013OEC’s This Week in Trees

All the world’s forest call out to you through:
This Week in Trees.

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We need to do massive outreach and mobilization! Please forward your favorite news story from this edition of This Week in Trees to your friends and family. Tell them to subscribe to this list (send a blank e mailto:this-week-in-trees-subscribe@lists.riseup.net) and then start getting you and them active in your area. If this list and your efforts to save trees catches on fast enough we might make a huge difference in the future of this planet. Please, please help! Trees are so much more than we ever imagined, their fate is inextricably tied to our fate. We will succeed!
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013OEC’s This Week in Trees

This week 30 news stories from British Columbia, Oregon, California, Montana, Virginia, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Texas, England, South Africa, Mexico, Jamaica, Brazil, Australia, India, Borneo and Malaysia.

British Columbia:

1) When Premier Gordon Campbell re-established a Ministry of Environment this month, it was an admission that his government made a mistake when it did away with the department after winning the 2001 election. He has now appointed as minister, Barry Penner, a lawyer who was once a park ranger, in an apparent attempt to claim some environmental credibility. But that’s going to be a tough task given the way the Liberals have bungled almost everything to do with the environment, from allowing logging in the last habitat of the last spotted owls, to approving roads over the nesting grounds of rare turtles and expanding fish farming in the face of troubling evidence of sea-lice epidemics. Perhaps nobody personifies the Liberal government’s clumsy approach better than Bill Bennett, the Minister of State for Mining and MLA for East Kootenay, who thinks that the way to deal with a conflict between recreational snowmobilers and an endangered mountain caribou population is to kick the caribou out of the forest. In an e-mail he wrote after a meeting with 15 members of the Cranbrook Snowmobile Association, Mr. Bennett noted that one of the last herds of mountain caribou in southern British Columbia was blocking outdoor enthusiasts from a “play area” in the forest. “They are experienced people and know that the future of mountain caribou in this area is bleak, down to 14 animals,” Mr. Bennett wrote. “Frankly . . . I am prepared to state my position publicly that this herd is doomed and should either be moved or written off. Government should not be throwing good money after bad.” A similar attitude has led the government to refuse to halt logging in the last forested areas where the last spotted owls are found in Canada. Rather than acting to save the birds, the government keeps calling for more research, while the profitable logging continues apace. mhume@globeandmail.ca

2) Pat Brady met me in the bush, his coal black hair barely flecked with silver despite his 68 years, almost all of them spent as a trapper, horse wrangler, rodeo rider, rancher and outfitter. His saddle horses were tethered to a clump of trembling aspen, dark shadows against the silvery white trunks upstream from where Cypress Creek sings toward its confluence with the Halfway River. Droplets from a dawn rain still sparkled on the tips of leaves and the long grass blades drooped beneath their burden. One hundred years ago, 32 men and 60 horses of the North West Mounted Police left Fort Saskatchewan near Edmonton. Their daunting mission: Cut a trail through the largely uncharted wilderness from Fort St. John near the Alberta border all the way to Whitehorse in the Yukon. This amazing precursor to the Alaska Highway was planned when gold was discovered in the Klondike in 1897 and greedy Edmonton merchants promoted a route that eliminated passage through gang-run Skagway, Alaska, and over the Chilkoot Pass. As we rode, the sure-footed mountain mustang picking its way down steep slopes and across creeks, Brady pointed out old mileposts buried in moss, a bundle of tepee poles left by some long-forgotten native Indian family, bits of gear abandoned beside the trail, crushed grass where a moose calf had rested and where a bear had stripped a tree to get at the sweet sap. We crossed many game trails. Up ahead, Brady told me, was a buffalo jump where hunters stampeded bison. One foggy winter day the approach was icy and three people went over the cliff with their prey. “When I was a kid I found some old spearheads there. And bones,” Brady mused. He led me through a meadow where wildflowers grew belly-high, pointing to ancient native Indian burial mounds and the white crosses he’d put up himself so less discerning travellers might recognize the place. Who was buried there? He said that long ago he’d asked an elder — “a guy with a lot of power, eh, lot of power” — only to be told the graves were none of his business, and that he really didn’t want to know the details. “Everything,” he said. “Everything I need is right here.” Then he took me to look at what was really on his mind. Orange logger’s tape marked “skid road.” Timber cruisers’ numbers painted on old-growth trees so close to the trail I could lean out and touch them from my saddle. Skidder tracks hacked across the trail he’d so painstakingly restored and then left like eroding wounds in the earth itself. “They have no respect,” Brady said, leaning on his saddle horn. “They have no respect for the rivers. They have no respect for any of this. I don’t have any respect for them. “We’re in the south end of the Muskwa-Kechika,” he said. “They even got a nice big sign over there.” He gestured toward a distant fringe of trees. The Muskwa-Kechika is the special management zone spanning the northern Rockies where successive provincial governments have earnestly promised to preserve and protect the astonishingly rich wildlife, habitat and scenic values. shume@islandnet.com © The Vancouver Sun 2005

