009OEC’s This Week in Trees

In this week’s issue of This Week in Trees we have 26 items from: Alaska, British Columbia, Oregon, California, Vermont, South Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Brunei, Australia, and India

Alaska:

1) Despite broad public support and bipartisan leadership, the U.S. Senate failed to limit money to build logging roads in Tongass National Forest in Alaska. The Tongass Roads Amendment, sponsored by Senators John Sununu (R-NH) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), was defeated by a 39 to 59 vote. Even though the amendment was defeated, the debate over Tongass logging roads in the US Senate helped shine much needed light on the mismanagement of and the wasteful timber program in the Tongass National Forest. Senator’s Sununu (R-NH), Bingaman (D-NM), McCain (R-AZ) and Feingold (D-WI) showed great leadership in championing this issue and should be thanked for their efforts to force a vote in the US Senate about logging and road building in America’s rainforest. To see how your Senator voted please go to.. Sununu’s co-sponsors on the bill include John McCain, R-Ariz., and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00164

British Columbia:

2) Fleece-wrapped backpackers practised yoga relaxation exercises Wednesday while lawyers made complex arguments at the extradition hearing of Tre Arrow, accused of being an ecoterrorist. “It’s heady stuff, I don’t understand why the process can’t be more real. It’s completely disconnected from anything below the head,” said Michael Sheely, one of Mr. Arrow’s former roommates in Victoria. He bowed to Mr. Arrow, an environmentalist who is on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted, and both clasped their hands in prayer while they locked eyes in the courtroom Wednesday. “Thank you,” Mr. Arrow whispered to the group of followers from the U.S. and Canada assembled to lift his spirits during the hearing. The U.S. wants Canada to turn Mr. Arrow over for allegedly conspiring to commit arson against two logging companies in the Portland area and causing $250,000 in damage. Rosellina Dattilo, a federal Crown prosecutor acting for the U.S. government countered, saying that Canada’s justice minister is the only person with the jurisdiction to deal with such claims. She said the job of Justice Kirsti Gill is narrowly focused on ruling whether there is enough evidence for Mr. Arrow to be extradited. He can make claims about political persecution in an appeal court, Ms. Dattilo said. — Canadian Press

3) Implementing the Vancouver Island Conservation Vision would require that the BC government undertake a renewed, systematic Protected Areas Strategy for Vancouver Island, going beyond the arbitrary, non-scientific 13% cap on protection of Vancouver Island’s land base. This conservation vision is described and mapped in our latest education Newspaper which we are right now distributing to members, supporters, decision-makers, First Nations and the general public. We could really need your help in getting. To pick up a stack of papers give us a call 1-800-661-9453 and we will send you a bundle.
http://www.wildernesscommittee.org/campaigns/rainforest/island/walbran/reports/Vol24No05/

4) On June 27, 2005 in Vancouver the Burrard Street Bridge was blocked off at both ends at around 2 PM by members of the VPD (Vancouver Police Department), and the ERT. The Police have not released a statement. Two friends from the West Coast Warrior Society and a driver were surrounded by the VPD, and ERT with sub machine guns and assault rifles and taken into custody but later released without being charged as all necessary documents (except bows and arrows) were in order for possession of outdoor equipment and hunting riffles. One of our friends dislocated his shoulder and sprained his wrists during the apprehension and requested medical attention which was not given to him. As well as the $23,000 worth of OITT equipment, a laptop, cell phones and brief case were taken and not returned upon their release. OITT or Outdoor Indigenous Traditional Training is part of recommendations commissioned by our Nation after phase one of our Holden Creek Heritage Camp Study (“Blockade”) in which we were compelled to stop International Forest Products from logging old growth cedar in our Sacred Valley between the Broughton Archipelago and Kingcome Inlet. The other recommendations are to finalize our Heritage policy, seek funding for our own Land Use Vision and further archaeological inventories in Holden Creek. Gilakasla, Eric Joseph, Tsawataineuk First Nation Phone 250-974-3013 Cell 259-974-4224

Oregon:

5) Timber companies shut out of federal forests by environmental lawsuits have found a way to use those lawsuits in their favor. They’re doing it by using the same argument as the activists who filed the lawsuits: The government failed to follow laws such as the Endangered Species Act that protect wildlife. But the companies are taking the argument in a different direction: They say the government should have known better than to offer the logging contracts and thus owes them for money they lost when courts sided with the activists and stopped the cutting. The surge of claims builds on $27.3 million that the U.S. Forest Service has paid to timber companies since 1992, including $2.8 million last year, for Oregon and Washington logging projects that fell through. “Anybody in the business of logging the public’s old growth is taking some risk,” said Doug Heiken of the Oregon Natural Resources Council, which has filed many lawsuits to stop the cutting. “It’s like if you were starting a whaling business today to hunt whales. There would be certain barriers. Suing the government is just one way of trying to shove that risk onto the taxpayers.” An example is the Clark timber sale in the Willamette National Forest east of Eugene, encompassing big old-growth trees 200 to 300 years old. Zip-O-Log Mills Inc. of Eugene bid $1.96 million for the wood in early 1998 and built access roads. But protesters occupied trees set for logging. And lawsuits forced further delays to consider effects on wildlife including salmon. It has demanded $2.16 million for lost profits, extra interest costs it absorbed because it couldn’t pay off debt, the cost of building roads and other expenses. It also seeks interest on the money http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1120298186248160.xml&coll=7

6) The Oregon Natural Resources Council once said logging should be replaced by the use of minor forest products. On 635,000 acres, the Siuslaw National Forest allows $12,500 worth of moss permits to be sold annually. Those permits put $125,000 worth of moss in the florist industry each year. One would assume from the Sunday story on moss thefts, the permitting process, oversight, and law enforcement activity, it costs a whole lot more than the $12,500 worth of permits sold each year to administer the moss industry. My gawd, the Forest Service is subsidizing the florist profiteers by selling below-cost moss. This must stop. http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2005/07/03/news/opinion/letters01.txt

7) We are very sad to report that the Bear timber sale has been logged. It’s heartbreaking to have to share this. One of our volunteer’s was out there this weekend and informed us that these majestic old growth trees have all been cut down. Join our esteemed hike leader Brian and others to witness the destruction at Bear timber sale located in the southern portion of Mt. Hood National Forest in the Clackamas Ranger District. This was a beautiful classic old-growth forest, loved by many, with trees over 200 years old. Sadly, it was logged last week. The area however, has not been yarded yet, meaning the majestic felled trees are still in piles waiting to be hauled away. If you have never witnessed a logging project before the trees are yarded, this is your opportunity to do so. Warning: This is not for folks that want to go on a “pretty” hike through the woods. But these visits are essential in order to document post logging effects and bear witness to this important loss of natural heritage. Contact info@bark-out.org / 503-331-0374 for more information.

8) I just got word that the Pigout sale, unit 44, is currently being cut on the Umpqua National Forest, Diamond Lake Ranger District. This is classic old-growth Douglas fir, hemlock, white pine and true firs. trees in unit 44 are very, very old. Pictures of unit 44 have been used in a number of publications, including a large Save America Forests poster. Pictures can be seen on the right side of this page:
http://www.umpqua-watersheds.org/unf/pigout_peanuts.html Roseburg Forest Products is cutting the sale. And for more depressing news, the Coos Bay BLM has just put out the EA for the East Fork Coquille timber sale, pictures of that can be seen here:
http://www.umpqua-watersheds.org/blm/CoosBay_BLM/east_fork_coquille_ts.html

California:

9) A federal judge Monday blocked logging old growth trees killed by a Northern California wildfire while she decides whether the threatened northern spotted owl still uses the burned area for habitat. If the lawsuit succeeds, it would be the first time environmentalists have stopped a timber sale offered under new Bush administration regulations known as the Healthy Forests Initiative that make it easier to log after wildfires, said Joseph Vaile of the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center in Ashland. “The fire has changed the nature of the owl’s use of the habitat, but it hasn’t turned it into a paved parking lot,” said Andy Stahl of the Forest Service employees for Environmental Ethics. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco, who granted a preliminary injunction stopping logging of the timber burned by the 2004 Sims fire, noted that the U.S. Forest Service apparently ignored a federal study showing spotted owls use burned forests and testimony from University of Washington old growth forest expert Jerry Franklin about the need to leave dead trees standing. “Instead, defendant simply stuck to its assertion that the northern spotted owl did not benefit from severely burned forest,” the judge wrote. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20050627-1923-wst-spottedowl-logging.html

10) Palco said the mill’s closure comes two years earlier than planned “as a result of actions taken by the State Water Board, which overturned a decision by the North Coast Regional Water Board.” The State Board’s action stopped Palco from operating on timber harvest plans previously approved by the California Department of Forestry. “This is a sad day for the company, Humboldt County, and California. The Fortuna sawmill would be operating and Palco employees working, had the State Water Board done their job. By refusing to join with every other state and federal agency that has approved our timber harvest plans in the Elk River and Freshwater watersheds, and by disregarding the decision of the full nine-member North Coast Regional Water Board, the State Water Board has taken an extreme position which has resulted in today’s closure.” http://www.times-standard.com/Stories/0,1413,127~2896~2947183,00.html

