World-wide:

27) To mark the UN Day for Indigenous Peoples on 9 August, Survival International today named its ‘unholy trinity’ – the three worst companies abusing tribal peoples’ rights. They are: 1) VEDANTA. This FTSE-100 company is determined to construct a bauxite mine on the sacred hills of the Dongria Kondh tribe in Orissa, India. It has already built a $1 billion aluminium refinery at the foot of the hills. The Dongria Kondh, one of India’s most isolated tribes, are resolutely opposed to the mine, which will destroy them as a people. 2)PERENCO. A Franco-British oil company, Perenco is pushing ahead with drilling in the nothern Peruvian Amazon, despite being warned that its operations risk the lives ofuncontacted Indian groups. The company’s plans have attracted two lawsuits from Peru’s Amazon Indians, but it has vowed to carry on. There have already been reports of contact between the oil workers and the isolated Indians. 3) SAMLING. Active in Sarawak, Malaysia, for four decades, Samling has been responsible for logging vast areas of rainforest, including the ancestral lands of the nomadic Penan tribe. The Penan have repeatedly blockaded logging roads in an attempt to halt the devastation of their forest, but much of it has now been destroyed. Many Penan have been arrested, and James Ho, Samling’s Chief Operating Officer, has said, ‘The Penan have no rights to the forest.’ http://whatrainforest.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/sarawak-boleh-samling-earns-international-recog
nition/

28) As inspiring as “An Inconvenient Truth” was frightening, Cathy Henkel’s energetic documentary, “The Burning Season,” tackles one aspect of global warming and introduces people trying to make a difference. Heady facts about emission trading schemes threaten to overwhelm the viewer, but pic also packs plenty of genuine emotion, and the presence of altruistic Australian entrepreneur Dorjee Sun in the financial corridors of power gives it the same giddy atmosphere that made “Startup.com” so exhilarating. A 42-minute version aired on PBS in July; other pubcasters should. Feature-length version shown at Brisbane should be a hot ticket on the fest circuit. Henkel starts in the jungles of Borneo, where orangutans are dying or being displaced thanks to deforestation, which covers the region in smoke and creates carbon emissions. Danish conservationist Lone Droscher-Nielsen, dedicated to saving the simians, nurses back to health the few apes she can rescue from “the burning season.” Images of orangutans wandering in devastated forests are heartbreaking. Repping deforestation’s other side, pic’s second thread focuses on the plight of Indonesian villager Achmadi, one of thousands who strip palm trees for palm oil (frequently marketed as vegetable oil) for international cosmetics and confectionery corporations. His motivation is simple survival — and the rare privilege of sending his daughter to school. http://redapes.org/news-updates/must-see-new-film-the-burning-season/

29) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sets the rules by which countries report their Greenhouse Gas Emissions. The IPCC is empowered to make these rules according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Nearly every country, including the United States, is a signatory. With all that in mind, let’s focus on the rules around emissions from harvesting forests and the storage of carbon in forest products. The rules for measuring carbon stored in ecosystems is actually pretty straightforward: the balance of carbon stored there year after year is measured (estimated) based on estimates for which the IPCC provides methodologies. Change in the carbon stored are reported either as an emission (the amount of carbon went down) or a removal (the amount of carbon went up). It is called a removal because the ecosystem removes carbon from the atmosphere. At present, the U.S. is estimated to be carbon positive, as trees grow more than they are cut down or are otherwise lost. This is the equation given in the IPCC’s Good Practice Guidance for Land-Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry for national greenhouse gas reporting of the carbon balance in forests: The equation means that the change in forest carbon is equal to the change in living biomass plus the change in dead organic matter plus the change in soils. There are also rules for accounting for harvests of forest products. This is the most significant issue with regard to the paper industry, since it lays out the rules by which the most important input into the industry is accounted for in terms of carbon emissions. Let’s focus on the Good Practice Guidance equation 3.2.7 “Annual Carbon Loss Due to Commercial Fellings.” The loss due to logging (a.k.a. harvest) is calculated as: [losses from commercial fellings] = [the volume of wood extracted] x [wood density] x [biomass extraction factor] x [carbon left to decay] x [carbon content of the wood harvested] For our purposes, we need to understand that the wood harvested is an emission of carbon and we also need to include the wood that is left in the forest that will decay and that must be accounted for as well. Thus, when accounting for inputs into products or the use of biomass for energy, harvested wood must be counted as an emission. There really is no ambiguity around this fact. Those who state ‘biomass is carbon neutral’ (a normative statement, not a scientific one) rely on statements like this one in the 1996 Revised Guidelines for national greenhouse gas reporting: “Biomass fuels are included in the national energy and CO2 emissions accounts for information only. Within the energy module biomass consumption is assumed to equal its regrowth.” http://thepaperplanet.blogspot.com/2008/08/rules-for-carbon-accounting-of.html

