This week we have 40 news items from: British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Kentucky, Georgia, USA, Canada, Romania, Ukraine, Africa, Palestine, Brazil, India, Fiji, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Australia.
British Columbia:
1) VANCOUVER – Global sawmilling costs continue to drop in most countries, while log costs vary widely. Sawmills on the West Coast of the United States are the most profitable in the world, with 2004 earnings at average mills almost three times greater than the overall global average earnings of USD 24/m3 (USD 45/Mbf – nominal count). Mills in Australia held the number two spot with earnings of USD 58/m3, followed by British Columbia’s Interior region sawmills at USD 55/m3 (almost USD 90/Mbf – nominal). The lowest ‘average sawmill’ earnings in 2004 occurred in European countries as well as parts of Russia where they ranged from around break-even to a high of USD 15/m3 in the Baltic States. “Sawmills in B.C., Washington or Oregon, especially those running three shifts, are recording the largest annual lumber output, but European countries can boast both the largest two-shift capacity mills and the lowest operating costs in the world of the commodity sawmills surveyed” said Russ Taylor, Managing Director of WOOD Markets. “The European sawmilling process is also more flexible and can produce commodity or specialty orders of lumber in almost any size or length. In contrast, most North America mills surveyed are limited to producing 2-inch dimension lumber and continue to be pushed out of lucrative export markets such as Japan by more customer-focused European mills.”
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/December2005/14/c0439.html
2) As indigenous people, we have very deep concerns about the loss of our sacred forests and our fresh waters. Corruption involving how the run of this unceded provinces governing powers goes, and how they get away with corruptions and the destruction of our forests. The loss of fresh water is not far behind, as without trees there will be no more fresh water, especially on the small islands on the west coast of Beautiful British Columbia, Canada. By the time 2010 Olympics comes around, there will be hardly any snow, because of how fast the forests are disappearing. Global Warming. We need to do more to protect our forests and our fresh waters and clean rivers. All the animals should be the first to be protected and nourished. Logging will only look after the humans for a short while, as is with the result of what just happened in Squamish. As another saw mill just got shut down. Logging makes the trees disappear so fast, just as fast as the jobs. Without the trees the animals will surely suffer. —Helen Michell telquaa@hotmail.com
Washington
3) Government entities on Grays Harbor looking for a revenue boost from state forest lands will be disappointed next year. Logging on state forest lands will likely remain stagnant well into 2006, Doug Sutherland, commissioner of Public Lands, said in a letter to the county commissioners this week. “Harvest activity continues to be volatile as purchasers balance their timber supply options and mill inventory needs with changes in end-product markets,” Sutherland wrote. In 2004, state forest lands netted $1.8 million for Grays Harbor County. By the end of this year, Sutherland expects the county to have received $1.7 million. In 2006, he predicts revenues will remain close to that amount. “The primary drivers for individual purchaser’s timber harvest plans remain market conditions, both domestic and foreign,” Sutherland said, “with timber supply concerns, contract requirements and regulatory requirements influencing individual sale harvest decisions.”
http://www.thedailyworld.com/articles/2005/12/14/local_news/02news.txt
Oregon:
4) Agency officials confirmed Wednesday that the Big Butte timber sale in the Butte Falls Ranger District will harvest some 41 million board feet while focusing on thinning overstocked, fire-prone forests on previously logged land. A formal announcement of the decision is expected at the end of the year. “I think it’s a great step in the right direction” of cutting green timber, said David Schott, executive vice president of the Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association. “It’s a pleasant surprise,” observed George Sexton, conservation director of the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center. “It looks pretty reasonable,” concurred Dave Gilmour, a member of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners. However, each is waiting to read the final environmental impact decision before putting their stamp of approval on the project. All told, 6,184 acres will be thinned using a combination of logging methods, said forest spokeswoman Patty Burel. http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2005/1215/local/stories/06local.htm
5) Hot on the heals of the Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area logging debacle, the Siskiyou National Forest dusted off plans for an old-growth logging project from 1996 called “Full House.” Renaming it the “Home Page” logging project, the Siskiyou National Forest tried to sell it to private logging companies in September – but they received no bids. The Siskiyou Project, partnering with the Pacific Environmental Advocacy Center, was poised to challenge this old-growth logging project in court. Recently, the Siskiyou National Forest announced that it would not seek to re-auction the failed Home Page logging project. Special thanks go to Regina Chichizola with the Klamath Forest Alliance and our friends at the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands center for their help in defeating the Home Page logging sale. A recent article in the Oregonian newspaper reporting on the cancellation of the Home Page logging sale led many to believe that old-growth logging was on its way out in the Rogue River/Siskiyou National Forest and other public lands in the Northwest. While the Siskiyou Project welcomes opportunities to collaborate with government agencies and to work toward solutions to protect native and old-growth forests, we recognize that substantive and binding policies are needed to truly protect our last best forests. http://www.siskiyou.org/swrc/timbersales/homepage.cfm
California:
6) Alternatives for the management of Jackson State Demonstration Forest, located along Highway 20 between Willits and Fort Bragg, are now available for public review. The alternatives are combined in a draft environmental impact review (EIR) subject to public comment for a 60-day period that began yesterday, Dec. 15. Russ Henley, assistant director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF), recommended several shortcuts to understanding the 1,500-page EIR: reading the executive summary, that is, the nontechnical overview at the beginning; studying a chart that compares the key features of the various alternatives; and looking at the summary charts at the end section dealing with a different kinds of environmental impact. Henley said alternative C-2 is basically the old management plan, which was abandoned after a successful court challenge. Alternative F, he said, is similar to the plan in Senate Bill 1648 developed by State Senator Wes Chesbro, approved by the legislature, and vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The new EIR, in response to court mandates, is supposed to give recreational uses, watershed stewardship, and ecosystem preservation the same importance as demonstration timber harvests. http://www.willitsnews.com/Stories/0,1413,253~26908~3169744,00.html
