Scotland:

3) A conservation charity has bought a 10,000-acre estate in the Highlands as part of its efforts to restore Scotland’s Caledonian forests. Trees for Life paid £1.65million for Dundreggan Estate, Glen Moriston – one of the charity’s most significant projects – following two years of negotiations. The charity will now plant 500,000 native trees to reconnect the forest between Glen Moriston and Glen Affric. Dundreggan is home to species such as black grouse and wood ants, and contains areas of ancient woodland, including one of Scotland’s best areas for juniper. But much of the estate is open treeless ground. It was managed as a traditional sporting lodge for many years, and grazing by sheep and deer has prevented the growth of woodland. By 2058, Trees for Life’s long-term plan will see Dundreggan restored to a wild landscape of diverse natural forest cover, with the return of species including red squirrel, capercaillie, golden eagle, European beaver and wild boar. Scientific research and education programmes will be established and most human infrastructure removed. Dundreggan Lodge and a neighbouring cottage will be renovated to a high ecological standard, providing a base for volunteers and educational displays for students, researchers and school children. http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/801289?UserKey=0

Macedonia:

4) Skopje. 641 fires have been registered in Macedonia since the beginning of the year. 151 of them were forest fires and the rest of them had burned at stubbles, bushes and grazes, Macedonian MIA agency reports. 2 622 hectare of forests had burned, which is 19 times less than last year when at about 39 000 hectares of forests had been burned down, director of the saving and Protection Directorate Shaban Alisu said at a press conference. http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n150166

Ghana:

5) “We used to cut down a lot of trees to plant cocoa. Cutting down trees used to be normal,” chief Nana Opare Ababio, 47, told reporters sitting with the village elders as children danced and banged drums alongside. On racks, cocoa beans dried in the sun. Now, he said, villagers were respecting the park boundary. “Money has not flowed to the village,” he said, despite cooperation in helping protect the forest and a 2006 law meant to give local communities a share of park income such as from limited logging that does not damage the forest. Finding new ways to slow the felling of the world’s forests is a focus of 160-nation U.N. climate talks being held in Accra, about 200 km (125 miles) to the east. Deforestation accounts for almost 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. But Afiaso may show some of the difficulties — such as ensuring that money reaches poor local communities who are the ones slowing deforestation and dependent on farming maize, cocoa, plantains and cassava. And in Afiaso there are the elephants. “Elephants come to raid our crops. Then we have to buy food elsewhere,” complained one man at a village meeting. Protected in the park, elephant numbers in Kakum rose to 206 in the last census in 2006 from 189 in 2000, according to Daniel Ewur, the park manager. The animals break out of their forest stronghold and eat crops. Still, cooperation with the park has brought jobs for some people in the village and locals believe re-growth of forests in the protected area in recent years has helped stabilise once unpredictable rains and benefited crops, Ababio said. And local children will grow up seeing animals that might otherwise have been driven to extinction, even though some complain the deal has cut hunting rights. The forest is home to rare species including the Diana monkey and the bongo antelope. http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnLP711420.html

6) A 160-nation U.N. climate conference in Ghana split on Friday over ways to pay poor countries to slow deforestation, blamed for producing up to 20 percent of the greenhouse gases caused by human activities.Options suggested for raising billions of dollars in incentives include markets that would allow trading in the carbon dioxide locked up in trees, higher aid from rich nations and levies on airline tickets or on international shipping. “It’s important that we get to grips with this,” Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters during the August 21-27 meeting of 1,500 delegates. “For many developing countries, avoiding deforestation is pretty much the only way they can engage in the climate change regime and reap some benefits,” he said of schemes meant to slow logging and burning of forests to clear land for farming. A U.N. climate conference in Bali last year agreed to explore ways to pay people in the developing world to leave forests standing — trees soak up carbon dioxide as they grow and release it when they rot or are burned. http://www.daskalnet.net/un-climate-talks-split-over-deforestation-funds.php

7) AFIASO — Years ago, no one thought twice about felling the rainforest around this village in West Africa Land was cleared, cocoa and palm oil were planted, and the hamlet survived. But the wind blows stronger across the fields and scrub these days, and the rainfall is heavier than the elders remember. “Before, the weather wasn’t so hot,” says the village chief, Nana Opare Ababio. Afiaso, with 620 people, is on the border of Ghana’s Kakum National Park, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) from Accra, where a 160-nation U.N. conference is discussing how the issues of deforestation and conservation fit into a new global treaty on climate change. As delegates ponder the big picture, sometimes it helps to see the direct impact these issues have on villages like Afiaso. An estimated 32 million acres (13 million hectares) of forest are lost to loggers, farmers and fires every year, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization. Most of it is in the Amazon, in Southeast Asia and in West Africa. Trees, and especially the diverse vegetation of tropical rainforests, soak up and store carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming. Decaying or burning trees releases carbon into the air. Scientists estimate that deforestation accounts for up to 20 percent of the carbon added by man to the atmosphere. Climate negotiators have wrestled for years over the complexities of monitoring and accounting for deforestation, but they acknowledge that efforts to contain global warming will fail unless the loss of forests is checked. Delegates agree that countries should be compensated for slowing or halting deforestation, and that this should be a key element in a new treaty under negotiation to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. In Accra, another group of countries whose forests already have been depleted argued with growing success that they should be rewarded for maintaining their remaining woodlands and for increasing their forest cover. But delegations _ and even environmentalists _ are split on how those programs should be financed and how they would be overseen. Negotiations on the deforestation package are likely to go through all of next year until the new treaty is due to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009. Estimates of the costs range from $20 billion to $30 billion a year flowing to developing countries threatened by the effects of climate change. “We need a financial mechanism to create incentives for countries to conserve their forests and natural resources,” said Duncan Marsh, director of climate policy for The Nature Conservancy, based in Washington. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20080825/ghana-forest-village/

