299 – Earth’s Tree News
Today for you 35 new articles about earth’s trees! (299th edition)
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–Cameroon: 1) Too much per acre for protection
–Liberia: 2) New government chain-of-custody system
–South Africa: 3) Komatiland’s 187,320 hectares of plantations
–Nigeria: 4) 400,000 hectares of forest lost per year
–Costa Rica: 5) Save La Amistad International Park, 6) La Selva biological station, 7) Guanacaste Rincon Rainforest Conservation Area
–Panama: 8) Measuring how certain species promote or suppress species diversity
–Ecuador: 9) Global change research
–Guyana: 10) Public consultation on log export policy
–Brazill: 11) Solution is in stopping the fires, 12) Buffer zones not wide enough, 13) ORSA manages the world’s largest private tropical forest,
–India: 14) NTFP based forest management, 15) Save ½ of the 100-year-old sirish tree, 16) Integrated Forest Protection Scheme, 17) Kerala’s Malaysian wood is from Myanmar, 18) Elephant logging upsurge,
–Kalimantan: 19) Logs and three ships were seized, 20) Biodiversity estimates,
–Sumatra: 21) “Being split in half” by a highway
–Indonesia: 22) How to detect, arrest members of organized crime looting the forests
–Australia: 23) Progress in understanding old growth forests, 24) Time to stop logging Tasmania, 26) Australian Forestry’s 100 million Euro loss in Russia? 27) 200 delegates from 20 countries, 28) National Carbon Accounting System, 29) Spite tree,
–New Zealand: 30) Wood availability forecasts, 31) More forecasts,
–World-wide: 32) Roots of the pattern of deforestation, 33) Indigenous shut out of biodiversity convention, 34) State of the World’s Forests, 35) selective moral disengagement,
Cameroon:
1) The Economist reports of a bargaining impasse between America’s armchair conservationists and Cameroon over a rich virgin forest. Cameroon wants $2/hectare to forego logging while the conservationists figure that the going rate for virgin rainforest is only $0.37/hectare. If, as our textbook says, “the alternatives to agreement determine the terms of agreement,” then American Conservationists seem to have the upper hand, as there are lots of rain forests that can be saved for much cheaper than $2/hectare. Expect Cameroon to acquiesce soon. http://managementrandd.blogspot.com/2008/02/who-will-buy-this-wonderful-forest.html
Liberia:
2) SGS Société Générale de Surveillance S.A. (SGS) announced today the signature of a 5-year contract with the Forest Development Authority (FDA) of Liberia for the management of a nationwide system to monitor and verify forest logging and timber chain-of-custody across the territory of Liberia. Concurrently, Helveta Ltd. announced an exclusive supply agreement with SGS to supply the FDA with the technology and support services to manage the entire supply chain of wood and wood products in the West African timber producing nation. The project will utilize Helveta’s CI World™ technology to track 100% of the wood produced from the Liberian forestry sector, from the standing tree in the forest, through wood processing plants, and finally to the nation’s export gates and local wholesale markets. SGS, as the prime contractor to the FDA, will provide overall project management leadership, turnkey operations support, and capacity building to the institution for the project. Helveta, through its CI World™ supply chain management solution, will provide database technology, software applications, and hardware components to operate the end-to-end traceability system. CI World will be used as the engine of the Chain of Custody Information (COCIS), which will afford the FDA back to stump traceability for all timber products as well as data validation and integration with the government regulatory reporting framework. In this way, CI World will enable comprehensive timber supply chain control and revenue collection from the Liberian timber sector. http://forestnewswire.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=108:nationwide-forest-an
d-timber-chain-of-custody-monitoring-system-in-the-republic-of-liberia&catid=1:latest&Itemid=58
South Africa:
3) Komatiland, the single biggest forestry entity in SA, operates 18 commercial plantations on 187320ha of land. Komatiland CEO Kobus Breed said yesterday the increase — intended for April 1 — was due to the continued strong demand for timber and a reduced timber supply caused by fires last year, which destroyed about 5% of the country’s timber plantations. Breed also said the proposed increases were in line with Komatiland’s intention to narrow the gap between long-term contract prices and open-market bids, which are traditionally higher. Industry observers say if Komatiland does not adjust prices to achieve parity between long-term and spot buyers, the gap would be about 35%, which was a significant barrier to entry for emerging businesses. A 36% increase, as proposed, would close the gap to about 14%. The industry expects another saw-log price increase later this year as Komatiland tries to close the remainder of the gap. Breed quoted the Global Lumber-Sawnwood Cost Benchmarking report as saying South African sawmills were among the most profitable . “Therefore, South African timber processors and sawmillers should be able to absorb the proposed increases.” http://allafrica.com/stories/200802190189.html
Nigeria:
4) Former national president of the Forestry Association of Nigeria (FAN), Chief James Odebiyi, yesterday in Lagos disclosed that more than 400,000 hectares of Nigeria’s forest were being depleted annually. Odebiyi told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that of the depleted forest, only 36,000 hectares had been replanted. “The rate of deforestation across the country today is quite disturbing when compared with the slow pace of replanting such areas. “Our forest resources have been unduly depleted for personal needs, farming, mining and construction,” he said. The environmentalist urged the government to be committed to tree-planting programmes. “Now that we are under the effect of climate change, we should desist from paying lip service to issues of tree planting. http://allafrica.com/stories/200802190893.html
Costa Rica:
5) Conservation groups from Panama, Costa Rica, and the United States are preparing to meet with a delegation from the World Heritage Centre and World Conservation Union (IUCN) in Panama to discuss threats to La Amistad International Park. La Amistad is a World Heritage site shared by Panama and Costa Rica that protects the largest, most diverse virgin rainforest remaining in Central America. It is one of the last refuges for such endangered species as the jaguar, ocelot, Central American tapir, resplendent quetzal, and harpy eagle. According to IUCN, the floral diversity of La Amistad is “perhaps unequaled in any other reserve of equivalent size in the world.” The World Heritage Committee, a group of 21 countries representing the 184 countries that are party to the World Heritage Convention, is part of UNESCO and responsible for implementing a 1972 treaty to protect natural and cultural areas. In April 2007, the Center for Biological Diversity led a coalition of more than 30 conservation and indigenous organizations to file a petition with the World Heritage Committee to list La Amistad as a World Heritage site “in danger,” due in large part to pending construction of four hydroelectric dams in the site’s buffer zone. The dams (three of which will be operated by the U.S.-based AES Corporation and one of which will be run by the Colombian-owned Hidroecologica del Teribe, S.A.) are set to be built on two important rivers originating inside La Amistad: the Changuinola and the Bonyic (a tributary of the Teribe). The resulting change in the river system will alter the ecology of La Amistad by blocking water passage for many migratory aquatic species and creating large, standing reservoirs. On June 26, 2007, the World Heritage Committee decided to take action based on this petition, which it referred to as “well researched and credible,” and is sending a joint delegation of the World Heritage Centre and IUCN to evaluate the level of threats faced by La Amistad. “The decision adopted by the World Heritage Committee demonstrates a strong commitment to the conservation of World Heritage sites,” said Peter Galvin, conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We hope this sets a precedent for protecting sites under threat from hydroelectric dam construction.” http://www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/4538
