304 – Earth’s Tree News
Today for you 32 new articles about earth’s trees! (304th edition)
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–British Columbia: 1) Home builders attack protestors, 2) Last of giant Cedars are lost,
–Washington: 3) State Land trade w/ Whatcom county, 4) Jefferson county road woes,
–Oregon: 5) Defazio’s flawed forest protection bill,
–California: 6) State sues FS over roadless acres, 7) Stop Sierra Pacific, 8) Feed a jay, kill a murrelet, 9) Old growth lumber thieves, 10) She can log Sequoia monument,
–Utah: 12) Lawsuit to stop 10 million bd. ft. timber sale on Dixie NF
–Illinois: 13) Chicago Climate Exchange
–Virginia: 14) Protecting trees from housing development
–USA: 15) FS abandons restructuring plan, 16) Ban Thrillcraft from public lands,
–Canada: 17) Greenpeace complains about AbitibiBowater, 18) Boise ditches AbitiBowater, 19) Selection not clearcuts,
UK: 20) Battle to protect Bourne Wood, 21) Save Pollok Park, 22) felling trees to protect sand dunes, 23) Clunyhill Wood restoration makes for ruined land, 24) Climate change,
–EU: 25) Biofools wake up,
–Czechoslovakia: 26) Logging contracts signed for 2008-2010
–Hungary: 27) Asking for help to stop timber thieves
–Turkey: 28) Locals resist mining plans
–Sierra Leone: 29) Logging not properly monitored
–Congo: 30) Rapidly increasing commercial exploitation need to be countered
–Liberia: 31) Awarding six Timber Sale Contracts
–Gabon: 32) Rainforest sanctuary in an oil fields that doesn’t allow trespassing
British Columbia:
1) Over two hundred men, most apparently construction contractors, attacked a small rally in Langford this morning in an ugly show of aggression and violence. Shortly after 7 am, the mob that included Bear Mountain project manager Les Bjola stormed a smaller rally against the interchange. The men shoved and kicked several people, tore up all the group’s banners and signs, and threw hot coffee and debris at the demonstrators while shouting obscenities and abuse for almost an hour. A handful of RCMP officers arrived on the scene after thirty minutes and intervened between the two groups. The protestors refused to be provoked by fist-waving and taunts, and responded by singing “We Shall Not Be Moved,” “We Shall Overcome” and “My Roots Go Down.” At around 8 am, the men left the area and returned to their job sites at Bear Mountain Resort and elsewhere, witnesses said. “From what we’ve heard, this was an organized attack that was planned days in advance,” said activist Zoe Blunt. “Two sources have confirmed that these men were offered overtime to show up here and intimidate people and try to shut down our rally.” People who were assaulted are considering legal action against the individuals responsible and the specific companies that sent them to the site, Blunt said. Word came today that some of Bear Mountain’s equipment was vandalized last night, and that the managers apparently blamed those campaigning against the interchange. “Today in broad daylight, we were standing here by the highway and we were attacked by two hundred men and two women who destroyed our property and assaulted people. And they want you to believe that we are vandals. It’s ridiculous,” said activist Zoe Blunt. “I don’t believe any of our people would damage equipment. Each of these people signed a pledge to respect private property and other people and that is what they did. There was no violence here today because we were able to defuse and deflect the aggression that was directed at us.” The Spaet Mountain Action Coalition, an ad hoc group working to preserve rare ecosystems and First Nations caves in Langford, asks that people connected with Bear Mountain use our Bear Mountain Tip Line to prevent future bad behaviour. Visit the blog at http://treesit.blogspot.com and share an anonymous, confidential comment, or email us at treesit@gmail.com Raw video: http://www.canada.com/ch/cheknews/video/index.html – Youtube video (Foul language)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5qjGJ6108c More Youtube video (Sexist insults)
2) While dimension lumber sawmills try to stay afloat making a product few U.S. builders want, cedar producers say their exclusive product is selling for near-record prices despite the U.S. market meltdown. The cedar story has turned the forest industry on the Coast, where most cedar grows, into one of the best-performing sectors in the country. “Not that we are making any money, but we are losing less than most folks,” said Rick Jeffery, president of the Coast Forest Products Association. B.C. cedar mills are making money — or at the very least, holding their own — while commodity lumber producers are shutting down mills and cutting back shifts. Cedar’s success in fighting the overall trend has a lot to do with its limited supply — two-thirds of all the cedar in North America comes from B.C. — and its cachet. High-end consumers feel they just have to have this BMW of the lumber world. Doug Clitheroe, manager of cedar sales at Interfor’s Hammond cedar mill, said the spring buying season is underway, and so far, demand is still buoyant. “We are not immune to what’s going on in the United States, but we are busy,” he said. “We’ve been doing a lot of seasonal orders.” Interfor vice-president Ric Slaco believes that years marketing B.C. cedar as an exclusive product are now paying off. By singling it out as a specialty product, cedar is not competing against commodity construction lumber, and so far has not been subject to the same market forces. The almost unlimited supply of commodity lumber available in the U.S. has driven spruce, pine and fir two-by-fours down to $200 US per thousand board feet — a price that is actually below the cost of production. By comparison, cedar two-by-fours sell for $620 US a thousand board feet. Specialty “Architect Knotty” two-by-fours — a trademark of the Western Red Cedar Lumber Association — sell for $800 US a thousand board feet, four times the price of a commodity board. At the upper end of the spectrum, some producers get $3,000 to $4,000 a thousand board feet for their cedar. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=935d8303-c71f-499d-82f8-9d140fa3
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Washington:
3) I cannot figure out why some citizens in our community are quick to support or, more often, oppose important community projects. It seems no matter the issue, it already has backers and detractors the day it becomes public. Take yesterday’s discussion about the outstanding questions regarding the complicated land reconveyance package proposed by Whatcom County. The plan is still in its infancy. As I mentioned yesterday, there has not been anything close to a full accounting of what the costs would be, especially in terms of lost revenue for the logging that won’t be done on the roughly 8,400 acres the county would take control of under the deal. I should add that even the 8,400-acre figure is just an estimate. To make this project work, the county and Department of Natural Resources officials are proposing reworking all of the property lines in the forested areas the DNR manages around the lake. Right now the area is covered with a patchwork of lands managed for many different trusts who earn money when the state sells timber for harvesting. What DNR proposes doing is shifting around property lines so that the county ends up with contiguous properties and the state ends up with contiguous properties. It seems like a common sense idea. But the details are still sketchy. State officials told our editorial board that to change property ownerships they have to balance the values of the land. It’s not an acre-for-acre swap, it’s a land value for land value swap. And inside that equation is the value of timber that could be harvested. If the county wants to move ahead with the plan, and will pay for it, the state will go ahead and do that appraisal work, coming up with an actual plan that shows how much land everyone will end up with after a swap. http://blogs.bellinghamherald.com/index.php?blog=8&title=don_t_jump_the_gun_for_or_against_lake
