054OEC’s This Week in Trees

38 Tree-oriented news stories from: Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, California, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, Gulf States, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont, Morocco, Cameroon, Kenya, Galapagos, Trinidad, Panama, Madagascar, India, Philippines, New Zealand and Indonesia.

Alaska:

1) Mike Menge, commissioner for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, on Thursday issued the final finding forest land-use plan for the proposed 1,300-acre timber sale, on land located west of Oil Well Road, south of Petersville Road and north of Ambler Lake. The sale area consists of 35 cutting units, with an average size of 37 acres. Unit sizes range from 11 to 58 acres. One of the restrictions brought about through the public involvement was a limitation to harvesting in the area only during the winter months. This will keep any significant vegetation, soil and water disturbance to a minimum or nonexistent level. The winter harvest will also lessen impact on the numerous wildlife species present within the sale area. “The birch in the sale area are estimated to be between 110 and 130 years old, with scattered uneven-aged white spruce varying in age from seedlings to mature trees approximately 130 years old,” Menge said Friday. “Removing the older trees will help rejuvenate the forest while removing older and decaying trees.” Both Menge and Duffy expect the sale to generate royalties for the state and create economic benefits for the borough. The borough business community will receive direct economic benefits from providing support services for the operators through sales of fuel, food, housing, medical and miscellaneous supplies. http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2006/01/03/news/news2.txt

British Columbia:

2) Logging of pine beetle infested forests in the B.C. Interior is so rampant that one researcher had part of her study area mysteriously wiped out — and still doesn’t know who did it. Ann Chan-McLeod, a research associate at the University of B.C. who specializes in the impact of altered landscapes on wildlife, said she requires a control area of undisturbed lodgepole pine forest against which the impacts of altered landscapes can be compared. Chan-McLeod had asked the major timber company operating in the area, Canfor, to leave the site alone. Canfor denied doing the cutting, which shifted the suspicion to any number of small-scale salvage operators, who are permitted by the provincial forests ministry to take up to 2,000 cubic metres of wood, areas typically smaller than 15 hectares. Chan-McLeod doesn’t know to this day who cut her control area. And while she’s managed to salvage her study through another control area left unscathed, the incident highlights just how challenging her job has become amidst the frenzy of logging activity in pine beetle country. “It’s difficult,” she confirmed. “I understand salvage operators have quite a bit of free licence.” The province has increased the annual allowable cut by 13.7 million cubic metres to 81.9 million cubic metres to combat the beetle and harvest as much timber as possible while it’s merchantable. The size of clearcuts has been increased to hundreds of hectares from 60 hectares in the northern Interior under the Forest Practices Code. © —-Vancouver Sun 2005

Washington:

3) “For thousands of years, American Indians spent summer and fall high in the mountains hunting, fishing, picking berries, and celebrating the plentiful gifts of the land. Once every few years, they burned the berry fields after harvest, to kill invading trees and to ensure healthy fields the following year.” When the white man arrived in the Northwest, followed by timber companies, huckleberries thrived on sunny hillsides for years after a spot had been clearcut of tall, shade-producing conifers. Huckleberries need plenty of sun, but “clearcutting has been greatly reduced,” said Ross Bluestone of the Gifford Pinchot’s Trout Lake office. “We only thin (trees) now and the young stands of timber that were planted after earlier harvests are growing up and creating shade. That reduces the available space for huckleberries to thrive.” So, the forest staff has come up with a plan to help nature help the berries. The proposal is to remove most of the trees on 63 acres on Mowich Butte, 12 miles north of Beacon Rock, as the crow files, or five road miles west of the former Wind River Ranger Station north of Carson. The plan is to leave about 70 trees per acre and burn the underbrush on 43 acres to stimulate regrowth. Most of that area is too dense for good huckleberry picking now, having last burned in a 1929 forest fire. http://www.columbian.com/opinion/news/01022006news90985.cfm

California:

4) America’s pre-eminent redwoods showcase, Redwood National Park, will begin 2006 significantly larger, and not just because the massive trees there grew taller. The formerly 112,000-acre park in Humboldt and Del Norte counties — home to the tallest living things on Earth — grew by about 26,000 acres after President Bush signed a law to expand the park’s boundaries on Dec. 21. The law, written by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., added the 25,000-acre Mill Creek property, a vast expanse of redwood and Douglas fir forests six miles south of Crescent City, to the park’s northern flank, along with a few smaller parcels. The Mill Creek property, roughly equal in size to the city of San Francisco, was heavily logged over the past 150 years, but remains home to bald eagles, black bears and some of California’s best salmon streams. “It really is a purchase for the future,” said Kate Anderton, of Santa Cruz, the executive director of Save-the-Redwoods League, based in San Francisco. “We are trying to act on a scale that is appropriate for the grandeur of this ecosystem.” The league coordinated the property’s purchase in 2002 for $60 million from Stimson Lumber, based in Portland, Ore. It raised $15 million in private funds to augment $45 million in state and federal parks money. The purchase had been on the league’s wish list since the 1930s. It also represents the league’s largest, and most expensive acquisition since its founding in 1918. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/health/13538002.htm

5) I’m going to the Pacific Lumber School of Law. I feel like I’m in law school — I’m not getting any college credit, but I don’t have any student loans, so it’s all right. Pacific Lumber is suing me and about 30 other people for trespass and conspiracy to commit trespass. I’m suing them on 12 different causes of action: assault and battery, infliction of emotional distress, kidnapping, false imprisonment, conversion (which is stealing), violation of my civil rights, forcible entry, invasion of privacy based on the hidden cameras that were stuck in my face for several hours without my knowledge, negligence and negligence in hire. That’s most of them. I don’t think direct action works very well unless there’s a simultaneous legal battle. I don’t think anybody sitting up in a tree or even a few people sitting in trees that are tied together are going to get very far when the crews show up with chainsaws and bulldozers. It’s almost impossible to hold them off at that point. So there needs to be a legal battle going on at the same time for it to be effective. We have a trial date set for June 19, 2006 — and six months is not a long time in lawsuit land. We really have to step on the discovery process. That’s what I’ve been doing. I’m asking for the peeping tom headcam footage that Schatz was supposed to give me. I asked for it in June of ’05. I should have had it by July. They have been fighting me every step of the way. I am my own attorney in the case. It’s been difficult to get anything from PL’s attorney or Eric Schatz’s attorney, Brian Carter, who is Jared Carter’s son. Jared was a vice president at PL for some time and its lead counsel. We have to get every shred of evidence we can so we can make sure we can prove our case and also to defend ourselves. http://www.northcoastjournal.com/122905/QA1229.html

Montana:

6) Of all the thousands of letters and notes that Daniels received over his tenure in the Forest Service, there’s one that rises to the top. It came on a plain piece of tablet paper, handwritten by a 90-year-old blind resident of a nursing home. She thanked the agency for its efforts in protecting the areas she’d learned to love and then she asked a simple question: “Are the mountains as beautiful as they always were?” “I had to lie to her,” Daniels remembers. “For me, it was one of the most powerful pieces of public input I ever received. I carry it with me still. “I believe deep down that most Montanans love those same values, but sometimes they don’t realize how easily they are lost.” Daniels often asks his audience that question so important to many Montanans: Can you still remember the moment you fell in love with this place? “You can almost see them remember it. Their eyes go down. They smile. They can remember when that awareness occurred,” he said. “Most of us haven’t been here all that long. It’s not hard for us to think back that far.” On the flipside of that, most have also been here long enough to have witnessed the change that’s come with an influx of people wanting to create their own lives in this beautiful place. Considering the fact that nearly half of Missoula County’s 1,673,698 acres are controlled by federal, state or local governments and another 26 percent is owned by corporations – mostly Plum Creek – that anticipated population growth will put tremendous pressure on the 19 percent that’s in private ownership. Against that backdrop, the Missoula County commissioners decided last spring to contract with Missoula’s Five Valleys Land Trust to start conversations with people from all parts of the county on what, if anything, should be done to guide the growth that’s sure to come. In the 26 years that Daniels spent working as supervisor of the Lolo and Bitterroot national forests, he talked with literally thousands of people about the area and its future. http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2006/01/01/news/local/news03.txt

