015OEC’s This Week in Trees

This week we have 34 stories from British Columbia, Washington, Oregon,
California, Montana, Utah, New York, Louisiana, Ohio, European Union,
Greece, Uganda, Afghanistan, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, India,
Malaysia, World-wide..

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British Columbia:

1) Melvin Creek Valley and the adjoining Lost Valley, which are the last
two untouched watersheds in the Cayoosh mountain range, form the green
heart of the Cayoosh and provide critical low and mid-elevation forested
wildlife habitat for a wide range of species. This area is very popular
and well-used by hikers, climbers and ski tourers. The alpine and
subalpine in the vicinity are some of the most accessible areas within
weekend range of Vancouver’s Lower Mainland. However, things are
starting to heat up again in Melvin Creek. The St’at’imc Nation recently
learned that NGR Resort Consultants Inc (a consulting company that is
owned by Nancy Greene and her partner Al Raine) has applied to the
provincal government for an extension of an Environmental Assessment Act
certificate given to them in 2000 as the original permit is expiring on
August 14. The original certificate gave Nancy Greene and Al Raine the
rights to develop a $500-million all-season ski and recreation resort,
with an upper and lower village, a 12 km access road to the upper
village, 14 lifts, a conference centre, skiing, hiking, horseback
riding, and as many as 12,000 daily visitors with accommodation for
14,000 (2,000 for staff). Back in those days the government’s own
Environment Ministry initially advised against any development in the
Cayoosh and Melvin Creek watersheds, citing high wildlife values,
especially grizzly bear and mountain goat habitat. As a result of Greene
and Raine’s application for an extention, the St’at’imc and the Union of
BC Indian Chiefs reaffirmed their strong opposition to the development
of the Melvin Creek watershed at a press conference on Wednesday. “We
are the rightful owners of our territory and everything pertaining
thereto, at no time have we ever deserted it or left it to others.”
http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/News_Releases/UBCICNews07270501.htm

2) The Carrier Sekani Tribal Council has sent a letter to Enbridge
Pipelines Inc. requesting they stop all preliminary studies on their
land until the parties sign a statement of understanding. Enbridge is
one of two companies examining the possibility of creating a gas
pipeline from Edmonton to Prince Rupert or Kitimat to supply oil tankers
heading to China. The proposed $3.6 billion project would go through
Bear Lake and Burns Lake, and just south of Fort St. James, Tumbler
Ridge and Houston. The dual pipeline route, released by Enbridge earlier
this week, can be viewed online at www.enbridge.com/gateway. Water
quality and ecologies are a major concern already, he said. The tribal
council has been involved in conservation projects to try to increase
populations of sturgeon and salmon in the Nechako, Fraser and other
rivers systems. Cutting timber to clear a path for the pipeline could
result in erosion and flooding, he added, which could cause further
damage to already sensitive fish stocks. It is important that all eight
First Nations in the council stick together and speak with a single
voice, Pierre said. –Prince George Free Press

3) At 21 million acres, the Great Bear represents 25 percent of the
world’s remaining coastal temperate rainforests. It is a haven for
wolves and grizzly bears, and the rivers and streams here sustain an
estimated 3,000 genetically distinct salmon stocks. Following the
conclusion of negotiations with First Nations, historic land use
agreements in British Columbia could ultimately provide full protection
for as much as 30 percent of the Great Bear Rainforest’s 21 million
acres and establish strict ecosystem-based management practices for the
entire rainforest. At the request of the Rainforest Solutions Project
and the foundations, the Conservancy has also agreed to lead a two-year
fundraising initiative to help raise $60 million Canadian dollars ($56
million U.S.) to support this historic opportunity to protect the Great
Bear.
http://nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/canada/work/art14771.html
Washington:

4) Right now, large ponderosa pines and Douglas-firs are being felled
and hauled away on the Wenatchee National Forest near the town of
Leavenworth, Washington in the east Cascades. Not since 1996 Salvage
Rider have I witnessed such a large-scale old forest logging project in
Washington like the Fischer Fire Salvage Project. This timber sale
allows for logging across 2,500 acres and plans to “salvage” burned
trees up to 40” in diameter to generate 20 million board feet of timber,
enough to fill 4,000 log trucks. Jasmine Minbashian, Conservation
Director Cascadia Wildlands Project, North Cascades Field Office…
Bellingham, WA 98227 www.cascwild.org
ALSO: September 2-5th, 2005 Eco – Defense Rendezvous Camp with us along
the Wenatchee River! Rainforest Action Network – Greenpeace – Earth
First! Stop the Rollin Rock! Join us in a forest east of the Cascades
for labor day weekend! http://www.cascadiarising.org UPDATE: Judge
Edward F. Shea issued a temporary restraining order Thursday to stop
the Rollin Rock logging project. A hearing has been set for Aug. 25 to
determine whether the injunction should be made permanent. Three logging
projects were sold in the fire area. Two of the projects, which total
9.9 million board-feet of timber, started earlier this summer and are
nearly complete. Those two sales were granted emergency protection by
the Forest Service and could not be stopped by administrative appeal.
The logging project “gives big old trees to the timber industry and
leaves behind a wasteland of logging slash and brush that fuel wildfires
— placing old-growth forests and local communities in harms’ way,” said
Regan Smith of the Bellingham-based Conservation Northwest in a prepared
statement.