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4) Jefferson County is large by territory, stretching from Port Townsend and the Hood Canal to the Pacific Coast. But it’s small in population (29,000) and financial resources. More than 60 percent of the county is National Park or National Forest and most of the remainder is state or private forestland. The year 2007 saw the end of a federal timber payment program to rural counties, which accounted for 25 percent of our road fund revenue. We manage 400 miles of roadway, and yet less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the county’s population resides on the Upper Hoh Road. More than 90 percent of the traffic on the roadway is generated by National Park visitation, averaging between 200,000 and 300,000 visits per year. And it is no wonder. The Hoh Rainforest is one of 19 places in the United States designated as a World Heritage Site. It is also an International Biosphere Reserve, one of the few parks in the world with that dual designation. Every big flood on the Hoh River seems to create a new washout on the road, and those seem to be recurring on an almost annual basis in recent years. Jefferson County Public Works, staffed by a handful of dedicated individuals, has stepped up every time and quickly fixed the damage. Typically, the Federal Highway Administration has made emergency funds available to repair those sites with large stone “riprap,” although the county must provide some matching funds and repeatedly defer planned projects elsewhere. Repairs have cost on the order of $8 million over the past 10 years. Either a comprehensive fix of the existing road or relocation of the road farther from the river would cost tens of millions of dollars. With no available local funds and in an era of diminishing revenue, this “small fish” county clearly is not the right entity to proactively and effectively manage — for people or for fish — what is essentially a National Park access road. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/352942_hohrebut28.html
Oregon:
5) I read over Mr. DeFazio’s 37 page Draft for a forest protection bill and found it to be disturbingly soft. It needs enforceable regulations. There was, perhaps, a time when the non-litigative processes proposed within this Draft might have worked, especially on a smaller scale. But, over the last decade, having watched industry persuade politicians and forest managers, buy forestry institutes and science, de-facto fund environmental groups,
and easily co-opt citizen committees, I’ve lost trust. In 35 years of conservation efforts and “ecoforestry” operations, I’ve come to realize that nothing short of firm, judicially enforceable regulations or designated wilderness has any chance to protect forests. Instead, filled with fluffy forest science language and very few enforceable operational standards, this Draft could lead to easily abused legislation. Especially by allowing roading and logging within reserves and management by committee. If this Draft endeavors to be truely science based, why give salvage logging any slack at all? Salvage logging is refuted by unbiased science and, of course, a major cause of destructive reburns and forest arson. Big backburns and dozer roading in roadless areas and reserves during the fire fighting frenzy should be also be addressed and severely limited. Allowing CMAI to become a guideline for tree cutting is asking for further abuse. The “experts” will twink this just like they do with other silvicultural black box formulas. In some high altitude and dry forest sites, open grown conifer CMAI can extend out to several hundred years. This kind of guideline would allow a mill like Rough and Ready to continue to pluck old sugar pines and cedars off dry Siskiyou ridges. Who’s going to check these CMAI calls in the field? An OSU timber hireling? A logger? An environmentalist? The Draft description of “low impact” logging won’t stop operators from hammering fragile, previously entered areas. Soils in many dry Eastside forests are already widely and irreversibly impacted. Having designed some of the first low impact operations in this region (on tribal lands in the mid 90s), we still had to keep operators restricted to keep them from beating sites up. I can say from experience, there needs to be measurable and enforceable standards. Roy Keene c/o stumps@forestcouncil.org
California:
6) California sued the U.S. Forest Service on Thursday over plans that would open more than 500,000 acres to roads and oil drilling in the state’s largest national forests. The four Southern California forests — Los Padres, Angeles, San Bernardino and Cleveland — comprise more than 3.5 million acres that stretch from Big Sur to the Mexican border. They provide habitat for 31 threatened or endangered animal species and 29 such plant species. “California wants to keep these forests without roads, and the Bush administration is just operating with reckless disregard for the public trust,” State Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said in a telephone interview. “I find it kind of ironic that the federal government won’t let us clean up our cars and they now want cars going through these forests. Once they build these roads, cars come, then they go in and chop down trees. Roads are the first step.” The suit alleges that the Forest Service violated the federal National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act by not informing the state of potential environmental impacts of its plan, and by not working with the state’s laws and policies. Since 2006, California has had a moratorium on road construction in pristine areas of its national forests. State officials also took issue with the roughly 500,000 acres the Forest Service has set aside as wilderness land, an amount that environmentalists and scientists said is half of what would be necessary to protect habitat. In an exchange of letters in 2005 and 2006, state Secretary for Resources Mike Chrisman discussed the state’s concerns over the forest management plans with two regional foresters who assured him that they would “honor these commitments” to the state to maintain roadless areas. “In our view, the commitments made to us were not lived up to,” Chrisman said. “The people in California derive a great amount of benefit from these forested landscapes, not only for recreational purposes but for watershed protection and other protections, and for us.” http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-forests29feb29,1,4845128.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
7) The company owns so much of California – 1.7 million acres of the state’s forestland – that its properties put together are well more than twice the size of Yosemite National Park. Company officials say it’s a responsibility they take seriously. But some activists say Sierra Pacific Industries causes untold damage with their logging practices. Marily Woodhouse knows the arguments. For the past year, the 51-year-old resident of Manton – a sleepy Tehama County town of 750 people in the Sierra foothills – has come to know everything about Sierra Pacific Industries. A part-time bartender with no previous experience as an activist, Woodhouse is trying to prevent the Redding company from cutting every tree on an 800-acre land tract near Manton. Woodhouse said the clear-cutting would be followed by the planting of new trees that require huge amounts of herbicides, which she fears will leak into a nearby creek that supplies Manton with its water. Last year, Woodhouse gathered signatures of a fifth of the town’s residents on a petition to stop Sierra Pacific Industries’ plan. And when the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection gave the company the go-ahead anyway, Woodhouse and other activists sued to stop it in Tehama County Court. The suit, filed last month, is still active. “What’s being done here is not logging, it’s deforestation,” Woodhouse said. “We’re not trying to stop their logging. We’re just trying to make it sustainable. You can’t assault the environment like this and expect everything to be OK.” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/29/BAE7UTPD6.DTL
