006OEC’s This Week in Trees

O06OEC’s This Week In Trees

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19 articles: BC, WA, OR, CA, Arizona, Oklahoma, Ohio, Maine, Russia, Finland, Bavaria, Brazil, India, Kenya…
British Columbia:

1) In Kamloops Supreme Court today, Justice F. Cole jailed four Secwepemc Nation members – Nicole Manuel, Rose Jack, Trevor Dennis and Mark Sauls for their participation in a 4 hour roadblock on August 24, 2001 at Skwelkwek’welt ( Sun Peaks Ski Resort ) Sentences ranged from 45 days for 28 year old Secwepemc mother of 2, Nicole Manuel, to 90 days for three other Secwepemc Nationals, Trevor Dennis 26, Rose Jack 25 and Mark Sauls 24. “I deplore the imprisonment of my people for upholding our sacred responsibility to protect our land from destruction by Sun Peaks Resort Corporation,” said Janice Billy spokesperson Secwepemcul’ecw Traditional Peoples Government. “The imprisonment of our people is just one of the many immoral tactics used by the BC provincial courts, government, and corporations to continue the theft and destruction of our unceded lands. Rather than deal honorably with us, the government uses the RCMP, courts, and media to carry out their theft and destruction. The young people jailed have shown tremendous courage to stand up to this oppressive and racist system.” Justice Cole denied all attempts by the defense to have numerous constitutional questions submitted to his court concerning the BC Lands Act dealt with before sentencing in this matter was administered. Janice Billy (250)318-4290 jrbilly@mail.ocis.net

2) An announcement of : International Non-Timber Forest Products Conference and trade show attracting non timber forest resource experts and exhibitors from around the world and throughout B.C. is being hosted by Royal Roads University in Victoria in August 25-29, 2005. The purpose of the symposium is to assemble the world’s experts on commercial development of non-timber forests products and the implications of such development for rural livelihoods and forest conservation. http://www.ntfpvictoria2005.ca/

Washington:

3) Northern spotted owls declined by about 7 percent a year in Washington state between 1985 and 2003, according to a study completed for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last year. Barred owls seem to have had an especially strong effect on spotted owls in the state, according to the study conducted by forest researchers and scientists retained by Portland-based Sustainable Ecosystems Institute. Catastrophic wildfires, particularly in Eastern Washington, also have burned owl habitat, the report said. Timber industry representatives contend the incursion of the barred owl is a more important factor than protecting old growth habitat, especially on federal land. “Any existing suitable habitat could be important to the persistence of the northern spotted owl,” Franklin said, in summarizing the consensus of the panel. “The barred owl does not negate the need for habitat.” http://www.columbian.com/06162005/clark_co/287682.cfm

Oregon:

4) The U.S. Forest Service is set to trade 18,200 acres of publicly owned national forest land for 32,000 acres of private property in a deal that involves six counties and three national forests. Most of the property in the proposed Blue Mountain Land Exchange is in Grant, Umatilla and Wallowa counties. Smaller acreages are spread among Baker, Morrow and Union counties. The proposed land exchange involves public land on three national forests: the Wallowa-Whitman, Malheur and Umatilla. According to a draft environmental impact statement, the 18,200 acres of public land included in the land exchange contains about 83 million board-feet of timber that could be logged.
That’s about 42 percent of the total timber harvest in the six counties in 2003, including public and private forest. http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/06/16/d5.or.landexchange.0616.html

5) McQuire timber sale, located along the popular “Illinois River Canyon”, will likely result in closing the Illinois River Road to everyone – except the loggers – during the prime recreational season; affectively blocking all access into the Kalmiopsis Wilderness from the East side of Siskiyou Wild Rivers. Harm to the local economy is guaranteed as all manner of forest and river recreation will be curtailed for the season. There have been 60 arrests since March 7, 2005, when for the first time ever, logging occurred inside Old Growth Reserves protected by the Northwest Forest Plan. There is no end in sight, and protestors vow to keep at it as long as the illegal Biscuit logging continues. On Tuesday morning, the message to potential timber bidders is simple, “You buy McQuire – you get us!” Momentum is gaining as more activists settle into the area. Singed, ILLINOIS VALLEY ENTHUSIASTS! Update: Two million board feet of fire-killed old-growth timber along the Illinois River in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest sold for about $80,000 Tuesday to Merlin-based Silver Creek Timber Co… The lightning-sparked Biscuit fire in summer 2002 burned about 500,000 acres, much of it in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. The Forest Service’s salvage plans call for harvesting about 370 million board feet of dead timber on about 19,400 acres. So far, about 16.5 million board feet of timber has been harvested, and about 65 million board feet has been sold, Burel said. http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2005/0615/local/stories/08local.htm

