in Massachusetts, said Bob Wilber, director of land protection for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, which played a critical role in securing the deal. “They sprouted out of the ground about the time Shakespeare was writing,” he said. Though the land has been on the state’s radar for years, the purchase is a welcome development for Governor Deval Patrick, who was criticized by environmentalists earlier this year for failing to follow through on a campaign promise to increase spending on parks maintenance by $10 million, although the Legislature ultimately came through with much of that money. Patrick also remains under pressure from environmental advocates to dramatically increase capital spending on land conservation. The Spectacle Pond Farm deal ends a long quest by the state, which has been eyeing the land for at least a quarter- century, said Wilber. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/07/06/a_swath_of_berkshires_past_saved_for_future
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New Hampshire:

12) A plan to allow logging in an off-roads portion of the White Mountain National Forest is being blocked by national environmental groups that fear it could set a bad precedent, even though local conservation organizations had approved the plan. The objections of two leading national environmental groups have forced the National Forest Service to reconsider its approval of logging in so-called “roadless areas” of the forest, frustrating local logging companies that thought they had a deal. “The new forest plan was embraced by all people at the table, and now after the fact, there are some people out there with their own agendas,” said John Caveney , vice president in charge of woodlands for Cersosimo Lumber Co., which has been taking lumber out of the White Mountain forest for more than 25 years. “This is going to be a big problem for us. It really spooks people.” Conservation groups in New Hampshire said they have been unsuccessful recently in trying to persuade the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society to drop challenges against the National Forest’s plans to allow harvesting of timber in areas that have few or no roads. “Their feeling is if they give an inch in New Hampshire, they will have to give a mile somewhere else,” said Will Abbott , vice president for policy and land management at the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests , a 106-year-old organization that both preserves land and promotes environmentally sensitive logging. The White Mountain National Forest, established 96 years ago, is the largest protected forest in New England; its 800,000-acre expanse is within a day’s drive for 70 million people. It has long had a hybrid purpose, allowing loggers to harvest ash, white pine, sugar maple, and beech trees on land that covers nearly half the territory, while skiers, hikers, and bikers enjoyed its wilderness tracts over the other half. The current battle over its use is rooted in the politically charged debate on roadless areas in national forests. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/07/07/white_mountains_logging_plan_hits_roadbl
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13) ALBANY — Sen. John Sununu helped two preservation groups celebrate the protection of thousands of acres in New Hampshire’s White Mountain National Forest. Sununu joined the Friends of Sandwich Range and the Friends of Wild River on Thursday to mark passage of the “New England Wilderness Act of 2006.” The legislation was written by Sununu and co-sponsored by Sen. Judd Gregg. It protects 34,500 acres in the forest. “I am proud to have written this important law, but its enactment required a team effort,” said Sununu, who hiked in the area Thursday with group members. “Without the dedication of the Friends of Sandwich Range, the Friends of Wild River, the Forest Service and many other individuals and groups, we would not have achieved such an important goal.” In a statement, Gregg also commended the cooperative effort. “The inclusion of 34,000 acres of additional wilderness in the Sandwich Range and Wild River will further enhance the central role the forest plays in the quality of life for which New Hampshire is well-known,” he said. As a wilderness area, the land is closed to activities such as mining, logging, road construction, vehical traffic and building construction. http://www3.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO56561/

Vermont;

14) A researcher working for a consortium of Canadian and U.S. land use groups started this summer collecting data to help towns make better use of municipally owned forests. Lisa Cashel, a graduate student at the University of British Columbia studying forestry, has started getting to know Essex, Orleans and Caledonia counties by reading town plans and meeting with county foresters. She learned that some town lands are inaccessible and unmanaged, while others provide hunting and fishing grounds, but otherwise go untapped for public use. Getting people to manage timber and preserve town forests is an important part of land conservation, she said. Otherwise, the land might be sold off privately or clear-cut to generate cash. “Some lands were set aside when towns were established. Some are acquired by tax delinquency,” Cashel said. “This collaborative I’m working with is working on a feasibility for a forest fund to provide loans and grants for these communities.” Cashel, a New Jersey native, is a field researcher for the Community Forest Collaborative formed by a three-year affiliation among The Quebec-Labrador Foundation, The Trust for Public Land and The Northern Forest Center. The goal is to “expand existing and potential town-owned forest and community forests.” Cashel said her efforts focus first on the Northeast Kingdom where most towns do not have management plans in place. Many town plans include an interest in keeping public spaces open, but many also use boilerplate language, suggesting an active plan is not in use. It is up to her to find out, perhaps by the end of summer. Then, she plans to help develop workshops promoting land management for municipally owned property where uses would include hunting, fishing, trail building and other recreational uses, as well as timber harvesting. http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070706/NEWS02/707060307/1007