8) At Redwood National and State Parks in Humboldt County, one of the last havens of the marbled murrelet, there’s a sign: “Feed a jay, kill a murrelet.” The elusive seabird, with its “kir kir” call, nests 100 feet up in the boughs of ancient trees and flies a dozen miles to the ocean to catch fish to bring back to its young. The murrelet’s coloration matches the rusty redwoods during the nesting season and then changes to blend in with the ocean bluffs during the rest of the year. There are only about 3,000 left in California. Logging can remove trees in which the birds build their nests, and removing trees also opens the canopy of dense branches to an onslaught of predator jays, ravens and crows that eat the murrelets’ eggs and young. Food left behind by human visitors also attracts these predators to the North Coast’s Redwood National and State Parks, and Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Santa Cruz County. “As the habitat has shrunk for the murrelets, the remaining areas tend to be surrounded by human uses,” said Gary Falxa, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in Arcata (Humboldt County). “People should resist the temptation to leave out food or intentionally feed the animals. By encouraging jays, you threaten eggs and nestlings,” Falxa said. This is a lesson for all forest visitors, government officials say, whether the species are the murrelet, golden trout, mountain yellow-legged frog, Sierra bighorn sheep or Pacific fisher. The rules are easy: Don’t feed, approach or handle the animals, pick flowers or bring in nonnative species. Starting in the 1980s, lawsuits to protect the northern spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest and California began the eventual halt to logging of 2,000-year-old redwoods and other ancient conifers. Environmental groups have used the federal Endangered Species Act to win protections for hundreds of species. After a century of heavy logging, government regulators are now required to scrutinize logging plans to make sure they don’t remove the big stands of trees that are needed for murrelets, owls, goshawks and other imperiled forest species. Even coho salmon benefit from the trees’ shade that keeps streams cool. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/29/BA03V16CG.DTL
9) Lumber thieves are stealing an ever-increasing amount of old-growth redwood from state and national parks, and rangers are having a hard time keeping up with the wily rip-off artists. The larcenous bunch has been creeping into parks mostly in the far northern part of California, cutting up fallen and downed trees, and hauling the wood out of the forest. Most of the downed wood has been stolen from the Redwood National and State Parks, a vast forest of coastal redwood trees stretching along the coast from Willits (Mendocino County) to Crescent City (Del Norte County). “It’s a huge problem,” said Laura Denny, a Redwood park ranger who has investigated the thefts for the past six years. “To get the wood out, they knock down vegetation and rip up the hillsides. They leave behind garbage and oil from their chain saws. And the wood they take is used by other species to survive.” Redwood logs have also been nipped recently at Humboldt Redwoods State Park and Richardson Grove State Park, both in Humboldt County, and Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area in Mendocino County. The removal of redwood, which is usually sold to make shingles, dramatically alters the forest ecology, which relies on decomposing logs to retain water and nutrients. As logs decompose, they provide habitat for hundreds of species of plants, invertebrates and other animals, Denny said. Tree poaching has been a problem in California and the Pacific Northwest since the mid-1990s, a time when the once-mighty timber industry was collapsing, in part because of environmental opposition. In 1992, there were 56 timber mills in California. Today there are about half that many. High unemployment is a big problem in rural Northern California. A person with a chain saw and knowledge of where to find quality logs can make good money selling purloined wood. In the past two years, at least five men have been convicted and several other arrests have been made for poaching wood. The logs were all old growth, at least 750 years old, said Steve Chaney, the parks superintendent. The timber-snatchers typically go into an area that is not frequently visited, often at night, and cut out 3-foot-long sections of wood with a chain saw. The chunks are known in the lumber industry as bolts. The bolts, which are carefully selected for their quality, generally fetch $10 at specialty lumber mills. “They either float them down a creek to where they can pick them up, or they haul them out by hand to the nearest place they can get to with a truck or in some cases an ATV.” http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/29/BA40V0KVJ.DTL
10) “There is a role for commercial timber harvest in the national forest, and even in the Sequoia National Monument. We just need to figure out what it is: What trees do we cut? And where do we cut them?” Tina Terrell recently marked her first anniversary as forest supervisor for Sequoia National Forest and the Giant Sequoia National Monument. She oversees the management of hundreds of miles of forest land and 38 giant sequoia groves. Terrell has been seeking public comment as the Forest Service develops a new management plan for the Sequoia National Monument. The Forest Service is also working on a wide range of restoration projects, including meadow restoration, forest restoration, fire control, and habitat protection and restoration. “I’m a daredevil. I’ve been rock climbing, bungee jumping, sky diving … We’re in the process of trying to get as many ideas as we can from people about how they want their forests used. This process will take from six months to a year. The basic question is: What do you want your forests to look like? You can a do a lot more things in a national forest than you can in a national park: You can pick a flower. You can pick up a rock. You can bring your dog. Even in Sequoia National Monument. With a permit you can cut a tree, mine for gold, hunt or fish, collect wildlife specimens … You can’t do those things in a national park. I go back forth every day from Visalia to the mountains. Some people would rather stay in the Valley. Some would stay in the mountains. I like them both.” http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080301/OPINION09/803010317/1014/OP
INION
Colorado:
11) After 16 months of battling with the Forest Service and developer Red McCombs, Friends of Wolf Creek have finally scored a monumental victory. The Forest Service and McCombs agreed to complete a new Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed “Village” at Wolf Creek. After US District Court Judge John Kane issued a Preliminary Injunction in October 2007, which halted the projected, the Forest Service and developers opted to complete a new EIS instead of waiting for Judge Kane’s final ruling.The settlement resolves a lawsuit the Friends of Wolf Creek (Colorado Wild and the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council) brought against the Forest Service and developers in October 2006. The suit challenged the Forest Service’s decision in April 2006 that allowed the construction of two access roads across public lands for the proposed 10,000 person “Village.” Friends of Wolf Creek argued that the Forest Service was required to conduct a complete, unbiased environmental impact analysis of the development. This resolution clearly shows the Forest Service and developers that their proposal for Wolf Creek must have full public disclosure and adhere to the highest environmental protections. http://www.friendsofwolfcreek.org
Utah:
12) The Utah Environmental Congress (UEC) filed a lawsuit earlier this month in US District Court to prevent an illegal timber sale by the Forest Service. This timber sale would allow 10 million board feet of timber to be logged in the Dixie National Forest. The UEC claims that the Forest Service is using a bark beetle outbreak as an excuse for the timber sale, when in fact the beetle outbreak could have resulted from the Forest Service’s prescribed burn during severe drought conditions in 2002. The prescribed burn became known as the Sanford Fire, which consumed approximately 70,000 acres and boiled a population of Bonneville cutthroat trout. According to the UEC, the area affected by the fire is a critical elk calving area that has rebounded and allowing logging now would only further damage the healing area. “Irresponsible Forest Service management caused the domino-effect that has horribly altered the forest landscape, wildlife habitat and imperiled fish populations,” said Kevin Mueller, Executive Director of UEC. “The proposed logging is sure to delay the trout’s recovery for decades due to watershed damage from increased erosion, sediment and decreased water quality.” http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695253164,00.html
Illinois:
13) A forestry carbon credits contract based on new protocols issued by the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) now is available to owners of sustainably managed “working” forests through AgraGate Climate Credits Corp. AgraGate, a subsidiary of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, has been active in collecting carbon credits from owners of afforestation projects, or forestland planted since January 1, 1990. Afforestation projects allow no thinning or harvesting during the contract term. “Our new Exchange Forestry Offset (XFO) contract combines both afforestation and sustainably managed provisions in a single document. The sustainably managed section is a first for private forestry owners,” notes Dave Krog, AgraGate CEO. “It establishes the conditions for forestry management practices such as thinning and harvesting that are compatible with carbon sequestration.” AgraGate pools credits to sell on the CCX and then returns proceeds to the landowner less a service fee. Krog explained that the new XFO contract covers a 15-year period – from 2008 through 2022 – with an option to earn carbon credits back to 2003. He said participants could initially enroll under afforestation provisions and later transition to the sustainably managed contract. The sustainably managed provisions are based on the net change in carbon stocks created during the contract term, with the net changed defined by the CCX as the increases in carbon stocks from tree growth, minus the decrease in stocks caused by harvest, pest, fire or adverse weather events. Landowners enrolling under the managed forest provisions will be required to have a baseline inventory established for their enrolled timber. Krog encourages landowners to download a sample forestry contract from the AgraGate Web site and to contact their forester to assist with establishing a baseline inventory. Landowners in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi should contact one of AgraGate’s associate aggregators; their contact information also is on the AgraGate Web site. “For afforestation projects, credits earned can be calculated using either the CCX carbon accumulation tables or through direct measurement using a growth and yield model,” Krog explains. “For sustainably managed projects only the direct measurement with a growth and yield model can be used.” http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080229005072&newsLa
ng=en
Virginia:
14) Del. David Bulova (D) and Sen. Patsy Ticer (D) are each carrying nearly identical but separate bills that would give jurisdictions in urbanized areas of the Commonwealth, like Northern Virginia, the ability to require builders to spare wooded areas on land under development. Bulova represents all of Fairfax City and portions of Fairfax and Annandale, while Ticer’s district encompasses parts of Fairfax and Arlington counties as well as the City of Alexandria. As of Feb. 25, Bulova’s House Bill 1437 had passed both the House of Delegates and the Senate. Ticer’s Senate Bill 710, which includes text by Sen. Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax), has passed the Senate and is currently in the House for consideration. Upon their likely approval, the pair of bills will probably be combined into a single version to await the governor’s signature. “This bill changes the focus of the current code from tree replacement to tree preservation,” said Michael Knapp, director of Fairfax County’s Land Development Services Urban Forest Management Division. Knapp, who has been working on language for such legislation since 2002, said the bills are amendments to existing state code that apply to geographic regions that don’t meet federal air quality standards. In Northern Virginia, those areas include Fairfax, Arlington, Loudoun and Prince William counties, towns and cities contained within those counties and the City of Alexandria. The new legislation also increases the tree canopy requirements for low-density residential development, for instance one to two dwelling units per acre, from 20 percent to 25 percent and up to 30 percent, depending on the zoning. There are other incentives as well, including preserving or planting native species that provide habitat for wild animals and for trees that are particularly good at cleaning air. “Different trees do different things and some of them are known for being good for the air quality and others don’t do quite as much,” Bulova said. Jim Williams, head of the Northern Virginia Building Industry Association, said another piece of the legislation provides for a concept called tree banking, which allows a developer to plant trees off site at a park or a school if tree canopy percentage targets are not attainable on site due to topography constraints or other reasons. http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=600&sid=1353847
USA:
15) The U.S. Forest Service has abandoned a restructuring of its environmental planning that would have pulled its biologists and other specialists out of national forests, according to an internal agency memo released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER. Under the plan, thousands of employees posted to forests across the country would have been reassigned and consolidated into six centers, affecting more than a quarter of the agency’s entire workforce. The object of the plan was to “streamline” work performed under the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA, the basic planning law that shapes major resource decisions. This agency-wide reorganization, which had been on the verge of adoption last fall, is being shelved to “avoid additional disruption and confusion,” according to the February 20, 2008 memo from Forest Service Chief Abigail Kimbell to top agency managers. “After careful consideration, however, we will not pursue these options at this time,” wrote Kimbell. “At a later time, we will revisit recommendations from the NEPA Feasibility Study.” This retreat follows a series of recent setbacks in efforts to privatize large portions of Forest Service operations. With less than one year left in the Bush administration, it is unlikely that the plan will be revisited anytime soon, said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, whose organization had first revealed the agency’s intentions. “This is welcome news for an organization that has enough problems,” he said. “The Forest Service is currently coping with crippling proposed budget cuts and a radically shifting mission without a survival guide.” http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2008/2008-02-28-091.asp