7) When most of your public life has been lived posthumously, you have to rely on others when it comes to showtime. With a severe case of morning hair following a 23-month hibernation, staffers at the California Academy of Sciences diligently groomed every hair on Monarch, the last of California’s wild grizzly bears. Monarch — or at least his 94-year-old pelt — recently went from cold storage to “Hotspot: California on the Edge,” a new exhibit at the Academy’s temporary downtown San Francisco home that warns of dangers to the state’s biodiversity. The exhibit brings together habitats from six different areas: Central Valley vernal pools, Mediterranean shrublands, the high Sierra-Nevada, Cascade Range volcanoes, Coast redwood forests, and the Klamath-Siskiyou wilderness (featuring the must-see cobra lilies, a carnivorous plant that dwarfs the Venus flytraps you tried growing as a kid). Featuring interactive displays, actual specimens and endangered species, the show runs through August. Though the Academy has more than 18 million specimens in its collection, a better poster child for endangered species could not exist. The California grizzly bear is extinct, and the creatures left with such speed that the taxidermied Monarch is the only extant specimen left. Not much of a legacy for the state’s official animal. http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/13435869.htm
Montana:
8) The Wilderness Society will expand its Montana staff in an effort to guide the U.S. Forest Service “toward more of a conservation mission,” the environmental group’s regional director said Wednesday. The society, based in Washington, D.C., is seeking an economist, a specialist in ecology and a leader for a campaign on management of national forests, Northern Rockies director Bob Ekey said in a telephone interview from Bozeman. The Forest Service’s role as “a timber production outfit,” Ekey said, is decreasing, and The Wilderness Society wants to help guide the federal agency’s planning for management of its lands. The new staff will be part of that work, he said. The society is advertising for a person to develop and manage a “science-based” campaign “that builds broad-based public support for the protection of Montana’s national forests.” Restoration forestry and protection of roadless areas will be the focus, according to the organization’s Web site. At least two other environmental groups in Montana also are advertising positions. Those hirings will not result in a net gain of staff. The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, based in Bozeman, is expanding its Jackson, Wyo., office from one person to two and decreasing the Idaho Falls, Idaho, staff from three positions to two, conservation director Dick Dolan said. The Montana Wilderness Association is seeking a Choteau organizer for its campaign to restrict development of federal lands along the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana. The position became vacant through a resignation, spokesman Lex Hames said. http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/12/15/build/state/65-wilderness.inc
9) We know this much as we head into the mountains: Grizzlies were here, for thousands of years, in huge numbers. The accounts of Lewis and Clark and other early visitors tell us the place was crawling with them. A 1.3-million-acre landscape of cirques, sprawling peaks, and pristine lakes, the Selway-Bitterroot is the third-largest wilderness in the Lower 48. Added to the adjacent 2.3-million-acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness and surrounding wildlands, the expanse is known as the Bitterroot Ecosystem–a roadless, wild area larger than New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut combined. With its plentiful food sources and massive empty spaces, it’s superlative grizzly habitat. We also know that settlers hunted grizzlies with ferocity in the 19th and early 20th centuries, shooting and and poisoning them so methodically that in 1932, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recorded the last official grizzly slaying in the Bitterroot. The last confirmed tracks were spotted in 1946. Credible scientists and conservationists continue to believe–some passionately–that a small remnant griz population still survives deep in this wilderness. Grizzly recovery in the Mountain West is dependent on bears mounting a comeback in the Selway-Bitterroot. Human populations are booming around the West’s wild spaces, and the more trophy homes that get built, the more bears get sealed into national parks like Yellowstone and Glacier. The Yellowstone ecosystem is an island, genetically isolated, meaning that its bear population won’t remain viable without connectivity to grizzlies in Canada. The only practical route is through these mountains. So it’s no exaggeration to say that the fate of the grizzly in the Lower 48 may well lie right here in the Bitterroot. http://www.southeasttexaslive.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15779970&BRD=2287&PAG=461&dept_id=512588&rfi=6
Idaho:
10) In 1997, Boise began winding down a 30-year project: building paved pathways on both sides of the Boise River from Lucky Peak to the west edge of Boise city limits. The vision started in 1963, when the city hired a California land-use consultant to create Boise’s first comprehensive plan. The consultant suggested linking Boise’s riverfront parks — Ann Morrison, Julia Davis and Municipal Park — with riverside pathways. From that idea grew the Greenbelt. Today, 25 miles of paved path and 2 miles of unpaved path wind through Boise and East Ada County on both banks of the Boise River. “The Greenbelt exuberantly exceeded any expectation the city originally had about it,” said historian Susan Stacy, who worked in the city’s planning and zoning department from 1973 to 1986 and chronicled the Greenbelt’s development in her 1993 book on Boise River flood control, “When the River Rises.” Some members of Boise’s Greenbelt committee, which was created in 1969 and disbanded in 1997, and the Boise River Trail Foundation, which helped secure the Ada County land components of the Greenbelt, were not ready to stop. They were still dreaming of more miles of Greenbelt running alongside the Boise River. http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051218/NEWS0106/512180342/1021
Minnesota:
11) Trust for Public Land: The local office of this national organization has been very busy this fall. Last month, it made a deal with a civic-minded landowner in Dakota County to help the DNR acquire 475 acres for a hunting and fishing preserve along the Vermillion River. It also finalized a deal with Potlatch Corp., the largest corporate forest owner in Minnesota, to put 3,100 acres of its forest in the Brainerd Lakes area under a permanent conservation easement. And in October, it bought Minnemishinona Falls waterfall near Mankato for Nicollet County. It has worked with the National Park Service to add more than 2,500 acres to the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway and with Grand Marais to acquire a gas-station site on its harbor shoreline and turn it into a park. In northeast Wisconsin, it secured a six-mile easement along the Wolf River for the Ice Age National Scenic Trail, and on Lake Namekagon, near Cable, it secured the historic Forest Lodge estate, including three miles of undeveloped shoreline, for eventual use as an environmental learning center.
