–Latin America: 8) Agro-fuels are devastating
–Mexico: 9) Tree planting scam lets illegal loggers off the hook, 10) Border protest done by planting trees, 11) Detailed maps of deforestation in Chiapas,
–Panama: 12) Largest experiment ever on studying ecosystem services
–Belize: 13) Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw
–Guyana: 14) Offering China 500 acres to offset Olympics
–Brazil: 15) 48% of all the world’s deforestation, 16) Extracta couldn’t compete with big Pharma, 17) 22% of deforestation done illegally, 18) Lula on politics at Japan summit, 19) Focus on stopping cattle industry, 20) Disaster of disasters in Sugar Cane, 21) Gov’s Sustainable Amazon Program to increase logging levels, 22) Destroying lightly wooded plains known as ‘cerrado,’ 23) Bad land tenures and scarce enforcement,
–Peru: 24) Sky News tours forest issues, 25) Cont. 26) Cont. 27) Cont. 28) Cont.

Latin America:

8) Dr. Miguel Lovera, Chairperson of the Global Forest Coalition states: “Here in South America the direct and indirect impacts of agrofuels are already devastating: the past two years we have seen a massive increase in deforestation rates in the Amazon, the cerrado, the Chaco, the Atlantic forest, and other precious ecosystems, and the destruction of Indigenous lands and traditional farmer’s communities. Switching to wood fibre feedstock for second generation fuels is not the answer. They will still compete with hungry people for land, but they will also sound the death knell for forests, and will exacerbate biodiversity loss and climate change. The world needs to come to grips with underlying problems like over-consumption by the gluttonous global north.” “One of the greatest threats from ‘second generation’ agrofuels is the manufacture of trees and microbes genetically engineered specifically to produce agrofuels”, [4] stated Anne Petermann, Co-Director of Global Justice Ecology Project and North American Focal Point for the Global Forest Coalition. “Not only will agricultural lands and forests continue to be colonized for agrofuel monocultures, deforestation rates will escalate and the world’s remaining native forests will be devastated by the release of destructive GE tree pollen and seeds. Everyone loses except the agrofuel industry”, she concluded. info@globaljusticeecology.org

Mexico:

9) Packs of volunteers, including oil workers and schoolchildren, trekked into fields and forests up and down Mexico on Saturday to plant more than 8 million trees, according to the environment ministry. “We are repairing just a little of the enormous damage that we are doing” to the environment, President Felipe Calderon said at a tree planting event just north of the capital. The movement started in response to Mexico’s reputation of being a country of rampant illegal logging activity, which destroys 64,000 acres of Mexican forest each year, putting Mexico near the top of a U.N. list of nations losing primary forest fastest. “Everybody needs to help out a little to keep the world green,” said volunteer Marcela Lopez as she patted down soil around a sapling on the west side of Mexico City. Environmental group Greenpeace acknowledged the activity as part of a publicity stunt, adding that a cut back on logging practices would be the best way to keep forests in tact. “This program is a fraud. Only 10 percent of what is planted survives, which means they are throwing the federal budget for reforestation straight into the garbage,” the group said in a statement. The Mexico City mayor has launched a number of green initiatives in hopes of effectively curbing city pollution. http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1466208/8_million_trees_planted_in_mexico_to_combat_illega
l_logging/

10) PIEDRAS NEGRAS — The first of 400,000 trees are being planted to form a “green wall” in protest of the fence the U.S. is building along the border with Mexico. The treeline will eventually stretch for 318 miles along the border between the Mexican state of Coahuila and Texas. Coahuila Gov. Humberto Moreira Valdes says “our wall is of life, and it competes with shame and hate.” The U.S. government says its fence is critical to security. Critics say it fuels animosity between the two countries and raises environmental and private property concerns. The mayor of a Texas border town attended Friday’s tree planting in Piedras Negras. Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster opposes the ongoing construction of 670 miles of border fence. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hfWgkAAgetgdwxNVXixsVGUcVRGwD91IR62O0