5) A bog had caught his interest.Dropping to his knees, Briggs plunged
his right arm into the black peat. He kept going, past his elbow,
reaching as deep as he could. Muscling out a fistful of black goo,
Briggs said, “You know what this will do in your garden?” The teachable
moment was just one messy example of the enthusiasm that helped Briggs
save this old forest, which looms over Twin Lakes at Naval Radio Station
Jim Creek several miles east of Arlington. The 57-year-old forester just
received an honor as rare as the massive Sitka spruces that guard the
lakes’ boggy shores. The Navy has named this 225-acre stand the Walter
R. Briggs Old Growth Forest. The reason is Briggs’ exceptional
dedication to preserving this forest. He worked for 15 years to persuade
paper companies to spare the stand in 1993. He leaned on top brass in
the Navy to fork over $3 million, winning them over with guided tours
that included soggy hikes through beaver marshes. Whether he was
stepping into the pond up to his waist or delicately pointing out a tiny
saxifrage flower, Briggs’ enthusiasm was contagious during a visit
Friday. Although the Poulsbo-based forester is in charge of 15,000 acres
of Navy timberland across nine western states, none is as special as the
stand at Twin Lakes, he said. Leading the way to one particularly
enormous Sitka spruce, he said the tree probably was 800 years old,
growing out of a nurse log that was at least 200 years older. “You’re
looking at 1066, the Norman conquest of England, King Arthur and the
boys,” he said. Most lowland stands of huge, old Sitka spruce have been
logged or protected in places such as Olympic National Park. He said he
was touched by the honor. “I’m not dead, and I didn’t have to be
president, and I get this extremely pleasant forest named after me,” he
said, grinning. It can come in handy, too. Occasionally, people try to
wander into a part of the stand he has set aside for wildlife and bird
nesting habitat. If they challenge him, he’s got a ready answer. “Now I
can say, ‘It’s my forest,’ ” he joked.
http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/05/07/30/100loc_forest001.cfm

6) The old-growth forests left on state lands in Western Washington —
as much as 88,435 acres — would be protected from logging under a
decision voiced by state Board of Natural Resources members Friday. If
all of the land qualifies as old-growth, it would represent about 6
percent of state forestland in Western Washington.
http://www.theolympian.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005507300339
Olympic Forest Coalition, is a watchdog group that works on federal and
state land on the Olympic Peninsula. The link below gets you to the
entire DNR report. The maps are especially interesting because you get
to see where the remaining OG is–primarily in Clallam and Jefferson
County, primarily on the Olympic Experimental State Forest (west end of
the Peninsula). This is where they say they may log OG for research
reasons. Having attended a field trip with the Board of Natural
Resources and DNR staff last summer, I think I already know what they
have in mind and it ain’t pretty. This is also the area where, although
the cut level under their “Sustainable Harvest Calculation” has gone up
about 30% throughout eastern WA, on the Peninsula (exempting Mason Co.)
the cut level is going from 50 million board feet to 129 million board
feet as the decadal average. One of the distressing things about this
report is that the state leg. told DNR to do an inventory of OG
statewide, but they have not included eastern WA forests in this and
have deferred for two years. I’m sure, will be commenting for the
record. Bonnie Phillips, Chair, Olympic Forest Coalition
http://www.dnr.wa.gov/htdocs/adm/comm/nr05_089.htm

7) Should Washington’s timber industry get a 50-year break from
Endangered Species Act prosecutions in exchange for helping salmon? When
federal wildlife officials asked the public that question, they got an
earful — attacks, encouragement, cuss words, purple prose, thoughtful
analysis, virulent screeds — even a guy who said the whole deal makes
him feel as if his family is “being fed to the wolves.” At issue is a
proposed 50-year agreement that would be the largest such Endangered
Species Act exemption in the West, covering one-fifth of Washington and
most of its private timberland. To get the immunity from prosecution for
harming endangered species, timber companies are being required to leave
trees standing in strips alongside larger streams, fix roads that slough
off stream-smothering dirt in rainstorms and repair roads and bridges
that will open up stretches of streams where salmon have long been
blocked from spawning. Known as a “habitat conservation plan,” the pact
was worked out among state and federal officials, the timber industry
and some Indian tribes. It is the biggest overhaul of Washington’s
forestry rules in years. The deal, touted in a television ad by the
timber industry, drew more than 750 faxes, e-mails and letters before
the May 12 deadline. Those opposed or with serious concerns slightly
outnumbered supporters. And the man who speaks of his family being
thrown to the wolves? That would be Jim McGirk, who lives in a wooded
area north of Spokane and said in an interview he mourns forests he’s
seen cut. “I shudder to think of what they would do in just one year,
let alone 50 years. My family feels like we are being fed to the
wolves,” wrote McGirk, 54, an industrial-laundry manager. “Please take
all things into consideration before making such an important and
lasting decision.”
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/233776_enviro23.html

Oregon:

8) The Community Forest Authority bill, the brainchild of Rep. Chuck
Burley, R-Bend, was passed by the state assembly in June and signed into
law on July 14 by Gov. Ted Kulongoski. The nonprofit Deschutes Basin
Land Trust announced its intent to form a community forest and acquire
the former Bull Springs Tree Nursery, a 31,000-acre property. As a
community forest, the land would not face the pressure to subdivide and
develop that is altering the landscape of Central Oregon. Instead, it
would continue to generate wood products and forest-related employment,
plus offer recreation, educational opportunities, sweeping vistas and
wildlife habitat. (07/29/05) Bend Bulletin
http://www.bendbulletin.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=17000