6) La Selva biological station in Costa Rica is one of the premier research stations for Neotropical biology. Prior to archaeological study of the site, much of it was assumed to be free of human influence. However, the discovery of pre-Columbian artefacts led to the discovery that the site had been occupied at least 3000 years ago. Charcoal was more abundant in alluvial terraces (flatter areas with deeper, more fertile soil) and less abundant in the less fertile upland soils. A chronology, established by Sol (2000)1, divided the La Selva into four archaeological phases: La Cabaña 1000 – 1550 CE; La Selva 500 – 1000 CE; El Bosque 300 BCE– 500 CE; La Montaña 1500 –300 BCE. To better understand the history of the site, Lisa Kennedy of Virginia Tech and Sally Horn of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, undertook a study of sediment cores extracted from the Cantarra swamp2, a 0.5 ha wetland dominated by perennial herbs. As sediments accumulate in bodies of water, plant pollen, fern spores and charcoal fragments are trapped. Pollen coats are extremely tough, and decay takes place very slowly in waterlogged soils. If the vegetation surrounding the site changes, different types of pollen will be deposited into the site. Someone with the patience to sort through these cores can observe thousands of years of history in a few metres of sediment. The most obvious evidence of human activity is the presence of corn (Zea mays subsp. mays) pollen. Corn pollen shows up from 880 CE to somewhere between the mid-1600s and mid-1800s. Pollen of other species like Amaranths, Asteraceae (the sunflower family), and other grasses and herbs also peak during and before the “corn zone”, often at the same time that charcoal density peaks. As a forest ecologist, I find some of the “other evidence of disturbance” to be the most interesting. There are several peaks of Cecropia pollen, and to a lesser extent Trema pollen. These are fast-growing species that are usually associated with large gaps in the forest – specifically the type that human agricultural activities may have suggested. Other peaks of pollen belonging to forest species suggests that periods of forest recovery were interspersed with the cultivated times. http://www.scientificblogging.com/tropical_ecology_notes/human_impacts_on_pre_columbian_tropical
_forests
7) The Guanacaste Rincon Rainforest Conservation Area in northwestern Costa Rica is only about the size of New York City and its suburbs, but It contains as many species as do all of the continental United States and Canada! And like the other rainforests in Costa Rica and around the world, it is under attack by global warming, logging and over-development. Today I had the privilege of talking with Norm Gershenz director and co-founder of the Center for Ecosystem Survival, aka SaveNature.org. Since 1987, Norm has been working with zoos and other organizations around the world to support rainforest conservation. We are proud to join Norm in support of his efforts and have added SaveNature.org to our list of non-profits that will receive the customer referral rewards I wrote about yesterday. We will also post an Adopt and Acre donation button on our site for you convenience and we’ll track the amount of acres saved by our customers on the Vermont Woods Studios website. With rainforests shrinking as quickly as 70,000 acres per day, the world is losing 50,000 plant, animal and insect species per year. Nearly half of the earth’s species will be gone in the next few decades – unless we do something about it. Time to get onboard The Green Train. There’s not a moment to lose! http://vermontwoodsstudios.typepad.com/vermont_woods_studios_peg/2008/02/norman-gershenz.html
Panama:
8) German and Sri Lankan researchers have developed a new method for measuring the impacts of species on local biodiversity. It makes it possible to determine whether a certain species promotes or suppresses species diversity. The new method extends a procedure familiar to biologists that involves investigating species numbers in relation to area (the species-area relationship, or SAR), by adding sophisticated statistical methods so that it can be used to describe the role of individual species in their impact on biodiversity. This individualised method (‘individual species-area relationship’, or ISAR) makes it easier to identify key species. “We are effectively looking at diversity in the ecosystem through the glasses of the individual species,” says co-author Dr Andreas Huth of the UFZ. This means that in future it will be easier to understand the role of individual species in ecosystems and to implement targeted protection measures for key species. In addition, the method can be used to investigate better the ecological consequences of changes in land use. The researchers compared in their study around 40 000 larger trees in the tropical rainforest on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, with those in the Sinharaja World Heritage Site in Sri Lanka. To their surprise, more than two third of all species did not leave identifiable signatures on spatial diversity. The other tree species had an impact on local biodiversity only in their immediate surroundings, within a radius of up to 20 metres, but not on a large scale. These findings support the much-debated ‘neutral theory’, according to which species characteristics are unimportant for certain community attributes and play only a subsidiary role in the stability and diversity of ecosystems. The study reveals that the two tropical forests lacked any key species structuring species diversity at larger scales, suggesting that ‘balanced’ species–species interactions may be a characteristic of these species rich forests. Dr Thorsten Wiegand says, “Biodiversity researchers have not been able to agree on which processes permit a high level of species diversity to emerge, and which processes keep these complicated systems stable”. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080218172312.htm
Ecuador:
9) Global change research includes an extensive body of literature covering population-environment interactions focusing on the central issues of migration and demography, environmental site and situation, and socioeconomic structures addressed within a spatially-explicit but temporally dependent form. Quite often this is simply because neither the data nor the modeling methodology combine well to effectively address uncertainty and spatially defined time-series data within a nonlinear context. In this research, a cellular automaton model is proposed as an effective framework for the predictive modeling of landuse/landcover change (LULCC) associated with the spatial pattern and rates of deforestation and agricultural extensification in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The model employs user-defined rules based upon spatially explicit probabilities of LULCC derived from remotely sensed time-series data and both biophysical and socioeconomic regional characteristics to produce an output image of the “anthropomorphized” landscape over time and space. http://gisremote.blogspot.com/2008/02/application-of-cellular-automaton-model.html
Guyana:
10) It is just a year since 350 stakeholders at the public consultation on a log export policy convened by the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) endorsed overwhelmingly the replacement of log exports by local timber processing. Instead, the GFC is chasing mills and lumber yards over matters for which it appears to have neither full legal mandate nor legitimate means of effective enforcement (“The Forestry Commission seems to be making a long overdue attempt to restore its operational mandate”, SN letter, February 8, 2008). Meanwhile, what has Guyana been losing through this persistent failure to implement national policy? According to the GFC’s own figures, 157,000 m3 of logs were exported in calendar year 2007 with a declared FOB value of US$ 20.8 million. Almost one-third of the logs were greenheart: 46,000 m3, mostly to India at an average declared FOB value of US$ 110 per m3. If the 2 per cent export commission had been paid on all that greenheart, Guyana would have gained US$ 102,000. But as Barama is by far the largest log exporter, in its own name and through subsidiaries, Guyana loses the 2 per cent export commission because Barama through its secret Foreign Direct Investment agreement is exempt from this tax. By way of comparison, the export commission on logs in Suriname is 20 per cent. In addition, 14,000 m3 of greenheart piles were exported mainly to the USA with FOB value of US$ 2.7 million, at an average of US$ 193 per m3. Those piles made up 30 per cent of the exported greenheart log volumes, but have earned Guyana US$55,000 in export commission mostly through locally-owned producer companies, versus zero on the logs shipped by and through Barama to India and China. http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article_letters?id=56539376
Brazil:
11) Gaining control over the setting of fires for land-clearing in the Amazon is key to reducing deforestation and the impact of severe drought on the region’s forests, write researchers in a paper published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Analyzing rainfall, fire and deforestation for the Brazilian Amazon from 1998 through 2006, Oxford University’s Luiz Eduardo O. C. Aragão and colleagues from the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE), NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Free University of Brussels found that despite a 31 percent reduction in the deforestation rate over the prior year (2004), during the drought of 2005 the Amazon saw a 43 percent increase in the number of fires relative to the expected value for a similar deforested area. The results suggest that “extreme droughts can increase significantly the number of fires in the region even with decreased deforestation rates.” The authors expect this relationship to continue as deforestation and human-induced climate change act in concert to increase the frequency and intensity of drought in parts of the Amazon. “We may expect that the ongoing deforestation, currently based on slash and burn procedures, and the use of fires for land management in Amazonia will intensify the impact of droughts associated with natural climate variability or human induced climate change, and therefore a large area of forest edges will be under increased risk of fire,” write the authors. While their outlook is dire, Aragão and colleagues say the most effective policy action will be reducing the use of fire in converting forest for agriculture and pasture. http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0220-aragao_amazon.html
12) Protected forest strips buffering rivers and streams of the Amazon rainforest should be significantly wider than the current legal requirement, according to pioneering new research by scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA). Published in the journal Conservation Biology on March 21, this is the first wildlife study in remnant riparian tropical forest corridors. Brazilian forestry legislation currently requires that all forest strips alongside rivers and streams on private land be maintained as permanent reserves and it sets a minimum legal width of 60m. But after investigating the effects of corridor width on the number of bird and mammal species, Alexander Lees and Dr Carlos Peres of UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences say a minimum critical width of 400m is necessary. The findings come as the existing legislation protecting remnant forest corridors is being actively debated in the Brazilian Congress. “There are proposals on the table to actually weaken the minimum legal requirements, when they need to be strengthened,” said Dr Peres. “This is a huge wildlife conservation issue locally – with global implications in terms of biodiversity and climate change – and we would urge policy-makers to act on this important new research before it is too late.” The 7 million km2 Amazon rainforest contains around a quarter of the world’s terrestrial species, yet is being cleared at a rate of 25,000 km2 per year. Eighty per cent of this deforestation has been in Brazil and 70 per cent of that can be directly attributed to cattle ranching. Wildlife corridors are often proposed as solutions to the problems of habitat fragmentation – the process of isolation of communities of animals and plants in increasingly smaller remaining habitat patches. These forest corridors act as strips of habitat connecting wildlife populations that are otherwise widely separated by hostile cattle pastures and permit an exchange of individuals between populations. This helps to prevent inbreeding within populations and facilitates re-establishment of populations that may have already become locally extinct. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/uoea-acf021808.php
13) MONTE DOURADO, Brazil – Buzzing chain saws and heavy machinery hauling logs through the Amazon jungle look at first like reckless destruction. But a forestry project on the Jari River in northern Brazil is being hailed as a model for preserving the world’s largest rain forest. Evidence in January that the pace of Amazon deforestation has increased after falling for nearly three years renewed a fierce public debate over saving the forest. It also opened a rift in President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government. Loggers illegally clear vast swathes of forest for timber and farmland every year, wreaking environmental havoc while creating little long-term income. But a handful of forest management projects have emerged as conservation models, extracting resources with little impact. “Selling certified timber harvested in a sustainable way is the only solution for the Amazon,” said Augusto Praxedes Neto, a manager at Brazilian pulp and paper company Grupo ORSA. For five years ORSA has managed the world’s largest private tropical forest, located on either side of the Jari River in the northeastern Amazon region. It harvests only 30 cubic meters (12,713 board feet) of timber per hectare (2.47 acres) every 30 years, just under the natural regeneration rate. Trees are felled and transported so as to cause minimal impact on the forest and are recorded in a computerized inventory. “I can tell a customer in Europe which tree his table is made of,” said operations manager Euclides Reckziegel as blue and yellow macaws flew over a solid forest canopy that echoed with the growls of howler monkeys. http://www3.allaroundphilly.com/blogs/reporter/evelyns/2008/02/managed-forestry-offers-hope-of-
saving.html
India:
14) NTFP based forest management provides a mechanism for creating incentives for the forest conservation itself: the argument here is that the rural community will be less inclined to destroy the resource base if they are able to derive more benefits from forest conservation. The term Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) appears to have been coined, for the first time, by De beer and Macdermott (1989). Until about a decade and half and word ‘Minor Forest Products’ were perceived providing only an insignificant portion of the household income of forest fringe dwellers. State Forest Departments (SFDs) often considered them of ‘Minor’ economic significance primarily on account of their insignificant revenue contribution as compared to timber. In 1990s when the adverse impacts of timber logging became a subject of intense debate NTFPs became an alternative source of income to forest dwellers. This category of products acquired further prominence on account of growing preferences for use of natural products for health care, nutrition, cosmetics, aroma, pesticides etc. There has been an increasing realization that NTFP management represents a sustainable form of forest management, which is ecologically less damaging than management of the forests for timber logging. http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=35489
15) A callous Dhubri Municipal Board has allowed a contractor to chop off a portion of a 100-year-old sirish tree and, along with it, the childhood memories of a generation that grew up playing under its leafy boughs. Residents of Harijan Colony were taken by surprise when a retinue of chainsaw-wielding workers descended on the locality, along Guru Tegh Bahadur Road, recently and felled half the tree in no time. By the time some of them organised a protest, the contractor’s men were shifting blocks of wood to a saw mill. “Hundreds of schoolchildren from our colony used to play under this tree, one of the oldest in the area. The tree not only provided shade but was also a shelter for several species of birds. I am shocked that someone could even think of mauling it in this manner,” Lalu Basfor, an elderly resident of Harijan Colony, said. When residents asked for an explanation from the municipal board, it denied allowing the contractor to fell the tree. A senior official of the Dhubri forest division, however, confirmed receiving an application on December 27, seeking permission to chop off the tree. “It was in response to the board’s application that the Dhubri forest division allowed the tree to be felled. But we promise to protect the rest of the tree if the people protesting the incident formally approach us,” the official added. Social activist Ranendra Bhattacharjee, a resident of ward number nine, is leading the campaign against the municipal board’s decision. “Very few of the sirish trees planted by the British over 100 years ago have survived. Some of them were uprooted in storms and the rest felled,” he said. Bhattacharjee handed a memorandum containing the signatures of all residents of ward number nine to the municipal board last week. “Unfortunately, a portion of the tree was felled by then. Residents of the area will hand another memorandum to the Dhubri forest division,” he said. There were once as many as 109 sirish trees along Amco Road, D.K. Road (now Guru Tegh Bahadur Road), in front of the offices of the deputy commissioner and the superintendent of police, Victoria Park and Nulia Patty. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080220/jsp/northeast/story_8922173.jsp
16) Alarmed by the findings of the Economic Survey 2007-08 which stated that degradation of lush green forests had reached an alarming level, the government is mulling measures to restore the glory of forests, officials said. The authorities have recently forwarded to Government of India a comprehensive project for the Centrally-sponsored Integrated Forest Protection Scheme for protection and management of forests under 11th five year plan. Estimated at Rs 29.13 crore, the plan will be executed in five years. The thrust areas envisaged in the plan are ecological restoration of degraded forests, protection and rehabilitation of forest area, demarcation and infrastructure development besides increasing forest productivity. Other measures include increasing natural regeneration, controlling soil erosion, soil and water conservation, bio-diversity and wetland conservation, promotion of eco-tourism, development of pastures and grazing lands and strengthening research, education. With a view to reducing pressure on forests, plantation will be extended beyond demarcated forests to meet the requirements of firewood and fodder. The Minister for Forests, Qazi Muhammad Afzal, told Greater Kashmir that the government was serious in restoration of forests. “Till the Centre approves our project for restoration of forests, I have sought a comprehensive report on encroachment and damage to forests from the department within a month. Those found responsible for vandalizing forests would not be spared. In vulnerable areas, fencing would also be done,” Qazi said. The Minister said he had requested the government to create a separate Revenue cell in the department. “By this we will not be dependent on the Revenue department for demarcation of forests or identification of its land. We have undertaken strengthening of check posts to prevent illegal transport of timber and intensified patrolling in vulnerable areas. The Forest Protection Force personnel have been trained and equipped to deal with organized and armed smugglers,” he added. By virtue of an amendment in Forest laws, the Divisional Forest Officer has been given quasi-judicial powers to confiscate forest produce and tools, vehicles, horses and ponies involved in the nefarious activity. http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=18_2_2008&ItemID=61&cat=1
17) Kozhikode – Kerala may be one of the greenest states in India with about 28 percent of its total area covered by forests but it is dependent on imports, especially from Southeast Asia, for timber. The imported timber is popularly called Malaysian wood. But according to timber traders, it is mostly sourced from Myanmar. With the construction business booming, wood is scarce in the state although 11,124 sq km of its 38,863 sq km area is forested. Timber traders say the quantity of wood provided by the Kerala forest department is not sufficient to meet even 25 percent of the demand. “The department mostly supplies teakwood. We buy it through auctions,” said A. Jayarajan, who has been working as a timber merchant in Kozhikode for the last four decades. The cost of teakwood timber is above Rs.2,500 per cubic foot. “The price varies according to the quality of teakwood. It can go up to Rs.4,000. The timber market is a sellers’ market. Wood is scarce and demand is high,” Jayarajan told IANS. It has been 20 years since ‘Malaysian wood’ started reaching the Kerala coast. “Mangalore and Tuticorin ports are the chief entry points for the wood to south India. Now, 75 percent of our timber needs are met through imports,” said V. Sherif, proprietor of Hillwood Import Exports Private Limited. “Wood is arriving from all parts of the world, even from South America. But the majority of the imported wood is sourced from Myanmar. Pincoda wood constitutes most of the import. People in north Kerala prefer this Malaysian wood. In the south people are going for another variety that we call Violet,” Sherif added. Pincoda is brownish red in colour. “Pincoda is the variety that sells the most here. I don’t know the tree’s botanical name. This wood is like our own Irul,” said M.P. Ahammed Koya, owner of Puthiyara Timbers. Irul’s botanical name is Xylia xylocarpa. Pincoda timber costs Rs.1,100 to 1,200 per cubic foot. “It is the arrival of Malaysian wood that has brought down the price of wood in the local market,” Koya added. But Jayarajan disagrees. “The price of wood, whether it is local or imported, is ruling high as the commodity is scarce,” he said. “The Malaysian hardwood is good in quality and costs much less than local wood,” said Babu Cherian, an architect. “Carpenters prefer this imported wood as it is good to work with,” he added. http://mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=local&newsid=67619#
Myanmar:
18) YANGON — Elephants in Myanmar have long been invaluable labourers in the country’s timber industry, nimbly finding their way through forests and dragging heavy fallen trees to rivers for shipping. But as Myanmar’s ruling junta expands logging in the country’s teak forests, more wild elephants are being captured and trained for clear-cutting operations that destroy the very habitats in which they roamed freely, activists and industry insiders say. “On account of the loss and fragmentation of their habitats, the size of the wild elephant population has declined,” said Uga, chairman of local environmental group Biodiversity and Nature Conservation Association. “To obtain elephant power for logging, wild elephants are being captured and recruited,” said Uga, who uses only one name. Employing elephants is normally more environmentally friendly than using heavy machinery, which requires roads cut into forests which cause more damage than elephants would. About 4,500 elephants are believed to be working in the logging industry, including 2,500 owned by the state-run Myanmar Timber Enterprise (MTE), Uga said. As logging operations have dramatically expanded, especially in remote regions of northern Myanmar near the Chinese border, some companies are turning to private entrepreneurs to capture and train elephants, business owners said. One owner of domesticated elephants in Taungoo, about 150 miles (240 kilometres) north of Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon, said that 100 elephants had left in June to work on a timber operation in Sagaing province, hundreds of miles to the north. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said the elephants had been loaded into trucks to work for a company making veneers and plywood for export. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5guwpgStDF33tgqQ56khx1Db8hamg
Kalimantan:
19) PASER: Police arrested Wednesday an Indonesian citizen and confiscated 720 cubic meters of illegal logs allegedly stolen from rainforest in Paser regency. The man identified as JD was detained and the logs and three ships used to transport the logs were seized as material evidence for further investigations. East Kalimantan Police water police chief Sr. Comr. Harris Fadillah said the arrest was made on the Kerang River on a routine patrol of the regency. “The logs and the ships were confiscated because they had no necessary documents from local forestry and transportation authorities, ” he said. Over the last two weeks, the military confiscated more than 32,000 logs allegedly stolen from rainforests in West Kalimantan. Illegal logging is still common in Kalimantan, despite tough laws and increased surveillance from security authorities. http://redapes.org/news-updates/illegal-logs-ships-seized-in-e-kalimantan/
20) It is only in the last few years that the true extent of the Belantikan’s incredible biodiversity has been revealed. A survey, by Togu Simorangkir, in 2003, found an estimated 6,000 orangutans and a very high level of biodiversity– this is the third largest orangutan population in the world and the largest population outside of a protected area. These facts make Belantikan a high priority site for orangutan conservation. The Belantikan forests spread from the foothills of the Schwaner Mountains between the Arut region and the border of West Kalimantan (see map). It is a spectacular place with steep cliffs and waterfalls. There are many rivers flowing through the valleys, including the main Belantikan River that flows into the Lamandau River. There are a variety of habitat types that includes lowland forests, swamp and upland forests thus creating a diverse range of ecosystems with abundant species of flora and fauna. Research into the biodiversity of the region has so far found; ten primate species (includes orangutans), seven of these species are listed as protected and four are endemic to Kalimantan (found nowhere else); 31 non-primate mammals species; 207 bird species; 32 amphibian species; 38 reptile species and 59 fish species. It is thought that there are many more species in Belantikan that haven’t yet been found. Installing camera traps in this area could help to reveal more species and previously undiscovered ones. The Belantikan region belongs administratively to 13 villages, the Belantikan Raya District and the Central Kalimantan Province. The communties of Belantikan depend on the forest products, both timber and non-timber, for their livelihoods. They have a strong spiritual bond with the forest and unique traditional rituals and cultures. Unfortunately Belantikan is under threat. It is not a protected area and currently most of the forested area of Belantikan is a logging concession. Gold mining used to occur but has now stopped, however, its impacts are still seen and felt by the local communities with some rivers having been badly polluted. Iron ore mining is now posing a real threat with licences for exploration having been awarded. http://wildlifedirect.org/blogAdmin/orangutanfoundation/2008/02/18/protecting-the-belantikan-for
ests-and-its-orangutans/
Sumatra:
21) Field investigations in central Sumatra have found that the home of two tribes of indigenous people and endangered elephants, tigers and orangutans faces “being split in half” by the construction of “a legally questionable highway” for logging trucks servicing one of the world’s largest paper companies. The investigation, by WWF Indonesia and other scientific and conservation groups, also found the crucial Bukit Tigapuluh Forest Landscape threatened by illegal logging, clearing for plantations and other roadbuilding — much of it linked to operations of Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and its partners. The forest is one of the last large forests in Sumatra, boasts some of the richest biodiversity on earth and is one of Indonesia’s most important habitats for numerous species. It is the location of a successful conservation project to reintroduce orangutans, which now reside in a part of the landscape that is proposed for protected status but is already being cleared by APP-affiliated companies, the report found. Clearing for the highway, which allows logging trucks easier access to APP’s pulp mills in Jambi Province, appears to have taken place after APP’s forestry operations in neighboring Riau Province were halted due to a police investigation of illegal logging. APP partners have cleared an estimated 20,000 hectares of natural forest in the Bukit Tigapuluh landscape, with some clearing appearing to be in violation of Indonesian law. Unplanned and illegal road building is especially devastating to such areas, opening them up to poaching, illegal settlement and plantation activities and undermining the viability of indigenous communities. One of the tribes threatened by APP-linked activities is wholly dependent on the Bukit Tigapuluh Landscape. “We urge APP and its partners to stop clearing any more natural forest whose ecological, environmental and cultural conservation values have not been determined and to stop sourcing any of its purchased wood from such forests,” Ian Kosasih said. http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/28861
Indonesia:
22) Jakarta – Senior field officers in the Indonesian National Police are to undergo training aimed at cracking down on wildlife smugglers and illegal loggers, who are threatening the country’s biodiversity and natural resources, a regional wildlife alliance said Monday. The training over the next two and a half weeks is on how to detect and arrest members of organized crime syndicates looting the nation’s forests, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Wildlife Enforcement Network said in a statement. ‘It’s great news for Indonesia that the police have committed to work with other agencies to protect the country’s wildlife and forests,’ said Steve Galster, director of field operations for PeunPa and the Wildlife Alliance, conservation groups that support the ASEAN network. ‘Laws exist to protect endangered species and ecosystems.’ The fate of Indonesia’s wildlife and forests has been in the global spotlight in recent weeks after the discovery that the population of critically endangered Sumatran tigers had plummeted because of poaching and illegal wildlife sales. Researchers had found tiger bones, claws, skins and whiskers being sold openly in eight cities on Sumatra despite laws banning such trade. The Sumatran tiger is the world’s most endangered tiger subspecies with fewer than 500 of the big cats remaining in the wild. To improve capacity to detect and prevent these and other crimes involving wildlife and forests, Indonesian police officers are to join forestry and customs officers for nature crime investigations training at the National Police’s criminal investigations training centre in Bogor, West Java. Galster said officials hope the intensive Wildlife Crime Investigation Course would pave the way for more joint training to help the government tackle poaching and smuggling networks. The ASEAN wildlife network involves the law enforcement agencies of all 10 ASEAN countries and facilitates cross-border collaboration in the fight against illegal wildlife trade in the region. Indonesia is a global hotspot for trade in wild animals and plants. It is second only to Brazil in richness of biodiversity. Its forests are also under threat from illegal and unregulated logging. Once abundant in Indonesia, species such as tigers, orang-utans and rhinoceros are now close to extinction because of a lethal combination of habitat destruction, persistent poaching and smuggling, weak enforcement and lack of public awareness. http://news.monstersandcritics.com/asiapacific/news/article_1391685.php/Indonesian_police_to_und
ergo_training_to_combat_forest_looting
Australia:
24) Researchers in Australia and around the world are making progress in understanding old growth forests – but ultimately it’s up to the public and managers to decide how much to protect and how to conserve it. That’s the view of Dr Tom Spies of the US Forest Service, a scientist long familiar with old growth forests and the public debate surrounding them in Australia and the United States. “Conserving old growth forests and features such as large hollow-bearing trees using reserves, coupes managed with retention silviculture, and restoration can help to maintain native biodiversity, as well as providing ecosystem services such as carbon storage and recreation opportunities.” To achieve this requires landscape-level planning to decide on goals, placement of reserves, management patterns, coupe-level silvicultural practices, and the restoration of fire regimes that will retain plant and animal species and structural diversity in the forest. Most important, he said, is engaging forest managers, scientists and the public in dialogue about forest management and conservation, so there is wider appreciation of both goals and the value of the new forestry practices. However Dr Spies conceded that approaches that included active management are unlikely to satisfy all environmentalists, even though the overall goal may be species conservation across whole landscapes. “There are no easy answers to the old growth issue because there are so many different perspectives on it. Our relationships with forests and our knowledge of these forests will continue to change. The forests themselves will change from disturbance and climate change. Given the ecological and social dynamics we will probably never completely “solve” the problem. http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20082002-16921-2.html
25) It is time to stop logging Tasmania’s old forests, an international forest management convention in Hobart was told yesterday. And the convention was warned that global pressure could force an end to logging in old-growth and regrowth forest as the world comes to grip with global warming and carbon trading. Australian National University resources and environment professor David Lindenmayer said commercial harvest of old-growth forests could no longer be justified. Prof Lindenmayer wanted industry compensation. “In the context of Australia, there is not a need for old-growth forest logging any more,” he said. “But there needs to be structural adjustment for industry and no perverse outcomes, as has happened in Tasmania before.” The four-day conference, attended by more than 250 delegates from 20 countries, was warned climate change and carbon trading could bring massive pressure on logging. University of Tasmania forestry professor David Bowman predicted carbon trading would throw accepted forest management and harvesting systems into chaos. Prof Bowman cautioned governments entering long-term timber contracts at fixed prices, such as the 30-year deal signed between Forestry Tasmania and Gunns Ltd for the Tamar Valley pulp mill. http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,23238427-3462,00.html
26) Austrian Forestry Service spokesman Bernhard Schragl denied Monday that the service had suffered a loss of 100 million Euros in its business in the Russian Federation. He attributed weekend media reports to that effect to the “election campaign in Lower Austria.” The service withdrew from a Russian joint venture with Finnish state forestry agency Metsähallitus for the exploitation of 176,000 hectares of forest 300 kilometers north of Moscow in November 2006. At the time, the service cited changes in the framework conditions for the joint venture as the reason. Critics have alleged that the joint-venture partners left a large number of logging machines and transport vehicles “to rot” at the site. BZÖ politican Hansjörg Schimanek has demanded an investigation by the Audit Office. http://www.wienerzeitung.at/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=4082&Alias=wzo&cob=328718
27) More than 200 delegates from 20 countries are in Hobart to discuss the challenges facing the world’s forests in the 21st century. Handling the increased risk of catastrophic wildfires is one of the key issues to be addressed by leading international forest scientists gathering at the Old Forests, New Management conference in Hobart starting Feb. 17, 2008. “Contrary to what some people think, Australian old growth forest is constantly changing, dynamic, always being modified by fire and other factors. If we are going to manage these forests, it isn’t simply a matter of locking them up. If future generations are to have the opportunity to enjoy old-growth forests, we need to achieve a mix of age classes of trees across the whole landscape today.” For the past few decades Tasmanian forest scientists have been carrying out large-scale, long-term experiments to understand how eucalypt forests evolve after disturbances such as fire or harvesting. “They are naturally disturbed systems, and this means it is possible to take timber from them and still have old growth characteristics, still have the same biological and ecological qualities in the landscape,” says Dr Read. One of the major issues at the conference will be how climate change affects the distribution of forest species across the landscape. Cool climate trees will migrate into the high country, but since Australia has little of this country, they will eventually run out of places to move. Related to this is the opportunity to convert forest residues into ‘green’ energy for both transport and static uses, adds Prof. Duff. “The bottom line is that there is a very complex set of tradeoffs between conserving old growth forests, timber and energy production, fire control, pest management and other issues, which has still to be worked out,” he says. However both conference organisers say Australia is at the forefront of global old growth forest science. Thanks to government intervention the total area of trees on the continent is now expanding again, a very large area of undisturbed native forest has been set aside, while Australia forest researchers are at the cutting edge in working out how to deal with changing conditions. http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=6280