8) Logging of a Ghanaian forest submerged 40 years ago by a hydroelectric dam could point to an underwater timber bonanza worth billions of dollars in tropical countries, a senior Ghanaian official said on Monday. Exploiting submerged rot-resistant hardwoods such as ebony, wawa or odum trees in Lake Volta, the largest man-made lake in Africa, can also slow deforestation on land and curb emissions of greenhouse gases linked to burning of forests. “Logging will start in October,” Robert Bamfo, head of Climate Change at the government’s Forestry Commission, told Reuters on the sidelines of a U.N. August 21-27 climate conference in Accra. “This will reduce the pressure on our forests.” “The project aims to harvest 14 million cubic metres (494.4 million cu ft) of timber worth about $4 billion,” he said. Logging will be led by a privately owned Canadian company, CSR Developments, which says it aims to invest $100 million in Ghana. Cutting equipment can be mounted on barges, guided by sonars to grab trees below water. “There are very similar circumstances in numerous countries around the world including Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Brazil, Surinam, Malaysia and others,” Bamfo said of forgotten forests swamped by hydroelectric dams. “The potential is there — they are awaiting to see the outcome of the Ghana project,” he said. He told the conference there were estimates that there were “5 million hectares (12.36 million acres) of salvageable submerged timber in the hydroelectric reservoirs in the tropics with the potential to supplement global demand for timber.” “The trees are still strong,” Bamfo said, even though they had been under water since construction of the Akosombo Dam in the 1960s. Harvesting would cost more than on land but was still commercial because of the value of the timber. http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN550657.html

9) The issue of Climate Change has been made so complicated even though in reality it’s a simple one. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), adopted by 192 countries in New York in 1992, eventually gave birth to the Kyoto Protocol adopted in Japan in 1997. This protocol has since become the blueprint by which signatory countries (technically referred to as parties) promised to abide by certain policies to help tackle the effects of global warming. Of course ten of the original parties decided not to be bound by this document: almighty USA is the big brother country which opted out. I’ll just give you a few of the things expected from countries under the Kyoto Protocol; 1) They must promote sustainable forms of agriculture in light of climate change considerations, 2) Take measures to limit or reduce green house gases and, 3) Research on and promote development and increase use of new and renewable forms of energy…..and of advanced and innovative environmentally sound technologies. There was also emission targets set for richer industrialised countries. — So fast forward to Accra, 10 years after Kyoto was signed, none of the targets have been met. Little has been done in terms of conservation, reduction in emission, deforestation. The Accra talks are a kind of crisis talks to “force” countries come to some form of agreement on concrete action plans. Of course diplomatically, “force” is unacceptable. http://www.myjoyonline.com/features/200808/19786.asp

Congo:

10) The irony was leafy green and growing like a giant red mahogany tree as conflicting reports on logging in the Congo were released on the same day this month. In one, The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification has now been achieved for forestry operations on nearly 3 million acres in the Congo River Basin. In the other, a World Bank-backed review of all timber contracts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said that more than three quarters of its logging deals should be canceled for not meeting necessary standards. Ecologists calling for more logging? Government demanding a halt? It’s the kind of news that makes the Congo endlessly fascinating. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is home to 358-million acres of rainforest, the world’s second-largest tract of oxygen-producing, air-scrubbing greenery. It’s a rich resource among the many natural assets (like diamonds, the prize at the center of Heart of Diamonds, my novel of the Congo) that have attracted exploiters from all over the globe for over a hundred years. According to Greenpeace, more than 40% of it will disappear before timber industry chainsaws by 2050. It doesn’t have to happen, of course, and steps are being taken to prevent an ecological and economic disaster of those proportions. Unlike diamonds, trees are a sustainable resource. Careful management of forests can provide fuel, lumber, and pulp—thus generating jobs, tax revenues, and economic stimulus to a country that sorely needs them—while maintaining the environmentally-critical forest itself for the long term. That’s what the FSC certification is supposed to encourage. Laurent Somé, WWF Central Africa Regional Programme Office (CARPO)’s Representative, says “WWF is convinced that the adoption of responsible forestry schemes by logging companies will contribute greatly to the conservation of the Congo Basin forests and towards improving the national economy and also improve the livelihoods of local communities.” http://heartofdiamonds.wordpress.com/2008/08/24/nothing-as-it-seems-in-congo/