11) Our ongoing work with Conservation International has led to the first regional forest cover change map that has been derived using a single consistent methodology. The details of the study have not yet been published. However as we work on validation and interpretation of the results a pattern has become very clear. Previous deforestation studies in Chiapas have usually concentrated attention on well defined study areas. This could produce the impression that deforestation is a homogeneous process over the whole state. In fact study areas selected for deforestation analysis are usually those with the highest rates when compared to the rest of the region. This is quite natural. Many of the areas where deforestation is no longer occurring have already lost a large proportion of their forest cover. However the overall regional deforestation we have quantified is considerably lower than previous studies imply. Where deforestation has followed the classic pattern of forest conversion to permanent agriculture or pasture the CI methodology, which is based on Landsat imagery, has provided a remarkably good match with high resolution imagery. However where chronic, low level forest disturbance takes place the overall impact of human activities are much less easily quantified at the resolution of Landsat imagery. The difficulty in accurately evaluating forest cover change increases in areas of dry forest. Nevertheless regional patterns are robust. The clearest deforestation hotspot in the state of Chiapas remains the Marques de Comillas area in the Southern Lacandon. Deforestation and carbon sequestration in this area has previously been studied in some detail by De Jong et al 2000 The two images below are animated gif files which change when clicked on to enlarge them to full size. The show clearly how Landsat based deforestation analysis coincides in this area with the conclusions drawn from visual analysis of recent high resolution imagery. The visual analysis is produced by overlaying our change analysis in Google Earth using Geoserver, and through the use of QGis. http://duncanjg.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/deforestation-marques-de-comillas/

Panama:

12) The Center for Tropical Forest Science of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute officially inaugurated one of the largest experiments ever attempted to understand ecosystem services—water, carbon and biodiversity—provided by tropical forests. The findings of this long-term study, launched June 21 in Panama, will have major implications for tropical land use worldwide. The 3.3-square-mile study site in the Agua Salud and its adjacent watersheds between Panama’s Soberania National Park and Transisthmian Highway form part of the Panama Canal watershed. The area includes protected mature forests and a wide variety of typical rural land uses. “The Agua Salud project will teach us how to improve reforestation in the Panama Canal watershed so that it can contribute to local and global economies and to a healthy environment in one of the world’s major biological hot spots,” said Jefferson Hall, director of applied ecology at the Center for Tropical Forest Science. The project will explore how reforestation and other land-management practices can optimize ecosystem services such as forest productivity, carbon storage and biodiversity. Research will examine how groundwater storage—thought to be critical for maintaining dry-season flow—can be maximized, thus helping to ensure the full operation of the Panama Canal during exceptionally severe draughts. The project also seeks to address the social and economic value of different land uses such as reforestation with teak versus reforestation with native tree species. Water from the Panama Canal watershed guarantees the operation of the Panama Canal, which is central to world commerce. This route of transportation significantly reduces fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions from ships taking shorter voyages through the canal. Runoff from the watershed provides clean drinking water for Panama’s two largest cities, Panama and Colon, and generates hydroelectricity for canal operations and the national power grid. The watershed’s rainforests harbor tremendous biodiversity, represent vast reservoirs of carbon and attract tens of thousands of tourists per year. http://7thspace.com/headlines/286146/smithsonian_inaugurates_landscape_study_of_tropical_forest
_ecosystem_services.html

Belize:

13) In his new non-fiction book Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, environmental journalist Bruce Barcott follows Sharon Matola — a former Air Force survival specialist and circus-tiger trainer turned zookeeper — as she fights the construction of a hydropower dam in her adopted country of Belize, and attempts to save the nesting site of the country’s last scarlet macaws. During her years of battle, Matola — known throughout Belize and beyond as the Zoo Lady — wrestled with corrupt politicians, the habitual Belizean suspicion of outsiders, and her own impulsive nature. Though her campaign to stop the Chalillo dam ultimately failed, Matola remains a stubborn defender of Belizean wildlife. She’s now working with the Peregrine Fund to reintroduce the harpy eagle, a gigantic bird Barcott describes as a “bear cub with wings,” to the country’s forests. Barcott first met Matola in 2002, while on assignment for Outside magazine, and tracked her and her crusade for the next several years. Along the way, he discovered that reporting in the tropics requires discretion, persistence, and snakeproof boots. My first impressions were immediate, vivid, and strong. That’s how she is — she’s this strong-willed, outgoing, and very charming woman who started and runs her own zoo in the middle of the jungle, in a very tough atmosphere. Belize today really reminds me of Alaska in the old days: if you go down there, you have to make your own way, essentially build your own house, and survive by your wits. That’s what Sharon is doing. The government made a tiny announcement in the newspaper that it was going to let an energy company build this dam. Sharon was the only one who knew what was going on — she was the only one who’d actually been back in the area that was going to be flooded, because she had been doing some fieldwork on the macaws nesting back there. She started looking into the dam quietly and privately — she met with energy company officials, a couple of government officials, that sort of thing — and they brushed her off, saying, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She started fighting the dam by herself, and little by little she gained allies. She also gained some very powerful enemies. The government spokesman said all sorts of outlandish things about her — that she was an enemy of the people, that she was ruining the economy of Belize. Threats were made on her life and on the zoo — at one point, the government, in an effort to get her to shut up, decided it was going to move the national dump from an area outside Belize City to a spot right next to the zoo. http://www.grist.org/feature/2008/07/02/barcott/?source=daily

Guyana:

President Jagdeo has offered up five hundred acres of Guyana’s Iwokrama Rainforest to help China clean up the Beijing air for the Summer Olympics. ‘I have made the offer, it is up to them to see how they can get the forests across to China in time,’ Jagdeo said at a press conference earlier today. ‘With a few hundred acres of our pristine forests across there, they won’t have a problem with the air,’ he remarked. The President further highlighted that Chinese engineers are expected in Guyana this evening to come up with an immediate plan on how they would extract the 500 acres, and ship it to China in time. http://skinupguyana.blogspot.com/2008/07/rainforest-on-offer-again.html

Brazil:

15) Deforestation is not only unabated, it’s accelerating around the globe. The problem is growing bigger, and yet it is also becoming more concentrated. Just how concentrated? Previously Brazil was thought to account for about a quarter of worldwide deforestation. Now it is understood to be a whopping 48%. This news comes from a new study in the 7/8/08 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by Matthew Hansen – as reported by Mongabay: “…Brazil accounts for nearly half of global deforestation, nearly four times that of the next highest country, Indonesia, which makes up about an eighth of worldwide forest clearing.” A corollary of sorts is that African deforestation may not be as critical as once thought: “Africa, although a center of widespread, low-intensity selective logging, contributes only 5.4 percent to the estimated loss of humid tropical forest cover. This result reflects the absence of current agro-industrial scale clearing in humid tropical Africa.” Interestingly this greater concentration may make the problem more manageable. Matthew Hansen says: “…the geographic concentration of deforestation, coupled with the shift from subsistence-driven to enterprise-deforestation forest clearing, may hold unexpected benefits for conservation: it may be easier for environmental groups to target their campaigns on major forest-destroying corporations and industries.” A sliver of good news to be leveraged for sure. http://climateprogress.org/2008/07/05/rainforest-destruction-greater-and-more-concentrated/

16) Although the two didn’t have the money and machines of Big Pharma, they had the Amazon’s diversity to draw on–and after all, most of the world’s medicine originates from wild plants. So, Carvalho and Raimundo started a business, Extracta, and went “bioprospecting.” In 178 expeditions to the Atlantic and Amazon rain forests, they amassed the biggest “library” of medicinal flora in Latin America: 4,621 medicinal plants, among them, perhaps, drugs to fight staph, diabetes, emphysema and other scourges. In no time, Extracta had attracted $3.5 million in venture capital. If the founders could fashion one active plant molecule into a pill or potion, they stood to gain millions in royalties. That never happened. After four years of battling the Genetic Patrimony Management Council, which controls plant research, and Brazil’s intellectual-property law, which bans patents of anything discovered in the wild, work at Extracta has largely halted. Only five of the original 60 scientists and lab assistants remain. The investors are gone. Thousands of flasks of plant extracts are in the deep freeze. “It breaks my heart to see this,” says Carvalho. “We’ve been stalemated.” The loss isn’t just Extracta’s. Bioprospecting was supposed to help reap the riches of the rain forest without razing it. The problem, from a public-relations point of view, is that bioprospecting falls under the category of “development.” No one opposes the idea of development, but in the Amazon it is still mostly taboo. Brazil, pressed to the wall by environmentalists, has thrown its weight behind halting the jungle’s destruction–with money, police, sophisticated satellite technology and a thicket of conservation laws. None of this has worked. The Amazon is still a free-for-all. Last year, 23,000 square kilometers–an area nearly the size of Sicily–fell to the logger’s ax or the clear-cutter’s match. http://www.newsweek.com/id/49557