9) A federal magistrate recommended Friday that environmentalists’
attempts to stop salvage logging in old growth forest reserves and
roadless areas burned by the 2002 Biscuit Fire be dismissed. Logging has
already proceeded in old growth reserves, but if the recommendations by
U.S. Magistrate John Cooney in Medford are ratified by a federal judge,
it could open up logging of hundreds of millions of board feet of burned
timber in roadless areas on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.
“We are disappointed but still hopeful that we will still prevail in the
courts,” said Rolf Skar of the Siskiyou Project, an environmental
organization. “It’s not over yet,” he said. “We hate to see logging
ongoing before the case can be settled. It’s the wrong kind of logging
in the wrong place at the wrong time. More than half of the 370 million
board feet of burned timber slated for harvest on the Biscuit fire is in
roadless areas, and has yet to be offered for sale. the value of the
timber is in doubt, after rotting on the stump for three years. Demand
for the sales already offered has been low. The Forest Service has yet
to say whether it will even offer the roadless timber for sale.
Telephone calls Friday to Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest spokesmen
were not immediately returned.
http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-11/112
26806118620.xml&storylist=orlocal

California

10) A largely unmanaged forest in Mexico holds lessons for improving the
health of California wildlands, according to University of California,
Berkeley fire science professor Scott Stephens. His twice yearly
research expeditions to the unspoiled Sierra de San Pedro Martir have
convinced him that the forest management plans in California should be
revised to improve the ecosystem’s resilience to insects, diseases,
drought and catastrophic fires. For seven years, Stephens has studied
the Jeffrey Pine-mixed conifer forests in the mountainous national park
of Baja California, named after the Christian martyr St. Peter. The
mountain range is connected to the Laguna and San Jacinto Mountains of
southwest California. The flora and fauna are similar to Southern
California and eastern Sierra Nevada forests. The greatest difference is
the time of the forests’ fire seasons. The majority of fires occur in
summer in the Mexican forests, but fires are more common in California
forests in the late summer and fall.”When you are over there, with all
the familiar shrubs and soils and trees, sometimes you have to remind
yourself you’re in Mexico,” Stephens said. A large portion of the
100,000-acre Mexican forest has never been harvested and has survived
through centuries of natural fire cycles, making it a living example of
what many California forests would be without the exploitive logging
practices of earlier generations, fragmentation by development and
disruption of natural fire cycles.Until 1970, there was no fire
suppression at all in the Sierra de San Pedro Martir. Today, only eight
people are assigned to put out blazes by going in when smoke is spotted
and cutting a line around the fire. In contrast, most California forest
fires are managed aggressively with armies of firefighters,
sophisticated equipment, helicopters and air tankers. Vacation homes,
developed camp grounds, lavish lodges, museums and shopping centers are
not to be found in Mexico’s Martir. Another influence on current
California forest ecosystem is historical timber harvesting practices.
Some 125 years ago, California and Nevada pioneers began logging the
eastern Sierra Nevada and the San Jacinto, San Bernardino and Laguna
mountains for mining and development.
http://newswire.ascribe.org/cgibin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20050730.201140&t
ime=07%2022%20PDT&year=2005&public=0

11) A bill that protects about 300,000 acres of Northern California
wilderness–approximately 100,000 of them in Mendocino County–passed
unanimously in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday. The Northern California
Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act would also designate 21 miles of
river Wild and Scenic. This bill (SB 128) ensures that some of Northern
Californias most treasured wild places will remain wild, said California
Senator Barbara Boxer, who introduced the legislation in January of this
year and co-sponsored it with Senator Diane Feinstein. Two weeks ago,
Willits Mayor Tami Jorgensen joined Mendocino County Supervisor Jim
Wattenburger, David and Ellen Drell of the Willits Environmental Center,
and at least 19 other local officials and citizens lobbying for the bill
in the House of Representatives. This doesnt take any private property
and put it into the public system, stressed Wattenburger, who joined
Thompson and Del Norte County Supervisor Marsha McClure in testifying
for the bill at the July 14 hearing of the Subcommittee on Forests and
Forest Health. It was already public land and the vast majority was
already designated Wilderness Study Area. That fact did not prevent
Chuck Blackburn, representing the majority on the Del Norte board of
supervisors, from testifying against the bill. He asked that the
wilderness area boundaries be redrawn to exclude his county, calling the
new designation a threat to fire safety and local industries, which
include logging.
http://www.willitsnews.com/Stories/0,1413,253~26908~2987329,00.html

12) Ventura — Two more oak trees were added this month to the 20
planted in open space since early 2004 and no one knows who put them
there, according to Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District officials
who named him simply The Mystery Tree Planter. “A decision was made
basically to sit on it and watch it,” said Mike Enge, the district’s
senior grounds maintenance supervisor. “Possibly someone will see
somebody.” The Mystery Tree Planter first struck in January 2004, when
15 valley, coastal live and holly oaks suddenly appeared in an open area
in Medea Creek Park. Park District officials went door-to-door in the
neighborhood bordering the planting site in an effort to find out who
was planting the trees. The Mystery Tree Planter must have had shovels,
rakes, buckets and stakes besides the 15-gallon trees, Enge said. “Medea
Creek is a very active recreation trail area,” he said. “I seriously
doubt that somebody’s doing it at night with lanterns.” But no one
reported seeing anything. The Mystery Tree Planter didn’t strike again
until April, when three trees were planted along Oak Hills Drive about a
half-mile from the earlier plantings. Two more showed up this month. “We
want to talk to him and give him some recognition,” Enge said. “We’re
not looking at punishment. We all want more trees.” Associated Press–