16) Right now various National Forests and BLM districts are beginning to put together travel management plans. Most of these plans are focused on corralling the growing abuse of our public lands by thrillcraft — ATVs, dirt bikes, dune buggies, swamp buggies, jet skis, snowmobiles and other associated toys used by neotenous adults. The underlying assumption of all these travel management plans is that some level of abuse and vandalism of our public domain by thrillcraft owners is inevitable. I do not accept the premise that abuse of our lands is something that we must tolerate as inevitable. It is our land. It is our children’s land and their children’s land. We have a responsibility to pass these lands on to the next generation in better condition than we found them. And we have a collective responsibility to protect our national heritage against the thrillcraft menace. The real problem isn’t the machines. It’s not even the people. Many otherwise decent people ride thrillcraft, but when they straddle one of these machines they become participants in a dysfunctional culture. It is a culture that sees our public land as nothing more than a giant sandbox. Thrillcraft culture represents a lack of respect for other people’s property and the quality of their outdoor experience. What people do on their own property is not my concern, but when they ride their machines on public lands, it becomes a societal issue. Our public lands are as close as our society has to shared “sacred” ground. The operation of any thrillcraft has a disproportional impact upon the landscape, wildlife and other people. Thrillcraft pollute the air and water. They compact soils. They damage wetlands and riparian areas. They spread weeds. They displace wildlife. The noise, speed and general disregard for other people by thrillcraft owners displace other non-motorized users of our public lands. Increasingly they threaten archeological treasures. How can any of this be considered “responsible” use? You hear a lot about “responsible” off-road vehicle (ORV) use and “a few bad apples” from thrillcraft promoters themselves as well as some government bureaucrats. What is responsible about tearing up the land? It’s like suggesting we ought to promote “responsible wife abuse” or “responsible child abuse.” http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2008/02/28/views1.html
Canada:
17) Quarterly and year end results released by logging giant AbitibiBowater today raise serious questions about the direction of the company, says Greenpeace. By not curbing its destructive logging practices in Canada’s Boreal Forest AbitibiBowater is taking serious risks on the both the financial and environmental front. According to Greenpeace, a number of large customers of AbitibiBowater are concerned about the company’s delay in putting into place solutions. “Customer confidence is dropping because AbitibiBowater continues to log in the last remaining intact areas of the Boreal Forest,” said Richard Brooks, forest campaign coordinator with Greenpeace. “Customers do not want to be associated with the conflict of a company trashing one of the planet’s most important forests.” AbitibiBowater clients in the paper and lumber sector are beginning to reduce or suspend their purchases. For several months, Greenpeace has been in discussions with AbitibiBowater customers, informing them about to company’s impact on threatened species such as woodland caribou and as well as the intact forest areas in Ontario and Quebec that they depend on. In addition, the company’s ongoing conflict with First Nations communities and its lack of Forest Stewardship Council certification for its products and forestry operations have been highlighted to a growing list of their international customers. http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/February2008/28/c7295.html
18) TORONTO – An American paper company has decided to stop using wood fibre from a northwestern Ontario forest that has been the subject of a long-standing First Nations dispute, a decision hailed Thursday by aboriginals and environmentalists. The aim of the moratorium by Idaho-based Boise Inc. is to lend support to ongoing negotiations over logging in the Whiskey Jack forest, an area the Grassy Narrows First Nations just north of Kenora, Ont., claims as its traditional lands. The plan to stop buying material from Montreal-based forestry company AbitibiBowater was announced in a letter from Steven Earley, Boise’s woodlands manager in International Falls, Minn. “In support of the ongoing dialogue, out of respect for the Grassy Narrows community and their leadership, Boise wishes to honour the request of Chief (Simon) Fobister to discontinue sourcing fibre from the traditional use area of Grassy Narrows,” Earley said. Earley refused to comment on the letter, which was sent Wednesday to the SmartWood Program, an independent wood-source certifier in the U.S. Roberta Keesick, with the Grassy Narrows First Nation, praised Boise’s move. “We’ve been getting a lot of support from environmentalists and now these companies are backing us up,” Keesick said. “I’m glad that we’ve got that backup – it’s very powerful.” Boise’s moratorium puts further pressure on the Ontario government, which licenses the logging activity, as well as Abitibi and U.S. forestry giant Weyerhaeuser Co. Last summer, the province put in place a confidential mediation effort under former Supreme Court of Canada justice Frank Iaccobucci in an effort to resolve the dispute. Fobister has previously expressed his people’s dismay at the widespread logging, saying it was threatening the environment and the very survival of his community. “Our fundamental ability to traditionally harvest to feed and support our families, as we have for millennia, is being jeopardized,” Fobister said last year. http://www.news1130.com/news/business/article.jsp?content=b0228120A
19) The Association for Sustainable Forestry (ASF) entered into an agreement with the funding partner, the Department of Natural Resources, to administer the two year program. A total of $443,000 is available under this program for on-the-ground work on a first come, first served basis. The main objectives of the program are to increase the amount of uneven-aged forest management for quality forest products on small private woodlands across Nova Scotia. As well, the program will increase awareness among small private woodland owners and silviculture contractors of managing woodlands on an uneven-aged basis. Uneven-aged forest management allows landowners to grow high-value trees while managing their woodland resources for multiple species, ages, values and benefits. This can result in reaching other non-timber objectives relating to sustaining healthy wildlife populations and wildlife habitat, water protection and other environmental considerations. The financial assistance is available through the association’s category 7 quality improvement silviculture program which is the name of a silviculture treatment category under the Nova Scotia Forest Sustainability Regulations.