11) Charles Hurwitz’s Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Company is at it again–this
time trying to liquidate as much old-growth forest as it can in
anticipation of filing for bankruptcy, which it has been threatening
for months. The “BONANZA” Timber Harvest Plan, (THP) #1-05-097HUM,
would log significant and critical old-growth forest and
landslide-prone areas, as well as destroy habitat for many sensitive,
threatened and endangered species including the northern spotted owl,
marbled murrelet, and coho and chinook salmon. Logging would impact
Nanning Creek, a tributary of the Eel River, which is already listed as
“impaired” under Clean Water Act Section 303(d). Maxxam/PL proposes to
log in this very sensitive area, even as the company has been battling
with the state Water Quality Control Boards over their damaging,
sediment-producing harvesting practices (such as clearcutting)that
Hurwitz refuses to give up. Marbled murrelet scientists have identified parts of this area as a priority habitat for the critically threatened seabird. Yet this THP will enable the harvest of old-growth redwoods currently occupied by nesting murrelets! Of the 249 acres covered by this THP, 192 acres are occupied stands for the murrelet. http://www.wildcalifornia.org/actions/number-27

12) LA Activist Convinces In-N-Out To Cancel Weyerhaeuser Contract: After months of negotiating, our star activist in Los Angeles, Wendell Covalt, convinced burger chain, In-N-Out, to cancel their paper bag contract with Weyerhaeuser. http://www.ran.org

13) Klamath: Meteor, Knob and Glassups Old-growth Timber Sales cover almost 2000 acres of public land on both forks of the undammed Salmon River. Harvest units would take much of the remaining low elevation old-growth forest from directly off the Salmon River, and put small clear-cuts on trailheads, in roadless forests, and adjacent to wilderness areas. The Glassups Timber Sale was cut despite protests, but the Knob and Meteor Sales are now in the federal court system due to community efforts to save the wild Salmon River. The National Acadamy of Sciences have confirmed that the biggest threats to the Salmon river fisheries is bad forestry and that the Salmon provides as much water as the entire upper Klamath Basin to the Klamath River, most of which is cool and clear. email southsiskiyou@riseup.net for more hike info or for flyers. Check out klamathforestalliance.org or kswild.org for more info on the Knob and Meteor Timber Sales.

Vermont:

14) The Sierra Club this week released a report, “America’s Great Outdoors,” that details major environmental threats in all 50 states and spotlights volunteers who are working to solve the problems. In Vermont, the Sierra Club chose the Green Mountain National Forest’s new management plan, and criticized the U.S. Forest Service for proposing to open roads and new off-road trails on almost half of the entire forest. The Vermont chapter is also upset with a plan to increase the level of logging in the 400,000-acre forest, and to use the management practice of cutting trees of the same age, which the club said was a type of clear-cutting. “This increase provides a great threat to the Green Mountain’s rare wild roadless forests, some of the last in the Northeast,” wrote Kimberly Marion, the Vermont chapter’s regional conservation organizer. “This is no reason to destroy the economic benefits of these rare, wild forests by subsidizing more commercial logging,” she added. http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050702/NEWS/507020374/1003

South Carolina:

15) An ancient forest in the Low country should grow by 1,600 acres after the South Carolina Conservation Bank approved spending $1.5 million to help the Francis Beidler Forest wildlife sanctuary. The money should help the National Audubon Society and a coalition of public and private wildlife agencies buy property along Four Holes Swamp, a 62-mile long wetlands draining into the Edisto River. The tract represents more than half of the 3,000 acres separating the two biggest tracts in the society’s 12,600-acre Francis Beidler Forest. The purchase would help protect ancient trees, threatened wildlife and rare plants. The sanctuary holds what may be the largest remaining virgin cypress-tupelo swamp forest in the world. Among its 1,000-year-old bald cypress trees are threatened animals and rare plants. The conservation bank approves about $10 million per year for purchases and easements, using a portion of the tax stamp fees collected in real estate transactions to buy property or easements. The approval was one of three for which the bank gave $2.2 million. The others will buy a conservation easement along the Pee Dee River in Georgetown County and connect wildlife management areas in Chesterfield County. http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/local/12043164.htm