USA:

15) Words such as “conservation easements”, “working forests”, “working landscapes” and “traditional uses” promote a positive image of destructive practices and nature exploitation. George Lakoff warns when you are arguing against the worldview of the other side, do not adopt their language, yet even environmentalists now regularly celebrate the “working landscape” and actively support “traditional uses” and so forth. So we have “working forests” that are logged and managed to produce wood products. They are forests that will never acquire old growth characteristics, are laced with roads, and often subject to herbicides to reduce brush and other manipulations that can hardly be called benign. Yet, through the subversive use of the term “working forest” logging the forest has come to be equated with “protecting” the land even though throughout most of the “working forest” region, the biggest threat to forests comes from being worked over-i.e. logged. Many of these “working landscapes” are “protected” by what are called “conservation easements”. Most of these easements should be more properly termed “open space” easements because in many cases on-going destructive commercial resource exploitation practices-logging, ranching, and/or farming–are permitted, and indeed, sometimes even encouraged. And the only thing that is prohibited is usually subdivisions. Natural ecological processes, wildlife, soil, water, and a host of other values often are degraded and may be not be conserved at all. Open space is valuable, but open space isn’t necessarily the same as good wildlife habitat, nor does it always protect biodiversity and landscape scale ecological processes. People need to beware of the subtle but unspoken meaning behind word choices. Words do matter. Many of the terms coined to describe resource extraction activities like “working wilderness” and “working forest” are designed to change public perception of resource extraction. These terms are used to hide or disguise the real environmental degradation that often accompanies resource extraction, and to create a more favorable public perception of these practices. http://www.newwest.net/index.php/topic/article/working_wilderness_and_other_code_words/C38/L38/

16) If thinning reduced fire risk, then the last few years of the Forest Service going in and tackling the high risk spots, as they claim, isn’t working for some reason. Could it be that thinning, while reducing fuel, also reduces the fire deterrent known as water? Perhaps thinning, and taking away fuel, simply turns surrounding trees INTO fuel. Decreased canopy accompanied by more arid conditions in general make many tinder boxes, forest service “efforts” at fire suppression notwithstanding. Since they ARE getting more frequent, it is safe to say that a few hundred national forest service employees operating a day, setting small piles on fire, are not keeping up with the growing fire danger. I often wonder if they aren’t actually exacerbating it. After all, a dense forest retains moisture. A sparse one does not. Let’s not forget, however, just how rampant arson is in our public lands. Since the salvage rider passed, such instances have skyrocketed. More fires means more profit for timber industries and we all know that the Forest Service, subsidiary of the Department of Agriculture, serves primarily as a launderer for funds spent on those corporations. In other words, the forest service loses money and taxpayers pay the difference. Recently, just a few miles from where I live, exist some of the most intensive fire suppression efforts that I have seen anywhere. If these methods work, it ought to be the very last place, of any that I have been, for a fire to start. However, just last week a fire did go up and it grew to several thousand acres in just a few hours. Anecdotal? Sure. http://eeng.net/CS/blogs/smileycoyote/archive/2007/07/07/534.aspx

Canada:

17) The open pit mine plunges 250 feet deep and ranges over a couple of square miles, carved out of pine and spruce forest by gigantic machines that operate 24/7, even in the dark of winter at 40 below zero. This is the heart of Alberta’s oil sands, a remote Florida-sized region where moose, bears and beavers inhabit watery woodlands atop the world’s largest proven petroleum reserves outside Saudi Arabia. The unusual deposits — where oil is locked in the tarry soil rather than pooled beneath the surface — are yielding a bonanza of investment dollars, government revenue and jobs. Almost half of Canada’s oil production comes from the oil sands — and the energy industry estimates that enough oil can be economically extracted to fill the country’s needs for three centuries. The vast majority of Canadian oil exports goes to the United States, and the Bush administration sees the remaining resources as America’s best hope for reducing dependence on Middle Eastern oil. “No single thing can do more to help us reach that goal than realizing the potential of the oil sands,” Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said during a visit last July. The benefits may be great, but the toll on other natural resources is also enormous. Separating petroleum from sand burns so much natural gas that the enterprise is becoming the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions growth in Canada. The oil sands lie within a major intact ecosystem, the boreal forest covering almost a third of Canada’s land mass. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-fg-oilsands8jul08,1,1618099.story?coll=la-n
ews-environment

