354 EU-Africa-Mid-East

–UK: 1) Carved tree trunks take over streets, 2) It’s not logging, it’s just coppicing,
–Germany: 3) Petrified tropical forest dug up
–France: 4) Chirac lauches website / campaign
–Sweden: 5) Loggers think there are still trees to harvest
–Africa: 6) New Atlas: shock waves of well-documented devastation, 7) Twice as fast,
–Sierra Leone: 8) Waiting to know what happens from export ban lifting
–Nigeria: 9) Gov responsible for deforestation
–Ivory Coast: 10) Global consumer products company poised to destroy it all
–Pakistan: 11) More stumps, misappropriated money and no seedlings, 12) Heat-zone,
–Afghanistan: 12) Illegal timber industry a threat

Articles:

UK:

1) Tourism London which is about to launch an online guide to the growing number of carved tree trunks springing up across the Forest City as London is implementing its public art policy. Mike Harris, the tourist attracting agency’s manager of membership and communications, has been tasked with creating an online directory – or Tree Trunk Tour – by July 1. “Tourism London felt there was an interest in developing a tourist product with a concentration of products or tree carvings downtown,” Mr. Harris says. Adds John Winston, general manager of Tourism London: “It’s a symbolic approach to a characteristic public art that we’ve been involved in. The key is to take some nice photos and put them in a format that people enjoy.” That good news story was discovered trying to track down a comprehensive list of London’s public art. The search began with Robin Armistead, cultural office with the City of London who also suggested Museum London, noting that the office supported, but did not maintain that information at present. Considering that she is the only city staff member tasked with looking after London’s estimated $400 million cultural industry compared to the London Economic Development Corporation’s staff of 11, it’s easy to see why that list wasn’t readily available. So where is our public art is located. Seems like a simple enough question until you attempt to define public art and for our purpose, The Londoner selected outdoor publicly accessed sculpture. It’s an important distinction because what was once public, like the inside of the Provincial Courthouse where security now regularly restricts access, or the University of Western Ontario that has taken to locking doors for security reasons also, has changed the definition of public. Then there are other considerations like who is the artist, is it high or folk art or a community project or in the case of Victoria Park, monuments and memorials. There’s the numerous works by Fanshawe students on display at Zubick’s Scrap Metal on Clarke Rd. – are they art or a great marketing tool? Consensus is often difficult and subjective to name just a few of the obstacles. http://www.thelondoner.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1067163&auth=Ben+Benedict

2) The firm’s owner Jason Scarlett says angry people have come into the shop and accused him of chopping down woodland. “But we are not cutting down trees, the word is coppicing,” Mr Scarlett says. “And if we don’t coppice it, it is bad for the woodland.” The traditional method of coppicing involves cutting down trees in a way that encourages regrowth. And that is important to Mr Scarlett, an unlikely environmentalist who began his working life putting up scaffolding around oil rigs in Malaysia. “Even though I learnt my trade working in the fossil fuel industry, I saw the decimation that was going on due to logging in Sarawak [in Malaysia],” he says. The Solid Fuel Association estimates that sales of wood burning stoves have risen by 30% in the last 12 months alone. Many have made the choice for environmental reasons. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7439542.stm

Germany:

3) An unusual excavation is underway in the eastern German city of Chemnitz, one which conjures up hard-to-believe images of the time when the area was covered by tropical rainforest. A team led by researchers from Chemnitz’s Museum for Natural History has been excavating a 290-million-year-old petrified prehistoric forest in the city’s Hilbersdorf district since April. Now they have found the first preserved trees. “We have found four vertically standing and two prone gymnosperm trunks to date,” said excavation leader Ralph Kretzschmar in a statement released by the museum Tuesday. Gymnosperms are a group of plants whose seeds are not enclosed within plant tissue, such as modern-day conifers or cycads. The team has already found traces of further trunks, Kretzschmar said: “It would therefore be accurate to say that we are excavating a forest.” The researchers are already able to make estimates regarding the density of the former rainforest, which was buried under a thick layer of ash following a volcanic eruption 290 million years ago. The volcanic ash helped to petrify the wood, with the lack of oxygen preserving the trees’ cells. One of the researchers’ most interesting finds is a small branch which had broken off a tree. To the experts’ surprise, the wood turned out to have an unsual structure, exhibiting a malignant growth like those which can be seen today on sick trees. Researchers believe the growth could be evidence of a fungus infection or a pathological reaction of the wood, which could have killed the tree before it was buried under the volcanic ash. “This could be a key find,” said museum director Ronny Rössler. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,559006,00.html

France:

4) Former president Jacques Chirac of France puts aside his legal troubles and returns to the public eye this week to launch his foundation for sustainable development and cultural diversity. Surrounded by friends like the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammad Yunus and former president Abdou Diouf of Senegal — all members of the foundation’s honorary committee — Chirac inaugurates the foundation in Paris on Monday. The 75-year-old former president will unveil a first batch of development projects for Africa and plans to travel abroad, including a trip to China that was delayed after he underwent a pacemaker operation in April. “In the face of major world challenges, I still want to fight,” Chirac said in an interview last week with the daily Le Figaro, his first since leaving office last year. “And the foundation is the tool for this. I want to stir and awaken consciences.” The high-profile event marks a rare public appearance by Chirac, who has been battling corruption allegations since he lost his presidential immunity and became a private citizen again after 12 years in office. After handing over to Nicolas Sarkozy in May last year, Chirac retired to a quiet life with his wife Bernadette in a Paris Left Bank apartment. But in November, he became the first former French head of state to be placed under formal investigation — a step toward full criminal charges. Chirac is suspected of misappropriating city funds for political ends when he was mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995. He has denied any wrongdoing. The foundation was announced last year when Chirac stepped down and pledged to continue serving “in another capacity”. It was legally established in March, with a modest endowment of one million euros and a small staff. Half a dozen projects have been launched to promote access to water and medicines in west Africa, to combat deforestation in the Congo Basin and to save dying languages in Polynesia, said Michel Camdessus, a former director of the International Monetary Fund who helped set up the foundation. The projects reflect Chirac’s commitment to sustainable development, the environment and the “dialogue of cultures” — areas that were close to his heart during his tenure as president, Camdessus told AFP. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jyHbiQwT8A2VnasPh30A3G8kbt3w

Sweden:

5) “We still have all those trees to harvest and what are we going to do with them? If we can’t make paper, maybe we can make energy, and make energy for our own people,” said Stephen Brunet. The mayor of Bathurst believes ideas from the World Bio-Energy conference in Jonkoping, Sweden could be turned into reality for the former Smurfit-Stone paper mill in Bathurst. From May 25 to May 30, Mr. Brunet was in Sweden where he gained a wealth of knowledge on alternatives to oil energy. He said the trip was a chance to see what could be done for the dormant mill in Bathurst, which closed in 2005 due to market conditions. “I had found out there was going to be people from Dalhousie, St. Quentin and the Peninsula there trying to find out if there is anything for their areas as it related to bioenergy,” said the mayor. “I said, ‘If they’re going there, we lost our mill in Bathurst too so maybe there’s something that Bathurst should be part of’.” Fifty-four countries were represented at the conference, and there representatives from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Quebec and western Canada. “It was an eye opener with what they’re doing with their fuel situation,” noted Mr. Brunet. “They are really using their forest for energy, much more so than we do…Over there, they don’t rely so much on oil and no wonder because gas was $2.20 a litre. “They try to heat their homes with material that they have in their own back yard and that would be material from the forest.” Mr. Brunet said he visited a village of 18,000 where there was a heating plant just outside the community. Sawdust and chips ran the plant and underground piping would go throughout the village to heat homes. The ash that was produced by the operation was used as fertilizer in forests. Fifty-five per cent of the plant was owned by the municipality and the remaining percentage was privately owned. http://thenorthernlight.canadaeast.com/opinion/article/320335

Africa:

6) The atlas, launched today by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, charts the march of cities over the countryside, protected areas shrinking as farms encroach on city boundaries and the driving of roads through forests. Before and after satellite images, sometimes spread over decades, show Dakar, the capital of Senegal, expanding from a small urban centre to a great metropolitan area of 2.5 million people spread over a wide area. They show falling water levels in Lake Victoria, the loss of forests in Congo DRC, and the decline of plant varieties in South Africa. But other pairs of images in the atlas suggest that good management is having a positive effect on many environments. Wetlands in Mauritania have been restored, tree planting in Niger has transformed once deforested areas, and action on overgrazing in Tunisia has revitalised pastures. “There are many places across Africa where people have taken action. These are beacons we need to follow to ensure the survival of Africa’s peoples and their economically important nature-based assets”, said Achim Steiner, the UN environment programme’s executive director. He added that the atlas, “shows the vulnerability of people in the region to forces often outside their control, including the shrinking of glaciers and impacts on water supplies linked with climate change.”According to the atlas authors, refugee migrations caused by conflicts are now causing significant pressure on the environment. But the greatest environmental threats, they say, come from land degradation, which is now affecting 32 African countries; forest loss, which is a concern in 35 countries; and biodiveresity loss which is taking place in 34 countries. According to the atlas, Africa is losing more than 4m hectares of forest a year – twice the world’s average deforestation rate, with some areas consequently losing over 50 tonnes of soil per hectare a year due to the erosion of exposed areas. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/10/climatechange.conservation