28) Australian technology for measuring carbon emissions from diminishing forests is to be made available to developing countries in cooperation with a group created by former US president Bill Clinton. The Clinton Climate Initiative has selected the CSIRO-developed National Carbon Accounting System (NCAS) as the platform for a global rollout, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said today. The global system would assist in recognising sustainable forest management and reforestation and would be adapted to meet the individual needs of developing nations, Senator Wong said. “An internationally-accepted carbon monitoring and accounting system is critical to integrating forests into the global carbon markets,” she told the launch of the partnership in Canberra. “This can play an important role to alleviate poverty in developing countries through encouraging and providing a mechanism to reward sustainable management.” The NCAS uses remote sensing, satellite images, greenhouse-gas accounting methods and modelling of environmental changes to monitor and account for emissions from land-based sectors. Clinton Climate Initiative representative Ira Magaziner said the organisation and the Australian government had agreed to make the world-leading technology freely available. “Not to try to wall it off or get commercial gain from it, because this is a public good – something that the world needs, that we all need,” Mr Magaziner told the function. “We hope over the next few years to deploy systems around the world that will begin that process and capture that CO2 and that carbon in the air that we need to capture.” http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,23232309-15306,00.html
29) A new term has become established in the Sydney lexicon: spite tree. The spite tree is the one you plant after council rejects your perfectly reasonable objection to the neighbours’ development application. The neighbours add that storey to their house, giving them a great view into your kitchen and your daughter’s bedroom. So you plant a tree – maybe a whole row of trees, in fact a hedge – and watch it grow. At first it’s just about regaining your privacy. But once that’s achieved and the trees are several metres high, do you trim them? No way. You pile on the fertiliser and watch them rise until they block your neighbour’s view of the water and reduce the value of their palace by 50 grand. Revenge is sweet. Not all trees that create dissension between neighbours are grown for spite. Some are planted for reasons that have nothing to do with the people next door. But those planting them don’t give a damn about the collateral damage they cause the neighbours, stealing their views and the light and warmth from the sun. So the result is the same, and in most cases the cause is the same: we are planting more trees in Sydney because our privacy is under assault like never before. The reasons for this are urban consolidation, fuelled by the prosperity and easy credit of the past decade. The State Government has redirected much of the city’s growth from outward to upward. The two-storey house, uncommon only two decades ago, is now ubiquitous in new estates and in renovations and infill developments in older suburbs. Whether you agree with urban consolidation or not, there is no doubt putting bigger houses on smaller blocks increases pressure on privacy. Trees are a popular way of achieving privacy because councils can’t regulate their height. Your local council can tell you whether or not you can build a wall, and exactly how high it can be. But with vegetation, the sky’s the limit. This is oddly inconsistent. A man I visited in Killarney Heights this week extended his carport by two metres and had to spend $1500 and wait several months to have the proposed reno approved by council, even though it was well within planning guidelines. Yet when his neighbour planted an enormous hedge that now blocks this man’s sunlight and outlook, council had no involvement at all. And, like all councils, it refuses to get involved in disputes over hedges. http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/inconsiderate-neighbours-and-a-growing-problem-in-suburbia/2
008/02/15/1202760598510.html
New Zealand:
30) New wood availability forecasts for Hawke’s Bay compiled by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) will assist with future regional planning for the forest industry and provide infrastructure agencies with credible data for future planning, says John Vaney, Regional Team Leader with MAF Policy in Rotorua. The forecasts indicate the availability of radiata pine from the Hawke’s Bay will remain relatively static over the next decade, aside from short-term fluctuations based on market conditions. The key implication of this forecast is that there are limited opportunities in the Hawke’s Bay to expand the harvest in the short term. “We expect there will be a focus on improving processing efficiencies with the aim of utilising more of the volume produced within domestic sawmilling facilities”, says Bob Pocknall, Chairman of the Hawke’s Bay Forestry Group. Beyond 2015, the forecasts indicate that an increase in wood availability is possible with the potential for the Hawke’s Bay regional harvest to increase from the current level of approximately 1.7 million cubic metres to around 3 million cubic metres per year after 2021. Most of this increase in wood availability is expected to be from the small-scale forest growers who established forests during the 1990s. In the later part of the forecast period (post 2034) the total harvest is projected to decline. The forecasts are based on no new planting. “The forecasts provide a clear signal that the transport infrastructure and harvesting capacity in the region will come under increasing pressure after 2015, and that some additional investment will be required before then. There will also be potential from that time for new wood processing investment or expansion of existing plants”, says Bob Pocknall. MAF is currently finalising a report on the Hawke’s Bay Forestry Industry, in association with the Hawke’s Bay Forestry Group and the major growers and processors in the region. This report will include the wood availability forecasts along with descriptions of the region’s forests, wood processing industries and infrastructure. The report, available in June, will describe the opportunities and constraints facing the forest industry in the region. This report is expected to be available in June. http://www.hawkesbay.co.nz/index.php/20080215921/News/Local-News/Hawke-s-bay-wood-availability
-forecast.html
31) New forecasts show the wall of wood from maturing East Coast forests will nearly double existing timber production over the next six years, then treble it by 2020. The forecasts provide a clear signal that the transport infrastructure and harvesting capacity in the region will continue to come under increasing pressure and that ongoing investment will be required, said the chairman of the Eastland Wood Council, Julian Kohn. There will also be potential for new wood processing investment or expansion of existing plants, he said. New wood availability forecasts for the East Coast, released today by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF), show flows of radiata pine will increase from 1.1 million cubic metres in 2007 to around 2.0 million cubic metres a year in 2013. Most of the increased wood harvest from 2013 on will come from the region’s small-scale forest growers who established forests during the 1990s. The actual timing of the harvest from these forests will depend on the prices being paid for timber and the decisions of the small-scale owners. Market conditions and logistics constraints such as availability of logging crews, transport, and processing capacity will limit how quickly the additional wood available from small-scale forests can be harvested. But from 2013 the regional tree harvest has the potential to increase to around 3.4 million cubic metres a year by 2020 continuing through to at least 2034, said John Vaney, regional team leader with MAF in Rotorua. The timing and level at which it then declines will depend on the rate at which the region’s post-1990 forests are harvested, the extent to which they are replanted, and the level of planting on “new” land. The forecasts are based on no planting on new land. http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=20278&cid=4&cname=Business+Today
