005OEC’s This Week in Trees

005OEC’s This Week in Trees
Monday, August 1, 2005, 02:58 PM
Oly Ecology Center’s THIS WEEK IN TREES 6/13/05

This week 21 news articles about trees in:

Alaska, BC, WA, OR, CA, Idaho, Montana,
Hawaii, Minnesota, England, Armenia,
New Zealand, Brazil, Bangladesh, Indonesia

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Alaska

1) Nature Conservancy and the Forest Service signed a five-year memorandum of understanding to collaborate on issues regarding the nation’s largest national forest. The Nature Conservancy wants to help with a variety of projects, including how best to use forest resources. Nature Conservancy and the Forest Service said Tuesday they had signed a five-year memorandum of understanding to collaborate on issues regarding the nation’s largest national forest. It is the first time the conservation group has signed such an agreement with the federal agency in Alaska.The Nature Conservancy is providing $30,000 for a $180,000 project to address problems caused by a disintegrating logging road near Sal Creek on Prince of Wales Island. The two organizations this summer will try to restore a salmon and steelhead stream damaged by the old logging road, which runs along the edge of the stream. The bank is eroding, and six culverts are blocking the passage of fish. The Sal Creek project is just the beginning, said Erin Dovichin, spokeswoman for The Nature Conservancy of Alaska, which has about 2,500 members. “The agreement sets the stage,” she said. “It lays the groundwork or the foundation for us to do a number of projects together on the forest.” http://www.adn.com/money/story/6583586p-6467160c.html

2) Insights into the Nature Conservancy: One of the most successful environmental movements of the last fifty years is about to change the way it does business. And if it doesn’t do it on its own, the government will step in and force it to change. That’s the headline on the recent investigation of the nation’s land trusts by the Senate Finance Committee. Wednesday, the Finance Committee held hearings ostensibly aimed at tightening the tax code on the use of conservation easements, which have become a prime tool in conserving land from development. It’s also become a prime tool for evading taxes. The Finance Committee began its investigation three years ago after a series of embarrassing articles in the Washington Post about the practices of the country’s biggest trust, The Nature Conservancy.

British Columbia:

3) PORT ALBERNI, BRITISH COLUMBIA In another major court victory for First Nations, the Huu-ay-aht First Nation (HFN) have received a decision from the Supreme Court of British Columbia which holds that the BC Ministry of Forests program designed to address aboriginal interests on forestry matters fails to meet the Provinceâs constitutional duty to First Nations.
http://www.dogwoodinitiative.org/Pages/newsroom/newsstories.php?filepath=http://www.dogwoodinitiative.org/news_stories/archives/001016.html

4) As McBride Forest Industries, a local forest company, continues to harvest in the Robson corridor (Mount Robson Provincial Park) tourism operators are beginning to see the effects. Terry and Jody Cinnamon run Mount Robson Whitewater Rafting based from their property about 5 km west of Mount Robson Provincial Park. The brothers have been cooperating with the logging company, allowing the company to build a road through their property to help them access mountain pine beetle killed trees. However, as the logging progresses Terry and Jody are becoming increasingly concerned. Over time, the logging project grew to a much larger scale and now MFI is logging during the rafting company’s season. Terry is upset at the change of plans. “Two years ago when they first approached us about doing some logging here, we were concerned,” he said. “But they told us it would be a one shot deal.” Jody said that the company appears to be using the pine beetle epidemic as an excuse to remove as much fir as possible from the area. He feels he has been misled about the company’s intentions all along. “What MFI told us about the proposed logging a year and a half ago compared to what has now taken place in our area are two completely different things,” he said. Some of the areas chosen for harvest are pure Douglas Fir, a species unthreatened by the Mountain Pine Beetle. http://www.robsonvalleytimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=104&Itemid=49

Washington state

5) A wetlands-rich section of private forest near the Cascade foothills — a place where bird-watchers have been able to spot more than 60 species in two hours’ time — will be among hundreds of acres near Black Diamond protected from development by a complicated land deal announced yesterday. Plum Creek Timber yesterday agreed that Ravensdale Ridge, a 1,600-acre slope in southeast King County popular with horse riders and mountain bikers, will continue to be logged in perpetuity, instead of being paved for new homes or businesses. And hundreds of additional acres in and around Black Diamond, some public and some private, will be set aside for parks and open space. In exchange, 329 acres of Plum Creek land that had been outside Black Diamond will be annexed to the city so the timber company can develop it. The plans for the development haven’t been ironed out. –Seattle Times
OREGON