11a) Minnesota Land Trust: This group doesn’t buy land and works primarily with private landowners, though it gives 30 to 40 workshops every year to citizen groups and elected officials around the state, showing them how to “not rubber-stamp any proposal that comes down the pike,” says development director Wally Abramson. “Most of our landowners are just salt-of-the-earth people who love their land to death and want it to pass on to future generations,” Abramson said.
11b) Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota: Formed in 1954 by Judge C.R. Magney and other giants of conservation, this group works with many other organizations and agencies to acquire land for parks and trails; its first acquisition became Afton State Park. Since that auspicious beginning, it has acquired more than 6,500 acres, preventing development on such crucial parcels as Gold Rock Point, across from Split Rock Lighthouse and now part of the state park. It’s unique in that its network of 3,000 members is very active around the state — “They’re our eyes and ears on the ground,” development director Cuchna says — often identifying important land and lobbying local officials to protect it. http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/sports/outdoors/13417028.htm
New Hampshire:
12) Charles Niebling of Boscawen will leave the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests at the end of the year. He has worked at the society since 1987 and departs as vice president of policy and land management. We caught up with Niebling and asked him several questions about the state of New Hampshire forests. The White Mountain National Forest is within a day’s drive of 70 million people. What do you see as the biggest threats to the forest? The biggest challenges will be twofold: First, managing people in a way that simultaneously preserves the remote backcountry recreational experience for which the forest is famous and the ecological integrity of the forest. Second, managing the effects of acid rain, air pollution, climate change, invasive plant and animal species, and other environmental consequences of human impact. The forest plan envisions only one mile of new road per year for the life of the next forest plan. For all intents and purposes, road-building is pretty much over in the White Mountain National Forest. Markets for high-quality hardwood and softwood saw timber (lumber) will always be strong in this region. High-quality saw timber is the emphasis of management of the White Mountain National Forest. There will continue to be consolidation in the forest products manufacturing industry, as there is in all major basic natural resource manufacturing industries. In other words, the big will get bigger and the small will drop out unless they can develop strong local niche markets for their products. I am generally bullish on the future of the industry in this part of the world. http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051219/REPOSITORY/512190301/1028/OPINION02
Connecticut:
13) Timber does not readily come to mind when one considers the industries of Connecticut. Yet just shy of 60 percent of the land in Connecticut is covered with forest, and among the many things that forest provides is a timber industry. According to a state study titled “The Forest in the Connecticut Economy,” timber drives a $400 million industry in the state and employs 3,600 people, counting suppliers and ancillary services. Timber begins with trees, and Connecticut grows trees very, very well. Licensed foresters write some 150 forest management plans for these lands annually, and many of these plans call for the planned, periodic harvest of timber. Of about 1.8 million acres of forest, trees are harvested from about 20,000 acres – not the same 20,000 acres – each year. Timber drives a $400 million industry in the state and employs 3,600 people, counting suppliers and ancillary services. Of about 1.8 million acres of forest, trees are harvested from about 20,000 acres – not the same 20,000 acres – each year. Fortunately, about 200 people who care about forests gathered at the first Connecticut Forest Forum earlier this month. They adopted a plan, the Connecticut Forest Resources Plan, to help stop the loss of forests, and created a council to help implement the plan. http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/commentary/hc-plcadammoore1218.artdec18,0,5122487.story?coll=hc-headli
nes-commentary
Kentucky:
14) The Forest Service is up to its typical dirty tricks again, this time to try and get a salvage logging project quickly cut on the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area in Western Kentucky. First, they quietly published the legal notice starting the comment period on November 22, but didn’t write the public scoping letter until December 12, and didn’t mail it for a day or two after that. We received it on December 15. We are supposed to get 30 days to comment, but LBL says the comment period ends December 27, the Monday after Christmas. To add injury to insult, they have divided three logging areas into two separate timber sales, even though they are within a short distance of each other, in order to be able to use the “small timber sale” categorical exclusion which allows them to escape doing environmental studies and public review. If all of the acreage was considered together, they could not use the “categorical exclusion” and would be required to file at least an environmental assessment. The Hillman Ferry area is a significant historical and cultural site, and has a designated “heritage trail” going through it. The largest of the other two areas is adjacent to a “core area,” or the largest relatively protected areas on LBL. The action alert letter at the link below asks the LBL to extend the comment period, and to consider all of the sales together in an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement, with full public comment. Please help us. http://www.heartwood.org/alert
Georgia:
15) Timber Tract 430, Twiggs County — Except for the occasional logging truck rattling across a bumpy dirt road, this stretch of woods is as quiet as you might expect so far from the city. Loblolly pines, planted about 20 years ago, have formed a wall of wood in every direction, blocking out noise from the highway. On most days, there are more whitetail deer and black bears than humans. It is remote and serene — deceptively so. The land is being sold and resold in ranch- and trailer-size parcels. These days the money’s not in the trees. It’s in the dirt. “We’re in one of the hottest land markets that I can remember,” said Dan Brundige, the Middle Georgia land seller who puts together multi-million-dollar deals from a pickup truck .The heat cranked up considerably after last year’s megasale of timberland by forest giant Weyerhaeuser Co. of Federal Way, Wash. Nearly 300,000 acres in Middle Georgia was snapped up overnight, sold and resold to hundreds of individual buyers. Some tracts changed hands three times within a few months. The land grab comes courtesy of big changes in strategy by major forest products companies. It soon will be dwarfed when International Paper unloads its holdings in Georgia: more than a half-million acres. And it could lead to a big shift in Georgia agriculture, which lists timber as its leading cash crop. The Weyerhaeuser sale offers a glimpse of Georgia’s spiking land prices. The timberland, spread across 35 counties in Middle Georgia, initially sold at an average of $1,500 an acre. Some buyers flipped the land for more than twice what they paid. “A lot of the buyers have never owned timberland. … They don’t really understand the economics of timber, but they know the history of real estate, and they know land is a good investment,” said Macon forest consultant Billy Humphries Jr. http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/1205/18biztimber.html
USA:
16) Thanks to your calls, emails and faxes, Rep. Richard Pombo’s mining law changes have been struck from the budget reconciliation legislation being debated in Congress. Pombo’s extreme proposal would have allowed millions of acres of public lands, like National Forests and parts of National Parks, to be privatized, developed and closed to the public. Congressman Peter DeFazio, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski, Senators Ron Wyden, Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer all publicly opposed Pombo’s extreme privatization plan. http://www.siskiyou.org
Canada:
17) A leading Canadian investment firm and the world’s largest nonprofit conservation organization are endorsing a national vision that balances protection of ecological and cultural values with responsible economic development across Canada’s 1.4 billion acre Boreal forest region, the Canadian Boreal Initiative announced today. Known as the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework, the vision calls for protection of at least 50 percent of Canada’s Boreal region and world-class sustainable development practices on the remaining landscape. Today’s new signatories – the Ethical Funds Company, Canada’s original and largest manager of socially responsible mutual funds and The Nature Conservancy – join the 11 other leading conservation organizations, First Nations, and forestry and energy companies that launched the Framework. Since its launch two years ago, the Framework has been increasingly attracting the attention of Canadian decision-makers, as well as the North American marketplace. “Today’s announcement demonstrates the increasing support that we’re seeing across diverse sectors for the balanced approach of the Framework,” said CBI Director Cathy Wilkinson. “These leaders share a growing concern about the need to plan before development as industrial pressure escalates, and in recognition of the unique global values of the region, such as the critical role of Boreal trees, soils and peatlands in mitigating the effects of climate change.” http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/12-19-2005/0004236253&EDATE=
18) Hi everyone, as you know caribou are in dire need of some help from our provincial and federal governments. The reindeer have gotten wind of this and will be singing in the streets in support of their caribou cousins this season. If you and a few friends would like to help the reindeer, head to http://www.caribounation.org You’ll find some caribou carols there, as well as instructions on how to make simple yet stylish antlers for you and your friends to wear. Folks are already planning to carol in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Nelson. Why not your town? Media advisory below, adaptable for your local details. Spread the word, and send me digital pix if you do go a-caroling! Thanks. — Historically, caribou lived in every province and territory in Canada. In the last century caribou have declined across the country due to human actions, most particularly habitat destruction from logging and oil and gas exploration. In some places, such as the Alberta Foothills and the mountains of southeast British Columbia, caribou herds are in danger of disappearing altogether. The singing reindeer will exalt their caribou cousins, and inspire North Americans to pressure their provincial and federal governments to take stronger measures to protect caribou and their habitats. http://www.forestethics.org
Romania:
19) Agriculture Minister Gheorghe Flutur spoke to Bucharest Daily News about the challenge The national forest fund has decreased since the (1989) Revolution, and natural regeneration processes did not manage to grow back the trees that were cut down. A true green offensive is needed, which means a massive campaign to plant trees. We must make it clear that forest owners, regardless of whether it’s the state, through the National Forest Administration, individual owners or churches, have the obligation to plant trees. Planting trees is not optional and this is why, besides the increase in funds allocated for planting trees, we also ordered sanctions; fines for anybody who does not do it. The state will plant trees on the properties of those who do not plant new tress within two years since they cut down old trees and will send the owners the invoice for the work by mail. We need the forest and we must know how to protect it. http://www.daily-news.ro/article_detail.php?idarticle=20617
Ukraine:
20) Elite Ukrainian commandos trained to battle terrorists and mobsters will guard Christmas tree plantations to prevent their destruction by poachers, the Interfax news agency reported this week. Mobile units from the Berkut, Ukraine’s paramilitary police force, will patrol fir forests in the western Lviv region for the duration of the holiday season, said Oleh Paska, a police spokesman. “This is the time of the year when people go into the woods to cut themselves a Christmas tree, and if no one stops them, we will have no forest left,” Paska said. – DPA http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=64995&version=1&template_id=39&parent_id
=21
Africa:
21) We don’t believe gorillas and forest people should be made homeless by the European construction and furniture industries. That’s why we dumped three tonnes of tropical timber in front of France’s Agricultural Ministry, crushing fake gorillas, to demand action against the flood of illegal timber from Africa’s last ancient forests. European-owned timber companies are complicit in that destruction, as revealed in a new Greenpeace Report. And France, by accepting timber from illegal and destructive sources, is also jeopardizing the development of legitimate trade in legal and environmentally and socially responsible timber. Africa has already lost two-thirds of its ancient forests in the last thirty years, industrial logging threatens most of what remains. In as little as five to ten years Africa’s apes, the gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos, will disappear with the last undisturbed forest areas. European-owned timber companies are complicit in that destruction, as revealed in a new Greenpeace Report. And France, by accepting timber from illegal and destructive sources, is also jeopardizing the development of legitimate trade in legal and environmentally and socially responsible timber. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/french-illegal-timber-imports111
Palestine:
22) Activists in Gush Etzion won a small victory against the Partition Wall Thursday, preventing the destruction of a nature preserve and winning a court-order freezing construction of the wall. Citizens of Gush Etzion were alerted that Defense Ministry contractors intended to begin construction of the Partition Wall Thursday morning in the Suda Forest, adjacent to the Gush Etzion Junction. They arrived this morning with signs decrying the building of the wall they say will cut off and constrict Gush Etzion’s communities. In mid-protest, the Supreme Court ordered work on the wall to be halted for five days. Demonstrators stayed in the forest until the Defense Ministry representatives acknowledged receipt of the order, at which point the crowd dispersed. “Its uniqueness, in part, has to do with the fact that it is one of the few isolated remnants of the woods that covered the hilltops and were destroyed during Turkish times. It contains trees that are decades old and other special growth.” http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=94884
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1134309589305&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Brazil:
23) A former state governor and a former top policeman are among the accused in Brazil’s first ever investigation into the genocide of an uncontacted Indian tribe. Twenty-nine people are being detained in the investigation into the genocide of the uncontacted Rio Pardo Indians. In the last decade, the Indians’ land has been invaded by land grabbers and logging companies. Brazilian TV showed in November the first known images of the Indians. No-one outside the tribe knows who they are or what language they speak. The government’s Indian affairs department, FUNAI, has found camps inside the territory with land measuring equipment, and bombs and ammunition to intimidate the Indians. The invaders admit to finding thirty hurriedly abandoned Indian shelters. According to the UN, the crime of genocide can mean, ‘Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part’. http://survival-international.org/news.php?id=1258
24) Brazil produced 4 billion gallons of ethanol in 2004, some 37 percent of the world total, while the U.S. churned out 3.4 billion gallons, 31 percent of the world’s share. The country also exported 634 million gallons — 112 million of that to the U.S. — and its government is pushing to clear more land for production. Its vast size and tropical climate are perfect for the production of sugar cane, which is said to have better energy conversion rates than corn, the primary source for ethanol in the U.S. What’s more, Brazilian producers burn cellulosic stalk of sugar cane to make energy that fuels the entire industrial process. “That is why our production costs are half that of corn,” Carvalho says. While Brazil builds its ethanol empire — eyeing customers from Venezuela to China — other South American nations are also getting on board. Most are embracing mandatory fuel mixes for cost, security, and environmental reasons, but some hope to become bio-fountains spilling into a global fuel revolution. http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/12/15/hearn/index.html?source=daily
India:
25) GABURA, Bangladesh —Squeezed between the jungle and thousands of expanding shrimp and tiger prawn farms, at least 100,000 villagers risk tiger attacks to fish, cut trees and gather honey in the Sundarbans forest. “We don’t have any other way out,” said Mohabbat Mali, a honey hunter for more than 30 years. “We are poor people in dire straits and we have to depend on the jungle for our survival.” The Sundarbans, the world’s largest coastal mangrove forest, stretches for almost 6,000 square miles across India and Bangladesh, a natural barrier against tsunamis and frequent cyclones that blow in from the Bay of Bengal. Many villagers enter the protected forest to cut trees for fishing boats or to supply factories that make hardboard for furniture and buildings, and additional wood products. Fishermen gather crabs, shrimp and other sea creatures. Honey hunters often have the most treacherous job, searching for bees’ nests in vegetation so dense that the only way through is on hands and knees. Each spring, like Klondike prospectors looking for the mother lode, the honey hunters go deeply into debt to rent boats for their journey through a vast warren of muddy saltwater rivers and channels that meander around thousands of jungle islands. They have to stock up on food and supplies for trips that last up to three months. And they have to grease the palms of corrupt forestry officials. The honey hunters wager everything, including their lives, against pirates and the whims of wild animals, including pythons, king cobras, crocodiles and the man-eating Bengal tigers. The lure of liquid gold is stronger than their fears. http://www.latimes.com/business/careers/work/la-fg-honey19dec19,1,5842205.story?coll=la-headlines-business-
careers&ctrack=1&cset=true
26) The exploitation of forest resources from Jammu and Kashmir has created an environmental Holocaust. A few decades back there were massive forests and their thick vegetation cover over the surface but in recent years, the vegetation is on the verge of depletion. Once the large expanse of rich, dense and green sylvan grooves of deodar (Cedrus deodara), kail (Pinus wallichiana), fir (Abies pindrow) and chir (Pinus roxburghii) of Chenab valley in the Jammu region and those of Lolab valley in Kashmir region had been compared with the famous Black Forests of Germany. Heavy deforestation in these areas has resulted into multidimensional ecological and environmental crisis such as denudation, sheet, rill and gully erosion, landslides, flash floods and change of climate. The hydrological cycle has also totally changed. Most of the springs in the hilly region have become dried. http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?ItemID=13390&cat=12