18) On June 20, 2007, the Government of Canada extended the interim protection for Edéhzhíe (the Horn Plateau) in the Northwest Territories until October 31, 2008. Edéhzhíe, a vast 25,000 sq km area of Boreal wilderness in the Mackenzie Valley, is rich in wildlife including Boreal woodland caribou. It is also an important source of water, and an area of great cultural importance to local First Nations people. The extension will allow more time to complete the studies and management plan needed to establish a National Wildlife Area to protect the site. CPAWS welcomes this initiative by Environment Minister John Baird, following up on his January 2007 commitment to advance protected areas in the Northwest Territories. “We urge the Government of Canada to move quickly to take further steps to protect three other NWT sites that have also been long identified as requiring protection — the South Nahanni Watershed, the Ramparts wetlands, and Thaydene Nene in the Akaitcho region of the NWT,” says CPAWS NWT Executive Director Daryl Sexsmith. These are all areas that local First Nations, CPAWS and other conservation organizations, and the territorial and federal governments agree are important to protect from industrial activity to conserve the NWT’s delicate ecological balance and honour First Nations cultural history. As a signatory to the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework, CPAWS supports the goal of protecting at least half of Canada’s Boreal forest in a network of parks and other protected areas, with carefully managed development permitted only in the remainder. In the NWT, we are calling for complementary regional networks of protected areas to serve as the foundation for a sustainable environment that serves the long-term interests of NWT residents and all Canadians. http://cpaws.org/news/archive/2007/07/cpaws_welcomes_federal_step_to.php

19) The city is helping invest $36 million in a water treatment facility in the coming years, but before they do, they’re spending a little cash to make absolutely certain the water’s worth treating. In association with the Western Newfoundland Model Forest, the city has undertaken a process to develop a watershed management plan. Tina Newbury, watershed management planner with Model Forest, is drafting the document. She said a watershed management plan is a guiding document about the use of the watersheds that feed the drinking water system in the Corner Brook area. Newbury said the plan will likely evolve over time, but will include several key components including a characterization report which is an attempt to describe everything about the watershed from the soil conditions, hydrology to current uses. “We’re looking to the public to help with the characterization report, how they use the watershed, how many times per year for different activities — dog walking, skiing, snowmobiling, ATV use, all that’s important — that’ll make up a component of the characterization report,” said Newbury.
“From this it will aid in the decision-making. The public attitudes and values toward what kind of activities should be allowed in the watershed, industry recreation and what have you, will help guide decision making down the road when the city goes to implement the plan. http://www.thewesternstar.com/index.cfm?pid=114

UK:

20) The technology, called lidar, bounces laser beams off the ground from an aircraft 3,300ft (1,005m) above and records the minute differences in time it takes for the light to return to build up a three-dimensional picture of the landscape beneath the trees. The system uses specially designed computer software to distinguish between the laser light bouncing off leaves and the light bouncing back from the ground. The technology dates back to the 1960s but it is only in the past five years that it has been sufficiently well developed to allow archaeologists to start mapping land covered by forests. It is expected to reveal thousands of previously unknown or unmapped ancient settlements, fortifications, farms and features in Britain over the next decade. Lidar is a laser version of radar, and was tried out at Welshbury in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, where an Iron Age hill fort was known to be hidden by trees. With the trees stripped away by lidar, the embankments of the hill fort were clearly defined. About 12 per cent of Britain is covered in woodland. Lidar has the potential to uncover every archaeological feature still hidden by trees and undergrowth. Three forest regions have been surveyed so far with images from the 280 sq km (108 sq miles) of the Forest of Dean and 42 sq km of Savernake Forest in Wiltshire complete and the data from part of the Wyre Forest still being analysed. Scientists from the Forestry Commission are leading the project in partnership with the University of Cambridge, English Heritage and local authorities. Peter Crow, of Forest Research, said that the system had already revealed hundreds of archaeological features, many of them previously unknown both in location and purpose. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2039647.ece

France:

21) A group of Greenpeace climbers are perched on top of a set of cranes in the port of La Rochelle on the French Atlantic coast. They’ve been there since Wednesday night and as well as admiring a no-doubt magnificent view, they’re also preventing a ship unloading its cargo of timber which has come from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The company logging the timber, Lebanese-owned Trans-M (another snappy corporate name!), has been given titles spanning 746,000 hectares of the DRC forest but this is in breach of the logging moratorium set up in 2002. Supposedly, no new contracts are to be issued and existing ones aren’t to be renewed or extended, but somehow Trans-M have managed to set up shop and ship rainforest timber back to Europe. The current blockade is only the latest action our continental offices have taken to prevent Congolese timber coming into the EU. Over the past few weeks, imports of DRC timber were stopped in by volunteers in both Antwerp in Belgium (the link isn’t in English, but there is a subtitled video and a great slideshow) and Salerno in Italy – it’s demand for tropical timber in Europe and around the world drive the destruction of the forest in Africa. After 45 hours on the crane, the climbers have returned to Earth after being forced down. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/forests/congo-timber-ship-blocked-20070706

Greenland:

22) The purpose of the research was to see if it was possible to study and date organic matter in ice cores, not to examine current theories of global warming. But Sharp is aware that any discussion of past climate change resonates in current debates. You can think about the ice sheet as a natural freezer,” Sharp said. “It’s picked up organic material as it overrode the landscape when it was first forming and then it’s preserved it at low temperatures for apparently hundreds of thousands of years.” Enough organic matter matter was found in that 10-centimetre-wide window on the past to date the ice to between 450,000 and 800,000 years old. Scientists also found enough residue to isolate DNA preserved in those frozen bits and identify the organisms it came from. The picture that emerged would have been familiar to anyone walking today’s northern forests. Spruce, pine, alder and yew trees were all identified. Birch and aspen were also likely present. So were with familiar plants like yarrow, chickweed, fescue grass and saxifrage in “meadow-type communities” complete with butterflies, moths, beetles, flies and spiders. July temperatures would have averaged above 10 degrees Celsius; winter would have rarely dropped below -17. This first peek under an ice sheet to examine the land beneath has rearranged scientific understanding of Greenland’s climatic history. Models have suggested the island was ice-free as recently as 116,000 years ago, which now seems unlikely given the age of the DNA Sharp and his colleagues found. http://canadaeast.com/ce2/docroot/article.php?articleID=24584

Ukraine:

23) “Ukraine has the best surviving riverine forests in Europe. The forests are of high biological importance but are much threatened as Ukraine develops,” a media release for WFN quoted Edward Whitley, Founder and Chairman of the organization, as saying. “We owe it to future generations to try to conserve these last great forests, and Bohdan’s work is leading to a greater balance between development and habitat protection.” In addition to Ukraine, Prots has conducted scientific research in several other countries, including Great Britain, Austria, Germany and South Korea. He began a five-week pilot study in the Transcarpathian wetlands in 1997 with his partner and project leader, 57-year-old Dr. Anton Drescher, a conservation ecologist at the Institute of Botany, Karl-Franzens University of Graz in Austria. These initial expeditions uncovered several earlier unexplored habitats in Transcarpathia and Ukraine, as well as a species of orchid previously not known to exist in Ukraine. Prots lacked funding to continue his work in the region until 2002, when the WWF-UK, a global conservation organization, agreed to allocate funds for the project. Heading a team of 25 specialists, including botanists, zoologists, and soil experts, Prots conducted research from 2002 to 2006 on the Transcarpathian riverine forests and wetlands, concluding that the habitats were some of the last and largest of their kind and were home to hundreds of rare plants and animals. The area researched by Prots has the largest ash-oak old-growth forests in Central Europe, aged at between 150 to 250 years old, and its ash trees are the biggest in the world, reaching heights of 46 meters and 153 centimeters in diameter. Prots dubs the forests “jungles” due to the density and remarkable size of the trees. Riverine forests gain their nutrients when the area’s surrounding rivers flood, delivering a rich mixture of nutrients to the trees and plants. With the abundant water and nourishment supplied by the floods, the trees are able to grow closely together, like those in jungles, without having to compete with each other for nutrients. According to a WWF article from April 2006 featuring Prot’s work, riverine forests are the most diverse of all European ecosystems, and also the most vulnerable, with only a few highly threatened areas remaining on the continent, the largest of which are in Transcarpathia. http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/26903/

Guyana:

24) Exporting non-renewable forest logs is inherently flawed. First, a given production level can be achieved at low or high costs. Second, profits on the activity is not calculated where production occurs. Third, tax-exempt status and absence of mechanisms for re-investment in Guyana has not generated the required milling capacity. Full costs of production, including the imputed cost of a tree, environmental costs, internal forestry monitoring costs, and the costs of replanting and replenishing depleted stocks of logs are not explicitly considered under intra-company export-sales maximization. Guyana would have been much higher on the development ladder if manufactured products were exported rather than logs. Guyana needs economic transformation to move it forward as an exporter of manufactured products from its limited stock of hardwood and softwood. Indeed, new directions in granting tax incentives must be charted soonest, with a focus on a network of domestic manufacturing and forestry management capacity development. Exporting logs is anti-development in terms of human capital development and a network of sustainable inter-industry development in Guyana-non-forestry products, tourism, and high valued manufactured products. The alarm that Forest Products Association is sounding had shifted Guyana’s forestry sector into being a primary producer since 1989. FPA clearly advocates using tree-cutting capacity to export Guyana’s limited supply of logs and wait until such time that it has milling capacity to become a player in more lucrative manufactured products markets. This is a costly delay for Guyana. New investors or investments are needed now. Marketing logs cannot fulfil development promises or plans. http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article_letters?id=56523863

Ecuador:

25) Indigenous communities from Yasuni National Park, home to some of the most biodiverse primary tropical rainforest on the planet, sent a message to the world today pleading to save the park from devastation by the oil industry. Lead by Ecuador’s Vice President Lenin Moreno Garces, nearly 100 people joined together to spell the words “Live Yasuni” in the heart of this pristine National Park as a helicopter carrying photographers hovered overhead. The images will be sent to the world feed for the Live Earth event tomorrow (June 7, 2007,) a series of televised concerts from cities around the world organised by former US Vice President Al Gore to highlight the threat of global warming. The Yasuni images form part of several Live Earth events focusing attention on the plight of the Ecuadorian Amazon: http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=3048

Brazil:

26) Mercifully, the roads we saw were all overgrown with several years of undergrowth. Clearly the loggers are long gone, at least from this area. Whether this is the result of effective government enforcement action or simply because all of the most valuable trees have been removed is open to question. As we moved down the river, Paulo, our Juruna boatman, pointed out the locations of old Juruna villages, including the place where he was born and spent his childhood. Two centuries ago, this part of the river was the domain only of the Juruna, a peaceful ethnic group who built their villages mainly on the many islands. But they were constantly attacked and harassed by the belligerent Kayapo, who hounded them upriver. When German ethnologist Karl von den Steinen navigated the river in the 1880s, the Juruna still held out. He traded with them for replacement canoes for his expedition, and Juruna boatmen helped him with their incomparable knowledge of the river. By the 1940s, when the government-sponsored Roncador-Xingu expedition began to build contact with the Indians in the area, the Juruna had been driven far upriver into Mato Grosso State. Today, many Juruna live in the towns of Pará State, but there still remain several traditional villages inside the Xingu Indigenous Park, the largest of which is Tuba Tuba. We found the Juruna to be very sympathetic and supportive, and they have a great sense of fun; in Tuba Tuba, Sue danced with the women well into the night. The Juruna want to return to their old areas, in what is today the Kayapo reserve of Mekragnoti. Nowadays the ethnic groups have a more peaceful relationship, and the Kayapo support the proposal. This would reunite the diaspora of Juruna spread out over two states back in their original home in Pará, removing them from the misery of life on the fringes of the frontier towns and reinforcing and rebuilding the strong traditional culture we witnessed in Tuba Tuba. With their colourful festivals and clearly identifiable body paint and decoration, the Juruna could become a symbol of Pará’s integrity and culture. http://ipcst.wordpress.com/2007/07/04/jurunas-and-kayapos-22nd-june-2007/

China:

27) For the first time, scientists have used satellite images to demonstrate a link between rapid city growth and rainfall patterns, as well as to assess compliance with an international treaty to protect wetlands. The results have been published in two studies co-authored by Karen Seto, assistant professor of geological and environmental sciences and a fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. “The exciting thing is really for the first time, using a time series of satellite images, we can monitor Earth in a way that we haven’t been able to,” Seto said. “It’s not just about urban growth or wetlands—it could be about desertification or deforestation—but it’s really just this issue of human modification of the Earth.” In one study, published in the July online issue of the journal Global Environmental Change, Seto and her colleagues showed that inclusion in an international environmental agreement did not significantly improve the health of a coastal mangrove habitat in a wetland preserve in Vietnam. In the second study, published May 15 in the Journal of Climate, the researchers found that rapid urban growth has caused drier winters in the Pearl River Delta of China. Both findings are based on an analysis of satellite images of Vietnam and China, which NASA has been collecting through its Land Remote-Sensing Satellite (Landsat) Program for more than 30 years. http://www.stanford-b.com/blog/?p=42