Tennessee

16) One of the nation’s largest newsprint manufacturers agreed yesterday to stop clearing hardwood forests to plant the pine trees it uses to make its products. Bowater Inc., the largest newsprint manufacturer in the South, owns forests in Tennessee, Alabama and North Carolina, according to the company’s Web site. More than a quarter of its 380,000 acres of Southern forests are located on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee, according to the agreement made with two national environmental advocacy groups. The firm said it now clears as much as 500 acres each year of hardwood forests and replaces them with pines, or softwood, that the company turns into paper for newspapers and magazines, as well as pulp and lumber products. The Greenville, South Carolina-based company will stop that in three years under the agreement with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Dogwood Alliance. After 2007, Bowater also plans to stop buying from landowners who sell wood from pine plantations that were once hardwood forests. Under the agreement, Bowater will adopt a 300-foot buffer for spraying herbicides and fertilizers around communities and study 7,000 acres of its land in the Cumberland Plateau to identify those of “ecological, geological or historical significance.” The company will not harvest from those areas while the study is being done. http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050630/NEWS05/506300405/1022/NEWS
Maryland:

17) Maryland’s Crabtree Creek old-growth forest area is receiving national attention through its inclusion in the Sierra Club’s newly released report, “America’s Great Outdoors,” which outlines that organization’s vision for protecting the natural heritage. Places profiled in the report were chosen by citizen conservationists in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. They were selected for their recreational opportunities, clean water and wildlife habitat. The Sierra Club advocates protecting ancient forests by having them denoted as state-protected wild lands—”a Maryland state equivalent of Wilderness Areas”—thus preventing activities that would leave lasting human imprints. The group is also asking the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to prohibit future logging of the state’s remaining old-growth forests and their surroundings.
http://baltimorechronicle.com/063005SierraClub.shtml

Pennsylvania:

18) There will be no tree cutting in the woods at Governor Dick for years to come, and perhaps not ever. The six-member board that oversees Clarence Schock Memorial Park at Governor Dick voted unanimously last night to delay proposed cutting for several years while efforts are made to control the deer population. If reducing the number of deer on the 1,105-acre property allows young trees time to grow, there might be no need to cut, board member Tom Harlan said. A “forest stewardship plan” the board was considering called for cutting some trees to make room for new forest growth. Many of the 60 or so people attending last night’s meeting were glad the cutting has at least been delayed. “There’s an air of relief,” said Lorna Brog, a Mount Gretna resident and active opponent of the forest plan. Brog said she was still concerned that cutting could be only a few years away.http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1120123346106260.xml&coll=1&thispage=2

19) The Indigenous community of Grassy Narrows Ansihnabek in Canada’s Boreal forest has continuously blockaded a logging road through their traditional territory for over two years now. They have taken this inspiring stand to assert their rights as Indigenous people to control their own future and to protect the forests and waters that sustain them. The primary destination for the wood logged without consent in Grassy Narrows traditional Territory is Weyerhaeuser’s Trus Joist mill in nearby Kenora Ontario. The construction materials made in that mill are then shipped to the US and used to build new subdivisions. It is our responsibility to support the people of Grassy Narrows whose land is being destroyed to feed the US market. In May the Grassy Narrows blockaders publicly rejected the Forest Management Plan created by the Ontario Government and the Abitibi Consolidated logging company. http://friendsofgrassynarrows.com

Brunei:

20) A Malaysian and an Indonesian, both aged 29, were sentenced to jail for three months and three strokes of the cane for entering the country illegally. They had no passports or any sort of documents to declare legal entry when they were apprehended in the jungle of Kg Medit, Tutong. The defendants admitted they were searching for ‘kayu gaharu’ or sandalwood from the forests in the country since entering Brunei from Limbang on June 25. They had spent their nights in the jungle. http://www.brudirect.com/DailyInfo/News/Archive/July05/010705/nite10.htm

Australia:

21) JAPANESE company Mitsubishi Paper Mill (MPM) will no longer use woodchips from old growth forests. The company announcement today was applauded by conservationists, who hoped the move would create market pressure for other companies to follow suit.But Tasmania’s forest industry reacted angrily to what it described as economic vandalism by environmental groups. MPM is a major customer for Tasmanian woodchip exporter Gunns Limited, which sends Australian woodchips to Japan, Korea, China and Indonesia. http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=3360101