3) Mayor Dave Canfield wants to bring the Dryden model to Kenora. Canfield attended the town hall meeting Dryden held Tuesday night to discuss the state of the forest industry and was impressed with the turnout and the contents of the presentations. “It shows people are concerned. It shows that this is an issue that needs serious attention,” he said. The meeting attracted about 350 concerned citizens who were told about the problems the forest industry is facing. Canfield would like to invite Weyerhaeuser vice-president Norm Bush to make his presentation in Kenora and would also like to have representatives from other local mills and unions. A few things have to be done before a date is set for a public town hall meeting. First Canfield would need the approval of city council and second he would need to find a suitable venue. Canfield said the meeting would be an important tool for both the general public and those involved in the industry. “A lot of workers don’t really understand what the situation is,” the mayor said. The main push at the Dryden meeting was to encourage people to write to the provincial government and ask them to act on the issue. “If a big number of people in Northern Ontario write, I would hope Queen’s Park would wake-up,” Canfield said.
http://www.kenoradailyminerandnews.com/story.php?id=174117

4) Our videos and publications keep all of our members up to date on all of our current campaigns. It is a great way to keep up on what is happening.
Wild Spirit – Squamish Nation Wild Spirit Places
http://www.wildernesscommittee.org/campaigns/rainforest/lower_mainland/stoltmann_wilderness/reports/Vol24No06
Vancouver Island Conservation Vision
http://www.wildernesscommittee.org/campaigns/rainforest/island/walbran/reports/Vol24No05
Caribou Nation
http://www.wildernesscommittee.org/campaigns/species/forest/caribou/reports/Vol24No04
New Environmental Videos Now Online! Visit the website:
www.wildernesscommitteevictoria.org to watch the 3 new, short online environmental documentaries by independent filmmaker Jeremy Williams, produced for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. Each video is over 10 minutes long. You can access the videos in the “Photo Gallery” section, under “Videos”.

Washington state:

5) Is it real… or Weyerhaeuser? The rumors are true—the Weyerhaeuser Diversified Business Group is planning to market “embalmed” plants! A patented preservation process developed in Sweden gives plants a fresh, live look even though they’re actually dead. No more worries about watering, soil quality, light or pests, just plant ’em and forget ’em. The first plants were treated about eight years ago and still look fresh. Weyerhaeuser claims the chemicals used in the process are nonpoisonous. These “living dead” techno-wonders are coming soon to a mall near you. http://www.motherearthnews.com/top_articles/1987_July_August/Outer_Space_Vegetables

Oregon:

6) Two men were arrested as activists blocked the road leading to the Hobson timber sale for the second time in a week, the U.S. Forest Service said. Forest Service spokesman Tom Lavagnino said the activists piled logs and boulders early Wednesday, and one person chained himself to the logs. Work was not disrupted because logging-company employees were able to drive into the sale area on another road. “It’s going to be an irritant for us for a long time. We expect daily or every-other-day skirmishes,” Lavagnino said. Devan Bruce Peterson, 18, was taken to the Josephine County Jail and charged with interfering with an agricultural operation and disorderly conduct. Adam Troy Haner, 25, of Grants Pass, was arrested within a quarter-mile of the blockade in connection with outstanding warrants, Lavagnino said. Haner also is in the county jail. The Hobson sale is a Biscuit Fire salvage sale on old-growth reserves, covering 577 acres and 7 million board feet. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002395262_biscuit22m.html

7) The Northwest timber industry and its industrial foresters have never forgiven Dr. Jerry Franklin for methodically dismantling their cherished orthodoxy. Until the 1980s, industrial foresters were taught that old growth forests were “dead, dying and decadent.” Old growth forests were “biological deserts” that had to be cut down before they burned down and replaced by “healthy, vigorous young forests.” Clear cutting was an acceptable means of logging because “it imitated fire” and the “wood was utilized, not wasted.” In more than 30 years of painstaking, on-the-ground research — much of it conducted in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest east of Eugene in the Blue River Ranger District of the Willamette National Forest — Franklin, then working as a scientist for the U.S. Forest Service, began systematically demolishing the industrial foresters’ orthodoxy in the 1970s – 1980s, exposing it as a collection of myths to justify the liquidation of old growth forests. Franklin, now at the College of Natural Resources at the University of Washington, demonstrated that reforested clearcuts are the “biological deserts” — ecologically dumbed-down monocultures. Franklin and a host of colleagues demonstrated that artificial tree plantations are not forests. Franklin showed that clearcutting destroyed the structure of rotting wood on the forest floor that gave birth to new biologically diverse forests instead of sterile tree plantations. By 2000, the industry had organized a major, carefully targeted public relations campaign to restore their outdated orthodoxy. Much of the campaign is deliberately “under-the-radar.” The industry “message” — it is more honestly called propaganda — is pitched by direct mail, tours of carefully chosen “tree farms” by school children and other arranged tour groups, and speeches to groups considered sympathetic or gullible enough to accept the industry’s resurrected party line. This month, the industry campaign reached a new level. An op-ed piece was circulated to Oregon newspapers under the name of U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Oregon. Smith argues for his bill sweeping aside legal challenges to the industry plan to “rehabilitate” forests burned by the Biscuit Fire. The problem, of course, is the subterfuge the Bush administration uses to fund forest rehabilitation. The Forest Service is instructed by the grossly misnamed “Healthy Forests Restoration Act” to sell enough green timber to finance the thinning and restoration work. Only logging older trees will produce that kind of revenue.The U.S. Treasury banked billions of dollars during the last 50 years as the Forest Service joined private timber companies in liquidating old growth forests in compliance with the industrial foresters’ now discredited orthodoxy. Instead of treating this money like the liquidated capital assets they were, Congress squandered the money to pay the current operating costs of government — often unrelated to the management of the National Forests. Now it is time to reinvest some money in forest management and Congress wants to liquidate more capital assets to pay the bill. http://www.blueoregon.com/2005/07/real_healthy_fo.html