13) Managed by Strawberry Valley-based Soper-Wheeler Co., the
Brownsville forest thinning project is one of 33 such undertakings
statewide. Together, the projects amount to 1,159 acres of thinned
forest. Prior to thinning, about 400 trees covered each acre. Now, the
thinned areas average 75 trees per acre. Had landowners tried to thin
that acreage before the new rule, they would have had to write thick
harvest plans that generally cost $30,000 each. “There’s a great layer
of bureaucracy in cutting down a tree. But Sacramento has started to
turn around and let professionals do their jobs,” said Pete Hammontre,
chairman of the Dobbins/Oregon House Fire Protection District and member
of the Yuba County FireSafe Council. The new rule streamlined the
processes, allowing landowners to file four-page plans rather than books
detailing their intentions. In taking advantage of the rule, landowners
agree not to fell trees larger than 26 inches in diameter. The thinned
area must retain 50 percent canopy closure. Though the new rule met
little resistance, opposition does exist. Citizens for Responsible
Forest Management say the rule makes timber companies appear as though
they are acting in the benefit of the community. According to the group,
the rule relaxes regulations to allow timber companies to make a buck on
trees.
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/2005/07/31/news/top_story/news1.
txt

14) A Call came from the Mattole Forest Defenders to me at about 11am
reporting that there are Bulldozers, Loggers, and Sherrifs at the
Mattole Tree-sit. These trees are occupied by several of the forest
defenders who are reportedly out on traverse lines between the trees to
protect the village. Extraction of someone on a traverse line would be
an extremely dangerous move by Maxxam/Palco. Given the level of violence
used on tree-sitters in the past extractions in Freshwater and other
places and the current lawsuit against the climbers for the violence
they used, one hopes there will be restraint shown today at least on the
part of the climbers. Sadly this is probably not the case. At this point
a very dangerous situation is happening down there. The bulldozers are
to remove slash-piles, sherrifs, loggers and extractors are there for
tree evictions and arrests, the loggers are there to fell the old-growth
trees being occupied and the rest of the area. Let us all pray for the
safety of the brave young forest defenders in the trees and that they
remain safe and unharmed. From: northcoastearthfirst@yahoogroups.com

15) If a tree falls in the forest and it’s a really big sequoia tree,
does everybody hear about it? This summer, a giant sequoia standing off
the beaten path stopped standing. It toppled over, making a bridge some
250 feet long across a vibrant green meadow. Even if you could, you
might think that log, higher than your head, had been there for hundreds
of years. Giant sequoia trees can live up to 3,000 years and when they
do fall, they can last as logs as long as they were alive. It’s decades
before the decay-resistant bark even falls off. But there’s a summer
camp not far from this meadow. And every summer, campers from Sequoia
Lake YMCA troop up here to stand by the tree that used to lean a bit.
“It was leaning over the meadow for 50 years — for as long as we can
remember,” Dixon says. “Now, everybody is talking about it falling.”
Each summer, Dixon, a Reedley optometrist, leads nature hikes to the
tree and gives a talk that always starts exactly the same way: “The
story of the Giant Sequoia is the story of LIFE,” he begins, with
well-rehearsed emphasis on certain words. Dixon talks about how sequoias
can weigh upwards of a million pounds and can live for thousands of
years, and then he gets to his kicker about why sequoias can lean
without falling over. “What holds the giant sequoia is not one root, but
hundreds of roots holding on to everything else in the forest: the
cedars and the oaks, the ponderosa pines and the sugar pine and the
dogwoods and azaleas,” he says, ending with a thought about how people,
to stand strong and long, need to send out hundreds of roots and grab on
tight to each other.
http://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/10986945p-11751888c.html

16) An environmental group is in Sacramento federal court trying to keep
the U.S. Forest Service from spraying 13,500 acres of the northern Tahoe
National Forest with herbicides. Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes
said in an interview Wednesday:. “There’s not going to be a forest there
for a long, long time unless we do something to give the conifer
seedlings a chance. The brush is using up soil nutrients, water and
sunlight that tree seedlings need to survive.” The lawsuit, filed
Tuesday on behalf of Californians for Alternatives to Toxics, claims
“the conifers are already growing at rates and in numbers that equal or
surpass the Forest Service’s long-stated goals.” Herbicides, which pose
hazards for campers, workers and wildlife, are unnecessary, the suit
states. “The ground conditions show that brush may be actually enhancing
conifer seedling growth,” said Pete Harrison, a CAT forestry associate.
“For the limited number of acres where tree growth is suffering, hand
grubbing can knock brush back long enough to allow trees to become
dominant.” Patty Clary, director of the Eureka-based plaintiff
organization, said the Forest Service “hasn’t taken the hard look at the
project that’s required by law, instead adjusting its analysis to
support a forgone conclusion.” The suit alleges the agency violated the
National Environmental Policy Act “by failing to rely on high-quality
and accurate scientific data, by failing to address mitigation measures
to reduce the impacts of the project, by failing to consider reasonable
alternatives, and by failing to adequately address the toxicological
impacts.”
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/environment/story/13316271p-14158428c
.html