Fiji:
27) Allegations were made by opposition senators Ponipate Lesavua and Dr Epeli Nailatikau that contracts to harvest and process mahogany were given under dubious circumstances. Mr Lesavua said contracts given to Mr Baba and Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase’s son, Laisenia Junior, were examples of nepotism. But, Mr Baba said, the attacks were cowardly as the senators were using parliamentary privilege. “It is a cowardly and vilifying attack and if there is any truth to it then the gentlemen should state what they have said, outside of Parliament,” said Mr Baba. “I am one of the most qualified foresters in the country and on top of that, I am passionate about forestry.” “Mr Lesavua knows what I have done about forestry because I set up the Nadi Forest Company.” http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=33777
Thailand:
28) Within only 40 years, Thailand’s forests which once covered half of the country have dwindled to just about 20%. This should be no big surprise. Although commercial logging was banned in 1989, illegal logging supported by men in uniform continued unabated. Can people co-exist with forests? This nagging question will come to the fore once again if the controversial community forest bill makes it to Parliament for a final vote. This is a case of asking the wrong question. If we really want to protect the remaining forests that have survived a series of state plundering, a different question must be asked: Can our forests survive state mismanagement and exploitation if we don’t allow people’s participation and public monitoring? For that is the heart of the original version of the people’s draft bill. No matter what the opponents say, their arguments boil down to their belief that the villagers – particularly the hill peoples – are forest destroyers. And that the forests will remain in good hands under state control. Meanwhile, the policy of successive governments to expand cash crops for export has caused massive land-clearing and deforestation. The same can be said with the military’s counter-insurgency policy to destroy guerrillas’ strongholds by building roads and human settlements in forests. More forests also fell prey to big dams, commercial tree farms and encroachment by big-time land speculators. To cover up their failure, the forest authorities increased the figures of forest cover by speeding up the number of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries while barring human activities there. The fact is, all forests have long been inhabited, both by the indigenous forest dwellers and by the more recent settlers who first came with state endorsement. But the 1962 National Park Law has since then turned more than one million poor families into criminals and subjected them to the misery of eviction. http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/15Dec2005_news20.php
Philippines
29) PROVINCIAL Environment and Natural Resources Council of Davao Oriental headed by Governor Ma. Elena T. Palma declared in a resolution its strong opposition on the resumption of logging activities in the province. The council noted that most of the hinterlands of Davao Oriental, which the logging operation affected, are “classified ancestral domains of the Indigenous People occupying the territory.” It said the effects of “forest degradation” and “environmental degradation” has not only resulted in damaging the precious flora and fauna endemic to the province. But it “also exposed several barangays to possible destructive flooding and landslides” similar if not greater in magnitude as that in Ormoc, Leyte, Aurora, and Quezon province tragedies. The council said the well-founded fears of the effects of indiscriminate cutting of trees are now manifested in the abnormal rise in water levels during heavy downpour experienced in the towns of Cateel, Baganga, and Caraga in recent years. “The danger to life and property brought heretofore by those logging concessions far outweigh the economic gains to the residents” of the province, it said. http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/dav/2005/12/20/news/davao.oriental.environment.council.nixes.logging.resum
ption.html
30) The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has deployed more units of Trex Vista Global Position System (GPS) to upgrade the capability of the foresters and land management personnel in monitoring log cuttings and squatting in timberlands. The Trex Vista GPS is equipped with electronic compass heading which is important in gathering data. It also has a baro-metric altimeter with ele-vation computer and gra-phic profiles that provides altitude data to the GPS satellite tracking page when properly calibrated. The intensified cam-paign since early this year had been very productive as a result of several confiscations of illegally-cut logs and lumber towed along the Agusan River and those being trans-ported in the highways through 20 footer vans. “These GPS units will give more teeth to our campaign,” Tumaliuan said. http://bond.lanesystems.com/sitegen/article.asp?wid=125&cid=451&aid=34329
Malaysia:
31) KUALA LUMPUR — Nowhere are the contradictory challenges of sustainable development more evident than in Southeast Asia, where export-driven economies and infrastructure improvements have lifted people out of poverty, but up to 90 percent of the region’s primary forests have been lost. International donors acknowledge that their funding practices have sometimes fueled both development and destruction, and have begun to attach environmental criteria to their funding policies. The Asian Development Bank, for instance, says it will no longer finance any rural infrastructure or other public investment project that significantly contributes to deforestation. The World Bank says it is increasing lending to local conservation. The banks, too, have sometimes ignored failures to meet forest management conditions set for their loans. The World Bank released $15 million of a structural adjustment credit for Cambodia last year, despite illegal logging that continued unabated – mostly to the benefit of a small group of companies and individuals with close ties to senior politicians. But even if the lenders threaten to revoke substantial funding- the World Bank for instance committed $300 million to 48 biodiversity conservation projects in Southeast Asia from 1999 to 2004 – they have less leverage than they did in the past because of Asia’s new wealth. “Before, the developed world drove issues,” Adams said. “Now what you see are financial surpluses” in Asia. In particular, China’s thirst for natural resources and its determination to play a larger role in Southeast Asia are overriding the effort to sponsor sustainable development in the region. http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/16/business/rdevlog.php