6) PUBLIC PROTEST AT UMPQUA BANK:(st)Umpqua Bank was told to stop logging the last of the Old Growth Forest last Friday. The Herbert family was among the founders of Umpqua Bank in 1953, and Herbert Lumber also holds the contract to 2 controversial sales on Mt Hood National Forest: Bear and Cub sales, of which 7 units are native old growth and Critical Habitat for Spotted Owls. Lynn Herbert, the general manager/owner of Herbert Lumber is currently on the Board of Directors of Umpqua Bank; and together Lynn and Milton Herbert are Umpqua Holding Co.’s largest shareholders, owning 1.5 million shares or 20% of the company’s stock. The president of Umpqua Bank’s board of directors of Allyn Ford, sole owner of Roseburg Forest Products. RFP owns the contracts to some of the most controversial mature and old growth sales on public lands in Oregon. Protesters will demand that Herbert Lumber and Roseburg Forest Products immediately stop logging and drop the contracts to any timber sales that include native or Old Growth forests.

7) KS Wild Aims To Recover Rare Wilderness Carnivore
In an effort to save one of the rarest wilderness wildlife species in the lower-48 states, KS Wild and three other conservation organizations filed a lawsuit on June 8 asking a federal court to overturn the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s refusal to consider new legal protections for the wolverine. The largest member of the weasel family, the wolverine is a bear cub-sized forest predator that persists in small numbers in the last remaining big wilderness areas of the lower-48 states. The powerful wolverine once ranged across the northernmost states from Maine to Washington, and south into the Adirondacks of New York, the Rocky Mountains as far south as Arizona and New Mexico, and the Sierra Nevada-Cascade and Siskiyou Mountains as far south as California. Although sporadic, unconfirmed wolverine reports continue in Oregon and California, today the wolverine is known to exist only in the northern Cascades of Washington and the Rocky Mountains of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. http://www.kswild.org

California:

8) Coming up: Another precedent setting state water quality hearing on Thursday regarding Humboldt’s leading clearcutting crooks Maxxam-Pacific Lumber, aka: Palco. Here’s some of what the San Fran Chronicle has to say: “Palco has over-leveraged the value of their timberlands, and even if they cut every tree they own, it may not be enough to pay back its current debt,” water board staffer Michael Gjerde wrote in an 18-page report… Because of water quality issues Palco has been allowed to cut about only 85 percent of the logs it had expected to harvest under the Headwaters deal… It blames that string of revenue shortfalls for the bankruptcy warning. In an April rebuttal of Palco’s warnings, a state water board staffer said that if the company is in trouble now, it’s mainly because it has carried too much debt for too long. Despite refinancings in 1993 and 1998, its debt stood at $692 million as of May, not much below where it stood 19 years ago…. “All my life, this was a rocky river bottom,” said Wrigley, a member of the Humboldt Watershed Council. This activist group has spent several years pressuring the North Coast Regional Water Control Board — a local body with purview over everything from sewer hookups to timber harvests — into creating the tree-cutting rules that Palco blames for starving its sawmill… “The river is cleaning itself up even as we cut under these new practices, ” said Kate Sullivan, senior scientist for Scotia Pacific’s watershed sciences program. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/12/BUG87D71N21.DTL

Idaho:

9) “We’ve pretty much quit hauling,” said log truck driver Ron Cummings, “and on Tuesday we’re going to try to organize in Kalispell.” But organizing has proved tough for the truckers, who are only loosely knit and are not part of a collective bargaining union. “It’s actually been a very difficult thing to organize all these independent drivers,” said the owner of Libby-based Cummings Hauling, “but on Saturday the core group met and said they were parking their trucks.” They’ll park them, come Tuesday, at the Flathead County Fairgrounds, where drivers plan to meet for a rally of solidarity. Trucks are expected from Libby, Eureka, Kalispell, Missoula and throughout northwest Montana. http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2005/06/08/news/mtregional/znews03.txt

Montana:

10) The governor on Bush’s roadless law: “The Forest Service has been trying to resolve this issue for upwards of 30 years with little or no success,” Schweitzer’s letter to Bush read. “Now your administration, without the benefit of public hearings, has issued a final rule that asks the states to shoulder this burden both administratively and financially.”
Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey told Lee Newspapers in a telephone interview that while Schweitzer probably won’t get the 500 Forest Service employees and $9 million he requested, Schweitzer’s hopes of maintaining Montana’s roadless areas will very likely come true. “I think it’s highly likely that we and the state will hammer out something that is mutually agreeable,” Rey said. Rey said other states have also asked for federal help in writing their proposals for roadless areas. However, he said the Bush administration’s plan never envisioned governors preparing exhaustive and expensive management plans. “Obviously, if the governor wants to produce something that detailed, we certainly wouldn’t say no,” Rey said. “It’s not our intent nor is it specified in our regulations that governors have to do that.” He also said the administration’s rule came in response to a Western Governors Association’s resolution that requested more input on the fate of roadless areas. “If we’re passing any bucks here, they’re bucks the governors have been asking for,” Rey said.
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2005/06/08/news/mtregional/news06.txt