17) Here, in the bastion of the largest trees on Earth, it’s easy to
understand the meaning of the word “insignificant”: You simply stand at
the base of a mature giant sequoia. It is an experience that is
simultaneously humbling and transcendent. Wildland managers understand
the effect these great trees exert, and agree they must be protected —
but sharply contested differences have emerged about the best way to
accomplish that goal. There are about 38,000 acres of giant sequoias,
distributed in scattered groves along the western slope of the Sierra. A
federal court recently ruled that a forest service plan for an area
containing sequoias does not conform to federal environmental law, and
has scheduled a review for Aug. 12. So in the fire management plan
Gaffrey authorized in 2004 for the national forest and monument,
“mechanical treatment” is authorized. This includes selective logging of
trees up to 30 inches in diameter; such trees would be sold to private
mills. The goal, said Gaffrey, isn’t to re-introduce commercial logging
into the monument, but to thin timber stands to the point that
prescription fire can be used as the sole management tool. “This is
extremely expensive work, and we have hundreds of thousands of acres to
treat,” Gaffrey said. “Revenues from the usable timber will help us meet
our goals.” The problem, said Fontaine, is that the service “wants to
cut the larger trees, which also happen to be the most fire-resistant
trees. If the plan truly focused on fire hazard reduction, it would
emphasize the small stuff, the 10- to 12-inch trees that burn like
tinder.” Fontaine noted that up to 7.5 million board feet of timber from
the forest and monument could be sold annually under the plan. “That
doesn’t sound like a fire hazard reduction plan to me,” Fontaine said.
“It sounds like a sustained yield logging plan, the kind the service has
been promoting since World War II.” At the heart of the debate is the
essential quality of the sequoia groves: The great trees have captured
the human heart because they embody immutability in a chaotic world. But
that idealized view does not conform with biological reality, Tweed
said, and should not drive management policy. “The fundamental myth of
the giant sequoias is that they are enduring giants frozen in time,”
Tweed said. “But they are not static. They are dynamic, evolving. They
may fulfill a human yearning for stability, but they are not stable.
They just seem stable to us because our life span is typically less than
100 years, while theirs is 3,500 years or more.”
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/07/31/TREE.TMP

Montana:

18) A federal judge has clarified a temporary order restricting salvage
logging on Flathead National Forest lands in a fashion that will
increase the acreage where logging can proceed. The judge wrote that
“core habitat serves a special purpose within the legal and ecological
schemes to protect the grizzly bears, and therefore activity in those
units shall be halted until full hearing of those issues.” Summer
logging was planned on about 1,894 acres that includes about 838 acres
outside delineated core habitat. “So basically, we’ve got about 55
million board-feet that we will be able to get to,” Carlin said. That
volume accounts for roughly 80 percent of the total volume of the
Robert-Wedge Post-Fire Project in the North Fork Flathead drainage, and
the West Side Reservoir Post-Fire Project on the Swan Range, west of
Hungry Horse Reservoir. Flathead Forest Supervisor Cathy Barbouletos
considers the clarification a victory within the larger context of a
lawsuit that challenges both post-fire projects. She said the decision
essentially frees up logging on about 5,000 acres.
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2005/07/31/news/news05.txt

Utah:

19) A Tenth Circuit Court ruling has halted a logging project near
Utah’s Fishlake National Forest. The Utah Environmental Congress asked
the courts to delay work on the Seven Mile timber sale, 10 miles north
of Fish Lake, because of the negative effect logging would have on the
three-toed woodpecker and the northern goshawk, two species of birds
that live in the forest. The U-S Forest Service approved the logging
project in 2000 under the Bush Administration’s Healthy Forest
Initiative. But environmentalists say the initiative allows some
assessment processes to be streamlined and says the Forest Services
sometimes ignores regulations.Environmental Congress director Kevin
Mueller says he thinks that’s illegal.And he says, federal law still
requires “viable” wildlife populations to be protected.
http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?nid=5&sid=222421

New York:

20) Beneath a dense canopy of oak and tulip trees, some more than 100
feet tall, the sun barely penetrates the leaves, the breeze is soft, and
the temperature even on a blazing summer day is surprisingly cool. “In
the forest when I patrol, I sort of forget I’m in the city,” said
Yekaterina “Kate” Gluzberg. “All you can hear is the birds calling and
the trees swinging overhead.” The “beat” that Gluzberg patrols as a New
York City park ranger — in a uniform complete with a peaked Smokey Bear
hat — is Inwood Hill Park on the northern tip of Manhattan, home to the
island’s last remaining swath of old- growth forest. The age of the
living trees can only be guessed, but a 160-foot- tall tulip tree that
died in 1938 was found to be 280 years old. With its steep slopes
overlooking the Hudson River, the 196-acre park also is the site of an
experimental program reintroducing bald eagles to New York City. And
all this is just a 10-minute walk from a crowded multiethnic
neighborhood of brownstone apartment buildings, shops and restaurants.
At the edge of the forest, a smooth boulder marks the spot where,
according to legend, Dutch West India Company agent Peter Minuit struck
one of history’s most one-sided real estate deals, buying Manhattan from
the Lenape tribe for the equivalent of $24 worth of beads, tools,
kettles and cloth.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/31/MNGLHDUJ4
E1.DTL

Louisiana:

21) A century after the first harvest of Louisiana’s virgin cypress and
water tupelo forests, Louisiana’s swamps are again rich in second-growth
stands. But a lot’s changed since timber companies clear-cut Louisiana’s
swamps. The state has lost 1,900 square miles of coast — an area the
size of Delaware. The reasons are many, and logging is among them. After
the Civil War, the state’s coastal forests extended out to the Gulf of
Mexico. Early loggers cut those down and many areas never re-grew.
Instead, low-lying parts of the coast were taken over by shrubs and
grasses. Logging and other factors, ranging from oil and natural gas
drilling to construction of levees, led to the degradation of soil and
hydrology in many areas that were formerly an Amazon-like rain forest.
Nonetheless, there’s still a lot of cypress swamp left. Louisiana now
has 1,462 million cubic feet of cypress, second only to Florida. The
abundance is both a blessing and a curse. This poor state needs the tax
dollars that logging would bring but it also needs to save its coast,
which would most likely lose even more land if logging is not
restricted. Blanco has not made her position clear. The Democratic
governor has been waiting for a series of public meetings to conclude
and for an advisory panel to issue a list of recommendations. Sidney
Coffee, an environmental adviser to the governor, said both the forestry
industry and environment need to be considered. “This is a working
wetland. We’re not trying to preserve it as a national park, that has
never been our objective,” Coffee said. “Is it important for us to show
that we’re green? I think it’s important for us to show that we’re
taking a balanced approach to this.” Oliver Houck, an environmental
lawyer at Tulane University, said: “Talking about regenerating cypress
in these ecosystems is like talking about regenerating oak forests in
Manhattan. We’re beyond that point.” Yet many of the people who run
Louisiana don’t see it like that. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8740606/

Ohio:

22) The cry of “Timber!” is once again echoing through the Wayne
National Forest as logging begins once more in a 300-acre area near Five
Forks. In August 2004, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Dlott issued a
temporary restraining order against the Wayne National Forest that
prohibited all logging and other ground-disturbing activities from
continuing on four timber sales within Lawrence County. The order was
issued after a lawsuit was brought against the WNF and the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service in April 2003, alleging violations of the Endangered
Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest
Management Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. The forestry
service contended that it followed all applicable laws and regulations.
The judge has now had time to review the case, and has sided with the
caretakers of the Wayne National Forest. “I’m glad to be back out
there,” Chrismer said. bThat’s a good feeling to have the judge decide
that. Thousands in revenue from that logging will be now be flowing into
the government again, 25 percent of that going to fill the coffers of
Lawrence County. Forest officials have wasted no time in beginning
thinning once again. A closure went into effect on July 22, which will
allow trees to be thinned and removed in an area of 300 acres bordered
by County Road 5 on the west, Marking Fork along the north, and the
boundary of the forest along the southern and eastern areas along County
Road 19. The area will be closed to public use for several weeks to
allow contractors to safely conduct operations.
http://www.irontontribune.com/articles/2005/07/29/news/news019.txt

European Union:

23) The Desert Watch project, led by the European Space Agency, reports
that 300,000 square kilometers of Europe’s Mediterranean coast—an area
larger than Britain—with a population of 16.5 million, is threatened by
“desertification.” The Spanish minister of the Environment, Cristina
Narbona, warned in June about a long-term decrease in rain and an
increase in temperatures: “the beginning of a long cycle” of extreme
drought. And while severe dry spells may be a normal component of
—Europe’s climate, says Jose Luis Rubio, the head of the University of
Valencia’s Desertification Investigation Center, a weakening of the
soil’s resistance to drought among other things, along with human
factors, are enhancing the risks of desertification. “We have observed a
growing fragility,” says Rubio. In places like Valencia, “the water
levels are dropping and the soil is weaker.” Against this background,
raging wildfires may seem like some sort of Biblical retribution.
Already, the average annual acreage burned off in Portugal, Spain, Italy
and Greece has quadrupled since the 1960s. Drought has cut Portuguese
agriculture’s financial projections by an estimated 35 percent this
year—a loss of about 1.5 percent of the nation’s GDP—and another
firefighter was killed there last week. Amid the soaring temperatures,
the fires and the locusts, you can almost feel the hot breath of the
Sahara as it says to southern Europe, “You’re mine.”
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8770524/site/newsweek/

Greece:

24) Greece’s forest fires cannot merely be attributed to weather
conditions. Nor is it simply the local administration’s failure to take
adequate preventive measures, such as clearing the undergrowth. Every
big forest fire automatically raises suspicions of arson for profit, and
not without good reason. Arsonists have been held responsible for
starting many forest fires in the past. There is no unshakeable evidence
in most cases, but the signs and motives are there, leaving little doubt
the catastrophe was in fact the work of arsonists. In suburban areas,
the destruction of forests is the first step in preparing the land for
development. In the countryside, it is a way of creating more land for
agriculture. In both cases, development does not take place overnight,
but arsonists are armed with patience. They study the law and are
prepared to exploit any possible loophole, even if those are left open
to serve less destructive wrongdoers. Forest fires are the most
despicable manifestation of such wrongdoing. Here we are not just faced
with people who built an illegal house, but unscrupulous individuals who
do not hesitate to destroy Greece’s natural environment and people’s
property. Their crime is far worse than violating town-planning
provisions. Yet the incentives are the same: gaps in legislation,
inadequate monitoring and, above all, repeated laws absolving
wrongdoers. The destruction is testimony to the lack of consistency in
implementing the law. Note that over the past 60 years Greece lost
two-thirds of its forests while the damage caused by fires over the
1998-2000 period equaled the destruction of the previous three decades.
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_columns_100016_29/07/2005_
59129

Uganda:
25) Kiyingi said the encroachers formed an association, headed by Natal
Alioni that has spearheaded the planting of 56 hectares out of the
780-hectare reserve under the NFA. He said they were working on a permit
to establish their own plantation with the reserve. “They have left the
reserve and their income is even better than what they used to earn when
they were practising subsistence agriculture in the forest,” Kiyingi
said. He said most encroachers in the north complied with the law
because they respect government officials and professionals.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200508011256.html