32) In Malaysia and Indonesia, palm oil is viewed as the “wonder oil.” It’s easy to see why: Malaysia’s production of the oil has doubled over the last 20 years, while Indonesia’s has tripled. Between them, Malaysia and Indonesia now account for 84 percent of global production of the cash crop and 88 percent of global exports—worth some $11 billion last year between them. It’s widely used in Asia for cooking, and in Europe for processed foods and toiletries ranging from bread to soap, ice cream to lipstick. The problem is that oil-palm plantations need land to expand, and their swelling size has raised alarms among environmentalists. The land occupied by oil-palm plantations in Malaysia has risen dramatically, from 642,000 hectares in 1975 to nearly 4 million hectares in 2004. Much of that space has been carved out of primeval forest, home to the endangered orangutan. According to Friends of the Earth, a London-based environmental group, the business has become “the primary threat” to the survival of the orangutan and other endangered species in the forests of Southeast Asia. Other environmental groups describe palm as the “cruel oil.” The standoff is prompting a debate echoed in China, India and other developing countries: can economic growth coexist with a healthy environment? Development is clearly going ahead. Malaysia already boasts more than 800,000 small oil-palm landholdings, and the industry employs more than 1 million people—one tenth of the entire work force. Those numbers are sure to rise: Procter & Gamble, the consumer-products giant, has announced plans to ramp up usage of palm oil, instead of crude oil, in its detergents. Meantime, the Malaysian government is planning to build three palm-oil bio-diesel plants in the next year, and would like to export the new fuel to Europe. In August Indonesia signed an $8 billion financing deal with the China Development Bank to create the world’s largest palm-oil plantation in the Indonesian part of Borneo. The proposed site covers an area half the size of the Netherlands and skirts several national parks. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10510089/site/newsweek/
Indonesia:
33) The same satellite system used by the U.S. military to track vehicle convoys in Iraq is helping World Wildlife Fund shed light on the little-known world of pygmy elephants in Borneo. This week marks the six-month anniversary of the first pygmy elephant’s being captured and outfitted with a collar that can send GPS locations to WWF daily via satellite. Now, for the first time, the public can track the movements of the elephants online through an interactive web map at www.worldwildlife.org/borneomap. “No one has ever studied pygmy elephants before, so everything we’re learning is groundbreaking data,” said Dr. Christy Williams, who leads WWF’s Asian elephant conservation efforts and worked with experts to use commercial satellite technology to track Asian elephants for the first time. “We will be following these elephants for several years by satellite to identify their home ranges and working with the Malaysian government to conserve the most critical areas.” Five elephants have been collared by WWF and the Sabah, Malaysia, Wildlife Department, with support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Among the preliminary findings from the study: The elephants’ movements are noticeably affected by human activity. Elephants living in areas with the most human disturbance, such as logging and commercial agriculture, spend more time on the move than elephants in more remote areas. Most of the elephants spend at least some of their time in palm oil plantations or near human habitation, which leads to conflict with people. In recent years, much of the elephants’ habitat has been converted to tree plantations that produce palm oil, the leading export crop for Malaysia. http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/umwelt_naturschutz/bericht-53143.html
34) The population of the Sumatran tiger (panthera tigris Sumatraensis) in the forest of Muko Muko regency, Bengkulu province, is progressively dwindling. Only eight tigers are living in their natural habitat in the conservation forest managed by PT Agro Muko, a private plantation company. There were only six tigers not long ago, aged in their teens and measuring up to 1.5 meters in length. Their numbers rose to eight after two females gave birth to a cub each in the middle of the year. “There could be other tigers not accounted for,” general manager of PT Agro Muko, Yazid Ibrahim, told The Jakarta Post. The wildlife habitat was designated a conservation area when the company was issued a forest concession and began operations in 1988. The conservation area encompasses seven locations of 2,235 hectares of the total 22,000 hectares of forest concession for oil palm and rubber plantations. The Muko Muko forest preserve is on the forests’ western flank and the Kerinci Seblat National Park on the eastern flank. The area is home to a number of bird species, like the hornbill and turtledove. The agricultural officer of PT Agro Muko, Sukardi, said problems such as poaching and illegal logging threatened the very existence of tigers in the area. At least two tigers are thought to be killed in the conservation area each year for their body parts, such as skin, teeth and whiskers. The latest poacher was arrested early this year. “Illegal logging methods, such as digging water channels, has gradually drained water from the lake,” he said. He also said that logging activities in various locations had led to conflict between man and tiger, with at least one attack on humans every year. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20051217.D08&irec=6