8) A new scientific analysis released by the Oregon Dept. of Forestry (ODF) that suggests that pressure from the 2003 Legislature in the form of a budget note, to boost logging in the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests to 250 million board feet, prompted cutting at a level of 30% higher than the forests can sustain and still protect wildlife. Despite this new scientific evidence which came as a result of a field study, the Oregon Legislature is at it again. Two budget notes are attached to the ODF budget to increase harvest levels in our state forests beyond what is scientifically determined to be sustainable. The harvest levels set by the Legislative budget notes are not sustainable and will cause long-term fiscal problems for both the state and the counties. The budget notes ignore new scientific evidence that show that current levels of timber harvests in our state forests cannot be sustained without sacrificing wildlife habitat. In the conservative Salem Statesman Journal, these legislative budget notes made the “Loser” column July 15, 2005: “Legislators seem to think that trees will grow faster just because Oregon needs cash and jobs. Lawmakers should let state foresters do their work based on sound timber-management principles.” We prefer scientific principles but agree that the budget notes are a loser. The arguments for increased logging usually fall along the line of increased jobs and revenue. But the truth is in the numbers. ODF increased logging by one third yet those thousand of new jobs failed to materialize. In the 2003 Legislative session in discussion over doubling timber harvests in the Tillamook and Clatsop, Howard Sohn, former Chair of the Board of Forestry and timber company owner said: ‘While higher state land harvests may yield some benefit to manufacturer and employment in the short run, the effect will not be large. In addition, too aggressive a harvest level will merely steal from the future.’ http://www.blueoregon.com/2005/07/timberrrr_legis.html

California:

9) U.S. forest officials have agreed to cut down a dozen or more pine trees at the foot of Mount Shasta to restore a historically wide-open meadow where American Indians gather to dance and pray. Coonrod Flat, about 12 miles southeast of the mountain’s summit, has always been a gathering point for the ceremonies of the Winnemem band of Wintu Indians. Participants face east to observe the sun rising, then turn toward the mountain while performing cultural dances. An unobstructed line of sight is important because Shasta has special alignment with Coonrod Flat and other sacred sites. But lately encroaching pine trees have blocked the view of the 14-thousand-foot volcano in Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The Forest Service has agreed to remove those trees as well as some trees east of the meadow to restore the sunrise to its original hour. http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=3631721

Montana:

10) Gov. Brian Schweitzer is tired of the rhetoric over the future of Montana’s nearly 6.4 million acres of roadless national forest land. He wants Montanans to roll up their sleeves and come up with site-specific suggestions for how those lands should be managed in the future. And he wants county commissions around the state to lend a hand in gathering that information. On Wednesday, he offered Missoula County commissioners a chance to step into the fray and help gather input from locals interested in offering specific proposals for management of those undeveloped national forest lands. A recently released Bush administration plan gives governors 18 months to submit ideas to the U.S. Forest Service on how roadless lands should be managed and whether they should remain in a wild, roadless state. The Bush plan was unveiled in May. It overturned a Clinton-era ban on logging and other development in roadless areas. Schweitzer plans to host a general meeting for commissioners from throughout the state in October to hear their proposals.
When it comes time for that to happen, Schweitzer was very clear that he wanted the comments to be “sparse on philosophy and theology and strong in science and geology. I want these to be as site specific as possible.” It’s time to get past the polarization that has occurred over management of roadless lands over the last 20 years, said Schweitzer. “We need to recognize that these lands are for multiple use,” he said. Those uses run the gamut from being the headwaters of vital waterways, harboring habitat important to a huge variety of fauna and flora to sustained timber management and being the stomping grounds for both hunters and fishermen. “We’re looking for balance,” he said. Jake Kreilick of the National Forest Protection Alliance said the Forest Service, under the Bush administration, is not responding to the groundswell of support of protecting roadless lands in many areas around the country. “There have been massive amounts of public input,” Kreilick said. “We think there is a bit of a tug of war – the Forest Service is the ultimate arbitrator and the Bush administration is in charge of the Forest Service. We hope that you’ll factor that in as we participate.” Susan Reneau of Missoula told Schweitzer that the final decision should be made by the people who “know the land day after day” – Forest Service professionals. “When it is all said and done, the final use of the public forestlands should rest in the hands of the scientists and researchers and not in the hands of the commercial developers or local politicians,” Reneau said.
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2005/07/21/news/local/news02.txt

Virginia:

11) An Oregon-based wood products manufacturer will either develop and oversee plans for harvesting timber in the town’s Big Cherry reservoir watershed, or it will sell a completed forest management plan to the town for not more than $10,000. After Lane outlined the statement’s details, Councilman Michael Mason verbally attacked Cole for having already signed it. Mason abstained from the May vote to hire Columbia and, along with Edward Hutchinson and Barbara Orndorff, has been skeptical of the company’s do-it-for-free offer. Mason accused Cole of overstepping his authority as mayor and trying to push through an agreement without council’s input. Lane attempted several times to explain, as he noted after the meeting, that no one from Columbia had even seen the third-draft statement yet. In other words, the document would have no legal weight until both parties sign it. But before Lane could make that point, Mason repeatedly interrupted him, saying Lane had nothing to apologize for. It was the mayor who did wrong by prematurely signing the document, he insisted. Hutchinson and Orndorff, who previously voted against hiring Columbia, shared Mason’s concern. Orndorff noted that she asked again and again in May if council would get to review a proposed contract with Columbia before it’s signed. Lane and Town Manager George Polly assured her that the contract will need council’s approval. http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1283&dept_id=158550&newsid=14889633&PAG=461&rfi=9

12) Surrounded by dark forest – where a new presidential policy has highlighted America’s federal roadless lands – a man-made meadow basks in the sunshine of Southwest Virginia. The trees have been cut down and grasses mowed, drawing turkeys, deer, hawks and hunters. On the ground are an old campfire and a spent shotgun shell. Nearby, a gravel road winds deep into the North Mountain Roadless Area in the Jefferson National Forest. Standing in the meadow recently, Forest Service ranger Nancy Ross talked about the ecological, economic and recreational advantages she expects from the Bush administration’s new roadless policy, which was adopted in May. . “It goes to the heart of our mission” of protecting the forest while promoting timber production and other uses, said Ross, who heads the New Castle Ranger District in the Jefferson National Forest. On Sinking Creek Mountain in the Jefferson National Forest, Dave Muhly of the Sierra Club recently walked through scrub brush covering a site logged two decades ago and again in recent years. A rainstorm made mud puddles in the bulldozer and skidder tread marks lacing the ground. Although the tract is not in a roadless area, he said logging done there typifies the threat to roadless areas. “It makes you wonder how nature got along before the Forest Service decided to ‘manage’ it,” Muhly said. “We didn’t get into this business to screw up nature,” said Al McPherson, an assistant recreation staff officer with the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests. “You can manage these [roadless] areas well without preventing all road building and timber harvesting.” “These areas aren’t being destroyed like God came down in one fell swoop,” said Steve Krichbaum of Wild Virginia, a statewide environmental group. “It’s a death of a 1,000 cuts.” http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke%5C28044.html

New Hampshire:

13) A record-high amount of timber taxes paid to Coos County this year — more than double last year’s revenues — is fueling concerns about heavy logging by new landowners in the North Country. At the same time, timberland owners and environmentalists have split over how to study the pace of logging in the region and the wood supply for industry — a dispute that spilled over into their fundraising. Jasen Stock, executive director of the New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association, cautioned that this year’s increase in timber taxes is due to higher wood prices and better marketing by new landowners. Also, because a lot of land was changing hands last year, harvesting in some areas was limited. “We now have markets that can take a spruce log down to 3 to 4 inches in diameter and sell that as a saw log … whereas before that might have just gotten thrown into a pulp mill,” The Forest Society wants to use available aerial photos and satellite images to examine the pace of timber harvesting in the North Country over the past few years. The Timberland Owners oppose that approach — and said so in a letter to prospective Forest Society donors. “Unfortunately, that is true,” Niebling told the Berlin Daily Sun last week. Instead, Dartmouth College will work with the Forest Society on an aerial study. Niebling was on vacation and could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Stock said Wednesday his group is wary of aerial photos because they require extensive, on-the-ground verification. “The problem with aerial photography and satellite imagery is it’s a snapshot,” he said. “Your imagery shows you a clearcut … but it doesn’t show you what was on the ground before the clearcut” or whether the clearcut was good forestry. http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050720/NEWS0201/107200159

Minnesota:

14) Gov. Tim Pawlenty has asked the Minnesota Forest Advisory Council to recommend how much roadless area to add to the state’s national forests. His request stems from an unprecedented Bush administration directive that allows governors to decide if national forests in their state should designate officially protected roadless areas. The council — composed of timber industry, academic, professional and conservation experts and appointed by the governor to chart state forest policy — will debate the issue next week but won’t make a formal recommendation until September or November, members said Thursday. “I think it will be clear to the staff next week that there’s really no support for the governor to do anything on this,” said Jan Green, a member of the Forest Resources Council representing conservation groups. “There’s support in Minnesota to see this land managed as wilderness, to keep it roadless. But this process won’t work… And I’m not going to go off on a crusade for something I already know the outcome to.” Wayne Brandt, a council member who represents the Minnesota Forest Industries trade group, said Pawlenty correctly decided to seek the council’s advice. But he believes there’s no need for more roadless area. Industry officials say adding more roadless area on top of the 1.1 million-acres Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness will restrict supply and raise the already high price that Minnesota mills pay for state trees. “Ultimately, I think we’ll tell him that there’s no need for more land in Minnesota where we don’t manage the forest” for timber harvest, Brandt said. In Minnesota, the issue boils down to about 62,000 acres on the Superior National Forest that are eligible for federal roadless protection. Other acres are either already criss-crossed with logging roads or are already protected, such as the BWCAW. http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/local/12194252.htm