World-wide:
32) They say that one sign of intelligence is the ability to recognize patterns. I’m gonna lay out a pattern here and let’s see if we can recognize it in less than 6,000 years. When you think of the hills and plains of Iraq, do you normally think of cedar forests so thick the sunlight never touches the ground? That’s how it was before. The first written myth of this culture is that of Gilgamesh deforesting that area to make cities. Plato complained that deforestation was drying up springs and destroying the water quality in Greece. The forests of North Africa went down to make the Phoencian and Egyptian navies. We can go north and ask, Where are the lions who were in Greece? Where are the indigenous of Europe? They’ve been massacred, or assimilated—in any case, genocide was perpetrated against them by definition because they’re no longer there. ~Derrick Jensen http://hecatedemetersdatter.blogspot.com/2008/02/actions-speak-louder-than-words-by.html
33) This morning Indigenous Peoples’ representatives formally withdrew from the Working Group on Protected Areas of the Convention on Biological Diversity to protest their exclusion from this meeting held at FAO headquarters in the Italian capital. Before leaving the plenary, Indigenous leaders put on symbolic gags and held up protest signs. After Jannie Lasimbang of the Kudasan People of Malaysia read a statement, the indigenous delegation and some Non-Governmental Organizations left the meeting which was suspended upon their departure. The Indigenous Peoples’ statement read: “Mr. Chairman, we have made great efforts to be part of this process. However, it is with great disappointment that from the very beginning of this Working Group on Protected Areas meeting we have found ourselves marginalized and without opportunity to take the floor in a timely manner to express our points of view. Yesterday afternoon at a critical moment, we were silenced from providing our contributions to the deliberations on the recommendations on implementation of the Programme of Work. Furthermore, Mr. Chairman, despite your assurances that all recommendations would be included in the Conference Room Paper (CRP), none of our recommendations were included in CRP2. This is extremely disturbing in light of the relevance of these recommendations to our lives, lands and the effective implementation of the Programme of Work. “We denounce the denial of Indigenous Peoples’ right to full an affective participation which contravenes prior decisions of the Parties,” said Onel Masardule y Jannie Lasimbang, Co-Chairs of the Indigenous Peoples’ Committee on Conservation of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity which is made up of indigenous leaders from Asia, Africa, Russia, the Pacific, North America and Latin America. The protest was supported by many NGOs attending the UN meeting who also criticized the negative attitude of the Chair of the Working Group and the collapse of the political space for dialogue. The Indigenous Women’s Biodiversity Network warned “that the exclusion of Indigenous Peoples not only endangers the democratic processes in the United Nations but also ignores that the General Assembly just approved the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in September 2007.” info@globaljusticeecology.org
34) In the gloomy shade deep in Africa’s rainforest, the noontime silence was pierced by the whine of a far-off chainsaw. It was the sound of destruction, echoed from wood to wood, continent to continent, in the tropical belt that circles the globe. From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia’s archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world’s rainforests. The alarm was sounded decades ago by environmentalists – and was little heeded. The picture, meanwhile, has changed: Africa is now a leader in destructiveness. The numbers have changed: UN specialists estimate 25ha of tropical forest are felled worldwide every minute, up from 20ha a generation back. And the fears have changed. Experts still warn of extinction of animal and plant life, of the loss of forest peoples’ livelihoods, of soil erosion and other damage. But scientists today worry urgently about something else: the fateful feedback link of trees and climate. Global warming is expected to dry up and kill off vast tracts of rainforest, and dying forests will feed global warming. “If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change,” declared more than 300 scientists, conservation groups, religious leaders and others in an appeal for action at December’s United Nations climate conference in Bali, Indonesia. The burning or rotting of trees that comes with deforestation – at the hands of ranchers, farmers, timbermen – sends more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all the world’s planes, trains, trucks and automobiles. Forest destruction accounts for about 20% of manmade emissions, second only to burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat. Conversely, healthy forests absorb carbon dioxide and store carbon. The UN session in Bali may have been a turning point, endorsing negotiations in which nations may fashion the first global financial plan for compensating developing countries for preserving their forests. The latest data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) helped spur delegates to action. “Deforestation continues at an alarming rate of about 13 million hectares a year,” the UN body said in its latest State of the World’s Forests report. Because northern forests remain essentially stable, that means 130,000sqkm of tropical forest are being cleared every 12 months – equivalent to more than half a Britain. http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2008/2/19/lifefocus/20336142&sec=lifefocus
35) The present paper documents the influential role played by selective moral disengagement for social practices that cause widespread human harm and degrade the environment. Disengagement of moral self-sanctions enables people to pursue detrimental practices freed from the restraint of self-censure. This is achieved by investing ecologically harmful practices with worthy purposes through social, national, and economic justifications; enlisting exonerative comparisons that render the practices righteous; use of sanitising and convoluting language that disguises what is being done; reducing accountability by displacement and diffusion of responsibility; ignoring, minimising, and disputing harmful effects; and dehumanising and blaming the victims and derogating the messengers of ecologically bad news. These psychosocial mechanisms operate at both the individual and social systems levels. Keywords: consumptive lifestyles; collective efficacy; environmental ethics; moral agency; moral disengagement; population growth; psychosocial change; self-efficacy; token gestures. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Bandura, A. (2007) ‘Impeding ecological sustainability through selective moral disengagement’, Int. J. Innovation and Sustainable Development, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 8–35. http://growthmadness.org/2008/02/18/impeding-ecological-sustainability-through-selective-moral-
disengagement/