037OEC’s This Week in Trees

This week we have 31 stories from: British Columbia, US-PNW, Oregon, California, Arizona, Montana, Minnesota, Texas, Alabama, Canada, Spain, Panama, Brazil, Vietnam, Bhutan, China, Pakistan, India, and Australia.

British Columbia:

1) “I’d just like to keep this like we were neighbours … they understand I have the right to my protest as much as they have a right to theirs,” says Carr. Besides, the protest isn’t necessarily against them, he adds, it’s about putting pressure on the provincial government to make a decision, whatever that decision may be. Other parties involved in the Cathedral Grove parking lot issue are also running short of patience this week. They offered to take down the camp if Penner agreed to take the controversial location for a parking lot off the table “Let’s just talk .. clearly something has to work so that Cathedral Grove can be a world class place to visit and still have the sights people come to see,” says Goldsberry. “They’re aware now, it’s escalated,” says Fraser, referring to the new protest of the protesters. The most encouraging sign of support for his sentiments though came yesterday evening, when Minister of Environment Barry Penner confirmed with The News that dates have been set for public meetings on the parking lot issue in MacMillan Provincial Park. It’s movement on a previously stalemated issue that has been debated for 15 years and led to a protest camp in the park for nearly two. http://www.pqbnews.com/

2) Active falling for road building began in the lower Pachena on Monday, October 17. As you know, this is a significant floodplain old growth sitka spruce forest next to the communities of Anacla and Bamfield. Community concerns regarding this logging were presented at several meetings earlier this year. As well, a letter was signed and sent by many people. Concerned forestry and conservation professors from the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre sent another letter. The community of Bamfield/Anacla has not been presented with any revised logging plans. Both Island Timberlands (Brascan) and Huu ay aht First Nation Forestry promised to consult with communities and address concerns. To date there has been zero feedback, and logging has begun. Concerns voiced included: 1) Addition of significant buffers around the Pachena River and connecting streams 2) Protection of fish habitat including side-channels (concern supported by Fisheries Act) 3) Protection of cultural sites 4) Addition of a visual buffer along the road to preserve viewscape (buffer width adequate to prevent wind throw on power lines) 5) Minimize wind throw around residences 6) Buffer around community 7) Protection of very large trees 8) Timing of logging to avoid dust and visitors 9) Logging up to national park reserve boundaries 10) Lack of information and community input…
The Huu ay aht acquisition of traditional territory lands in the Pachena Watershed is widely supported. However, logging needs to at least address the above issues. If Island Timberlands plans to maintain their CSA certification they need to engage in community consultation. Island Timberlands P.R. believe that they met and resolved all community concerns at the community hall meeting last summer.
http://www.islandtimberlands.com

3) Please consider going to the forests.org website and use the following page to send a message protesting environmental organizations that support continued old growth forest logging in BC’s Great Bear Rainforest. The message will be sent to the Rainforest Solutions Project and Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club of BC, ForestEthics, Greenpeace as well as to WWF and the foundation funders of the RSP. Please feel free to change the draft letter to include your personal perspective and concerns. Please ask these powerful environmental organizations and funders to rethink and re-evaluate their support for continued liquidation and agro-forestry conversion of the remaining ancient forests in the Great Bear Rainforest region. Please encourage them to resist not support the industrial depletion of remaining old growth forests in coastal BC. Please make this small effort to tell these organizations that the remaining original forests are off-limits for industrial logging. http://forests.org/action/alert.asp?id=greatbear#sendemail

4) 1000 Letters needed for the Oct.29 “RALLY for VANCOUVER ISLAND’S PUBLIC FORESTS” It only takes 5 minutes, anywhere you live! Email your letter to us at wc2vic@island.net MAKE SURE YOU INCLUDE YOUR HOME MAILING ADDRESS on your letter so the government must respond to you and knows you’re real. Of course, you can also bring your letter down in person to the rally on Oct.29 – we also need you at the rally! SOME FACTS ABOUT VANCOUVER ISLAND: 1) The 1994 Land-Use Plan for Vancouver Island resulted in the protection of only 13% of the Island’s land base, with only 6% of the productive forests under protection. Conservation biology assessments show that closer to 40% of all ecosystem types is needed to make the protected areas more viable in the long-run, particularly for wider-ranging species. 2) The 1994 Land Use Plan only increased the protection of Vancouver Island’s productive forests by less than 4%, from 2.5% of the productive forests under protection prior to 1994, to about 6% after the Land Use Plan. 3) Only 25% of the original ancient forests remain. The other 75% have been converted to clearcuts, tree-plantations, agriculture, and urban settlements. 4) Of 89 primary valleys over 5000 hectares on Vancouver Island, only 5 remain unroaded and unlogged. 5) Endangered ancient forests like the Upper Walbran Valley, East Creek Rainforest, Clayoquot Sound, Nahmint Valley, Klanawa Valley, Nootka Trail, Upper Tsitika Valley, and Nawitti Lowlands are being logged by Interfor, Brascan, Teal-Jones, and Western Forest Products. 6) Only 5% of the East Side of Vancouver Island between Victoria and Campbell River remains as Crown (public) lands. The other 95% is privately owned. These Crown lands are being rapidly sold off by the BC Liberal Government. 7) The BC Liberals have allowed the export of over 14 million cubic metres of raw logs to foreign mills since they’ve come to power. This amounts to a loss of almost 14 000 BC milling jobs over a 4 year period.
http://www.wildernesscommittevictoria.org