Michigan:

15) The Pigeon River Country Forest makes up less than 2.7 percent, or about 105,000 acres, of Michigan’s 3.9 million acres of state forest. Nearly 8,700 acres were inventoried for the 2007 management plan. Timber-stand thinning is planned for 1,385 acres and clear-cuts for 83 acres. Grassy opening maintenance on 29 acres would include controlled burns and mowing back brush to keep the forest from reclaiming those areas, Pilon said. The places to be logged in 2007 are in Nunda and Forest townships in Cheboygan County and Corwith Township in Otsego County. Both DNR foresters and wildlife biologists will be at the open house to answer questions. Tim Flynn, a volunteer with the Mackinac Chapter of the Sierra Club, said he intends to share his comments in writing at the open house. He said many conservationists want to see the Pigeon River Country Forest truly returned to the status of Lower Michigan’s last “big wild” country. “People call it the Big Wild, but it’s not, really,” Flynn said. “There are roads everywhere and there’s logging and trees grown like a plantation, not a natural forest.” Flynn said more areas within the management unit should be protected from timbering and trees should be allowed to grow much older.
http://www.record-eagle.com/2005/jul/24logs.htm

Texas:

16) Congressional Task Force on Improving the National Environmental Policy Act heard local testimony on how NEPA has impacted the timber and timber products industries of East Texas. “We have considerable economic interest related to timber production on federal lands,” said W.I. Davis, representing Texas Farm Bureau. “The health and prosperity of many local communities and families rely on sound management practices of our natural resources. Private holdings are directly impacted by disease and pest conditions on adjacent federal lands.” Davis, who drew the task force’s attention to the “wilderness” which had grown up on nearby federal forest land, stifling the process of natural regrowth. Davis said he “urged” federal forest lands be allowed to adopt silvicultural measures to ensure healthy forests. “These sound management practices, which remove much of the dead timber before pest and disease can set in, reseed adequately to prevent trashy undergrowth and contribute greatly to healthy woodlands. Similar practices need to be quickly implemented on federal lands when conditions warrant. Unfortunately, the procedures in place under NEPA, and the willingness of some to further stifle the process, too often limit the opportunity to restore forest health in the best manner.” By reviewing the effects of how NEPA is implemented McMorris said the task force hoped to find ways to strengthen the law, not to detract from environmental protection nor public participation. The fourth NEPA hearing will be held on Saturday at Rio Rancho, N.M., according to McMorris. The final two hearings, one of which will be in a southeastern state, won’t take place until September, she said. The Congressional task force’s six-month time allowance will expire at the end of September, at which time McMorris said the group’s findings would be presented. http://www.lufkindailynews.com/news/content/news/stories/2005/07/24/20050724LDNnepa.html

England:

17) Campaigners trying to buy Wales’ largest ancient wood have said they have not given hope of restoring it, despite being outbid for the site. The Woodland Trust conservation group have been appealing to raise £1.5m to purchase Wentwood Forest near Newport in south Wales. But the trust said it had been told another bid was higher, and it could not afford a bidding war. Spokesman Rory Francis said it was “a big disappointment”. Around 12,000, including actress Dame Judi Dench, had pledged support for the campaign. The ancient wood, which covers 352 hectares (870 acres) is the largest left in Wales and is home to protected species. “Although it was mostly planted with conifers after the First World War, if you look carefully underneath, you will find all that assemblage of plants associated with ancient woodland. “We believe that if it has the right care, all of that ancient woodland flora and trees would come up again and it could be restored to something like a primeval forest. Announcing her support for the campaign, Dame Judi said it was the last chance to restore the forest to its former beauty. “It would be a national tragedy if the characteristics of this ancient site were lost forever so please help us by offering your support or making a pledge to our public appeal.” An ancient woodland is described as land which has been continuously wooded since 1600 AD in Wales and England or 1750 AD in Scotland. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/4706289.stm

South Africa:

18) Pushing the red earth down with her fingers, Maathai said: “You don’t need a degree or a diploma to plant a tree. There’s no magic about it – all of us should become foresters.”
“The tree is everything. Without the tree, we wouldn’t have rivers and we wouldn’t have rainfall and we wouldn’t have food and we wouldn’t live, because when we exhale carbon dioxide the trees take it and give us oxygen.” http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=14&click_id=14&art_id=vn20050722105614218C582095

Mexico:

19) Reyna Mojica saw her two boys shot to death just weeks ago, an attack she traces to a vendetta she says began in 1998 when her family helped block hundreds of logging trucks in Mexico’s Sierra Madre. They call themselves the Peasant Ecologists of the Petatlan Sierra and their fight to save a swath of forest near the Pacific coast is among the world’s most important struggles against deforestation, Greenpeace says.
The peasants have largely won. But they have paid dearly. After the month-long blockade, international lumber firm Boise Cascade canceled contracts for massive cutting operations in the Petatlan mountains, citing supply problems, and 15 logging permits were revoked. Since then at least a dozen peasant leaders have been targeted. Some have been arrested and jailed on what are widely seen as bogus charges engineered by political and economic interests profiting from logging. Others have gone into hiding and some have been killed. “This has cost so much; it has cost lives,” said ecologist Eva Alarcon in the mountaintop hamlet Banco Nuevo. “People are on the lookout day and night. These men don’t sleep at home.” While much of the logging has stopped, violence and acrimony still flare largely, locals say, because the activists represent a continuing challenge to the local power structure of landowners and the court, military and police officials allied to them. The results of that power clash are chilling. One night in May, Mojica watched from her dirt-floor kitchen as her husband and four children arrived in their truck. Suddenly, gunshots exploded and she ran outside. “I was yelling, ‘Don’t shoot, my children are out there, my children are out there,'” she said later. Two sons died, aged 9 and 20, the elder leaving a pregnant widow. Mojica’s younger boy died in her arms. Rights groups say her husband, ecologist Albertano Penaloza, who was injured, was targeted for his activism. No one has been arrested. Nonetheless, Mojica and her neighbors keep defending the forest. Their fight is a textbook study of how grass-roots activism meets stone-hard repression in Mexico’s countryside. “The struggle is not just for us and our family, it is for everyone,” Mojica said quietly. “I think it is worthwhile.”
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N20157524.htm

Jamaica:

20) The demand for prime Jamaican lumber is strong, but production is falling well below par, according to Keats Hall, Managing Director of The Forest Conservancy, which has spearheaded the establishment of the Jamaica Tree Growers Association. The tourist industry, in particular, has declared a strong preference for Jamaican lumber but demand far outstrips production. “We want to focus on timber production for profit, based on high value species like Teak and Mahogany” Mr. Hall commented. “Teak is the world’s most prized species of wood and the countries which have traditionally produced it – countries like India, Burma, Malaysia and Thailand – are running out of supplies from their natural forests, and reforestation in those countries has not kept pace with demand. The fact is that natural forests are being depleted worldwide, hence there is a resurgence of reforestation projects internationally. We have to take that trend into consideration for management of our forest land. http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/Business/html/20050721T200000-0500_84571_OBS_BIG_BUSINESS_
OPPORTUNITIES_IN_TIMBER.asp

Brazil:

21) Amazon Basin papers presented at Conservation Biology conference in Brazil Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology July 21, 2005 Earlier this week nearly 2,000 of the world’s leading environmental scientists of various disciplines met in Brasilia to present papers at the 19th Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology. The conference featured more than 750 oral presentations and 965 scientific abstracts. The Amazon is entering an era of rapid change as new transportation corridors traverse the region, stimulating the expansion of logging and agricultural frontiers. The declining cost of transportation has important implications for biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, and the long-term prosperity of the Amazon society. To analyze this context, we have developed an empiricallybased, policy-sensitive model of deforestation for the Amazon basin. Model output for the worst-case (business-as-usual) scenario shows that, by 2050, projected deforestation trends will eliminate 40% of the current 5.4 million km2 of Amazon forests, releasing approximately 16 Pg (109 tons) of carbon to the atmosphere. Conversely, under a governance scenario, 4.5 million km2 of forest would remain in 2050, which is 83% of the current extent. Results from intermediate-case scenarios indicate that, although an expanded and enforced network of protected areas could avoid as much as one third of projected forest losses, other conservation measures are still required to maintain the ecological integrity of Amazon landscapes and watersheds. Current experiments in forest conservation on private properties, markets for ecosystem services, and agro-ecological zoning must be refined and implemented to achieve comprehensive conservation. http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0721-cbc_amazon.html

22) The nearly 2,000 environmental scientists and their students meeting here in Brasilia this week invited one smallish Kayapó Indian to address them and his 20-minute talk moved this scientific gathering. At least it seemed that way given the reaction his speech in simple but forceful Kayapó-accented Portuguese sentences provoked around the halls and meeting rooms of Brasilia University where this meeting is taking place. Megaron Txucarramae is a smallish man in physical stature but a very large man in the life of his tribe. About 6,000 Kayapó live on their 10 million hectare reserve which stretches from south Para into north Mato Grosso. The Kayapó fought their way–sometimes literally as well a figuratively–to recognition of their tribal lands from a reluctant Brazilian government in a twenty-year struggle which started shortly after Brazilian indigenist Francisco Meireles first established regular, peaceful contact with them under the aegis of the old Brazilian Indian Protection Service(SPI), the Brazilian service that preceded the present-day National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI). Txucarramae‘s talk had a particularly strong resonance for this reporter as I had spent almost a year in the Amazon on SPI treks to establish friendly relations among warring tribes in the northern reaches of what is now the Kayapó Reservation. The Kayapó are a tribe with a long and strong warrior tradition and a deep-rooted battle ethic attributes which have stood them in good stead in the past as they resisted incursions on their lands and which they will likely need as they face their future. http://www.gringoes.com/articles.asp?ID_Noticia=857
Australia:

23) BoB Brown faces a showdown with the Federal Government over his attempt to stop logging in an East Coast forest. The Commonwealth is considering whether to become involved in a Federal Court bid by the Australian Greens senator to stop logging in the Wielangta forest near Maria Island. Senator Brown says the area is a hot spot of rare and threatened species including the wedge-tailed eagle, the wielangta stag beetle, the swift parrot and the tiger quoll. It was revealed during a preliminary hearing of the case in Hobart yesterday that the Commonwealth was considering intervening. Federal Forestry Minister Ian Macdonald earlier this year described Senator Brown’s action to stop Forestry Tasmania’s operation as a “stunt”. Outside court, Senator Brown said Senator Macdonald now appeared to think the case was relevant after all. “I am trying to ensure the intent of the Howard Government’s own Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act,” Senator Brown said. “If the Government intervenes it should be on the side of the Wielangta forest and its creatures, not the woodchippers.” He said the legal challenge would have significant ramifications for the application of the Regional Forests Agreement in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia. Senator Macdonald said yesterday he would decide whether to intervene in the case in the next week or so. He said he thought the only way the Commonwealth would become involved in the case was if the validity of the Regional Forests Agreement was challenged. Forestry Tasmania has already agreed to stop roadworks and logging in one Wielangta coupe until the end of the year. Also yesterday Forestry Tasmania agreed to hand over information relating to logging coupe boundaries, vegetation types, threatened species and their management and reserves to Senator Brown and his lawyers. Forestry agreed to pass on the information under the strict condition that only those involved in the case would see it. The case is due to return to court for a directions hearing on August 23. The main hearing is due to begin on October 17. http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,15986192%255E3462,00.html

24) The harvesting of trees from State Forests in the region is a process that has been under intense attack from protest groups in the past two months. Logging was stopped in the Murrah and Cuttagee catchments (see story on Page 7) but other operations negotiated under the NSW Regional Forest Agreement will continue. There is much concern among the community and protestors about the pending logging of Compartment 3046 in Bodalla State Forest near Tilba and Gulaga (Mt Dromedary). But of all the land uses going on along the far south coast – from farming to urban development – forestry operations are the most regulated of them all. The sawlogs will be processed at mills in Eden, Narooma and Ulladulla. The ratio of sawlogs to pulpwood is expected to be around three to one with most of the pulpwood comprising the heads and butts of trees felled for sawlogs. The area was most recently harvested in the mid 1980s. http://narooma.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&category=general%20news&story_id=4103
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25) A PLAN to seek permanent reservation status for State Forest lands within the Cuttagee Murrah catchments and more scientific analysis of the remnant koala population are just two outcomes decided upon by a group of local people. Jack Miller, of Bermagui, said that at a meeting among local residents on Tuesday July 5, a plan was formulated in a bid to better protect the Cuttagee Murrah catchments. Mr Miller said it was also agreed there is an urgent need to improve management in local forests. “Although difficulties exist in negotiating changes to the south east NSW Regional Forest Agreement with the NSW government, the Victorian Government’s recent decision to re-set some Victorian RFAs, for example Otways, provides a good precedent,” he said. The group wants to see a short term strategy on the “moratorium” on logging in the catchments and a long term strategy to phase out intensive woodchip logging in local coastal forests. The group will also press for continued community consultation with Forests NSW and it also hopes to ensure that the Department of Environment Conservation and Forests NSW prepare and implement an adequate recovery plan for remnant koalas in local forests. Mr Miller said the local residents want to see more investigation into native forest woodchip quotas and economics to provide forestry policy options other than those currently favoured by the State and Federal Governments. http://narooma.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&category=general%20news&story_id=4103
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26) Tasmania boss Evan Rolley will not be reprimanded by Forests Minister Bryan Green for sending an overtly political memo to his staff. Mr Green said yesterday Mr Rolley’s controversial email to staff urging them to contact Japanese woodpulp buyer Nippon Paper was an “operational” matter. Mr Rolley emailed all 850 employees of Forestry Tasmania last week suggesting they urgently, but privately, express their support for Tasmania’s logging of native forests to Nippon. “But what Evan Rolley said was factually correct,” Mr Green said yesterday. “He is not a public servant, his employees are not public servants, and Forestry Tasmania is a business enterprise, so he is quite justified in talking about issues that commercially affect his business.” Mr Rolley’s unrepentant defence of his memo so angered the whistleblower who exposed its contents, that he leaked more damaging details yesterday. These showed Mr Rolley also sent copies of his email to Premier Paul Lennon, Forests Minister Bryan Green, Forest Industries Association of Tasmania chief Terry Edwards, Timber Communities Tasmania CEO Barry Chipman, and Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry boss Damon Thomas. “With a list like this that he dispatched copies of the email to, how could Evan Rolley claim it was about business and not politics,” an angry Greens leader, Pegg Putt, said yesterday. “It is so clear that this letter was a political campaigning manoeuvre and nothing else.” Michael Stokes, a constitutional and administrative law expert at the University of Tasmania, agreed the Rolley email was political. http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,15996196%255E3462,00.html