California:

6) Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATs) is vigorously opposing U.S. Forest Service proposals for the most extreme forest herbicide applications California has seen in over two decades, with the four largest projects covering a total of 40,000 acres. Spraying could begin as soon as this summer and CATs is concerned that this is just the beginning of a return to large-scale herbicide use in California’s National Forests. http://www.alternatives2toxics.org

7) The California State Water Resources Control Board unanimously agreed to continue a stay on cutting trees in two of the company’s watersheds, which comprise close to 36,000 acres of forest land owned by a subsidiary of Houston-based Maxxam. “We’re very disappointed,” Pacific Lumber spokesman Chuck Center said after the vote. Center declined Thursday to discuss how the state board’s decision might affect the possibilities of default, bankruptcy or debt restructuring, saying Pacific Lumber’s leaders needed time to “get our heads together.” Thursday’s decision by the state board overruled Humboldt County’s local water regulator — the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board — which wanted to let Pacific Lumber cut some trees in the upper reaches of Elk River and Freshwater Creek. “We anticipate Palco will be forced to take extraordinary actions, which may include: reducing expenditures by laying off employees and shutting down various operations; seeking other sources of liquidity, such as from asset sales; and seeking bankruptcy,” said Palco President Robert Manne. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3229291

8) Corrupt Humboldt Judge rejects charges: Dist. Atty. Paul Gallegos said Wednesday that his office was seriously considering an appeal. The judge, he said, sent a signal that Pacific Lumber was “totally immune from lying. People out there are getting permits all over the place, thinking they have an obligation to tell the government the truth,” Gallegos said. “This is not the law, in my opinion, and if am wrong, it is an outrage because it rewards deceit.” The lawsuit, which sought several hundred millions of dollars, divided the county and prompted an unsuccessful bid last year to recall Gallegos – an effort largely bankrolled by Pacific Lumber. Filed in 2003, the suit pits residents who view the timber company as indispensable to the local economy against those who believe it is over-logging its vast holdings of valuable redwoods and Douglas fir, endangering fish and wildlife, and causing erosion that has damaged adjacent property. The lawsuit accused the company of lying to state regulators during the historic 1999 deal that created the Headwaters Forest Preserve. As part of the more than $400-million transaction, Pacific Lumber transferred 7,000 acres of virgin timber to the federal and state governments and agreed to logging restrictions on its remaining 200,000 acres to protect wildlife habitat. The suit contended that Pacific gave state agencies false information and data understating the landslide risks of its future logging plans – then delayed the submission of correct information. The alleged fraud, the lawsuit said, resulted in extensive logging of many thousands of trees on unstable slopes, with damage to streams and watersheds. The suit sought $2,500 per tree. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/state/la-me-lumber16jun16,1,5233893.story?coll=la-news-state&ctrack=1&cset=true

9) Clint Eastwood trys to blow all eco-protections away: The Board of Supervisors notified the California Coastal Commission that it has approved Pebble Beach Co.’s plans for new projects at 13 locations in Del Monte Forest. The Pebble Beach Co.’s Del Monte Forest Preservation and Development Plan includes an 18-hole golf course, a driving range, 160 new visitor suites, a new equestrian center, 33 residential lots in five subdivisions and 60 employee housing units. Coastal commission staff members and environmentalists have expressed concern about the plan’s effect on the Monterey pine forest. The proposal would eliminate about 17,000 trees. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20050613-0649-ca-centralcoastbriefs.html

Arizona:

10) Conservation groups today received notice that the Forest Service has withdrawn a decision to log old-growth forest on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon near Jacob Lake, Arizona. The Center for Biological Diversity, the Southwest Forest Alliance, and the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club appealed the Jacob Ryan timber sale decision last March. The project would have logged old growth across about 17,000 acres of national forest land and cleared a 100 foot swath of trees on each side of Highways 67 and 89A, under the justification that it would “improve” the scenic quality of the forest-lined drive by reducing what the Forest Service called a “monotonous” and “tunnel-like” driving experience. “We are delighted the Forest Service has agreed with us and reversed course on this project,” said Erik Ryberg of the Center for Biological Diversity, who authored the appeal. “We hope the Forest Service will move ahead with legitimate thinning in wildland-urban interface areas and leave the backcountry old-growth alone.” “The problem with this project,” said Sandy Bahr, Conservation outreach director for the Sierra Club – Grand Canyon Chapter, “is that it would log some of the last, best habitat for old-growth dependent wildlife, without addressing legitimate fuel buildup problems. http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/press/logging6-13-05.html

Oklahoma:

11) Lake Atoka was built in 1958 as a major municipal water supply reservoir for the City of Oklahoma City and is located 110 miles SE of Oklahoma City in both Atoka and Coal Counties, Oklahoma. The lake’s water storage covers 6,000 acres and the watershed property 7,000 acres, a total of 13,000 acres. Due to the watershed’s inaccessibility prior to and after lake construction, plus poor soil and steep terrain, 95% of it has escaped logging, farming, human habitat, and clearing for cattle grazing. These pristine watershed lands are a forgotten pocket – a time capsule of primal forests / woodlands. Oklahoma City announced in 1996 their plans to log the watershed, numerous interested scientists: dendrochronologists, environmental & wildlife biologists, avian ecologists, geologists, foresters, archaeologists, & historians have made field trips to study Lake Atoka. Their collective analyses & summaries can be stated as: Lake Atoka watershed is one of the largest remaining single tracts of an ancient ecosystem. The Lake Atoka Forest is an unaltered, pristine tract of the Ancient Cross Timbers Forest, containing old growth forest – post oaks and short leaf pines. “The Ancient Cross Timbers Forest” woodlands are in SE Kansas, Eastern Oklahoma, and North Texas. Because most Ancient Cross Timbers tracts are fragmented in ownership and by man’s clearing, the Lake Atoka Forest has attracted conservationists’ attention. Yet, Oklahoma City will not stop and is moving forward on plans to start logging. We have tried for 10 years to reason with them. Take time to send one of these web site letters to Oklahoma City. http://www.savelakeatoka.com/

OHIO:

12) The lawyer for an Ohio environmental group says it will appeal a decision to allow coal mining under one of the state’s oldest forests. The Buckeye Forest Council will file in state appeals court to oppose the decision made last month by a state commission that reviews mining disputes. The forest council argues that allowing the Ohio Valley Coal Company to mine under Dysart Woods will damage the 400-year-old trees. The forest is in Belmont County, about 80 miles east of Columbus. Company officials and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources say the mining will not harm the forest. A spokesman says the Department of Natural Resources is confident the commission made the right decision. http://www.wboy.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=3440

Maine:

13) Beyond the town of Allagash, trees press hard against wide dirt roads until, around a bend or over a slight rise, they disappear with a silent pop into open air framed by the stark borders of clear-cut land. Then, rumble and bump, truck wheels churning and land flying past, the trees are back again, a second generation or third, tall, tight, and true, or young and already tired, thin and struggling in the soil of stronger spruce, fir, and aspen cut years before, the earliest by men with axes. Now, though, things move fast and nearly always. Steel timber trucks with claws hanging from their long arms and blades hidden up their sleeves push in to grip and grab the biggest trees standing. Other trucks with flatbeds strong enough to carry a quarter-million pounds charge over those same dirt roads, whether hot and dusty or locked beneath ice, at speeds up to 75 miles per hour to mills where their cargo is turned into planks, pulp, and paper. ”The woods is different to me than when I was a young man. The trees were like this,” he said, his arms arcing out wide before him, with four feet open between his hands. ”You couldn’t get your arms around ’em.” As he locked his hands to close the circle of his arms, he said, ”Now, it’s hard to find one like this.” …Forget that caribou and wolves have disappeared from the region. Forget that only 5 percent of the Maine north woods is thought to be old growth — not virgin forest, of course, but ”old” in that it was last cut more than 100 years ago. … ”The trouble is,” Merchant said, ”the world is too big.” He touched his extended hands together, not to fashion an imaginary tree trunk, but the earth. ”It used to be like this,” he said. ”A kid had purpose, within a family, or on the homestead, or in the village that supported it.” He threw his arms open and up, skyward. ”Now the whole world is out there, and a kid doesn’t know how to get there.” http://www.boston.com/travel/articles/2005/06/12/the_river_wild/?page=5

Russia:

14) Russia is the world’s largest forest country which accounts for a quarter of global timber reserves, a mere 6-8 per cent of which has been developed so far. With global demand and prices for quality wood and bio-fuels growing, the Russian timber industry is an attractive destination for investment. “We are constantly falling behind demand,” says Mr Rajagopalan, whose Silverline Ventures Ltd., operates three sawmills in Krasnoyarsk, Krai region in Eastern Siberia… International demand for Siberian larch and other hardwood is enormous. “In Europe they used to make garden furniture from spruce and pine, which had to be impregnated with chemicals to last longer. Now the ecology-conscious Europeans want to have only water-proof larch, which does not need impregnation and lasts hundreds of years,” he says. Much of Venice still stands on foundations made of Siberian larch that is 300-400 years old. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/06/13/stories/2005061300380900.htm

Finland:

15) The state forest management enterprise Metsähallitus said on Monday that it was taking 100,000 hectares of forest under its control in the provinces of Oulu and Finnish Lapland out of timber production. The decision brings to an end more than two years of discussions concerning involving Metsähallitus, the Finnish League for Nature Protection, and the WWF. The move does not include forests in the northern part of Finnish Lapland, which have been the focus of a conservation dispute involving Greenpeace and local reindeer herders. http://www.helsinginsanomat.fi/english/article/1101979899924

Bavaria

16) “In the beginning, there were many problems,” says Wanninger. “The people here wanted us to change the national park concept to allow us to stop the bark beetle, so to come into the forest with power saws and fight the beetle. Then, it became clear to them that such action would result in huge bare areas.” Due to the park’s importance for the tourist industry, this would be bad for the region. “Now, although they are still very critical, they accept that we do not intervene,” he says. From afar, huge sections stretching to the horizon appear lilac-gray. When you enter the forest, giant trees lie on the ground, along with broken branches. Those still standing are broken in half — rotting wood as far as the eye can see. They have destroyed close to 4,000 hectares, or nearly one-sixth of the national park. However, the beetle attacks have been receding in the past two years. “When you looked at this area 20 years ago, you saw a beautiful spruce forest, green and alive. But this spruce forest was not natural,” Kiener explains. “It was manmade, tended for hundreds of years by the foresters. What we can see now is a new generation of trees that is of different ages and mixed, like a mosaic. We can expect the new generation will be more resistant to the bark beetles, which affected the old stand of trees before.” The Bavarian Forest National Park is the largest forest area in central Europe where nothing has been done to interfere with nature. The forest has simply been left to its own devices. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1079118,00.html

Brazil:

17) The world’s largest rain forest, one that affects global weather patterns, last year saw its biggest one-year loss of trees since 1995. That should put more pressure on Brazil’s left-leaning president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to curb the rapid pace of deforestation in the Amazon. But Lula, as he’s known, also needs to provide jobs and land for Brazil’s massive armies of the poor, and the Amazon provides a quick way for him to provide those opportunities. So he still backs road-building into these ancient virgin forests that brings first the tree-cutters, and then those who burn the forests to clear land for cattle ranches, and more so lately, soy farms. Brazil needs constant pressure when it comes to preserving the Amazon, especially since it’s trying to gain trade concessions on its soy exports. The world has a stake in a place that contains a fifth of the world’s fresh water and almost a third of its species. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0613/p08s02-comv.html

Kashmir, India:

18) Bakerwals are threatening to launch agitation if they aren’t allowed to graze their cattle in some forest zones of Islamabad district. Last year when their votes were needed, the People’s Democratic Party recommended wildlife authorities not to restrict their movement into the forest zones where officials cite concern for wildlife as the reason for restriction. This year, when no elections are in sight, the authorities haven’t allowed them to venture into the forests. Hundreds of Gujjar Bakerwal families who migrate to the Valley in summers to graze cattle in the upper reaches of some areas have threatened agitation if they are denied the permission. Although the Wildlife Department restricted their movement in 2002 when certain compartments in the entire forest area of Islamabad were handed over to the department for development of a wildlife sanctuary, the nomadic cattle herders have been evading these restrictions on political recommendations. Sources within the wildlife department disclosed that for the last two years the department failed to check the incursions into the forestland demarcated for sanctuary owing to the elections, in which Mehbooba Mufti and her father and Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed were declared winners. Sources said the recommendations from the ruling party were “the major hindrance to effect the ban on their entry.” “Last time the Bakerwals had hung photocopies of the letters issued by Mehbooba Mufti in the necks of their cattle and proceeded into the restricted zones,” said an employee pleading anonymity. http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?ItemID=5455&cat=1

Kenya:

19) Alfred Mutua said the government would not backtrack on its decision to forcibly evict thousands of families from the Mau Forest, a vast swathe of indigenous woodland in the Central Rift Valley region, west of the capital Nairobi. “We are not going to allow people to live in forests,” Mutua said, adding that: “These forest areas are water catchment areas and the waters from these areas not only feed our country but (also) trickle through the Maasai Mara (national reserve) to our neighbours.” “Right now we are saying let’s plant trees, we can’t allow people to live on what little forested land we have,” Mutua added, saying forests currently represent just 2% of the country’s total surface. Mutua declined to say how many people were being evicted, but local leaders believe the number is a high as 50 000, most of whom were illegally allocated land during the 24-year regime of former President Daniel Arap Moi, who retired in 2002. Much of Kenya’s land surface is affected by desertification and about 10 million of the country’s 32 million people live in poverty in areas classified as arid or semi-arid, according to official figures. http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1722834,00.html