35) Reconstruction in Indonesia’s tsunami-devastated Aceh province will lead to landslides and flash floods if timber from Indonesian forests is used, says WWF. With the major reconstruction phase about to begin in Aceh following the 2004 tsunami that killed more than 250,000 people in the region, WWF has warned that sourcing timber from Indonesia’s already depleted forests would result in further tragedy for the people of Aceh. Deforestation in Indonesia has been blamed for landslides and flash floods that have killed hundreds of people in recent years and left thousands homeless. In early 2004, thousands of people in four districts of Aceh were forced to flee their flooded homes when heavy rains on denuded forest slopes caused flash flooding. In 2005, there have been at least three landslides and two major floods in Aceh, causing further loss of lives, homes and infrastructure. The Indonesian government’s reconstruction agency BRR estimates that 200,000 permanent houses are needed, requiring at least 860,000 cubic metres of sawn timber over five years. If this timber is taken from Indonesian forests, the result will be further environmental degradation, species loss, and further suffering for the Acehnese people. http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/index.cfm?uNewsID=54380
36) AUSTRALIA’S neighbours have been put on notice to crack down on illegal logging in their rainforests or face tight restrictions on timber exports to the nation. Federal Forestry Minister Ian Macdonald, who will meet officials in Jakarta today to urge tougher action, said illegal logging was widespread in Indonesia, PNG and the Solomon Islands. “We have to stop the slaughter of rainforests in some of these countries,” Senator Macdonald said yesterday. “This illegal trade is a threat to some of the world’s most unique and rare forests.” Senator Macdonald said Australia was trying to persuade the nations to agree to international standards requiring logging to be conducted sustainably. While mindful of the difficulties faced by developing countries in enforcing forestry standards, Senator Macdonald said the Government would legislate if necessary to ban the import of illegally felled timber. He said Indonesia had shown genuine interest in reforming its industry and he would pursue the matter today with Forestry Minister Malem Sambat Kaban. PNG has insisted most of its exported timber is felled legally, but Senator Macdonald said information from the World Bank and other independent sources indicated that this was not so. Australia imported 51,800 cubic metres of sawn timber from Indonesia and 19,500cum from Papua New Guinea last financial year. Industry experts estimate this quantity of timber would have resulted in the destruction of between 8000ha and 12,000ha of tropical rainforest. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17607415%255E2702,00.html
Australia:
37) The international scientific expert on Tasmania’s unique species of giant freshwater crayfish has weighed into the controversy surrounding protection of the threatened species. Premek Hamr, a scientist with of the Upper Canada College who studied the crayfish for many years while in Tasmania, has written to the State Government arguing that the small creeks and rivulets where the juvenile crayfish grows must be protected by 30m buffer zones. This would be a considerable toughening of the regulations which protect creeks only from immediate logging where the crayfish larvae have been shown to live, not across the entire region of their known habitat. Even then, on the headwaters of these permanent creeks where tributary rivulets are often very small and frequent, logging buffer zones need only be 10m wide. Bur Dr Hamr’s submission to the State Government’s Draft Recovery Plan for the giant crayfish, calls for all streams and habitats to be protected from logging, agricultural activities, chemical use and disturbance. http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17572771%255E3462,00.html
38) LOGGING on the doorstep of the Tahune Airwalk could destroy Tasmania’s fastest growing tourist attraction, say protesters who moved into the area yesterday. A small group of activists held up logging on a coupe near the Arve Rd from about 6am.. One protester attached himself to an excavator, while others blocked the road until just before 3pm, when they left at the request of police. Peter Ruggieri, from the Huon Valley Environment Centre, said the independent activists were highlighting the continued destruction of high conservation value forests. “Today the achievement was to highlight the logging occurring on the doorstep of the fastest growing tourist attraction in Tasmania,” Mr Ruggieri said. “The logging is no more than five kilometres from the Airwalk, and shows Forestry isn’t serious about eco-tourism,” he said. “The Airwalk is fine by itself at the moment, but in 10 years’ time, when there are four times the people coming, what will there be to see? “Will it just be an island in the plantation?” http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17572037%255E3462,00.html
39) NICOLE FRITH-TRIOLO: There is no substitute for leatherwood honey at all. There’s nothing that can really compare to it. There’s a huge demand for it and we have people come in from all over the world, particularly overseas, that have a huge fascination in it. I suppose because of the strength of it, it just has such a uniqueness to it, and that’s what people are after.
TIM JEANES: But southern Tasmanian beekeepers such as Hedley Hoskinson say that taste that people are after is under threat.
HEDLEY HOSKINSON: We haven’t any time all. It’s going. It’s going, and we haven’t got anything to replace it.
TIM JEANES: Mr Hoskinson has told the Tasmanian Country Hour that despite recent moves to increase beekeepers’ access to leatherwood forests, urgent protection is needed.
HEDLEY HOSKINSON: Oh, massive loss in the south and the north-west is absolutely massive. The main area now is the Gordon Forest that we have, and that’s been severely logged and we’re fighting for the last remnants of… so we’re not left with just remnants of that. http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1534494.htm
40) There are claims that more than two thirds of log trucks going to the Eden woodchip mill, on the New South Wales far south coast, contain large trees from mature aged forests. Harriett Swift from Chipstop says her group did a survey of trucks entering the mill last week. She says more than 158 trucks were logged on Thursday. Ms Swift says almost 70 per cent of log loads were from mature native forest. “Well, you can tell by the size of them. When you’re standing by the side of the road there, it’s very clear which trucks are carrying the young regrowth and which have got the older logs,” she said. “The older forest has got a mixture of sizes and that’s how you can tell, and there’s usually some big ones amongst them.” http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1534628.htm
.