27) Greens MP Lee Rhiannon is calling on New South Wales police to lay charges against people who allegedly bashed anti-logging protesters in the state’s south. Ms Rhiannon says three men have been hospitalised after being attacked in the Wandella State Forest near Bega over the weekend. She says the police are not treating this matter with the seriousness it deserves. “Some of the loggers cut down trees in front of their cars there and then behind their cars so that they were trapped there and it was at that point they were bashed and that they have had a number of injuries,” she said. Ms Rhiannon says she will raise the matter with the Transport Minister and the Police Commissioner today. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s1421308.htm
India:

28) Orissa is losing forests at an alarming rate as per the latest findings of the Forest Survey of India (FSI). According to the survey, the state has lost an amazing 472 sq.kms of forest cover during the two year period of 2002 and 2003. This has belied the expectations of nature lovers since the state has officially banned green felling in the forests since more than 10 years which should have resulted in growth in forest cover. The state’s forests are now threatened due to a variety of causes including timber smuggling, rampant mining , unplanned industrialization and uncontrolled goat and cattle grazing. However, illegal timber felling and smuggling is the single most important reason for the decline in forest cover. The state government is unable to combat the well organized and heavily armed forest mafia who have a virtually free run of the state’s dense forests. Timber smugglers are very active throughout the state and have been regularly decimating the dense forests of Satkosia, Keonjhar, Balliguda, Rayagada, Athmalik,Boudh, Simlipal, Baisapalli, Pallahara, Bonai, Dhenkanal areas. Due to strong demand from cities like Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Angul, Sambalpur, Balasore, Berhampur, Rourkela, there is a well organized racket in felling of prime timber trees in the forest areas of the state. Timber smuggling apart, Orissa’s forests are threatened by rampant mining and industrialization in forest areas which has caused severe loss of forests. Uncontrolled goat and cattle grazing in reserve forest areas has also lead to lack of regeneration of forest cover. http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?storyflag=y&leftnm=lmnu2&leftindx=2&lselect=1&chklogin
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Borneo:

29) Lingering beside a small stream in the Malaysian rainforest of Sabah, on the island of Borneo, I watch the water move swiftly over worn, round stones. The pace of the flow quickens as the stream cascades over a short falls into a clear pool. Vibrantly colored butterflies in shades of yellow, orange, and green flirt with columns of light that penetrate the dense canopy. The raucous calls of hornbills challenge the melodic drone of cicadas. Though the forest is never silent or still it brings a deep sense of calm. I sit with my feet in the cool water, picking over my clothes in search of leaf leaches, who seek a feeding opportunity in every crease of material. As I remove these brightly hued creatures, I am content to watch a lone male orangutan silently make his way through the branches above the stream. The idyllic setting and the company of my red bearded simian companion provide the perfect end to my half day trek. I have long had a fascination with the natural world and its creatures but the idea for this book arose out of deep sadness. Eight weeks after leaving that tract of Malaysian rainforest that had filled me with happiness, I learned the forest was gone. Logged for wood chips to supply a paper pulp plant, this place of natural wonder and beauty was lost forever. The orangutan, the hornbills, the butterflies, and even the leaches would now have to make do in their now dramatically changed environment. Despite my few years in the forest, this was not the first time I had lost such a special place, nor would it be the last. These personal losses have long troubled me, but the loss of that small section of forest in Borneo created the urgency to act upon a thought that had been nagging me. While environmental losses and degradation of the rainforests have yet to reach the point of collapse, the continuing disappearance of wildlands and loss of its species is disheartening. I feel sorrow for those who have yet had the privilege to experience the magnificence of these places and try to picture how – should biodiversity losses continue to mount – I will explain to my grandchildren why these places of natural wonder that I enjoyed in my youth no longer exist. http://www.mongabay.com/preface.htm

Malaysia:

30) The 26,000ha Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary in Sabah, billed as Malaysia’s “Gift to Earth”, is facing massive destruction. In the last four years alone, 20% of the 100-million-year-old forest has been estimated to have been cleared, threatening endangered animal species like the Borneo pygmy elephants, orang utans, proboscis monkeys and hornbills. The sanctuary, which is said to be older than the Amazon forest in South America, was pledged as the country’s “Gift to Earth” by former Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Osu Sukam in 1999. The only indication that the promise to protect the area would be fulfilled was the gazetting of the area as a bird sanctuary under the State Land Ordinance in 2002. This puts the area under the purview of the district office and not the Sabah Wildlife Department, which can only manage the sanctuary once the government includes it in the Wildlife Conservation Enactment. A visit by The Star to Sukau and Bilit in Lower Kinabatangan revealed illegal logging and indiscriminate land-clearing in the area, with selective illegal extraction of timber species like the Keruing and Kapur. The timber from the felled trees were believed to have been sawn into planks on site and transported out by river under the guise of fallen timber. The Star came across herds of elephants by the riverbank every day, signalling that their habitat inland was being depleted. Tour guide Abdul Karim Abdul Hamid said he had never seen the elephants coming “into our backyards when I was a child… But today, the elephants are coming into our orchards and farms, destroying everything that we own. We are the ones who have forced these animals out by clearing the forest they call home,” he added. “Now, we are sitting by the river, menggigit jari (biting our fingers) waiting for the government to protect our sanctuary.” http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/7/25/nation/11577886&sec=nation