US-Pacific Northwest

5) The Bush administration is moving to drop federal endangered species protections for the marbled murrelet, a small seabird that has stood in the way of Northwest logging for more than a decade. Scientists estimate the species is sliding toward extinction in Oregon, Washington and California. However, the Bush administration concluded the declining birds in this region do not differ enough from more numerous murrelets in Canada and Alaska to warrant protection on their own. There are an estimated 21,900 marbled murrelets in Oregon, Washington and California, and 925,600 in Canada and Alaska. The move reverses an earlier pledge by the Fish and Wildlife Service not to remove the protections until it examines how the entire species is faring across its range. Many biologists think the murrelet is declining in Alaska and Canada. The murrelet was listed as threatened in Oregon, Washington and California in 1992 as logging eroded old-growth forests where the birds nest, and their numbers declined. Its protections, along with those for the northern spotted owl and salmon, led to a collapse in logging of public lands. Scientists who have studied murrelets said the fate of the birds is closely tied to forests. Canadian researchers said the new laws in Canada used by the Bush administration to justify its move are not strong enough to safeguard the murrelet. “The reality is that the act is pretty weak, and there really is not a lot of improved protection for murrelets in Canada,” said Alan Burger, an associate professor at the University of Victoria. “I don’t think the U.S. can expect Canada to provide extra murrelets, because ours are in trouble as well.” http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1129892450290290.xml&coll=7&thispage=2
Oregon:

6) A final decision for the controversial Steamboat Creek Watershed Restoration Project has been approved by the U.S. Forest Service after years of alternative reviews. North Umpqua District Ranger Carol Cushing signed a decision notice on Tuesday that puts into effect Alternative 6, decommissioning just 12 miles of roads instead of the 80 miles originally proposed. Local environmental groups say the alternative is a disappointment. They originally supported the second alternative, which proposed the closure of 72 miles of roads and improving 87 miles. “All those roads are just a time bomb waiting to destroy that habitat,” Francis Eatherington, forest monitor for Umpqua Watersheds, said. Eatherington also pointed out wildlife habitat in Douglas County won’t benefit much from the alternative because the road closures and decommissioning will now take place mainly in Lane County. Cushing said she had no choice but to focus on areas that needed the most work, and decommission those roads to improve the fish and wildlife habitat.
“Those were the roads that the resource biologists determined ‘the worst of the worst,'” Cushing said of the roads in Lane County. http://www.newsreview.info/article/20051021/NEWS/110210031

7) Due to a “sue and settle” agreement with the logging industry, the Bush administration is planning to eliminate key protections for 2.5 million acres of federal lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Oregon. Many of these lands are included in the Siskiyou Wild Rivers area, feeding the Wild & Scenic Rogue and Illinois Rivers. The logging industry sued the Bush administration, claiming there is not enough subsidized industrial logging on BLM lands. Instead of fighting the charges, the Bush administration “settled” with the logging industry, and promised to re-write rules governing about 2.5 million acres of federal public forests in Oregon. The BLM manages more public, federal land in the nation than any other government agency – yet it is largely unknown by the public. Most of the lands managed by the BLM are non-forested — such as deserts, mountains and grasslands in the western U.S. and Alaska. The bulk of forest lands managed by the BLM in Oregon result from the 1937 Oregon and California Railroad Act that put forests in the Cascade, Coast and Siskiyou mountain ranges under the management of the BLM. These ecologically rich forests, which exist in a largely “checkerboard” pattern with heavily-logged private lands nearby, are critically important for water quality, wildlife habitat and biodiversity. A notable exception to the checkboard is the 46,000-acre Zane Grey Roadless Area that borders the Wild Rogue Wilderness and Wild & Scenic Rogue River. The Zane Grey is the largest roadless forest managed by the BLM in the country. The Western Oregon Planning Revision process will revise six Resource Management Plans (RMPs) that guide the long-term management of BLM lands. In this “scoping” phase, the BLM is supposed to listen to the public to establish the broad issues to be addressed by more specific plans in the future. The BLM will release “planning criteria” this December from which a Draft Environmental Impact Statement will be developed. The BLM is taking public comments on the “scoping” phase of their planned changes. The deadline to comment is this Friday, October 21st. Please take a moment to comment today! You can send comments instantly from: http://www.oregonheritageforests.org

8) The U.S. Bureau of Land Management could meet its timber quota in Western Oregon without logging old-growth forests key to protecting threatened and endangered species, according to a study released Wednesday by three conservation groups. The study, led by the World Wildlife Fund in Ashland, is meant to provide evidence supporting a revision of the BLM’s management plan that would protect old-growth forests from Salem to Oregon. Corvallis-based Conservation Biology Institute and Portland-based Oregon Natural Resources Council helped conduct the study. “This report documents the importance of BLM lands to Oregon’s natural heritage and shows the BLM can meet its volumes without logging old-growth forests,” said author Dominick DellaSala, a forest ecologist with the World Wildlife Fund. The BLM is revising its Western Oregon management plan in accordance with a 2003 legal settlement between the federal government and the Portland-based American Forest Resource Council. The settlement requires the BLM to consider adopting a management plan that would eliminate forest reserves on Oregon and California Railroad grant lands, except those required to protect endangered species from extinction. The lands were seized by the federal government after the railroad and the subsequent owner violated an agreement to restrict the property’s sale to homesteaders. The BLM plan, set for completion in early 2008, will shape the way the agency manages forests, pastures, water, wildlife and logging for the next 10 to 15 years on 2.5 million acres of public lands west of the Cascade Range. The revision is the first since the passage of the Northwest Forest Plan in 1994, which set aside protected reserves. Protected areas included late-successional reserves to provide habitat for old-growth species and riparian reserves meant to protect streams. Using BLM and U.S. Forest Service data, computer mapping and satellite imagery, the conservation groups’ study showed the BLM can produce more than 1.6 billion board feet of timber, enough for about 160,000 homes, without logging old-growth forests. BLM officials said they were impressed by the detail of the study and plan to consider it in their analysis. But they warned that some of the report’s assumptions could prove problematic in developing a no-old-growth option. http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2005/1021/local/stories/16local.htm