17) One tree out every five cut down in the Brazilian Amazon is being taken from government-protected areas where logging is illegal or heavily restricted, a study published Sunday showed. About 22 percent of the deforestation in the rain forest last year took place in Indian reserves or preservation areas, according to government statistics published by the O Globo newspaper. The study was conducted by Brazil’s environmental agency Ibama using satellite images, O Globo said. The report has yet to be officially released by the government. “It shows that our reserves are not well protected,” Environment Minister Carlos Minc told O Globo. “It’s not enough to create an area on paper to guarantee the forest’s preservation.” Officials at the environmental agency could not be reached Sunday. The study shows that the deforestation rate in preservation areas increased 6.4 percent in 2007 from the previous year, while the pace of overall deforestation decreased by 20 percent — a slowdown the government has celebrated. In June, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva created three nature reserves in the Amazon: A national park that is off limits to logging and development, and two “extractive reserves” that allow local communities to harvest rubber, nuts and fruit while preserving the forest. Limited logging is sometimes permitted in some of the new extractive reserves. The environment minister said he plans to hire 120 specialists to analyze the current protection of preservation areas and take several other measures in coming weeks in response to the increase in logging in restricted zones. The Amazon covers 2.4 million square miles (6.2 million square kilometers), with 63 percent of its territory in Brazil. About 20 percent of the original forest has been destroyed by ranchers, loggers and developers. The government hopes to place protections on 200,000 square miles (500,000 square kilometers) of Amazon rain forest by 2012. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/06/america/LA-Brazil-Amazon-Deforestation.php

18) “All participants, including our country, should set a reduction target in accordance with their own emissions of greenhouse gases,” Lula said in an interview with Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper published Wednesday. While he did not specify Brazil’s own goal, he said the world should be able to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80 percent from current levels by 2050. Lula made the remarks ahead of his visit to Japan to attend a session on climate change with leaders of the Group of Eight wealthy nations on the sidelines of their annual summit. International negotiations on a new climate treaty, which would cover the period after the Kyoto Protocol’s obligations end in 2012, have been bogged down by disagreements between developing nations and rich states. The United States, the main rich nation to shun Kyoto, argues that any future treaty must involve rapidly growing emerging nations including China and India. Many nations in the developing bloc say wealthy countries are historically responsible for global warming and should take the lead in reducing emissions. In the interview, Lula called for Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who will chair the summit, to take the lead in ensuring that poor countries are not treated unfairly in a climate deal. The Brazilian president also said his country plans to host an international conference in November on use of biofuel, inviting world leaders, researchers and corporate executives. Brazil is the world’s leading producer of ethanol, which is hailed by advocates for reducing emissions caused by fossil fuels. But critics say ethanol’s popularity has exacerbated a crisis of spiralling food prices by stepping up demand for edible crops. “When I speak about biofuels, I am not only considering the benefit to Brazil alone,” Lula told the newspaper. “I am considering producing bio-ethanol in Central and South America as well as in Africa and Asia in cooperation with developed countries such as Japan and Britain.” http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Poor_countries_should_set_climate_targets_Brazil_leader_999.h
tml