22) East Gippsland’s forest industry has expressed concern at a Supreme Court ruling overturning convictions against two forest protesters. The conservationists were charged with obstructing a logging operation at Dingo Creek in East Gippsland, in south-east Victoria, in 2001. Justice Harper found the logging failed to comply with the forest code of practice and was unlawful. Pat Wilson from the Victorian Association of Forest Industries says the ruling could further reduce available timber resources. “Just to unilaterally remove it could also lock up another 40 per cent of regrowth that would mean no timber industry in East Gippsland. It is a complicated issue, it’s a vexed issue and it’s one that we’re endeavouring to work through so that the industry just doesn’t die from 1,000 cuts.” Meanwhile, a Melbourne University criminologist is questioning whether the Supreme Court ruling will have any significant impact on logging in East Gippsland. Dr Mark Halsey says similar decisions have been made in the past, but the Government changed the rules in response. But he says the Department of Sustainability and Environment will have to think carefully about future operations. “Clear-felling is still allowed and will be allowed – if you look at the coup scheduled for clear-felling over the next two, three or four years like in Ada block, for instance, they’re going to be clear-felling there and they’re going to be clear-felling mature and over mature areas and indeed areas of forest that the department labels themselves as containing unknown species,” he said. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200506/s1403185.htm

23) Charges against Mrs Barb Lynn by Forests NSW, arising from the Murrah Forest protest, were withdrawn in the Bega Local Court on Tuesday. Charges against another protestor, Mr Robert Bertram, were adjourned for eight weeks. Outside the court, Mrs Lynn said she believed harvesting practices were not being carried out correctly. “Dispersible soils wash into the waterways silting them up eventually reaching the lakes were it kills the ecology,’ she said. “Compartment 2032 where the logging was taking place in the Murrah Forest was the last area where koalas were found to be living by Forest NSW themselves. “Why then did Forest NSW go directly to that compartment and log it first? “I was one of the many people who believed that when the Regional Forest Agreement came into being it was great. “I thought everyone would be happy with it as everyone had been consulted and all had agreed. How naive was I?
http://bega.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&category=general%20news&story_id=405616&y=2005&m=7

India:

24) The forest cover in North East has disappeared at an alarming rate in the last two decades and as most of the primates are forest-dwellers, their survival depends upon continued existence of the forest, says noted environmentalist and an expert on primates, Anwarauddin Choudhury. Almost the entire population of primates — slow loris, pig-tailed macaque, rhesus macaque, stump-tailed macaque, capped langur and hoolock gibbon — have vanished from the 900 sq.km rainforest track comprising Nambor in Diphu and Rengma reserve forests in Golaghat district of Assam, he says. The cause of their disappearance has been attributed to Assam’s border problem with Nagaland and subsequent felling, poaching and encroachment, Choudhury adds. He points out that in the hilly areas throughout the North East, “jhum” or shifting cultivation, is an important factor for forest destruction. In Manipur, with a total area of 22,327 sq km, jhum currently covers more than 8.2% and even in hilly areas of Assam, the area under shifting cultivation is more than 2,600 sq km. “The destruction of forest is not only reducing the habitat and number of primates, but also results in fragmentation and species like slow loris and hoolock gibbon suffer the most,” he says. http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=95431

25) Forget the government security staff, the Saranda forest will be protected by the village committees. Harinarayan Rai, the state forest and environment minister informed this in the Assembly today following a question on illegal felling of trees raised by JD(U) member Radha Krishna Kishore. Karia Munda argued that the village committees protect the forest located close to their houses. Sizeable portions of the Saranda forest area were uninhabited. The village committees will be of no use there. “And, it is a fact that illegal felling of Sal trees, in particular, is rampant in the Saranda,” he added. At this Saryu Rai went arguing that the idea to protect the Saranda forest with the help of village committees was impractical, because as per the rules 90 per cent of the earnings from the forest products ought to be given to the village committees. There is no regular earning from the Saranda forest. Mines and geology minister Madhu Koda however argued that even the reserve forest areas are being guarded by the village committees. At this, Saryu Rai of BJP asked the government whether it had deployed territorial army and central paramilitary forces for the protection of Saranda forest or had such plans for future. But, the minister had no reply. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050629/asp/jamshedpur/story_4927881.asp
World-Wide:

26) Earth Negotiations Bulletin: The pace of negotiations slowed on the second day of the UN Conference on the Negotiation of the Successor Agreement to the International Tropical Timber Agreement, 1994 (ITTA, 1994), Third Part. In the morning and early afternoon, delegates met in two working groups. Working Group I (WGI) continued to address outstanding issues in Chapter I (Objectives) and Chapter III (Organization and Administration). Working Group II (WGII) attempted to reach agreement on bracketed text in Chapter VII (Operational Activities), Chapter IX (Statistics, Studies and Information), Chapter X (Miscellaneous), and Chapter XI (Final Provisions). In the afternoon, delegates gathered in a joint working group to decide on text to forward to the legal drafting committee. http://www.iisd.ca/vol24/enb2460e.html
http://www.iisd.ca