California:

9) Stanislaus National Forest officials this week said they will triple logging by 2011 in an effort they say will reduce the fire danger around burgeoning Sierra towns. Environmentalists decried the increase, saying it erodes protections for wildlife in a 4-year-old Sierrawide habitat protection plan. Logging advocates said the latest plan may not go far enough to keep mill workers on the job. The move comes after the Bush administration and members of Congress in June ordered Stanislaus officials to explain why the forest wasn’t sending more logs to mills. Sierra Pacific Industries mills in Chinese Camp and Standard laid off employees earlier this year. Stanislaus National Forest Deputy Supervisor Jerry Perez said the plan will clear fields of manzanita and other brush that pose a fire danger to homes as well as sending more large logs to mills. “It is an important relationship we have with the mills. We need them to get the work done,” Perez said. Environmentalists are frustrated by that reasoning, saying that they believe the plan is using fire-hazard control as an excuse to get around the Forest Service’s Sierra Nevada Framework, which placed strict limits on logging of large trees for the sake of wildlife. “It is true that fuels treatments can reduce the risk of fire. But removing large-log timber does nothing to reduce fire risk,” said John Buckley, executive director off the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center. The California spotted owl, in particular, was supposed to get protection for the old-growth forests it inhabits. The Sierra Nevada Framework also called for programs to chip, burn or otherwise remove logging slash, brush and other small vegetation that contributed to fire risks in the region’s forests. The Stanislaus plan, for example, will allow logging in 17,627 acres of spotted owl home range areas, or about 13 percent of the total home range for the owl in the forest. http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051020/NEWS01/510200342

10) Once hidden by a lush, dense forest, houses are now visible on the ridgeline above Lake Arrowhead, giving some the impression that development has accelerated. The homes can be seen because the trees that hid them have been cut down as part of a multiyear program to remove the thousands killed by drought, overstocking and bark beetles. “You just couldn’t see those houses two years ago,” said San Bernardino County Fire Marshal Peter Brierty. Officials are proud of what’s been accomplished so far. Especially since it meant navigating a confusing bureaucratic landscape of jurisdictions, regulations and politicians. The county, working with the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service, has taken down about 130,000 dead, dying or diseased trees, with the total soon to hit 150,000. Southern California Edison has spent $146 million taking down 102,000 trees that could affect its power lines, and that doesn’t count the thousands of trees that private property owners have dropped. The U.S. Forest Service has thinned about 20,000 acres of overgrown forest land since the bark-beetle problem began. That’s maybe one-fifth of the work that needs to be done, Regelbrugge said. The process of attacking an entire dying forest required triage, meaning the areas closest to homes and roads went first. Eventually, trees deeper in the forest will be removed in an effort to make the entire forest healthier by making it thinner. http://www2.sbsun.com/news/ci_3143127

11) The U.S. Forest Service should not have shut down mushroom collecting, Christmas tree cutting and similar activities in national forests as it did earlier this month, a federal judge said in a clarification issued Wednesday. The directive should prompt the swift reopening of several Oregon and Washington forests to the popular pursuits, offering relief to businesses across the state that depend on the forest goods. The court action vindicated environmental groups and some Western lawmakers who said the Forest Service and Bush administration had unnecessarily halted longtime forest activities from firewood gathering to river rafting. The groups alleged the administration was trying to provoke a backlash against environmental regulations and litigation. The ruling emerged from a lawsuit by environmental groups in California. The groups, led by the Illinois organization Heartwood, wanted to stop the Bush administration from eliminating public comments and appeals on certain logging projects and prescribed burning. The groups did not contest activities such as mushroom gathering. “This is the second time in a row the judge agreed with us and rejected the Forest Service’s utterly ridiculous interpretation of his order,’’ said Jim Bensman of Heartwood, a Midwest forest protection group that was a plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging Bush administration changes to forest management rules. “I think this is pretty solid proof that the Forest Service was playing games with thousands of people’s livelihoods to try to get a political advantage.’’ Matt Kenna, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center in Durango, Colo., who represented environmentalists in the case, said he was still afraid that timber supporters would try to push a legislative rider through Congress to repeal the Appeals Reform Act, the basis for the ruling. “This certainly shows the Forest Service was acting totally inappropriately and had no legal basis for what they were doing,’’ Kenna said. “I hope Congress realizes the Forest Service has been dishonest all along.’’http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2005/10/20/news/oregon/thurore01.txt http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1129806082180870.xml&coll=7&thispage=2

Arizona:

12) The next phase of a centuries-old struggle unfolds in the federal courtroom in Prescott, Arizona. Several environmental groups and Native American Nations have sued the US Forest Service to halt an expansion of the ski resort on the San Francisco Peaks. The existence of the ski resort on The Peaks has been a source of bitter contention since the first lodge was built on this highly sacred mountain in the 1930s. A full-scale ski resort, including shops and restaurants, was proposed in 1969. Strong vocal opposition and legal action from Native peoples prevented the plans from being implemented until the 1980s. The wounds, however, can be traced further back to the settling of Flagstaff in the late 1800s when indigenous people were persecuted and forcibly removed from the area Robert Tohe, who is Navajo and is environmental justice organizer for the Sierra Club, sums up the feelings of many Native Americans in Northern Arizona when he said, “The ski area that exists on the mountain now is something we have been forced to accept after decades of attempts to be heard. Only if there is no new development will the reopening of old wounds and further alienation of our people be avoided.” The lawsuit charges the Forest Service with violations of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Endangered Species Act, and other land and cultural protection laws. http://www.savethepeaks.org/savethepeaks/pagetemp/events.html

Montana:

13) Bob Castaneda has soured on wilderness. Not the idea of it, mind you, just the word itself. Seems every time the Kootenai National Forest supervisor uttered the word, someone was ready to ram it back down his throat. But all were surprised this week when Castaneda released a new map on which each and every “recommended wilderness” label was suddenly absent. The 163,000 acres of recommended wilderness from the first map had been reduced to zero acres on the second. Snowmobilers and other motorized recreationists were elated, declaring the map a huge victory for forest use. Wilderness advocates were stunned and angry. But neither, Castaneda insists, should be overly reactive. The fact is, he said, nothing much has changed. Sure, there’s a bit more motorized use allowed here and there, but overall, he said, “it’s the same wilderness management.” In fact, the latest map adds a new land-use category that replaces “designated wilderness” with “wild lands.” But the definition of the two, he said, is identical, promising to “protect those wilderness traits that will allow for future consideration of these lands as wilderness by Congress.” Both categories allow trail building and non-motorized recreation. Both prohibit logging, road building and snowmobiles. But somehow that wasn’t the message many of the players took home from a meeting earlier this week with Castaneda. Many, in fact, thought the new “wild lands” category would in some way allow more flexibility for roads, logging and, most specifically, all-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles. But Castaneda insists that reading is incorrect. The new land-use category, he said, will be managed in exactly the same way as the old, in effect creating de facto wilderness pending action from Congress. Castaneda said he hoped that by changing the name he might be able to bring divided interests back to the collaborative table. http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2005/10/21/news/local/news05.txt

Minnesota:

14) Minnesota’s private, undeveloped forestlands are on the verge of historic change, and the trend has alarmed many outdoor enthusiasts. Nearly 40 percent of the land held by the state’s largest private forest owner, Potlatch Corp., is now under lease to hunters — and off limits to most others. Forest Capital Partners, a Boston-based land investment firm that is the state’s second-largest forest owner, plans to sell valuable property to individuals. Both companies are deeply into the land business. They still manage the forests and sell timber and plan to continue logging. Yet Potlatch, based in Spokane, Wash., has sold most of its mills for making paper and wood products, and Forest Capital Partners doesn’t own any mills. Increasingly the land is seen as an asset to be sold or leased – no longer just a source of raw material for mills. For now, most corporate forests, which account for 8 percent of the state’s woodlands, remain open to recreation, including lands of UPM Blandin, the state’s third-largest private forest owner, and Forest Capital Partners. And there are other forests to roam. One-third of Minnesota is forest, an area roughly the size of West Virginia, and most of it is owned by county, state and federal agencies. Yet the incentives to lease or sell private forestland and shut off public access are increasing. Forest tracts of 20 acres or more now sell for an average of $1,000 an acre, a fivefold increase since 1993, according to a University of Minnesota analysis. For decades, Potlatch owned mills and woodlands. In the past few years, it has sold plants, including a modern paper mill in Cloquet, and is mainly in the business of managing forestland. It now makes money by leasing forestland for hunting, fishing, camping and off-road vehicle use. The leases cost about $300 a year for 40 acres. When Bickford and his friends started seeing “No Trespassing” signs in the Crosby-Brainerd area three years ago, they didn’t want to be shut out. So he organized the Cuyuna Hunting Club and became its president. Each of the club’s 56 member families pays $250 annually. That club leases 1,800 acres from Potlatch. The land is posted against trespassing. http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5678945.html

Connecticut:

15) “The forest does grow and change over time, so that what you see here today is not what you would see here in 20 to 25 years,” said Broderick. “Forest stewardship very often means doing nothing in certain areas, but doing nothing is an informed decision. “You start with a good inventory of all the various habitats so you know what’s out there. You can manage a forest for a lot of different reasons — for better timber and wildlife habitat, for recreational value or aesthetics.” Since 83 percent of the state’s woodlands are privately owned, and more than half the state is forested, teaching landowners how to manage their property is essential to improving the overall health of the state’s wild places, Broderick said. In centuries past, hurricanes and wildfires served as nature’s main forest management tools, but now that work is mainly done by the selective use of chainsaws, carefully chosen seedlings and occasional insecticide to eradicate invasive non-native pests like the hemlock-destroying woolly adelgid, he added. Broderick said one type of habitat that’s needed in the state is the type that would exist after a forest fire. In recent decades, highly effective fire control has decreased those areas dramatically, leaving it to private landowners to designate areas where a stand of mature trees can be removed for the succession habitat to take hold. “All of the species that need this young brushy habitat are in big trouble in Connecticut,” Broderick said. http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=84E51EBC-4401-466E-9EA1-D54FBD49A859

Texas:

16) Such chaos in the national forest has left its native inhabitants in confusion as well. Rita slew 10 percent of the forest’s red cockaded woodpecker population, Mize estimated. Last spring they had 31 active clusters with an average of three woodpeckers per family. That would have increased to a population of 120-140 by late summer, he said. “We know for sure that we lost two birds,” Mize said of the two tiny bodies found inside their homes made deep within a felled longleaf pine tree. “Sure, there are more than that. If your home was (shaking) like this you’d flee your home.” And once out in those 120 mph winds with tornado-like voracity, Mize said, “mortality increases. However, even if they had hunkered down inside their homes to ride out the storm like many East Texans –they faced death by entrapment if their tree home was sent thudding to the ground. Generally, the entrance tunnel to their cavity is on the southside of the tree, the side that most often faced down when felled by Rita’s north winds. “Worse than the loss of birds is the loss of their habitat,” Mize said. “It takes many years to replace their foraging habitat.” Red cockaded woodpeckers drill cavities into large-diameter longleaf pines. Longleaf species are favored because of the resin released by the constant pecking of the birds as they circle around the tree. These sticky brownish-white stains marking the the entrance to their home 30 feet above the ground are a defense measure against rat snakes which, learning the presence of the birds by their vibrations, are able to inflate their slithering bodies as they chimney up the crevices of the pine bark to feast on the woodpeckers. These large pine trees, measuring 10 inches across or greater, “will take half a century” to replace, Mize said. http://www.lufkindailynews.com/news/content/news/stories/2005/10/21/20051021LDNForestAgain.html

Alabama:

17) Zack Parisa, a forestry major at Mississippi State University, and Evan Thomas, a materials engineering major at Arizona State University, have invented a beetle-detection device that can identify nests of beetles before the insects mature, swarm and invade healthy, neighboring trees. Forest managers then could cut down the infected tree and potentially remove the threat. The device, still in testing stages, turns the beetles’ own natural communication methods against them, tracking the pheromones the insects use to attract one another. High levels of the pheromones lead to the nests where beetle larvae spend the winter. Left undetected, the beetles would swarm come spring and kill hundreds of trees in every direction. If the nest trees are removed before then, the attack is thwarted. In tests, the inventors have been able to zero in on a single tree and cut the time needed to analyze data from three days to about two hours. Parisa, 22, didn’t set out to invent a beetle detector, but he started thinking about the problem while doing location work in Alabama’s northwestern pine forests, which have been hit by beetle infestations in recent years. The only way to track the beetles was to watch for dying trees. Even then, options were limited, insecticides impractical. “They move entirely too fast in the summer months to do anything,” Parisa said. In the winter, meanwhile, beetles dump high concentrations of pheromones to find each other. Once they do, infestation rates climb quickly, “but they don’t move as fast.”

18) More than 600 trees will be planted in two historic city neighborhoods in coming weeks to replace those lost during Hurricane Ivan last year. Neighborhood residents believe the trees will improve shade, beautify their neighborhood, reduce energy bills and increase their property values. Capitol Heights and the Garden District each received $15,000 federal grants to plant at least 300 trees in the respective communities. Capitol Heights resident Tim Vaught said the grant and the trees will change the face of the neighborhood over the next 30 years more than any other event. “This is pretty incredible for the neighborhood,” he said. “This is not like repaving a street. A tree will be there for 50 to 75 years. “Vaught and Brandon Brazil, president of the Garden District, agreed some of the tree canopy has deteriorated in their neighborhoods in the past 20 years. Trees have fallen, been taken down and are often not replaced. “This will put Montgomery where it was 20 years ago 20 years from now,” said Vaught, chairman of the parks and green space committee for the Capitol Heights Civic Association. http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051020/NEWS01/510200350/1007

Canada:

19) A third-year university student has found the world’s oldest-known red spruce tree; and he’s not telling where it is. Mount Allison student Ben Phillips found the tree while walking along the Bay of Fundy coast last summer. He took a core sample, and then counted all the rings under a high-powered microscope. Phillips describes his latest discovery as magical. “The tree itself just has this glow about it. You can tell it’s significant when you approach it.” The tree is so old, it predates European colonization in North America. It’s at least 445 years old and the oldest documented red spruce tree on the planet. Most red spruce trees have a lifespan of about 400 years. The previous
record was held by a 405-year-old tree in New Hampshire. Climate record Phillips said the record-holding tree is small, only approximately 30 centimetres in diameter, and scraggly looking. He’s keeping its location secret because he’s worried gawkers might trample on its roots, or someone might cut it down. He said it’s healthy and could live many more years. “The last time I was in there I kind of apologized to the tree for taking the core, and just told it how important I think it is,” said Phillips. “I don’t want other people to go in there and trample it down. The human impact that it’s escaped is the reason why it’s still there.” http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/10/20/spruce-old051020.html

Spain:

20) At 10.00am this morning, forty one Greenpeace activists sealed the entrance to Madrid’s prestigious Queen Sofia Museum (Reina Sofia), and declared it an ancient forest crime scene. The activists hung a banner in front of the museum reading ‘Forest Crime in the Reina Sofia’ and drew the outline of a tree’s ‘body’ on the ground. Today’s action followed the discovery that the museum’s newly opened extension has been built using timber bought from companies involved in the illegal logging of the Amazon rainforest. Greenpeace International forest campaigner, Belinda Fletcher, said: “Illegal logging is out of control in the Amazon. It’s a disgrace that the Spanish Government is spending public money on fuelling this corrupt trade in stolen rainforest timber.” The Queen Sofia Museum is one of the best known in Spain and houses Picasso’s Guernica. Designed by the architect Jean Nouvel, it has been extended over the last three years by the Spanish construction company Dragados/ACS. The timber species (jatoba) used in the library, exhibition rooms, auditorium and offices comes from Pará State, the most extensively logged region of the Amazon. Life on Earth depends on ancient forests. They are the richest, most diverse habitats and help stabilize climate. They are also home to millions of indigenous and forest dwelling people. Seventeen per cent of the Amazon has been completely wiped out over the past 30 years (3), and even more has been damaged by destructive logging. Today, it is estimated that between 60 to 80 per cent of logging in the Brazilian Amazon is illegal. “It’s absurd that it’s illegal to import stolen works of art into the EU, but it’s not illegal to import stolen wood to build a museum like this. If the EU does not act to stop the illegal timber trade, the world’s ancient forests and the life they support will disappear forever,” said Fletcher. http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/1020-01.htm

Panama:

21) A new study released this week in the on-line edition of the journal Science suggests that tree diversity in tropical forests plays a crucial role in determining how much carbon these natural storehouses are able to hold, as well as their ability to provide other crucial ecosystem services such as preventing erosion. The study was led by Daniel Bunker and Shahid Naeem from the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology at Columbia University and Fabrice DeClerck from the Earth Institute at Columbia University. They simulated variations in forest diversity that resulted from a range of different extinction scenarios: those governed by biological characteristics such as low growth rate or limited growing range, those resulting from human activities such as selective logging, and those arising from environmental changes such as widespread drought. The study was based on data from the 120-acre Forest Dynamics Plot, a tropical forest on Barro Colorado Island in the Panama Canal run by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute that has been surveyed every five years since 1985. Previous studies have found that nearly half of the estimated 52 billion tons of carbon stored in the Earth’s biomass is found in tropical forests. By simulating different extinction scenarios and analyzing the resulting mix of tree species, the team was able to determine how much carbon the forest was able to hold. They found, for example, that converting tropical forests to less-diverse tree plantations containing only species with high wood density such as teak resulted in a 75 percent increase in the forest’s carbon-storage capacity–so long as the trees are not harvested. By contrast, selectively logging trees with high wood density was found to reduce carbon storage by as much as 70 percent. Other scenarios, such as disease outbreaks that result in a selective loss of large or slow-growing trees, also produced a marked decline in the forest’s ability to sequester carbon. “In general, we found that when you have more species, things are more predictable,” said Bunker, who was lead author on the study. “It’s like having a diversified investment portfolio. Having many different types of trees lowers overall variability of a forest’s ability to provide crucial services.” http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-10/teia-stf102105.php

Brazil:

22) A four-year, comprehensive survey of the Amazon Basin in Brazil reveals
that selective logging–the practice of cutting down just one or two tree species in an area–creates an additional 60 to 123 percent more damage than deforestation alone. Combining field surveys with data gathered from a satellite-imaging system that has a resolution as fine as one tree, scientists at Carnegie Institution of Washington in Stanford, Calif., determined that not only have traditional analysis methods missed more than 50 percent of the damage caused by timber harvest, but that selective loggings results in 25 percent more greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere. “This was totally surprising to us and alarming to our colleagues, especially those interested in conservation, climate change and the ability of governments like Brazil to enforce environmental laws,” says assistant professor Gregory Asner, lead author on the study, which was published today in the journal Science. What’s more, felled trees, the decomposing debris left behind on the forest floor and the large amounts of sawdust procured at sawmills release carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere. Traditional deforestation unleashes 400 million tons of carbon every year, and Asner and his colleagues estimate selective logging produces an additional 100 million tons. http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=000408CE-6EF8-1358-AEF883414B7F0000

Vietnam:

23) Green Left Weekly asked famous Vietnamese environmentalist and biologist professor Vo Quy about how much forest destruction was due to war rather than other causes. He explained that “around 2 million hectares of tropical forests were destroyed, and another million hectares severely damaged, by 80 million litres of herbicides, 13 million tonnes of bombs creating 25 million craters, napalm, and a huge fleet of bulldozers”. Given that the forest cover is estimated to have dropped from 43% (about 14 million hectares) in 1945, to 24% (8 million hectares) in 1980, the percentage of forest destroyed directly by war represents about one-third of total forest destruction. Vo Quy, a Communist Party member since 1954, is a world-renowned environmental expert and activist, who has discovered many new species, has documented the destruction caused by US chemical weaponry, and has contributed greatly to the environmental revival in his country. In 2003, he became the first Vietnamese person to win the prestigious Blue Earth award for contributions to the environment. According to Vo Quy, the reasons for further deforestation include the high rural population and its expanding demand for farmland — especially given the terrible post-war economic conditions, and more recently rapid economic growth under market conditions with its big demand on land and timber — and continued poverty among many people living in or near forests. Then there is illegal logging, which has been very difficult to control — in the first half of 2003, there were 15,000 violations of forest laws in the first six months. Thus, despite an active reforestation campaign beginning in the 1980s, between 1975 and 1995 a further 2.8 million hectares of native forest were lost. This almost neutralised the effort, with forest cover only creeping up from 24% to 28% between 1980 and 1998. http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/646/646p20.htm

Bhutan:

24) “About 66.5 percent of the forest cover cannot be availed for commercial timber production,” said the joint director of forest resource development division D B Dhital, who presented a paper on the forest resource assessment and potential forest areas for sustainable timber production at the two-day annual forestry conference in Thimphu early this month. “With the whole country having become a construction site the demand for timber is increasing each year,” said director general of department of forest, Dasho Dawa Tshering. “We have to understand that we do not have a huge logging capacity as is often perceived.” Rural timber, or government subsidised timber, to benefit the rural population has attracted controversy over the years. The system, which is unique to Bhutan, was being manipulated to the benefit of sub-urban and even urban constructions, according to forest officials. “Even the affluent are acquiring it today,” one forest official told Kuensel. “In this sector timber can be extracted from outside the forest management units.” The volume of commercial timber produced by Forestry Developmental Corporation Limited from FMUs (forest management units) had increased from 35,595 cubic metre in 1996 to 65,538 metre cubic in 2002. The demand from FMUs in Zhemgang, Mongar, and Phuentsholing was much higher. According to the 1995 data, about 1000 acres of forestland and about 100,000 trees were lost annually. These figures forest officials believe would have changed today. The looming concern therefore is that despite everything, the demand for forest land and forest resources was increasing every year. http://www.kuenselonline.com/article.php?sid=6164

China:

25) The rain forest in the Amazon region is degrading at twice the rate previously estimated due to logging activities, scientists reported on Thursday. Logging specific trees stealthily, a business conducted in decades in the fragile rain forest, adds to the effects of clear-cutting, scientists said in a paper appearing in the 21 October issue of the journal Science. Until now, satellite-based methods for measuring deforestation across large areas have only been capable of detecting clear-cut swaths of land, where all the trees are removed to clear space forfarming or grazing. A new satellite imaging method, developed by Gregory Asner of the Carnegie Institution, detects deforestation on a finer scale, allowing researchers to identify areas where trees have been thinned, due mostly to “selective logging.” To detect and quantify the amount of selective logging in the five major timber production states of the Brazilian Amazon, the researchers used the new analysis system. The researchers found that, from 1999 to 2002, selective logging added 60 to 128 percent more damaged forest area than was reported for deforestation alone in the same study period. The total volume of harvested trees represents roughly 10 to 15million metric tons of carbon removed from the ecosystem, according to the researchers. They estimated that this amount represents a 25 percent increase in the overall flow of carbon from the Amazonian forest to the atmosphere. Logging causes major ecological disruptions as well. Vines threading through the trees can pull down large amounts of vegetation when a tree falls. The forest also becomes drier and more flammable, as the shady canopy is thinned. “Logged forests are areas of extraordinary damage,” Asner said.” This study puts to rest a long-standing debate about how extensive selective logging is in the Amazon, other scientists commented. “The results are of great concern, since logging punches big holes in the dense forest canopy, increasing the likelihood of devastating forest fire,” said Daniel Nepstad, an ecologist at the Woods Hole Research Center. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-10/21/content_3659147.htm

Pakistan:

26) “If there had been more trees we would not have lost as much,” said Qayoon Shah, a young teacher, standing by the ruins of the village school. “It is our mistake.” Nearby from Jabla’s heights, house builder Haday Tullah surveyed a panorama of villages precariously perched on totally bald or patchily forested slopes scarred by telltale trails of old landslides. Like Mohammad, who says he’s cut trees and grazed cattle on the slope above his house, the 60-year-old builder has unwittingly contributed to the destruction, having felled trees for logging companies and the Indian army in the 1960s. “The forests were once very thick but the generations pass so people have to build houses and collect firewood and the trees disappear,” he said. Spawned more often by heavy rains and flash floods during the monsoons, landslides and high-speed mud flows plague the entire “roof of the world,” the 1,800-mile arc of the Himalayas that runs through seven countries from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east. In this once remote region, commercial logging, local felling and overgrazing have exposed rock and soil, making the land less compact and able to retain water, which now rushes easily down mountainsides to set off what some call “ecological landmines.” Adding to the threat are watershed mismanagement, wholesale replacements of natural forest by tree plantations, which don’t absorb as much water, and greater, irregular waterflows as global warming melts Himalayan glaciers, said Nithin Sethi, of the Delhi-based Center for Science and Technology. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1501AP_Quake_Death_from_Above.html

India:

27) Madurai, October 22: A petition seeking strict enforcement by officials of the Central and state Forest Departments of the provisions of Forest Conservation Act 1980,Tamil Nadu Hill Areas (Preservation of Trees) Act 1955 and Tamil Nadu Rosewood Trees (Conservation Act) 1994 Act in Dindigul district was admitted by the Madurai bench of the Madras High court on Thursday. The petitioner submitted that he had written to the Secretary, Union Ministry of Forest and Evironment, Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary, Forest Secretary and Principal Conservator of Forests, to take action against illegal felling of rosewood trees worth crores of rupees by the mafia in connivance with local officials in Sirumalai hills. The petitioner contended that the mafia was felling trees in broad daylight in the forest, which houses wildlife like leopards, boar, deer and numerous other species. He said the present DFO was charged departmentally in 2001 for allegedly abetting felling to make roads to smuggle trees from the reserve forest area. He was also charged with helping one V Ramalingam who had cut 171 grown trees and burnt 15 rosewood trees. But he came out clean in the enquiry with the ‘blessings’ of the then Forest Secretary, and was promoted as DFO and is now working in Dindigul district, where Sirumalai is located, Jayachandran alleged. The seizure of four loads of illegally felled trees in September 2005 was only the tip of the iceberg. The value of trees felled in Sirumalai forests in the last several years was worth several crores of rupees. The forest mafia was also working in collaboration with some politicians, the petitioner contended. Even now, 200 logs, felled recently were lying at various places and the Court should pass orders to take possession of the trees and secure them. Justice P K Mishra and Justice A R Ramalingam ordered that the felled trees be moved to a safe place. http://www.chennaionline.com/colnews/newsitem.asp?NEWSID=%7BFCD462A1-473E-4D31-AD10-C93878588864%7D&CATEGO
RYNAME=Tamil+Nadu