19) Brazil’s new environment minister, Carlos Minc is committed to serious punative action when it comes to the estimated 60,000 cows that are raised on illegally deforested land in the region of Amazonia. In fact, cattle pasture now covers 7.8% of the Amazon region, with an ever growing presence as worldwide demand for beef skyrockets. Illegal cattle grazing helped Brazil become the world’s largest beef exporter in 2004, but after several years of declining deforestation rates in the Amazon, degradation of the rain forest is again on the rise. The pressure to produce more and more has led many ranchers to ignore regulation. It is rare to find a politician who is willing to stand up to an industry that is responsible for a significant portion of the GDP, but Minister Minc made good on his promises to crack down on illegal ranching last week when his office confiscated 3,100 cows from one rancher who used a nature reserve in the state of Para as pasture land, cutting away forest that got in the way of his cattle. Not only is Minc committed to punishing those who clearcut the Amazon, he sees a use for the contraband livestock. In his announcement of the ranch seizure, Mr. Minc reported that the cattle would be auctioned off to the highest bidder with proceeds directed towards Fome Zero – the national anti-hunger organization (literally, “zero hunger”). The money will also go toward helping indigenous health organizations and further livestock confiscation efforts. The Brazilian government’s environmental ministry, known as Ibama, reported that much of the Amazon’s deforestation can be blamed on cattle farmers who ignore the boundaries of protected areas in search of ideal ranching land. For example, the rancher involved in the seizure last week had already faced fines of close to US$2 million for illegal deforestation. http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/06/30/brazil-raids-illegal-ranches-gives-cattle-to-poor/

20) SAO PAULO – Brazil’s new environment minister, Carlos Minc, called all sugar cane mills in the northeastern state of Pernambuco an environmental “disaster of disasters” and fined them 120 million reais ($75 million). In a crackdown called Old Green Mill conducted jointly with the environmental protection agency Ibama, Minc said on Tuesday on the official government news service Agencia Brasil that all 24 mills in the state had committed a series of crimes. Since he took over as minister after conservationist icon Marina Silva stepped down several weeks ago, Minc has targeted Brazil’s powerful farmers, ranchers and miners, who are riding a global commodity boom, and blamed them for fueling deforestation. The ministry has already seized thousands of cattle and hundreds of tonnes of soybeans and corn in the Amazon region in a crackdown against illegal logging. It has also fined several steel mills for using charcoal produced from illegal deforestation. Minc said the 24 sugar and ethanol mills in Pernambuco were responsible for the loss of 85,000 hectares (210,000 acres) of Atlantic rain forest and were operating without environmental licenses. “Not only in the Amazon” will environmental laws be enforced, Minc said. “The time of being soft on the northeastern mills is over.” Most of Brazil’s sugar cane is grown in the center-south region but a smaller group of mills still maintains production in the northeastern states. The rate of deforestation is increasing in Brazil this year for the first time since 2004 as growing demand for food is pushing farmers and ranchers deeper into forested regions. “It doesn’t matter how high the costs are for the millers. They are going to have to recover the area they have degraded,” said Minc, who added that mills had the help of local politicians to operate outside the law. http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN0128292720080701

21) The coordinator of the Sustainable Amazon Program (PAS) of the Brazilian government has indicated the possibility of increasing the maximum limit of forest conversion to other uses in rural properties in the Amazon region to above 20%, ITTO reported. The adjustment does not depend on changes to the Forest Code, which is being discussed in the Congress. It refers to a provision that allows the reduction of the legal reserve from 80% to 50% for the purpose of forest restoration under two conditions: indication of ecological- economic zoning, and the endorsement of the National Council for the Environment, and the Ministries of Environment and Agriculture.There are already state laws for zoning in the Amazonian states of Acre and Rondonia. However, many municipalities fail to follow legal guidelines that set aside 80% of a property for protection. According to the Environment Ministry, only three municipalities (out of the 36 municipalities that deforested the Amazon the most) follow the 80% forest protection rule. On average, the target areas of deforestation control operations have lost 50% of their forests. In Brasil Novo, a municipality in state of Para where most deforestation takes place, there are only 17% of forests left.The Minister of the Environment supported the creation of a ‘belt’ in the transition area between savannah and the rainforest, where the population would develop economically feasible and environmentally friendly production activities. He also emphasized that the rainforest is not an agricultural frontier, despite official information pointing out that 40% of the national production of soybeans and meat come from legal areas of the Amazon. In contrast to deforestation measures adopted by the government, the PAS coordinator emphasized that the governmental actions would reach small producers and the settlement of agrarian reform as well. So far, there is no deadline set to announce the results of the PAS. http://wood.lesprom.com/news/34608/