The actual uneven-aged treatments that are eligible for this funding include: selection management, crop tree release, and crop tree pruning. As an example, the financial assistance rate for the selection management treatment is $450 for the first effort and $300 for subsequent entries. The outreach part of the project will include educational materials, information booths at meetings and conferences, a web page, and a series educational programs and field days to be held throughout the province this coming spring and early summer. There will be forestry professionals with expertise in the uneven-aged management program that will be making selected site visits. http://www.trurodaily.com/index.cfm?sid=113019&sc=73
UK:
20) The battle to protect Bourne Wood began this week after The Local obtained confirmation that negotiations are underway to sell part of the woodland. A spokeswoman for the Forestry Commission revealed that discussions have begun and include plans to extend Bourne’s bypass. But she would not reveal which developer is seeking to buy the land. The announcement provoked outrage from Bourne MP Quentin Davies, Mayor of Bourne Jane Kingman-Pauley and many regular users of the wood. Mr Davies said: “Bourne Wood should be sacrosanct. The right place for any relief road would be on the eastern side of the town.” Mrs Kingman-Pauley added: “I am totally against it. I cannot believe the Forestry Commission is even thinking of selling it off.”The Foresty Commission spokeswoman told The Local that the land would be sold for “the much needed North-South relief road for Bourne”. She said: “Having previously refused an earlier route for the bypass, the Forestry Commission are now in discussion with a developer for a much more sensitive proposal for the delivery of a bypass resulting in minimum loss of woodland with a compensatory package.” She estimated less than one hectare of trees would be lost but regular users of the wood are not impressed. Ayla Smith said: “The Forestry Commission is funded by taxpayers’ money so in effect this wood belongs to us and we haven’t been consulted.” http://www.bournelocal.co.uk/news/Hands-off-our-ancient-wood.3831939.jp
21) The oak sycamore and elm stand tall and silent. Yet nothing is still here among the ancient trees of Pollok Park. Birds nest in the crook of gnarled branches, leaves ready themselves to unfurl. And something else is stirring. This peaceful pocket of woodland is at the heart of a bitter battle involving local people, developers, city councillors and Scotland’s deputy first minister, as well as descendents of the land’s ancestral owners. It is not the first time this place has become a battle-ground. The Maxwell family seat for seven centuries, the land was gifted to the people of Glasgow in 1966. Since then, the beneficiaries have taken their custodianship seriously, fiercely contesting any development that might threaten this unique tract of urban wilderness. The estate’s former owners, meanwhile, have remained silent in the face of controversy, even as anti-motorway protesters camped out in the shrubbery. Now, with plans to create an aerial adventure course in North Wood igniting passions across the city, the Maxwell family have been moved to speak out. Donald Maxwell Macdonald, youngest son of Anne Maxwell Macdonald, who was raised on the estate and brokered the gift 10 years after her father Sir John’s death, says he thinks a tree-top adventure centre is “a wonderful idea”, in its place. “Pollok Park,” he says, “is a place for walking in the woods, bird-watching and so on, not for swinging from trees.” Last week, his grandfather’s gift was named Europe’s Best Park. If it gets the green light, Suffolk-based company Go Ape plans to construct rope swings, tarzan swings and zip-slides up to 40 feet above the forest floor. It would, according to Glasgow City Council’s website, allow participants “to experience the thrill of the forest from a unique, challenging and fun perspective”. More than 600 objections have been lodged, including warnings about noise, crowds and the complaint that: “At £20-25 a go it is commercialisation of public space and will interfere with a unique, wild habitat.” Others argue that the seven-week consultation period, which ended on October 22, was inadequate. http://www.sundayherald.com/life/people/display.var.2086383.0.0.php
22) Formby will lose further coastal woodland after councillors supported a strategy to fell trees to protect sand dunes. After heated and much debate at Formby’s Area Committee meeting on Thursday, a motion was passed that Natural England could continue to fell trees with a condition they are monitored and include the public in each step of the plan. Representatives from Natural England, the National Trust and local residents were among the audience who spoke for and against the third phase of the felling at Fisherman’s Path. The first two phases left behind many tree stumps that residents claimed looked like a ‘battle field’. Before the vote was taken, a representative from Natural England said: “I am very sad and sorry that there is so much anger in this room. Whether this is a true reflection of people in Formby I don’t know. I will try and answer by saying there has been a lot of discussion on trees and communication and taking people with us. “We do not have a dune restoration strategy to present to you because we can’t do that until we have ratified the strategy. Councillors passed the motion on the condition there would be a monitored report.” Chairman Cllr Barry Griffiths added: “If we are to move to support this resolution, you’d better stick to it or there will be uproar in this place. “We are making a decision on behalf of 28,000 people. We love the place as it is and don’t want to see drastic changes.” http://icseftonandwestlancs.icnetwork.co.uk/formbytimes/news/tm_headline=more-woodland-set-to-
be-axed-in-key-programme&method=full&objectid=20532461&siteid=60252-name_page.html
23) Two 12-year-old Forres Academy pupils have raised concerns over the state of the Clunyhill Wood following work to thin some of the thickly growing trees. Lisa McCrossan and Laura Ellis are frequent walkers on the paths around the council-owned Clunyhill Woods and parts of the Muiry Woods, which have recently been the scene of work by a team of contractors working for Moray Council – and they aren’t too happy with the state the woods have been left in. “In some places we can hardly walk along the paths due to the tracks made by the big machines used to cut the trees,” they said. “There was an awful mess made by the tracked machines when they went into the woods and also on some of the paths. “Although we managed to walk where we wanted to go with difficulty, older people or disabled people would have a problem, especially on the path round the east side of the wood, looking down on Clovenside.” Another regular walker said the area of woodland accessed from the direction of the Clunybank Hotel up to Hell’s Hole, was also badly churned up. A Moray Council spokesman said that tree felling was always an emotive subject. He said the trees in the area affected had been overcrowded and had not been thinned for many years and the council had been pressed by locals for some time to take action. the work carried out was approved by the Forestry Commission. “We consulted at length with the local members, the community council and the Forres Woodland Trust and in fact, there has been comment back saying we have not gone far enough and more timber should be extracted. “As far as we are aware the tracks and ruts are not on recognised paths through the wood but we will double check the main paths.” He said the brash from the felling operations would be chipped back where it encroached on the footpath network, but went on: “However, in line with good silvicultural practice, much will be left to return nutrients to the soil and to provide shelter for small plants and animals to enhance the biodiversity of the wood.” http://www.forres-gazette.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/2614/Pupils_raise_concerns_over_Clunyhill
_Wood.html