7) Africa is suffering deforestation at twice the world rate and the continent’s few glaciers are shrinking fast, according to a U.N. atlas on Tuesday. Satellite pictures, often taken three decades apart, showed expanding cities, pollution, deforestation and climate change were damaging the African environment despite glimmers of improvement in some areas. “Africa is losing more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) of forest every year — twice the world’s average deforestation rate,” according to a statement by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) about the 400-page atlas, prepared for a meeting of African environment ministers in Johannesburg. Four million hectares is roughly the size of Switzerland or slightly bigger than the U.S. state of Maryland. Photographs showed recent scars in forests in countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Nigeria and Rwanda. It said forest loss was a major concern in 35 countries in Africa. http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN057411.html

Sierra Leone:

8) The Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security, Dr. Joseph Sam Sesay who gave the keynote address stated among other things that since the ban on logging was imposed six months ago there has been a lot of problems between stakeholders and the Ministry but that now that the ban has been officially lifted stakeholders are expected to work with the new policies outlined by the Ministry and not to create any situation that may lead to another ban being instituted. The Minister further disclosed that his Ministry has worked out modalities to ensure that the lifting of the ban is done out of national interest and called on all stakeholders and businessmen to demonstrate corporate responsibility to enhance sustainability of the forest. According to the Minister of Agriculture, a new draft policy has been formulated to ensure that the national endowment of Sierra Leone’s forest is restored. Furthermore, certain stakeholders such as Guma Valley Water Company and Grafton Spring Water that are benefiting from the protection of forest reserves will assist in catering for protectors of the forest. http://www.christiantrede.com/webdesign/clients/newcitizen/localnews.php?subaction=showfull&
id=1213180695&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2

Nigeria:

9) Inadequate control of the ecosystem by the federal government is responsible for the deforestation in the country. Mr Lawrence Ogundare, the Desk officer, International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO) said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Abuja. He lamented that government has not taken full control of Nigerian forests as provided by law. ” At the national level, the federal government is the policy maker,” he said, adding that states manage those within their jurisdiction. ” As a result of this, the states cut the trees indiscriminately,” he said. He said a policy on forestry, which is being fine-tuned, would be domesticated in all the states of the federation. The policy, he said, needs legislative backing, otherwise it would be regarded as an ordinary document. ” As soon as this is done, the federal government would hold states responsible for massive deforestation,” he said He blamed those who planned the forest in the past for not putting in place adequate measures to check deforestation. ” We have a lot of forest plantations all around but no proper maintenance of these forests,” he said. ” If we had been maintaining our forests, we wouldn’t be talking about the depletion of our forests today” he said. (NAN) http://www.leadershipnigeria.com/product_info.php?products_id=29249&osCsid=600c15929adf803aa09
83775c1861cbf

Ivory Coast:

10) “Leading global consumer products company poised to destroy Ivory Coast’s rainforests as both investor and customer, pushing three primates to extinction, just after its future commitment to rainforest protection and certifies oil palm in 2015 was much heralded by some. One of Côte d’Ivoire most important primary rainforests is to be cleared by global consumer product company Unilever and others, despite Unilever’s recent promises to buy only “sustainable” palm oil from lands not cleared of rainforests for their production. Tanoé Swamps Forest in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) is one of the last remaining old growth forests in the country and the last refuge for three highly endangered primates -the Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus, the Geoffroy’s colobus and the Diana roloway -as well as home to many endangered plant species. Tanoé Forest is thought to contain the last remaining population of Piliocolobus waldronae (known as Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus). This is a species formerly widespread in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, but hunted to extinction over most of its range and declared extinct in 1998; yet a freshly shot specimen was found, in the early 2000s, having been hunted in the Tanoé Forest. If Unilever goes ahead with this project, it may be the first time in history that any company has deliberately profited from the extinction of a species. Despite international protests, the palm oil company PALM-CI has just begun destroying this 6,000 hectare forest to convert it to oil palm plantations. They are currently building drainage systems at the periphery and, once the rainy season is over, they intend to clearcut all of the forest. If the forest is destroyed, the three primate species as well as many plant species will almost certainly become globally extinct. Large amounts of carbon dioxide will be released from the carbon-rich swamp forests.” http://decideforyourself.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/ivory-coast-rainforest-threat-take-action/

Pakistan:

11) PESHAWAR: Owing to unabated felling of trees and inability of the government to launch plantation projects already approved, deforestation is continuing at an unprecedented scale in NWFP, which has almost 17 per cent of its area under forest cover. The deforestation poses a threat to those living close to the banks of rivers and plain areas. In the past, the Forests Department was tasked with launching plantation projects in the volatile Malakand region, Kohat, Hangu and Tank. However, the department failed to realise the projects in these areas. Pakistan has almost five per cent of its total area under forest cover, which should be at least 25 per cent according to international standards. The plantation target for NWFP is 1.4 million, but an official said the NWFP government was not in a position to meet the target due to lack of resources. The extensive deforestation can be gauged from the statistics of tobacco grower associations, which burn more than one million trees in the tobacco furnaces annually. Similarly, unavailability of natural gas is another factor behind deforestation in most areas of the province where wood is used as fuel. According to a report, the timber mafia has felled more than 0.5 million trees in Malakand region. “The timber has been stored in different godowns in Tahana, Batkhela and other towns of Malakand Agency,” an official said on condition of anonymity. The policy of the provincial government for promotion of forestation is in fact linked to deforestation. Though the government has banned cutting of trees, the trend is still increasing the revenue target of the department. “The revenue target of the department for the current financial year was Rs585 million, but we have been once again directed for efforts to increase it further,” stated Chief Conservator Forests NWFP Nazir Mohammad Mohmand. Once the department allowed cutting of old trees to generate revenue and provide a source of livelihood to scores of people. The persistent ban on the timber harvest has deprived the owners of the private/Guzara forests covering almost 0.549 million hectares area, while reserve forests cover 0.0967 million hectares and protected forests 0.512 million hectares area. The lack of resources is also creating hurdles in the initiation of the forest promotion project. The provincial department failed to launch Rs.550 million project this year, as the Finance Department refused to release funds. http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=117492

12) KARACHI: Deforestation is the main reason for the expansion of the heat-zone, reduction in the flow of the Indus and shrinkage of the Indus Delta, said PCSIR (Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) former director general Dr Mirza Arshad Ali Baig. He was speaking at a seminar on “Challenges of Global Warming” Sunday. The seminar was organised by the Memon Professional Forum (MPF) in collaboration with the Institute of Engineers Pakistan (IEP), Karachi Centre, at the IEP Auditorium. Calling deforestation a major cause of global warming, Mirza said forestry has been registering a negative growth for the last three years in the country. It was taking place at the rate of 800 sq. km., 0.2-0.5 percent per annum, which affects over 43 million acres of land annually. He added that three to four kilometers of glaciers have already retreated in the Eastern Himalayas, and the glaciers at its western end, the Pakistani side, were consolidating rather than melting. NGO Shehri-CBE’s Sameer Dodhi pointed out that studies have proven that a 10 percent increase in green space may reduce the area’s temperature by four degrees centigrade and tree-lined streets also lessen the chances of asthma. Shehri is in the process of documenting all amenity and open spaces across Karachi’s 18 towns and cantonment areas to monitor whether these public spaces are being used as planned or not. The documentation is almost complete along with picture records and a report would be made public by the end of this year. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C06%5C09%5Cstory_9-6-2008_pg12_2

Afghanistan:

13) Environmentalists have warned that the illegal timber industry is threatening the future of Afghanistan’s woodlands, with large parts of the country’s forests already feared destroyed. Mass logging has decimated huge areas across the lawless eastern provinces bordering Pakistan, increasing the risk of flooding and landslides while also enriching warlords. The trade generates millions of dollars each year, but only a fraction of the money goes to locals whose habitat is being steadily wiped out. “It’s a problem that is not measurable,” said Hazrat Hussain Khawareen, director of forests at the ministry of agriculture and animal husbandry. “It’s too big.” In 2003, the United Nations reported some provinces had lost more than half their woodland in the previous 25 years. Insiders told The National that logging mafias have grown in strength since then, with the government unable and – sometimes – unwilling to intervene. “All this is illegal and it’s happening because of instability and war,” Mr Khawareen said. “It’s happening because of those who have dollars, power and arms.” Scores of lorries bring illegal timber to Kabul every day, driving unchecked into the city. Asked how this was possible, Mr Khawareen simply rubbed his thumb and fingers together, indicating that bribery was rife.“There are police, there are so many different forces, but still the wood keeps coming and all we can do is cry,” he said. However, most of the money is made from exports. Timber is regularly driven east across the border and taken to Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, before being shipped to the Gulf and Japan. According to one environmentalist with a long history in the field, more than 100 lorries transport wood illegally into Pakistan on a daily basis. “Yes, the problem has gotten worse,” said Ghulam Mohammed Malikyar of Save the Environment – Afghanistan. “The government has no control over the forests. Warlords and commanders are the main smugglers and there have been clashes between them and the government many times.” Areas throughout the country are affected, with everything from cedar to pistachio trees being cut for either timber or fuel. In west Kabul, wood can be seen piled up metres high by the river that snakes through the city. Haji Halim bought his in Paktia using Pakistani rupees and when he sells it to merchants here the deal will also be made in the same currency. “These are the rules,” he said. “There are thousands of people working in this business and none of them are thinking about the trees.” http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080603/FOREIGN/173041274/-1/ART