22) Given the abundance here in the fields, it’s hard to believe that these plains were once dismissed as sterile wastelands best left to the emus, armadillos, monkeys, anacondas, and the odd jaguar. The acidic soil was thought to rule out significant farming. The Brazilians still call these lightly wooded plains the cerrado—or “closed” or “inaccessible” land. But nowadays the cerrado is very much open for business, its fertility a springboard from which the world’s newest superpower in agriculture is emerging. “We have been able to transform wasteland into a bountiful land that is helping to feed Brazil and the world,” says Silvio Crestana, head of the Brazilian government’s agricultural research company, EMBRAPA. With millions of people literally hungering for affordable food, Brazil’s breakthroughs in tropical agriculture may prove to be the key to feeding a growing global population. If Saudi Arabia fills the world’s gas stations, China assembles its consumer goods, and India vies to staff its office services, then it is Brazil that is stepping forward to stock its pantries. The rise of Brazil as an agricultural powerhouse may be the most important story of globalization that many Americans have never heard of. With ample sun and fresh water and more available arable land than any other country, Brazil seems to be on a historic trajectory to becoming the next great global breadbasket. “Brazil can be No. 1 in the future in agricultural production,” asserts André Nassar, a leading agricultural economist based in São Paulo. “I think we will exceed the U.S.” If that ambition pans out, Brazil may provide the supply cushion the world urgently needs to meet growing demands for food. China, India, Russia, and other countries are eating higher on the food chain; they want more of the grains and meat Brazil can provide. The same soaring commodity prices that have inflicted so much global pain are creating wealth in Brazil’s fast-growing hinterlands. “The crisis is not bad for Brazil. It allows farmers to get a better price,” says Derli Dossa, a strategic adviser in the Ministry of Agriculture. http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/world/2008/06/25/brazil-becomes-the-new-food-superpower.html

23) Curitiba – A “fragile” land tenure system and “a scarce presence” by the State were identified as key factors in rising Amazon deforestation last week.The diagnosis was delivered to the 3rd International Congress on Bioenergy last week by WWF-Brazil forest engineer Ana Euler, who said there was a need to re-discuss the Brazilian development model.“In many areas of the Amazon we come across a situation in which there are various ‘landowners’ for the same piece of land and proof of land ownership is extremely difficult,” Euler said. “In such a scenario, the populations that are more vulnerable end up being penalized.” “Indigenous peoples, extractivists and small peasants generally lose the dispute to agribusiness and other groups that deploy greater political and economic strength.” The findings draw on studies of the states of Para and Rondônia where a high incidence of land conflict and associated violence were linked to forest degradation and destruction. Using satellite images of the state of Rondônia – one of the Amazon region’s most deforested states, Ana Euler showed that protected areas are proving effective instruments for containing deforestation and conflicts resulting from land use. “It can be noted that indigenous lands, extractive reserves, national and state forests, and other protected areas work as barriers against forest degradation,” she said. Also raised by Euler was the great influence of infrastructure projects, as hydroelectric power plants, highways, pipelines and waterways in increasing conflicts over land use and occupation in the Amazon region. “The speculation generated by the announcement of great infrastructure construction work, as well as the lack of transparence in the project-licensing processes, has serious impacts to local biodiversity and to surrounding communities even before construction is started,” she said. WWF-Brazil is fostering the creation and implementation of protected areas and the promotion of sustainable development in the Amazon. Through providing technical and financial support to the Amazon Region Protected Areas Program (ARPA), WWF-Brazil contributed to the creation of 23 million hectares of additional protected areas between 2003 and 2008. http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=139821

Peru:

24) To all appearances, the Amazon seems to stretch on forever, but our journey through Peru has shown that huge parts are disappearing at an astonishing rate. And as well as ugly brown scars on the lush green landscape, we have discovered that deforestation has left behind suffering and fear. We have listened to one of the forest’s most ancient tribes – the Ashaninka – telling us of the daily threats and bribes they face from companies keen to reap the community’s land of its resources. On the outskirts of the forest in the logging town of Satipo, local leaders told us that the industry is bound up with drug traffickers, while the police turn a blind eye to the illegal activities. The man tasked with confronting Peru’s deforestation problem is the new environment minister, Dr Antonio Brack. He has only been in the job just over a month, but he has told Sky News he is already busy raising fines for illegal logging and transforming the way the industry is policed. “We are going to create, under the Home Office the National Office of Environment Police. This will be governed by a general and will be at national level,” he said. “And we have decided that the force will have 3,000 police in three years’ time. Because at the moment, there are only 240 officers and it’s impossible to control the problem.” One of the main tasks for the new minister is to try to placate the discontent among Peru’s rural communities, that the government is ignoring the deforestation problem. He is determined to be harder on the illegal companies and says the scale of the problem is huge. “We have to destroy mafias, and big illegal groups and we need in general to change. That’s what this country needs,” Dr Brack said. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Peru-Environment-Minister-Calls-On-UK-To-Help-Save-T
he-Rainforest/Article/200807115026351?lpos=World%2BNews_0&lid=ARTICLE_15026351_Peru%2BEnvironme
nt%2BMinister%2BCalls%2BOn%2BUK%2BTo%2BHelp%2BSave%2BThe%2BRainforest