Hawaii:

11) Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge.”This refuge is like my backyard,” says UH-Hilo researcher Mark Kapono… While an Omao peeks its head out of a tree trunk, we’re shown a temporary solution to another problem for the endangered Hawaii Akepa. They’re running out of places to rear their young so researchers have fashioned black PVC containers to give them a second home. “The only trees that provide the cavities for them to nest in are the really gigantic Ohia Lehua and the Koa trees,” says UH-Manoa researcher Lenny Freed. “It looks like these trees are falling at a faster rate than they’re regenerating.” http://khon.com/khon/display.cfm?storyID=5075&sid=1163

Minnesota:

12) On Tuesday, the The Minnesota Timber Producers Association, Minnesota Forest Industries, Hedstrom Lumber and North Shore Forest Products announced that they have filed a motion with the court to allow them to defend the Forest Service plans against the Sierra Club challenge. “This lawsuit, if it is allowed to proceed, will have significant impacts on the Superior National Forest,” said Wayne Brandt, executive vice president of the Minnesota Timber Producers Association, in a statement on the case. “The area that the Superior National Forest reviewed in the Tomahawk EA is badly in need of management to remove dead and dying timber…” Earlier this year the Sierra Club won a federal court case against the Forest Service for the so-called Big Grass timber area using a similar argument over cumulative impacts of logging over broad areas of the forest. The Forest Service accepted the court decision and is including the Big Grass area in an environmental impact statement of potential timber sales in a large area along the Echo Trail northwest of Ely. http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/11836870.htm

England

13) One of the largest ancient woodlands remaining in the UK will be wrecked unless action is taken soon to save it, a conservation group warned today. The Woodland Trust said Wentwood Forest near Newport in South Wales is a national treasure, with rich historical and cultural associations. The trust is launching a public appeal to save what is the largest ancient forest in Wales and wants to buy 352 hectares (870 acres) which have come on to the open market. The trust needs to raise at least £1.5 million to secure the purchase of the site and start its restoration. Already funds of £500,000 have been identified and the trust said it needs help to raise £1 million. Ancient woodland is the richest wildlife habitat in the UK and equivalent to the rainforest. http://archive.scotsman.com/Default/Skins/TSPLa/Client.asp?skin=TSPLa&daily=TSC&enter=true&AppName=2&GZ=T&FromWelcome=False&AW=1118543737921

14) The European Squirrel Initiative said the first red squirrels reintroduced to Newborough forest in Anglesey, an island off the north coast of Wales, in 2003 produced 23 young last year. This spring, seven litters have already been produced, and with many adult females breeding twice a year, the outlook for 2005 is extremely positive, they said. “We are delighted to see the red squirrels returning to their old haunts,” said Craig Shuttleworth of the community group, Friends of the Anglesey Red Squirrels. “This is a terrific achievement when nationally the red squirrel is still in decline. Until recently Anglesey, like many other parts of Britain, was dominated with gray squirrels, which were introduced in 1876 from North America and have rapidly driven out the native reds. http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/06/07/red.squirrel.ap/index.html

Armenia

15) Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus which historically had forest cover of 40-45 percent, is today at perilous risk of becoming completely deforested. Current estimates place forest cover at around eight percent… Despite this, the Armenian government recently announced plans to build a highway in the southern part of the country right through the middle of the old growth Mtnadzor (Dark Canyon) forest, which occupies about half of the Shikahogh nature reserve, one of only three pristine reserves in the country…The Armenian government has cited “strategic” reasons for choosing the route through the reserve, but hasn’t provided adequate justification for the plan, which would violate numerous national laws and internationally signed treatises to protect such nature preserves. “[If Armenia’s government] does not demonstrate responsible management of its natural and historical heritage, it weakens its ability to protect Armenia from the impact of destructive policies in neighboring countries. Any gains that may be realized by building this road through the preserve will be far outweighed by the long-term environmental and political damage that Armenia will suffer. We most urgently ask you to consider an alternative route,” concluded Ms. Mugar in her appeal. http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050608/new018.html?.v=14 and