30) A race to grab land in developing countries and exploit food supply fears and payments to conserve forests could spark conflicts in areas of land disputes, development and civil rights groups say.Investors say higher land valuations are just what’s needed to settle claims which may have festered since colonial days. But much marginal and forested land is common property, which in the past has given poor local communities little benefit from logging, mining and oil concessions. “No-man’s land and hinterland is suddenly valuable,” said Andy White, coordinator for the Washington-based Rights and Resources Initiative, a development NGO. “Communities had been told the land was theirs. Now it’s contested,” he said, explaining that a community in Liberia had told him that in one week they had separate visits from a mining company, a logging company and a biofuel company. “They were told by the government — ‘go out and prospect’.”
Spiralling commodity prices have driven speculative interest in farms and forests in emerging markets where productive land can cost one 10th of the price in industrialised countries. “There are still very good prospects,” said George Lee, manager of hedge fund firm Eclectica’s agriculture fund, which invests in companies which buy land, comparing grazing land prices in Uruguay at $3,000 per hectare with $20,000 in Britain. Benchmark wheat prices have dipped by a third since a peak last September but remain 50 percent above a 2007 low. Land and food prices are expected to remain high as a growing, richer world demands more land for settlement and food, while climate change threatens more droughts. Steps to fight climate change and secure energy supplies are partly to blame for stoking land prices, by fuelling interest in alternative energy including biofuels produced from food crops such as palm oil, soy, sugar and grains. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7724979

31) Compared to prehistoric times, the level of oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere has fallen by over a third and in polluted cities the decline could be more than 50 percent. This change in the makeup of the air we breathe has potentially serious implications for our health. Indeed, it could ultimately threaten the survival of human life on earth, says Roddy Newman, who is drafting a new book, The Oxygen Crisis. So, what’s the evidence? About 10,000 years ago, the planet’s forest cover was at least twice what it is today, which means forests are now emitting only half the amount of oxygen. And desertification and deforestation are rapidly accelerating this long-term loss of oxygen sources. The story at sea is much the same. NASA reports that in the north Pacific Ocean oxygen-producing phytoplankton concentrations are 30 percent lower today, compared to even the 1980s. This is a huge drop in just three decades. Moreover, the UN Environment Program said in 2004 that there were nearly 150 “dead zones” in the world’s oceans where discharged sewage and industrial waste, farm fertilizer run-off and other pollutants have reduced oxygen levels to such an extent that most or all sea creatures can no longer live there. Professor Ian Plimer of Adelaide University and Professor Jon Harrison of the University of Arizona accept that oxygen levels in the atmosphere in prehistoric times averaged 35 percent compared to only 21 percent today. The levels are even lower in densely populated, polluted city centers and industrial complexes, perhaps only 15 percent or lower. Much of this recent, accelerated change is down to human activity, notably the industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels. Which means we are slowing down one process, oxygen generation, and speeding up another, carbon dioxide production. Very interesting. But does this decline in oxygen matter? Are there any practical consequences that we ought to be concerned about? What is the effect of lower oxygen levels on the human body? Surprisingly, no significant research has been done, perhaps on the following presumption: the decline in oxygen levels has taken place over millions of years of our planet’s existence. Surely, this mostly gradual decline has allowed the human body to evolve and adapt to lower concentrations of oxygen? Maybe, maybe not. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2008-08/15/content_6937226.htm

32) Whilst I am appreciative of WWF’s reply, it does nothing to reassure me they will save any orangutans. Why? Because some 25 years ago they also had ‘big’ plans to “Save the Tiger”. What happened? I’m guessing WWF must have spent tens of millions of pounds of donors money on this project. I’ve been unable to find out what the tiger population was back in about 1975, but the Indian tiger is now down to the about last 1500. I think we can safely say that during WWF’s multi-million pound “Save the Tiger” campaign at least 10,000 tigers have been killed, maybe 20,000 or more. Numerically speaking WWF has not saved a single tiger; worse though, thousands were killed during this high profile WWF fundraising campaign – to save tigers. So, where did all the public money go? Now we have WWF with another big, ‘sexy’, high profile income generating species, and really big plans to save them. Hmmnn. I’m not saying WWF won’t try. What I am saying is, based on their past and my own impression of WWF on the ground in Indonesian Borneo, I have zero faith in their ability to save any orangutans. About 2500-3000 orangutans have been killed annually for the past 25 years. Let’s see if WWF can get this figure down shall we? As you will see below, the amount of money WWF has at its disposal is enormous. It is what WWF does with the money that concerns me. Keep in mind a great many people in Borneo would consider a wage of £1000 a year to be a fantastic amount. Now look at how much money WWF has – available for orangutan conservation – and this is ONLY the UK office. Put another way; the Centre for Orangutan Protection (COP) in the past couple of months has saved seven orangutans at a total cost of perhaps £2000. COP is also out there building conservation camps, investigating and exposing palm oil companies, etc. etc. on an annual budget for 10 people that is smaller than any single project WWF has listed below. Just look at the photos on this Blog, then look at WWF’s fancy web site and judge for yourself, who you think is doing a much better job for orangutans. http://naturealert.blogspot.com/2008/08/wwfs-reply.html

33) They are our elders and help to mark our seasons; skeletal in the winter, limey in the spring, deep-green in summer and crimson in autumn. Not every place on the planet has the climate conducive to tree growth, and those that can support a healthy tree population should be encouraged to do so, especially in this age of potential climate change. Certainly, from a practical or utilitarian perspective, we should remember our trees when we sit on our favourite chair, jot a phone number on a scrap of paper or huddle inside our homes by the fire, burning bright and warm. http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/We-must-strive-to-protect.4397355.jp