Bhutan:

28) Haa dzongkhag, with its pristine forests has always been a source of quality timber, particularly the blue pine. But there is widespread suspicion of the existence of illegal felling and supply. The number of sawmills in the dzongkhag shot up from one in the mid 1990s to 13 in 2006. Applications for eight more sawmill licenses await approval of the forestry division. The existing of a huge number of the sawmills and the urgency among residents to open even more were indicative of the illegal practices in the district, according to Haa dzongrab, Jamba Tsheten. There are no existing rules that give the forestry division or the dzongkhag administration the authority to limit the number of sawmills in a district. “The individuals put up for licenses, the dzongkhag environment committee approves it after which the application goes to the district forest officer and ultimately to the environment commission,” said the dzongrab, adding that the dzongkhag had no authority to check illegal timber felling or transactions. According to dzongkhag and forestry officials, the rural timber allotment, where timber is sold at a subsidised rate, was exploited the most and constituted almost about 80 percent of timber illegally used. The other form of illegal practice was cutting trees in the early morning hours. Rural people are provided timber for construction once in 25 years but the entire allotment was not always fully used. So some amount of the rural allotment ended up in sawmills sold at a rate higher than the subsidised rural rate. This was the reason why the amount of sawn timber at sawmills were unrealistically much more than the logs bought at the auctions would have produced. Exploitation had reached a level where people from the same family officially created separate thrams to be entitled to rural timber. According to the forest range officer, Tshedar, rural timber in Haa was sold at Nu. 50 a cubic feet (cft) while at the auctions the prices shot up to over Nu. 200. This left the buyer with a high profit margin, and the buyers were usually the sawmills, according to forest officials. Sawmills also received illegal cut timber. “People have power chains and there are roads, which were once used by forestry development corporation limited, leading into the forests,” said dzongrab Jamba Tsheten. http://www.kuenselonline.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8706

Vietnam:

29) Grey-shanked doucs are tree-dwelling colobine monkeys with orange faces and tufts of whiskers. These primates face an uncertain future due to hunting and habitat loss. A 2006 IUCN assessment determined that 65 percent of Vietnam’s primate taxa are Endangered or Critically Endangered, making the country one of the highest global priorities for primate conservation. A WWF survey team discovered the new douc population while studying the region for possible future creation of a new protected area. Tran Khanh Duong, who led the most recent surveys, was trained through CI’s Primate Conservation Training Course operated in collaboration with Hanoi University of Science, the University of Colorado-Boulder and the Frankfurt Zoological Society. He then received a small grant and mentoring to run the surveys, showing the impact on primate conservation and career development from such training and funding programs. Tran Khanh Duong, trained through CI’s Primate Conservation Training Course, received a small grant and mentoring to run the recent surveys, showing the impact on primate conservation. “When I gave up economics to pursue my passion for wildlife, I never dreamed that I would be able to make such an impact.” Duong said. “I look forward to continuing my work at the site to ensure that this population is protected.” The doucs are located in the proposed “Central Quang Nam Species and Habitat Conservation Area”, which the Quang Nam Forest Protection Department (FPD) hopes will receive full legal protection by the Provincial People’s Committee. Establishment of this protected area will protect the globally important population of grey-shanked doucs, along with a herd of elephants that live in the lowland forests to the south. The grey-shanked douc has only been recorded in the 5 Vietnamese provinces of Quang Nam, Kon Tum, Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, and Gia Lai. Less than 1,000 of these creatures are believed to still exist, and up to now, only one other population with more than 100 animals was known. http://www.fastlanetransport.ca/blog/rare-discovery-%E2%80%93-grey-shanked-douc-monkey/offbeat-
news

Philippines:

30) Tagbilaran City — BOHOL’s alienated settlers who have owned the lands as their own since 45 million years ago now finds a wider home: some additional 167 hectares of forest lands about to be declared their sanctuary. Community and Environment Natural Resources Officer Samuel Racho bared this during the weekly Kapihan sa PIA, a week after the country formally closed the environment month celebration. The planned protection zone declaration set to be launched July 12 was long due and has been a Department of Environment and Natural Resources priority since the Philippine Tarsier Conservation Project took off, Racho said. He however said not until Congressman Edgar Chatto interceded for the tarsier conservation did the funds for the declaration get in. The declaration further expands the ranges of the rare tarsius, one of the oldest surviving primates that have retained its form since then. Endemic to the greater Mindanao faunal region which encompasses the islands of Bohol, Samar, Leyte, Mindanao then connected by the land bridges, the tarsier has since drastically reduced its population because of poaching, intrusion of human activity in their ranges and their critical adaptation to conditions. An animal belonging to the primate family mammals is scientifically called tarsius syrichta because of its elongated and well-developed tarsals than can propel them about four meters away. “If these rare endangered animals have been here for quite some time, it would be a shameful thing if we lose them in our generation because of neglect, a Boholano conservationist said upon learning of the news. The conservation area declaration puts new interest into the otherwise timberlands of Corella and Sevilla where a forest shared by four barangays is identified. Tarsiers consider secondary forests as its home. Racho named portions of barangays Canangcaan and Canapnapan of Corella and Can-agong and Abucay Norte of Sevilla within the protected area. http://www.pia.gov.ph/?m=12&fi=p070706.htm&no=59&r=&y=&mo=

New Zealand:

31) The US-based ‘e-activist’ network Ecological Internet has launched a letter-writing campaign aimed at Greenpeace, asking them to withdraw their support for FSC-certified ‘ancient forest logging’. The campaign demands that Greenpeace publishes a report on ‘problematic’ FSC certificates, which is believed to have been under investigation by the green group for many months. The new campaign is specifically directed at Grant Rosoman, of Greenpeace New Zealand, who is asked to resign as Chair of FSC’s international Board. Greenpeace’s forest activists worldwide are also being targetted, and are likely to received many thousands of protest e-mails. Ecological Internet’s Action Alert asks “What body of ecological science and experience does Greenpeace have to support its stance?” of supporting FSC. “Critical questions” such as this, it says “remain unanswered”. Ecological Internet (EI) is one of the largest e-activist envionmental networks worldwide, and is home to portals on a range of subjects, including the Forest Conservation Portal, probably the most comprehensive source of topical information on forests available on the internet. http://www.fsc-watch.org/archives/2007/07/02/Greenpeace_attacked_for_supporting_FSC__call_for
__suppressed__report_to_be_published

32) A prediction that Gisborne would double in size in 10 years as the forestry industry expanded was made yesterday by Eastland Wood Council chief executive Peter Farley. This would be the only place in the country that would happen, he told the Tairawhiti Development Partnership and Minister of Transport Annette King. He urged the Government to extend the regional development road funding programme which was due to finish at the end of this financial year. The forestry upsurge boom had been predicted for years and people were sick of hearing about it. However, the long-predicted “wall of wood” ( not really a wall but a wave) was starting to arrive. One advantage forestry had was that the harvesting dates could be postponed for years if necessary. But that could not be done indefinitely or the wood became too big for modern equipment to handle. In the current difficult market conditions some people were harvesting wood that was not economical in order to maintain the infrastructure for when more major processing occurred. There were about 1700 people employed full time in forestry now when the annual harvest was about one million tonnes. That would rise to three million tonnes and the rise could not be deferred much longer. Forestry would directly employ at least 4000 people in Gisborne and the demand for all services including things such as schools would take off with consequent increases in employment and population. Other sectors of the local economy, particularly tourism and retirement would also contribute significant growth. http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/article.asp?aid=10147&iid=767&sud=27

Malaysia:

33) Aliran is dumbfounded by Plantation Industries Minister Peter Chin’s assertion that tropical rainforests in Malaysia have not been cleared to plant oil palm in the last 10 years. The Minister was defending the plantation industry from allegations that plantations destroy rainforests and wildlife habitat, increase greenhouse gas emissions and lead to a loss in biodiversity. “I would like to reiterate here that Malaysia is not destroying rainforests for palm oil production,” he was reported as saying. This is patently false and the Minister is obviously ill-informed or misinformed. We would like to refer him to Sahabat Alam Malaysia’s recent press statement. The environmental group recently revealed that, between 1999 and 2002, three huge plantation projects, largely located within the Bakun catchment area, were approved by the Sarawak state government. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports for the projects, covering an area of 320,000 hectares, were approved between 2000 and 2003, the group pointed out. Apart from this, we would like to ask the Minister when the forest for the ASSAR (Amanah Saham Sarawak) Plantation at Lg Urun was cleared for oil palm. This plantation has only been in production since 2004, and there are substantial areas that are still not yet fruit bearing. This means these areas couldn’t have been cleared more than ten years ago – unless the land was left empty for around three to four years, which would have been very bad plantation practice indeed. http://www.aliran.com/content/view/265/11/

Indonesia:

34) The last time an application was made to clear a part of mangrove forest within a 150ha site, the trade-off was 35 times bigger. It was for the Palm Oil Industrial Cluster development project in Lahad Datu two years ago and the Forestry department approved it on condition 5,000ha of mangrove forest was gazetted as reserves by the government. In revealing this, Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman said Sabah has the most extensive coverage of mangroves at 341,000ha or 60 per cent of the total in the country. Of the total, nearly 320,000ha have been gazetted as mangrove reserves in the state, he said but stressed that despite all the efforts there was a need to have greater public involvement as partners in conservation. “The tsunami disaster that hit the Southeast Asian region in December 2004, and the Solomon Islands three months ago have created greater awareness and concerns. “Mangroves were found to have minimised damages in such disasters and it is pertinent for us to preserve or plant more for it to act as natural buffer zones,” he said at the launch of the state-level mangrove tree planting and other suitable species ceremony in Meruntum, Lok Kawi here. Musa also launched a book entitled “Sabah’s Mangrove Forests” which was published by Forestry Department. Meanwhile, state Forestry Department director Datuk Sam Mannan said over the last 100 years, only about 10 per cent of Sabah’s mangrove forests had been cleared. http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Friday/National/20070706080620/Article/index_html

35) The government announced Friday a plan to rehabilitate 1.1 million hectares of a 1.4 million-ha slab of land it now admits was badly damaged as a result of a massive peatland project in Central Kalimantan in the 1990s. “The peatland project was designed to convert forested areas into paddy fields. Though it was not based on any environmental study and has resulted in negative impacts on the environment as well as the regional social structure,” the head of the Center of Forestland Use at the Forestry Ministry, Dwi Sudharto, told a media conference Friday. Between 1996 and 1997, the government initiated the land conversion project by building 187 kilometers of primary water channels, which connected two rivers in that area: the Kahayan and Barito rivers. The project, which resulted in uncontrolled forest fires, produced only 30,000 ha of paddy fields. The government ended the project in 1999. Early this year, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a presidential instruction on the rehabilitation of the area. The eight-point instruction orders 15 departmental and regional offices to provide funds for the land reclamation and reforestation project from the state budget, the regional budget and other untied funding sources. “The peatland project has threatened several species of rare plants, such as Ramin and Nyatoh, with extinction, while the building of the primary water channel has changed the local waterway system,” said Dwi. He added that logging carried out to clear the peatland forest for rice planting activities had decreased the ability of soil there to absorb water, which caused flooding in the rainy season and fires in the dry season. The 1997 fire in Kalimantan, he said, contributed the highest quantity of carbon ever witnessed anywhere in the world. The project also opened the door for illegal logging in the region, he said. http://www.thejakartapost.com/misc/PrinterFriendly.asp

World-wide:

36) An overwhelming majority of governments, including Norway, Sweden, Germany and Indonesia expressed serious concerns about the risks of large-scale production of biofuels to forests, ecosystems, indigenous peoples and local communities at a meeting of a UN scientific advisory body on biodiversity in Paris this week. Several governments called for a precautionary approach to biofuels. A large number of NGOs and Indigenous Peoples Organizations from around the world present at this meeting also expressed their concerns and called for a profound scientific assessment of the risks of biofuels and a moratorium on all forms of financial support to biofuels pending the outcomes of this assessment, based on the precautionary principle. “The island where I live, Marajo island in the Amazon delta, is expected to drown in the coming 30 years due to global warming, but the Brazilian government is only pushing false solutions”, says Edna Maria da Costa e Silva of the Cooperativa Ecologica das Mulheres Extractivistas do Marajo. “My government [Brazil] claims they support development, but they do not support my community in producing sustainable bio-oils for local consumption, they only support large-scale agrofuel production for urban consumers.” she added. At the Paris meeting, Brazil blocked the consensus of countries to develop a process to begin to address the negative impacts of biofuels, which are already being felt in numerous locations around the world. At the same time, Brazil’s President Lula is touring Europe to promote biofuels as a green solution to climate change. “There is a clear strategy of the Brazilian government to block any consideration of the social and environmental impacts of agrofuels, as this may interfere with their commercial interests”, adds Mateus Trevisan of MST, the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement. Trevisan continued, “They are only promoting large monocultures and defending the interests of sugar cane companies and biotechnology corporations like Syngenta, which has representatives on Brazil’s delegation here. This strategy is not going to benefit the Brazilian people.” Orin Langelle langelle@globaljusticeecology.org