16) The Armenia Tree Project (ATP) says currently 70 percent timber cut in Armenia is used for heating because alternate fuel sources are not available. In cities such as Yerevan, residents desperate for fuel cut at least two million trees during the energy crisis of the early 1990s. “Once beautiful parks have now turned to ecological graveyards devoid of greenery. Today, they collect debris, invite vandalism, are aesthetically offensive, and are vulnerable to erosion and further environmental degradation. If this trend continues, Armenia will turn into a desert wasteland in an estimated 20 years,” the organization says. To combat the deforestation, the Armenia Tree Project is producing 40,000 indigenous trees each year on formerly barren plots of land in refugee villages, where two of their tree nurseries are located, and planting trees throughout urban communities. A rural tree planting program has been launched in Aygut, near Lake Sevan. Armenia Tree Project Executive Director Jeff Masarjian says that deforestation there has reached crisis proportions and villagers are struggling to fend off poverty. The forests of the area’s Getik River Valley shelter the Lake Sevan watershed, which although deforested, can still be salvaged, the Armenia Tree Project believes. Masarjian says the organization works by partnering with communities like Aygut to replant the native forests. In Aygut, families will earn a living by planting and nurturing tree seedlings in a program intended to gradually transform the entire community into a forest nursery. Already, villagers have gathered over 80,000 seeds of 12 local tree species, including wild apple, wild pear, walnut, linden, hazelnut, and cherry, to be sprouted in 18 forestry nurseries. The resulting 20,000 seedlings will be planted in Aygut’s declining forests this fall. http://www.armeniatree.org/

New Zealand

17 )When the government signed the Kyoto Protocol, it committed New Zealand to reducing its net greenhouse gas output to 1990 levels by 2012… Although the gross output of greenhouse gases was projected by the Climate Change Office to increase by 30 per cent… The carbon tax and other government initiatives, like the promotion of wind power, were expected to reduce the potential increase by a third. However the bulk of the offset was to come from new forest plantings which, at the time the Protocol was drafted in 1997, stood at 64,000 ha a year. … Mr Berg says the average rate of new forest planting for the last 30 years has been 44,900 hectares a year. In 2002, it dropped to 22,000 ha and last year to 10,600 ha, with forward orders placed at tree nurseries indicating a further decline this year. Meanwhile, the gap between the area harvested and area replanted has grown, with increasing areas of harvested forest being converted to dairying and other livestock. “These trends will have a huge impact if they continue, because the government is relying on young growing trees to soak up the country’s increased output of greenhouse gases, especially methane from dairy cows,” Mr Berg says. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0506/S00136.htm

18) Climate change minister Pete Hodgson is being mischievous in his defence of his government’s disastrous climate change policies, says the Forest Owners Association. “As the minister knows, his policies are triggering deforestation at unprecedented rates across the country. Trees are being sprayed with herbicide, cut to waste and converted to dairy farming at a huge cost to the environment,” says association president Peter Berg. “This is largely due to the liability forest owners potentially face if, after harvest, they don’t replant forests originally planted before 1990. This could be paying up to $25,000 a hectare.”The association acknowledges the government has assumed some responsibility for this liability, but the sum allowed for is clearly inadequate, he says. “As a result, any forest owner who wishes to convert land out of trees and into something else has to do it before 2008. Even the government is doing it, with the conversion by Landcorp of 25,000 hectares of forest into dairy farms in the central North Island. http://www.adn.com/money/story/6583586p-6467160c.html

Brazil:

19) The destruction of the Amazon Rainforest may be one of the world`s major sources of air pollution, a published report said Wednesday. Widespread deforestation by burning is producing massive amounts of carbon dioxide and contributing to the planet`s warming, known as the greenhouse effect, warned some scientists. Daniel Nepstad, an U.S. ecologist who has studied the forest for 20 years says, “It`s probably burning up more oxygen now than it`s producing.” http://science.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1008314.php/Is_Amazon_jungle_polluting_air

Bangladesh

20) An agency report published in The Independent says that some 70 Scouts have started hiking under a project called “Nisarga” aimed at creating awareness about forest and bio-diversity. A few months back at a seminar held in the capital, a high official of the ministry of environment and forests said that the government is determined to stop trade in wildlife and protect the forests. Our unfortunate experience is that the statements spelled out at seminars and workshops are rarely if ever worked out in reality. There is widespread allegation that staff and officials of the forest department, the very people entrusted with the safety of wildlife, are corrupt and collaborate with unscrupulous wildlife traders. Cutting of forest trees is still a widespread phenomenon. The forest department staff for their part complain about lack of adequate manpower and equipment. While that may be true we have to say that the people and equipment that are at the disposal of the department are not being used properly. So just in-creasing the number of forest guards will hardly help matters. What is more important is that the existing guards and supervisors should be trained properly. Their level of motivation too must increase. We have to depend on this department to protect our precious forests, which are dwindling at an alarming rate. http://independent-bangladesh.com/news/jun/10/10062005ed.htm

Indonesia

21) The lowland tropical rain forests in Indonesian Borneo could disappear in five years due to rampant logging and forest fires, endangering the survival of many exotic species, an international conservation group said on Tuesday. The world’s third-largest island has lost forests equivalent to an area one third the size of Switzerland every year, or at a rate of 1.3 million hectares. It is home to more than 210 mammal species, including 44 found only in Borneo. http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/31152/story.htm