24) The sun is shining, the ground mossy and moist, and the air hovering around a balmy 12 degrees Celsius. It’s a two-hour train ride from London but an entire world away. Tracy and her husband, Mike, aren’t just out for a weekend stroll – they own this wood, having bought eight acres for about $80,000 last May from the private forest dealership, woodlands.co.uk. Their plot is part of a much larger forest that has been broken up into a patchwork of small, privately owned plots. “When we inherited a bit of money from my husband’s grandmother, we thought, well, we could put a deposit down on a house and take on a debt of £200,000 ($400,000) – or we could put the money into something outright,” she says. So instead of a townhouse in the city, the Peplers bought 3.2 hectares of chestnut trees (with the odd oak). They even relocated from Oxford so they could live nearby and visit every weekend. And not just to enjoy the peace and quiet; Mike has been busy all day chopping down trees, clearing away brambles, and stacking twigs for a fire. Before the Peplers bought their slice, the entire wood was owned by a London-based consortium, which – like many owners of wood decades ago – held the area for tax reasons and neglected the trees for decades. So there is a lot of work to be done to restore its glory: clearing and restoring the old foot and bridle paths, removing invasive species like rhododendron, and coppicing the trees – a traditional method of forest harvesting, quite different from the more Canadian method of clear felling, which involves cutting trees (usually hazel or chestnut) down to the base so that new shoots can grow continuously from the same roots. Sweat is pouring from Mike’s forehead. It’s a lot of work, but he’s enjoying every second of it. “It’s wonderful to be outdoors,” he says. “And, as Christians, we believe that God wants us to look after a little corner of His world.” This might seem like an eccentric way to use their surplus time and money, but the Peplers are not unique. All over Britain, people are spending their hard-earned cash – anywhere from $20,000 to $160,000 – to conserve a bit of England’s remaining wilderness. What’s more, they’re doing so after signing contracts to never build permanent structures, pipelines or roads, or even to permit activities such as dirt-bike racing. http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/Environment/article/306319
EU:
25) EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas hinted on Thursday (28 February) that biofuel development is contributing to deforestation in Brazil, even as the commission’s own recently proposed climate package aims to see a massive increase in the use of the controversial fuels. “The latest data on deforestation in Brazil is not good. It’s really, really worrisome,” said the commissioner in response to a question on European biofuel policy from the economy attaché of the Brazilian Mission to the European Communities, Marco Cabral. The exchange took place at a morning policy briefing organised by the European Policy Centre think-tank outlining the commission’s new climate and energy package – one of its goals is that it should have a ten percent use of biofuels in transport across Europe by 2020. http://euobserver.com/19/25749
Czechoslovakia:
26) Prague – Czech state-owned forest company Lesy Ceske republiky (LCR) has signed nearly all logging contracts for the years 2008-2010, Agriculture Minister Petr Gandalovic told reporters Tuesday. The overall value of the tenders is Kc11bn. The tenders for 2008-2010 were called by Lesy CR last year, after previous tenders had given rise to many disputes. Completion of the tenders is a priority for the current management which was appointed last December. “These are the first tenders that have been fully in line with the law on public orders and there is therefore no reason for complaints to anti-trust office UOHS or the European Commission,” said Gandalovic. Gandalovic said the tenders were preceded by the signing of a memorandum by the ministry and the Confederation of Forest Logging and Wood-processing Industry Associations. “With the memorandum, our constructive cooperation began. Evidence of this is that most contracts have already been signed and UOHS has not issued a single verdict on breach of law in the tenders,” said Gandalovic. The orders and especially participation in the very lucrative trade in wood were in the past the bone of contention between Lesy CR and logging companies. The AgriMin and the logging firms last June agreed on two models and will then assess their effectiveness and choose the better one. Within one model Lesy CR will sell the wood itself, and within the other the wood will be sold by the logging companies. Disputes always broke out around the tenders in the past leading to dismissals of the management. LCR has had five general directors since 2003. Lesy CR owns over 1.3 million hectares of forests, about a half of the total area of forests in the country. It manages assets worth over Kc70bn. Last year, LCR posted a profit of Kc630m, roughly Kc230m more than planned. http://www.praguemonitor.com/en/282/czech_business/19230/
Hungary:
27) Forestry company Egererd? Zrt, which manages Hungary’s largest uninterrupted foresty area in the northern part of the country, has asked for help from prosecutors, lawmakers and national tax office APEH against organized crime gangs stealing wood. Illegal loggers are causing tens of millions of forints in damage to the company annually, in addition to incalculable damage to the environment and ecosystem, writes stop.hu, based on a report by the MTI. László Pallagi, leader of the company, said that their 120 forest wardens are not sufficient to protect 74,000 hectares of forests. He added that while in the past, the motive for thefts was usually bad social circumstances, today the operations are carried out by “well-equipped” crime gangs. The problem is most imminent in the vicinity of Ózd and Arló. Forest wardens have a right to ask for identification and report individuals suspected of crimes, however, they have no right to stop trucks on public roads or enter private property. For this reason, Pallagi called for stricter regulations and cooperation between authorities. As an example, he pointed out that a thief caught trying to steal one cubic meter of wood will be sentenced to five days of community service as punishment. He believes that stricter punishment, such as seizing the chainsaws and trucks used for stealing the wood would be more effective. Pallagi also said that society’s attitude should also change in order to stop the negative trend, as an estimated 90% of people who buy “cheap” wood are aware of where it comes from. In related news, the European Commission (EC) has launched an investigation against the Hungarian state for failing to protect a forest near Miskolc, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County, under the protection of the Natura 2000 network. The EC is expecting answers from the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture within 30 days, writes hirszerzo.hu, based on a report in daily Magyar Nemzet. Wood thieves have destroyed 30% to 40% of the 190-hectare Sajólád forest, which is home to rare species. Experts are working on restoring the area. http://www.caboodle.hu/nc/news/news_archive/single_page/article/11/forester_cal/?cHash=bd848398e
e
Turkey:
28) Osmaniye Mukhtar Türköz Deveci said local residents would not allow even one tree to be cut down in mining efforts. “There would be hundreds of trees cut down in the efforts necessary to open up a mining operation and make roads for transporting the metal found. So this mine would basically disrupt the natural balances here. In addition, not only would our bees and other creatures living in the forest be harmed, but the humans living here might also be hurt. Our village is home to tens of thousands of bee hives. The tons of honey produced here are sold in Turkey and internationally. This is where we make our profit and income. We do not want mining to occur here. We will thus carry on our struggle as far as we can, within a legal context,” stated Deveci. Recai Çomakç?, a partner in the mining company, said the company’s actions were all legal. “At this point, we are only at the stage of searching for reserves. At the end of this research, we will try to obtain permission to build our mine. And in the stages after that, we will be forced to cut down trees. But of course for the trees that we do have to cut, we will pay even more than the worth of the tree to the state for replanting,” he noted. Both the villagers and the environmentalists at the meeting reacted angrily to Çomakç?’s statements. Çomakç? responded, “When we set up the mine, what will you do, kill me?” In reply to this, the villagers said, “No, it is you who are actually killing us.” The tension after this exchange was marked. Leaving the meeting, Çomakç? took reporters covering the events in Osmaniye on a tour of the exploration area. http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=135318
Sierra Leone:
29) Timber logging in Sierra Leone is one of the major economic activities that were not properly monitored by the past Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) government. In the interior parts, especially in the Eastern Region, there had been exhaustive indiscriminate logging and exportation of timbers illegally to neighboring countries. In fact, the haphazard and free-for-all exercise gave some of the timber dealers the strong conviction that government has no hands in logging as long as the local bush owners have given their consent. Before the SLPP government took their final exit from the helms of affair in this country, it succeeded in selling and leasing some departments of the timber industry among which are the Kenema Sawmill Sierra Leone Limited, Tropical Timber Company, Exim Investment Sierra Leone limited, Gava Forest Investment Corporation to operate in Kenema District, Greenway Timber Company in Kono, Agrite and Resource Limited in Tonkoli and Savertin Forest Company in Bo District. Of all these companies, only one of them, Gava Forestry Industry based in Kenema has commenced full operation before the ban. Facilities of the age-old Forestry Industry Corporation were sold out by Decentralization Secretariat on the grounds that the corporation has not been in operation even though many people speculated that Gava’s success in winning the contract was due to the support of James Jonah. Residents of Kenema, especially the youths, adored the privatization move because they developed the conviction that the development will create employment facility for them. But the SLPP government that awarded these contracts is out of office and the All People Congress (APC) government has taken over the entire administrative running of the state. It has always been the case wherein every government that comes into power usually introduces new policies to be implemented. Probably it was in the bid to crack down on those involved in corrupt and illegal exploitation of the country’s resources that the APC government among other things placed a strict ban on logging and exportation of timbers nationwide. The imposition of this ban has been perceived in the minds of some people, especially those who are affected one way or the other, as negative signals. http://allafrica.com/stories/200802280768.html
Congo:
30) The dense forests of the Congo Basin span six (often troubled) countries and some 1.8m square miles – an area nearly four times the size of France, and they hold their secrets close. To add to this, conservationists now find themselves in a race against time, as logging, oil exploration, mining and road building strips away these pristine habitats and the mysteries they conceal. “In the area that has the most unprotected, unregulated elephants, rapidly increasing commercial exploitation, unless coupled with major investments in environmental and wildlife protections going to be catastrophic for elephants and their habitat,” says Blake. He is renowned for his long forest treks lasting up to a month and encompassing up to 150 miles. A colleague at the US Fish and Wildlife Service recently likened these foot expeditions to those of pioneering 19th century African explorers. Yet self-effacing Blake simply declares of his forays into the undergrowth: “It’s the only way to get around.” And he is quick to point out, without his pygmy colleagues, his work would be impossible. “I can’t track to save my life,” he says, “If people don’t know the forest they think I’m Tarzan – but pygmies are the forest geniuses. They are incredible – running and tracking over leaves and plants – and I can’t see anything.” Elephant conservation in central Africa is unlike working the savannah parks of southern Africa. “When doing hands on work, like immobilising elephants for studies, they have helicopters, full vet back-up, oxygen and land cruisers. We’re just in the forest with our backpacks, four days walk from the nearest village with no back-up whatsoever,” he says. But the one piece of technology – apart from his waterproof notebook – he has is an elephant collar. Blake and Turkalo have built upon the groundbreaking work of elephant experts Iain Douglas-Hamilton and Cynthia Moss. Their early radio transmitter collars required flying over the treetops, scanning for the VHF signal before data could be downloaded to a modem; and they could be temperamental. Now with the advent of GPS, once a collar is in place, data can be obtained via a satellite and the internet. “You can be sitting in Richmond (which we are) and just download the data,” he tells me. But first, you have to find your elephant. Forest elephants are adept at avoidance; they have padded feet to aid stealthy passage over branches and twigs and communicate via infrasound – inaudible to humans. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/02/27/eaeleph127.xml
Liberia:
31) The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) is expected to award six Timber Sale Contracts on Friday, Managing Director John T. Woods announced on Tuesday. “There will be no business as usual in this new reform program,” Woods said when he spoke Tuesday at a meeting with senior staffers of the FDA to enlighten them on the status of preparations to resume logging activities in the country. He said the six Timber Sale Contracts will be awarded through a “national competitive bidding process” to logging companies to commence logging activities in March this year. An FDA release quoted Woods as saying that the contractors are expected to sign the final contract and a social agreement to begin mobilizing equipment and machinery for logging activities in the areas mentioned in the bid documents. According to Woods, the contracts will be under the new law, procedures and systems conforming to the reform programs of government. An international competitive bidding for four forest management contracts consisting of 230,000 hectares in River Gee, Grand Gedeh, Sinoe, Maryland and Grand Kru counties would follow at the end of March this year. “We must remind our citizens that meeting the standards set in accordance with the requirements of the International Community puts Liberia on the map for responsible stewardship of its natural resources. No other system short of this can give us credibility in the eyes of the International Community that we deserve among the comity of nations. “Let us therefore restrain ourselves and gradually and successfully map up the development of our forest resources in accordance with these standards.” http://allafrica.com/stories/200802271036.html
Gabon
32) He was a handsome bull, with the straight tusks typical of the African forest variety, he emerged from the trees and began to career about the grounds, heading, unnervingly, towards the runway. A couple of officials rushed to sidetrack him but moments later the roar of another plane did the job. As the aircraft touched down, its propellers whirling, the elephant trumpeted, made a volte-face and fled into the forest. Gabon, in central Africa, is a former French colony and Gamba, in the southwest of the country, is home to its biggest onshore oilfields. Energy giant Shell employs a sizeable expat staff here on a site that sits plum in the middle of a rainforest. It is hard to imagine a more sensitive location for industrial activity on this scale. Surrounding the complex from where oil is pumped to thundering turbines is one of the most biodiverse places on earth, a gorgeous mosaic of rainforests, savannahs, mangrove lagoons and beaches sandwiched between two of Gabon’s loveliest national parks. I had gone there to report on a partnership between Shell and the US-based Smithsonian Institution, an international leader in scientific research. Conscious of its responsibility given the oilfields’ location, in 2001 Shell established a partnership with the Smithsonian, providing a $2.8?million grant for the first in-depth study of central African rainforest biodiversity. The head of the project, Olivier Pauwels, admits he was initially sceptical: “I had a very poor opinion of the oil industry when I learned we would be doing an ecological survey on an oilfield.” Their biggest surprise, though. was not the breadth of wildlife but where it was found. The greatest concentration was recorded inside the oilfields. The reason has turned out to be the limited access imposed on the area by Shell. “These oilfields have been so well protected that the wildlife density is exceptional,” said Olivier. “You see even more animals here than in the neighbouring national parks.” The partnership has offered a useful insight into the impact of oil companies’ policies on the environment. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2008/02/26/expat-africa.xml