Afghanistan:
26) Each day, dozens of trucks piled high with firewood pass over the
moonscape of Paktia Province on the road to Kabul, Afghanistan’s
capital. The local cutters who supply the convoys must head ever higher
up the increasingly bare mountainsides to bring back a day’s living
bundled on donkeys. The growing scarcity, along with surging demand from
Kabul’s revived economy, has sent firewood prices up fivefold and
construction timber up sevenfold since Taliban times. Wood is
Afghanistan’s oil – a key resource that everyone worries is running out.
Crouching down in his field, Ismail weeds a plot of poplar saplings in
Guldara village, about 30 miles north of Kabul. The trees, provided to
farmers with the help of a loan by the Global Partnership for
Afghanistan (GPFA), a New York-based group working for Afghan economic
and environmental development, have been split into two sections – one
for timber production, and one for cuttings to be sold to neighboring
farmers to grow. After just one year, Ismail (who declined to give his
last name) will be able to get six cuttings per tree and more in
following years. The cuttings will provide him with some annual income
until he is able to harvest the timber trees, which take seven years to
reach maturity. “We are against cutting the forest trees. We are happy
to plant new trees,” says Ismail. “We want our country to be green.”
Comparing satellite imagery from 1977 and 2002, the most forested parts
of the country have lost 52 percent of their oak and conifer forests.
The UN estimates that 2.5 percent of Afghanistan remains forested; other
estimates are even lower. The government, with help from the United
States, has also formed an Afghan Conservation Corps (ACC), reminiscent
of the New Deal’s CCC in the US. The ACC doubles as a jobs and
forest-redevelopment program. So far, $925,000 has been spent, 230,000
saplings planted, and another 1.5 million saplings will be grown from
seed. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0801/p11s02-wosc.html
New Zealand:

27) Silence in Wanganui is not always golden. The Royal Forest and Bird
Protection Society wants residents to help bring the noise of native
birds back to the region’s trees. Forest and Bird information officer
Hellen Thornton said restoring the dawn chorus was a major goal of the
organisation. “New Zealand used to wake to the sound of hundreds of
birds, a beautiful dawn chorus, but development has cut a swathe through
bird habitats, leaving our mornings muted.
http://www.wanganuichronicle.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3646398&thes
ection=localnews&thesubsection=&thesecondsubsection=

Australia:

28) His environmental policies have had different, but equally
disturbing, effects on the country. Carr’s last major achievement as
Premier was spending an estimated $30 million earlier this month to buy
the 80,000-hectare Yanga Station near Hay and turn it into a national
park. Yanga is reputedly the largest freehold farm in the state. In May,
Carr announced the permanent conservation of 348,000 hectares of
woodlands in the Nandewar and Brigalow belt in the state’s west, at a
cost of about $80 million. This and the Yanga decision will destroy
hundreds of jobs. There have been announcements of transition programs
and hoped-for income from eco-tourism, but this needs to be compared
with what has been destroyed – real jobs and real communities, in some
cases going back five generations. The Government has been
uncharacteristically quiet about the purchase of Yanga. One reason for
this could be that nationalising the means of production was removed
from the ALP platform some time ago. Another might be that the National
Parks and Wildlife Service recently released its State of the Parks 2004
report, revealing its failure to care for most parks adequately. Which
leads to the obvious question of why the Government has burdened it with
new responsibilities. Money desperately needed to look after existing
parks has been blown on yet more expansion. The lack of emphasis on
management stems partly from philosophical confusion. Many
environmentalists believe, and have persuaded city people to believe, in
the notion of pristine wilderness – a state to which nature can be
returned by creating national parks.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/green-legacy-a-black-mark/2005/07/29/
1122144018993.html?oneclick=true

29) TWO of Australia’s forestry giants are set to battle head to head to
buy Tasmanian farmland for plantations. West Australian company Great
Southern Plantations has already begun buying Tasmanian properties. And
Tasmanian forest giant Gunns Ltd is aiming to buy another 40,000ha of
plantation to cater for the needs of its proposed pulp mill. Great
Southern Plantations has signalled its long-term interest in the state
by appointing a local land acquisition manager. The company will soon
settle on several properties totalling about 2350ha. The land is as far
northeast as Gladstone. The news coincides with an announcement by Gunns
executive chairman John Gay that his company wants to buy about 1000ha
in Western Australia to supply its sawmill operations. The Tasmanian
land grab has reawakened fears in regional areas about the social effect
of large-scale plantations on small communities. Dorset councillor John
Williams said the interest in farmland had given unviable farmers a
chance to sell at good prices. However, he said a social impact study on
the effect of plantations needed to be done. “While farmers employ
people and support local small businesses, once a plantation is
established nothing further is done for 12 or 13 years,” he said. Cr
Williams said the effect on water supplies of plantations needed to be
studied. Great Southern Plantations spokesman David Ikin said his firm
was at the “clean and green end” of woodchipping and planted on cleared
land and was not involved in old-growth logging. With a pulp mill on the
horizon, Gunns needs to add 40,000ha of plantation at a rate of about
10,000ha a year. Sources said land prices had risen in recent weeks with
some farms fetching up to $5500 a hectare.
http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16093267%255E
921,00.html

Brazil:

30) Scientists mapping the effects of deforestation in the Amazon are
increasingly concerned that we are reaching a tipping point – when the
forest will start to die back of its’ own accord and rain, currently
generated by the Amazon forests, will stop falling not just in
neighbouring countries but as far a field as the United States and South
Africa. Last December, a phenomenon never seen before struck the western
Amazon, close to the border between Brazil, Colombia and Peru. If you
live in that part of the world you get used to the massive thunderstorms
and torrents of rain that come in from the east, but no one there had
ever before experienced the dense, dry, cough- wracking fog that
stagnated for days over the region. For more than a week people remained
confined to their homes, and, with visibility down to zero, no aircraft
could land, no boats could ply the river. It wasn’t long before food and
fuel began to run out in the city of Leticia, on the Colombian side of
the river, and if anyone required serious medical attention then it was
just too bad – no way could they be airlifted to safety. When I was in
Leticia a month or so later, people were still talking about the
mysterious fog that had scared the life out of them. Meanwhile, word was
coming in that, way to the east, Brazil had carried out another massive
burn of the rainforest. Last year, 2004, was the second biggest burn in
Brazil’s history, with more than 26,000 square kilometres of pristine
rainforest going up in smoke: that’s just short of the burn in 1995,
when an area the size of Belgium was destroyed. In a matter of decades,
more than 17 per cent of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has gone, mainly for
beef cattle, soya, timber and land-hungry peasants who are told they
must chop the forest down to gain title. In the eastern part of the
Amazon, massive amounts of timber have been converted to charcoal to
fuel furnaces for making pig iron. In terms of emissions per capita, the
quantity of greenhouse gases released by the destruction of Brazil’s
rainforests puts the country on a par with the US. Multinational timber
companies, particularly from Malaysia and Indonesia, have entered the
Amazon in a big way. In 1996 alone, Asian companies invested more than
US$500m in the Brazilian timber industry. According to Brazil’s national
environment agency, the Ibama, they now own or control about 4.5 million
hectares of the Brazilian Amazon.
http://www.rednova.com/news/science/190647/a_stake_through_the_heart_of_
the_world/

India:

31) The Karnataka Forest Department has acquitted five of its officials
of charges of dereliction of duty leading to illegal felling of valuable
trees and encroachment of forest land in the Western Ghats of Khanapur
taluk, Belgaum in 2004. With regard to the allegation of large-scale
illegal tree felling and burning of forests on the steep slopes of
Western Ghats in Malki Survey number 64 of Mann, Chorla village, the
PCCF’s report justifies the practice of burning trees as traditional and
necessary for Kumri cultivation.
It further states that in this particular case, Kumri cultivation had
taken place in private land and not in forest land. Further, the felled
material has been burnt for agriculture, and it has been stated
categorically that they have not been transported outside for commercial
gain. Earlier, the then Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF) Mr B K Singh
conducted a study and submitted a report stating that the illegal
felling was not restricted to the Malki lands as claimed by the local
forest officials but that it had extended to the reserve forests.
Referring to the permission granted for felling trees in the steep slope
regions, the CCF had even stated, “I cannot find any justification for
the grant of permission. It is a shame on the part of forest officers,
who are originally responsible for destroying the areas.” When contacted
in this regard by the Deccan Herald, PCCF Mr Ray said, “I have made the
report based on my wisdom and from what I saw. I appreciated all the
documents and replies filed, took into account the ground realities and
practicality to arrive at this conclusion.”
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jul312005/state1922272005730.as
p

32) THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The unchecked deforestation in and around
Nelliampathy has adversely affected the Chalakkudy river and the
Bharatapuzha, according to Kunjumuhammad, an environmentalist based in
Munnar. A Vigilance inquiry conducted in 1997 had revealed that forest
trees worth crores of rupees were smuggled out of these estates in
Nelliampathy, at times with the connivance of the Forest Department.
Even when a case is booked, it is compounded for an amount that is
peanuts compared to the worth of the booty. Innumerable cases are
pending against a number of estates for encroachment, a Forest
Department source said. The presence of estates is also said to be
endangering wildlife. There are, for instance, a couple of estates that
lie contiguous to the Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary. Animals that
stray into the estate area in search of water are easy prey for the
hunting games of those in the estates, the source said.
http://www.indiavarta.com/weather/

Malaysia:

33) Priceless Gaharu trees (Aquilaria malaccensis) that can be found in
the Timbun Mata Forest Reserve, near here, are being eyed by illegal
loggers. Reliable sources said such illegal activities were active in
the forest reserve by encroachers, including a group of people from the
neighbouring state. It was learnt that the intruders used a boat to
transport the timber out from the island before loading them onto a
waiting lorry at the mainland. They avoided detection by carrying out
the illegal activities during the night or heavy rain. Recently,
district police detained five men in a roadblock at Jalan Bugaya, who
were found with gaharu, a protected species, on the Land Cruiser they
were travelling in. The logs were estimated to worth around RM5,000.
Deputy Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Kong Cho Ho,
when launching an international symposium recently, said illegal logging
and forest reserve encroachment can now be detected via satellite at the
Malaysia Remote Se0 nsing Centre.
http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=36114

World-Wide:

34) Pristine lands, by the strictest definition, no longer exist,
scientists say. Atmospheric pollution has settled on every earthly
surface. Human-induced climate change is affecting ecosystems across the
planet. Untrammeled landscapes are fragmented and shrinking Where is the
last of the truly wild? The Wildlife Conservation Society, with the
Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia
University, assembled satellite and land-use data to plot the extent of
the global human footprint. On its colorful maps, the zones closest to
pristine pop out as patches of leafy green. Worldwide, the society found
that 17 percent of land is still virtually untouched — mostly because it
is inhospitable to humans. In areas capable of growing basic crops, and
therefore most able to support people, untouched lands have diminished
to 2 percent of the total.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002412320_pristine31.
html