28) Congress legislator Bhupesh Baghel has alleged that the new management of Korba-based BALCO, which has now been taken over by Sterlite Group, had gone ahead with an expansion plan encroaching 1000 acres of forest land. The government-owned BALCO was privatised in 2001 and the expansion plan was put forward in 2002. An inquiry ordered by a state minister, who was elected from the area, revealed that BALCO had encroached 1000 acres of forest land and had chopped off 50,000 trees. Pointing to another violation, Mr Baghel said that Vishakhapatnam-based Essar Steel Ltd, which had been permitted to cut forest trees in Bastar to create a 8.4 metre wide corridor for laying an underground pipeline to transport iron ore slurry, had created a 20 metre-wide corridor. He alleged that the state forest department did not do anything to prevent the destruction of forest by Essar and only imposed a fine of Rs 95 lakh on the company. The MLA has also pointed out that a Durg-based industrialist, who had been granted an iron ore mine in Kanker district on lease, had been violating the conditions of lease by cutting trees. without permission. The industrialist had started mining operations without getting an approval from the Indian Bureau of Mines, he alleged. The application by Mr Baghel came up for consideration before the court during the hearing of a batch of petitions on forest matters. http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=143470&cat=India

29) The petitioner had stated that Sirumalai area in Dindigul was an important forest area, which supports growth of many valuable trees, including rosewood and herbal trees. When the District Forest Officer inspected this area on August 20, 2001, he detected that 171 high value trees had been cut down. The forest ranger of Sirumalai, Ramalingam, was questioned about the tree felling but no further action was taken. The petitioner claimed that Ramalingam laid a road illegally in the forest area and thus abetted the smuggling of the timber trees. Though departmental action was initiated against him he subverted the action with the help of Forest department secretary, the petitioner added. Ramalingam was later promoted as District Forest Officer and appointed in Dindigul district. In September last, four truckloads of illegally felled timber trees were seized from Sirumalai area. These trees were worth many crores of rupees. Illegally felled trees are now lying scattered in many parts of the forest, the petitioner said and prayed the court for a direction to the Union ministry of forests to appoint an inquiry team comprising experts from the forest research institute of Dehradun. This team should visit Sirumalai and conduct investigations. The petitioner also pleaded for a CBI inquiry into the illegal felling and smuggling of trees from this jungle as also a directive to the State secretary to the forest department and Chief Forest Officer to protect the trees lying scattered. http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IET20051022005602&Page=T&Title=Southern+News+-+Tamil+Nadu&Topi
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30) THANJAVUR: Stressing the need for growing trees to protect environment and preserve the ecological balance, Forest and Environment Minister R Vaithilingam has said the total forest area in the State has increased to 23.5 percent from 17.6 percent due to the efforts of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. Speaking at a training programme on environment education for school teachers here on Sunday, Vaithilingam said the total forest area in the State was expected to rise to 25 percent by 2007. ‘‘The State will achieve the target of 33.3 percent by 2013,’’ he added. According to the minister, TN was a pioneer in implementing major schemes for forest development under the Japan-aided scheme. ‘‘Tamil Nadu has now been identified for the implementation of the second phase of the project with an outlay of Rs 567 crore,’’ he said. He said green corps have been started in all schools in order to protect the environment in schools. http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IET20051023110221&Page=T&Title=Southern+News+-+Tamil+Nadu&Topi
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Australia:

31) Six months after they forced Forestry Tasmania to promise a six-month moratorium on logging and road construction in the Weld Valley, protesters have returned to make sure the forests are saved. The Weld Valley, a 50-kilometre stretch of largely pristine forest located 60km south-west of Hobart, has been dubbed “the forgotten forest”. This refers to the fact that it was left out of the pro-logging deal signed by Coalition PM John Howard and Labor Premier Paul Lennon after last year’s federal election. Prior to the election, the Weld was mentioned by the Coalition as one of the forests that would be “saved”. “The entire Weld Valley deserves world heritage protection”, Huon Valley environmentalist and Socialist Alliance member Glenn Shields told Green Left Weekly. The Weld Valley is adjacent to the south-west World Heritage Wilderness Area. “Most, if not all of [the Weld], has already been recommended for world heritage status and it’s a disgrace that it hasn’t been done yet”, said Shields. Despite the Weld’s high-conservation values, Forestry Tasmania has scheduled a number of forest coupes in valley for logging this summer. A well-coordinated team of forest protection activists have vowed to prevent any logging from occurring. “We are out there to stop any work on the Weld Valley this summer”, protester Rob Sheehan told GLW. “We will guard any active coupe and stop them.” The anti-logging campaigners have constructed eight raised platforms for tree sits as part of a “forest village”. “We are building a camp for families and children to come and live and feel comfortable”, Sheehan said. One feature of the campaign is the “canopy research station” that will be inaugurated by Greens Senator Bob Brown on November 26. Protesters staffing this station have already begun trapping insects and invertebrates to assist research at the University of Tasmania. Forestry Tasmania is not conducting such research, according to Sheehan. http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/646/646p6.htm