25) For the last few days Sky News has been in Tinkereni – a village of 200 Ashaninka in the heart of the Amazon. The live simply, hunting and fishing with bows and spears and gathering fruit and nuts from the trees… at one with nature. But although they have legal rights to the land – this serene existence is in jeopardy. Cesar Bustamente is one of the tribal leaders in the village. Earlier this year he experienced an agressive approach from an illegal logging company offering cash to chop down the tribe’s trees. He told us: “What we want is for our children to live as we have done here in the forest – we don’t want to leave our land. We want to conserve it like our ancestors for future generations.” The tribe decided to contact anthropologist Dilwyn Jenkins. He in turn called the British charity Cool Earth. “We have set up a way for the community to receive an income for not chopping down their trees,” he told us. “It’s taken a big burden off their minds – it’s been a big relief.”Cool Earth is now protecting 50,000 acres of Peruvian rainforest. The idea is that people back home can pay to sponsor an acre of land so in turn the Ashaninka can act as wardens of the forest. Ruth Buendia is the Ashaninka president of the region. She has recently received news that the Peruvian government is thinking of privatising parts of the forest. She has called on the British public for help. “What we want is that the people in your country don’t buy illegal wood. This is our forest – the lungs of the earth. “Leave us in peace to look after it.” The Ashaninka say the alliance with the charity has brought temporary relief, and with growing international efforts to halt deforestation they are now protecting the forest not just for themselves but for the rest of the world. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Perus-Ashaninka-Tribe-Trying-To-Save-Rainforest-Wi
th-Help-Of-Cool-Earth-Charity/Article/200806415016497?lpos=World%2BNews_5&lid=ARTICLE_15016497
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26) Satipo is a place where disputes are often settled by the gun, and international concerns over conservation and climate change are of no interest to those with the power here – the illegal logging barons. There is only one road that leads towards the town, out of the central jungle. The supposed timber and police checkpoints along the route are always unmanned. A constant stream of lorries loaded with tree trunks and freshly cut planks snake along the winding roads. The whirr of sawmills fills the air. Armed guards stand poised outside, pistols at the ready. We were told the wood is usually cut up along the way, and it usually passes completely unchecked. So by the time it reaches Satipo, it’s impossible to tell what’s legal and what’s not. It then goes off to Lima and is shipped out to the rest of the world. And that means that despite the best intentions of those who try to guarantee sustainable timber to protect this rainforest, it’s believed 60% of the hard wood that arrives in the UK has been cut down illegally. As tribal mayor of Peru’s Central Amazon region, Tarsicio Mendoza is on the frontline of the international fight against illegal loggers. In two days’ time, he is having a meeting with the local logging chiefs to confront them with his community’s concerns. But it is a risky business. He told me others before him have been threatened with their lives. “We have decided to be harder on them, but I know we’re going to have problems, because they’re powerful people and they have a lot of money,” he said. “To tell you the truth, we’re really scared of them. In another region near here, many things have happened. When the local leaders have gone to defend their forest, the illegal loggers have gone and contracted people to attack them.” Many here believe the lack of local policing stems from the authorities turning a blind eye to illegal logging, in return for handouts from rich companies. Billy Hammer used to be head of the Central Amazon Loggers’ Association. He decided to run for mayor to try to clamp down on illegal logging, but he told me it has been harder than he thought, because of the extent of criminal activity involved in the illegal logging business. “There is a big mafia here who use logging to traffic cocaine. All of this is interconnected. They hide the cocaine in the wood, and they launder the money through the logging industry.” Billy’s brother Eric runs a local sawmill in nearby San Ramon. He told me the existing paperwork system fails to stop the illegal wood leaving the country and being exported by major companies. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Criminal-Logging-In-Central-Amazon-Peru-Authorities
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27) My name is Jaime and I’m 36 years old. I’ve lived in Tinkereni all my life. Life here in the middle of the forest is idyllic. The selva provides for all our needs. But despite the calm, we face many threats to our existence. A few years ago, it was from the Shining Path terrorists and thousands of my people died fighting them. Now, there’s a new threat: the illegal loggers and oil companies who all want to cut down our trees. Recently I found out about one man in our community in the Cutivereni Valley who wanted to sell part of our forest to a logging company. So I contacted Dilwyn Jenkins, an anthropologist who I have known since I was a child, and asked him to help us. It was a close-run thing. I felt very sad at the thought of my children not having the same forest to grow up in as I have done. What if they said in the future: “Some big companies came and chopped down our trees and my father stood by and did nothing.” That’s when I knew I had to act. Now we’re working with Cool Earth to make sure nobody in our community tries to sell up to the loggers. But it takes time to educate the people here. Many people in my village don’t realise the impact on the environment and on our health. Especially when companies pour chemicals into our River Ene and the water gets toxic and fish die from contamination. At a worldwide level, I understand there’s more to stopping deforestation than the survival of the Ashaninka, but it’s hard for people here in the village to understand the concept that we live on a planet and the rainforest is so important to other people too. We’re happy Cool Earth is helping us. They’ve given us money to build a school and buy canoes. All we want is to live like our ancestors here in peace in our forest. We’re happy to protect it if we’re allowed to, as we have done for thousands of years. Otherwise, when the petrol is finished, how will we survive? How will we feed our children when the forest is gone? http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Peru-Ashaninka-Tribe-Leader-In-Peruvian-Amazon-Tell
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28) A quarter of all our medicine is sourced from it and it hosts a mass of colourful biodiversity. But both the Peruvian Amazon’s species and the world’s medicine are facing their gravest threat yet. From toucans to tapirs, anteaters to spectacled bears, the Peruvian Amazon is a living, breathing mass of colourful biodiversity. When you consider that two thirds of the country is covered in rainforest, you start to realise why this is the most biodiverse region on Earth. But the rapid onslaught of deforestation here in Peru is putting this unique array of plant and animal species at risk. Just as the rainforest is rich in flora, it also boasts an abundance of other, more lucrative riches. The race to plunder the forest of fossil fuels, gold and timber for example, means that every day truckloads of trees are slashed and burned with little reforestation. The authorities turn a blind eye to the illegal activities of big business. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says 30% of all the world’s species will face extinction by 2050 if global warming continues at the current rate. In Peru, that figure is nearer 50% because of the sheer scale of its biodiversity. There are few other countries with such a variety of micro-environments. From the mountainous terrain of the Andes to the dry desert heat, and to the lush rainforest region – Peru has it all. As well as containing two thirds of all animal and plant species, the forest is known as the ‘pharmacy of the world’ – a quarter of all our medicines are sourced there. The worry is that due to deforestation a plethora of cures for all manner of diseases have been lost to the world before anyone had the chance to discover them. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Peru-Cures-For-Disease-Being-Destroyed-By-Deforesta
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