7) The state does not have to conduct financial accounting for each and every timber sale on school trust lands, the Montana Supreme Court decided last week. The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation’s methods of accounting for logging costs and revenues through an annual, programmatic method is what the state Legislature has prescribed, the court decided in a 4-3 decision. The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by Friends of the Wild Swan in response to the 2003 Goat-Squeezer timber sale in the Swan Valley. At a time when lumber prices were depressed, the group alleged that there was no way to determine if the 10.2 million-board-foot timber sale would provide “the largest measure” of financial return to school trust funds, as required by a state statute. The court focused on that particular statute in its ruling, along with a “strict accountability” requirement in the Montana Constitution. “We have no way of knowing whether these sales are generating money for the school trusts or not,” she said. “There are going to be some sales that are going to be money losers and we don’t know what those are because they don’t track their costs.” http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2006/01/01/news/news03.txt

Colorado:

8) The pine beetles are a natural part of the forest ecosystem, having evolved together with lodgepoles as one of three significant mortality factors for lodgepole pines. And forestry experts said that, even while the epidemic looks devastating, its effects are still within the natural “historic range of variability,” meaning the red-stained swaths of forest are not ecologically off the scale. Still, the dead trees contribute to increased wildfire hazards, so local, state and federal officials have joined forces to tackle the problem, focusing resources on reducing fire danger in the so-called Red Zone, where exurban development sprawls into the forest fringes. http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20060102/NEWS/101020026

New Mexico:

9) Finding a balance between groups with conflicting ideals is often difficult, but officials from the Gila National Forest have found a way to overcome the differences between themselves and other groups to devise a plan that is increasing the health and productivity of the forests. Working with small businessmen, environmental acti-vists, local officials and the federal government, the Gila National Forest in New Mexico is sustaining several small businesses that use small-diameter trees as their raw material. The Gila Wood Net is a nonprofit corporation designed to develop methods to remove and utilize small trees resulting from forest restoration thinning projects. According to www.gilawoodnet.com, there is widespread agreement among most interest groups that the forests are generally overcrowded with small trees, a result of 100 years of management practices that removed larger trees while preventing most natural fires. Gila Wood Net’s role in the forest is to bring back a more natural forest structure by thinning and removing smaller trees. “The thing that I was impressed with was they had a lot of cooperating partners and people of differing views coming together to make this work,” he said. “I would like to see that in Arizona. Everyone had to think outside the box, which they were willing to do for the good of the forest.” http://www.eacourier.com/articles/2006/01/03/local_news/news03.txt

Wisconsin:

10) A new Rainforest Portal dedicated to protection of the world’s remaining tropical rainforests and the rights of their inhabitants is launching today. The new site at http://www.rainforestportal.org/ is the latest is a long list of highly successful environmental portal offerings by Ecological Internet, Inc. The portal provides unprecedented rainforest action, news, search and analysis capabilities. “Protecting and restoring the Earth’s rainforests is a condition for both local and global ecological sustainability,” explains Dr. Glen Barry, President of Ecological Internet. “Sadly, rainforest loss and diminishment remain unacceptably high, threatening biosphere function and the very biological fabric of being.” “Climate stabilization, species conservation, freshwater availability and development potential in tropical countries and the world all depend upon maintaining large rainforest ecosystems. The age of industrial rainforest development is over, and the Rainforest Portal will in particular target all parties continuing to carry out and justify first time commercial logging of ancient rainforests. The myth of ‘sustainable’ ancient old-growth forest logging will be smashed.” http://www.rainforestportal.org

Minnesota:

11) SUGAR HILLS – A real estate developer standing here would drool over the prospects. Unspoiled hardwood forests covering rolling hills. Deer tracks running past a trout stream and a small, pristine lake. Popular Sugar and Pokegama lakes over the hill. And all just a few miles from Grand Rapids and its amenities. The thought of dozens of retirement and recreational homes, condominiums or townhomes here comes with dollar signs aplenty. But John Rajala sees something different on this 1,670 acres his company owns. Rajala sees big maple trees that provide wood for his company’s sawmills. He sees a 28-kilometer cross-country ski trail, a favorite of local families, tourists and high school athletes. He sees unbroken habitat for birds, animals and trout. “This would sell in a minute,” Rajala said. “But that doesn’t mean it should. There are values to our community, to our business, to the forest that outweigh the value on paper.” Thanks to a new partnership aimed at preserving Minnesota’s remaining big tracts of private forest, Rajala’s vision of this land may be about to win out. Using conservation easements to protect land is relatively new in Minnesota but has been common in eastern states for a decade. Millions of acres of private land are in easements in Maine, Vermont and northern Michigan. Just to the south, thousands more acres of paper company land, owned by UPM, the former Blandin Paper Co., also are being eyed for future conservation easements. Conservation groups like the Nature Conservancy note that Itasca County, like Cass County to the south, has been especially hard-hit by development pressure. It’s also where the Blandin Foundation is rooted for its projects, and having local matching money helps attract federal money. http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/13510352.htm

Gulf States:

12) It did not take long for salvage wood to pile up. In Louisiana, storage facilities quickly filled up with pine saw timber for sale. Storage yards were established near Bogalusa, La. for rail traffic and near Ponchatula, La. for barge traffic. A hotline was established to register logging contractors who were interested in working in timber recovery and salvage efforts. While much of the damaged forest is softwoods, mostly pines, the species makes little difference if equipment is shifted along the Gulf from regions that supply significant quantities of hardwood pallet material. There is serious concern over loggers being attracted to Louisiana and Mississippi to handle salvage logging situations, somewhat decimating the logging capabilities of the Ozarks and regions adjacent to the Gulf states. In Mississippi alone, Katrina caused an estimated $1.2 billion in damage to timber. In Louisiana, the losses were estimated at $600 million. Initial estimates in Alabama were 610,000 acres of damaged forests. Many people believe that much of the downed or damaged timber will go to waste, but it will still move productive logging resources into the region. Blue-stain fungus problems caused people to move quickly toward salvage efforts. http://www.palletenterprise.com/articledatabase/view.asp?articleID=1830

New York:

13 ) ALBANY, N.Y. — The first phase of a plan to turn more than a quarter million acres of private Adirondack forest land over to the state was completed last week, permanently protecting and opening up 41,000 acres to the public. The first phase — 39,700 acres in Hamilton County and 1,750 acres in Franklin County — includes 44 miles of snowmobile trails and nearly 190 miles of existing roads and trails that allow hiking and other non-motorized activity. Several local government officials blocked approval of the land sale until snowmobile trails were allowed. The public will also have immediate access to all water bodies on the tracts for fishing and canoeing, including Elm Lake, the Sacandaga River and Racquette River. As of May 1, 2.5 miles of shoreline on the Piercefield Flow will open for fishing, hiking, picnicking and camping at designated sites. Stamford, Conn.-based International Paper stands to make $20 million to $25 million when conservation easements on all the land are sold. IP would continue logging, while the state would pay about one-third of its property-tax bill and enforce limits on public use. When the deal was announced in April 2004, state and IP officials were hopeful the first contracts would be signed by the end of that year. The Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit group, helped the state assess the natural resources on the parcels, provided land use recommendations and structured the conditions of the conservation easement. It also provided financial risk capital to support the purchase of the easement. “This is an extraordinary project in every sense of the word — from its scope and scale to its complexity to its tremendous conservation outcomes,” Rich Erdmann, executive vice president of The Conservation Fund, said in a prepared statement. http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060102/NEWS/601020337/1003/NEWS02

Connecticut:

14) Preserved lands not as safe as thought: Those who love the beauty of Connecticut’s hills and valleys frequently rejoice when another parcel of land is permanently preserved, either through conservation agreements with state or federal agencies, commitment to a land trust, or purchase by the state as public land. But now, a report by the Council on Environmental Quality reveals that “preserved” land is often not as safe as has been presumed. The most common type of encroachment, according to the report, is the illegal felling of trees, but many larger offenses also take place. Many of these encroachments are unwitting on the part of the perpetrators, but others are more deliberate. Cutting trees on preserved lands is particularly frequent and is done both by those stealing the wood and those who wish to open a view shed for their own property. More than one-third of the 78 non-profit land trusts surveyed for the report reported illegal cutting, but many were unable to take action against the perpetrators. “The Supreme Court ruled just this summer in a case in East Haddam where 300 trees were cut on land trust property,” he said. “The court said there were three ways of establishing value: first was simple trespass, the second was the value of the trees severed from the land [the market value of the wood] and the third was the diminution of the value of the land. “The value of wood is not all that much,” he continued. “There are trees that are worth thousands of dollars-but that is not your typical tree. If you cut 100 trees that were two feet in diameter, the value would only be about $2,000. The diminution of the value of the land had no meaning for a land trust. The land is preserved, it has no dollar value, so that doesn’t apply. The attorneys for the land trust argued that the trees should not be valued as a commodity, but based on their place in the environment. The court said it couldn’t consider that, so, while the [land trust’s] attorneys prevailed, the money awarded was not enough to restore the land by any means.” http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15843017&BRD=1657&PAG=461&dept_id=13476&rfi=6

Delaware:

15) The land, purchased in 2004 by the Delaware chapter of The Nature Conservancy, had been managed as a timber plantation, where hardwoods and loblolly pines were harvested. Roger Jones, executive director of the Delaware chapter, said the nonprofit bought the land because of its potential. “This offers us the first opportunity to do forest restoration work on a very significant scale,” he said. The goal: to restore a hardwood forest, he said. “It’s not enough to protect what remains,” said Andrew Manus, the chapter’s director of conservation. “Restoring these former timberlands into native coastal plain forest returns some of what we’ve lost, and promises a healthier environment for people and wildlife.” In all, the conservancy owns 1,364 acres in the rapidly developing area just west of Milton, near Redden State Forest. The conservation group is raising the $9.9 million it will need to pay for the purchase, to build an endowment to care for the land and to begin restoration. Jennifer K. Burns, the Delaware chapter director of philanthropy, said the organization needs to raise $1.6 million by next December to complete the acquisition and fund the restoration effort. By some estimates, Delaware has lost more than 80 percent of its forest cover since colonists arrived in the 17th century. The land was cleared for timber and wood products, and to make way for housing and agriculture. Forests play a critical role in the ecosystem, providing habitat for birds and wildlife, helping to purify the air and water, taking up nutrients from the ground and reducing flooding during storms. “The property’s size and location provide a unique opportunity to restore native forest and improve water quality,” said John Graham, the Delaware chapter’s land steward. http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060103/NEWS/601030339/-1/NEWS01

Vermont:

16) RANDOLPH – Tucked in the mountainsides, and neighborhoods, of Randolph are three little-used town forests, and the potential for a couple others. Randolph currently has three designated town forests. Rabbit Track, says Springer, is the remote parcel with a “stunning” waterfall and even what’s thought to be the remnants of an old mill and ancient bridge meticulously built of stone and steel and wood east of Route 14 off the Ferris Road. It’s 55.2 acres and has a stream and snowmobile trail running through it, Springer says. Closer to the downtown, the Tatro Hill town forest is 73.4 acres and easily accessible from Tatro Hill Road, which leaves Route 12 south near Shaw’s supermarket. The forest contains a hardwood stand badly damaged this summer by forest tent caterpillars, an access drive, parking area, trails and stretches to the Bethel town line. At the top of the mountain there are big trees, great views and at least one vernal pool,” says Springer. At the same time, Tatro Hill is a working forest. It had some cutting done in 2002. Randolph Technical Career Center students are currently cutting some red pine and spruce. The students are turning the cut trees into milled logs and firewood. A professional will finish the timber sale when the students are done with their work, Springer says. The town owns other wooded parcels. Those, such as a parcel at the end of Pearl Street extending behind a Pleasant Street cemetery and the Flood Plain Forest behind the local co-op and accessible from Prince Street, could one day too become managed town forests. The committee has set opening the three existing forests, and possibly a fourth, to public use as its priority. Doing so will require work. The jagged boundaries of all three parcels need to be marked with red blazes. “The difficulty with Tatro Hill is we don’t know where one corner is. There’s an old map that says where the corner is there’s a pile of stones. Where we think the corner is there is there is no pile of stones,” Springer says. http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15843017&BRD=1657&PAG=461&dept_id=13476&rfi=6

17) MANCHESTER — Town officials are considering a plan to harvest trees from a 60-acre woodlot near Airport Road to improve the overall quality of the forested area. While the cutting would provide some revenue to the town, that is not the main purpose, said Town Manager Peter Webster. “It’s never really been actively managed,” he said. “The plan is to improve the health of the property.” A tree-cutting plan has been drawn up by Bennington County Forester Jim White that specifies the number and variety of trees that would be taken out of the woodlot. Under the plan, a total of 811 trees will be removed, yielding 23,620 board feet and 184 cords of firewood. The woodlot is tapped by a local sugar maker during the maple syrup season and the area is also used by the Equinox Driving School for its off-road driving courses. “There are a number of over-mature soft maples that have degraded,” White said. “This will make openings in the forest that will allow for diversity to follow and for seedlings to grow.” While the market for timber is strong right now, these trees won’t fetch top prices because of their relatively low quality, he said. http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060102/NEWS/601020357/1002/NEWS01

Morocco:

18) CASABLANCA- If they have it their way, Casablanca will be green again. Because now this commercial hub of Morocco is a polluted city, and what were once its famous green parks, refuse dumps. The World Health Organisation thinks there must be at least 10 square metres of green space per inhabitant in a city. Casablanca has one square metre, if that. It once had 165 hectares of parks, created during the days of the French protectorate. Like the 18-hectare Hermitage Park created from 1917 to 1927. Over recent years this has become the place for muggings and rapes, and home to drunkards and tramps. The Arab League park as it is now called was designed by French architect Albert Laprade in 1919. Its famous date palms remain a distinguishing feature across its 28 hectares. But they stand now among weeds and bramble. Planting a few million trees in Casablanca “would not be enough to solve the environmental problem of the city,” he said. “We need awareness campaigns and workshops about the environment. What would be the use of trees if we do not protect them?” Pollution is also threatening the Bouskoura forest near the city. Considered by ecologists the “green lung” of Casablanca, the forest is slowly being destroyed by polluting industries forced to move out of the Aïn Sebâa region inside Casablanca.. Plastic bags and beer cans are strewn around what is left of the forest. Other forests too are threatened. Morocco has nine million hectares of natural forest with 4,700 plant species and more than 500 vertebrate species. Forests cover 13 percent of the land area. The biggest threat are the polluting cities, and of these Casablanca is by far the largest. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31631

Cameroon:

19) Traffic creeps along the coastal road to Douala, backed up behind a truck with five huge tree trunks slowly climbing the incline. The timber the truck is carrying comes from the world’s second-biggest contiguous rainforest that stretches across several Central African states. In a few weeks, it will be sold on the European market — possibly in the form of a cupboard. Cameroon, on the west coast of Africa, relies heavily on its trade in tropical wood. No one knows for sure exactly how much it makes from these exports. But according to estimates, about half is from trees illegally felled. “The rainforest in Cameroon is not just shrinking because trees are being cut down for export, but also because of agriculture clearing,” says Emmanuel Heuse, of the WWF. “It’s okay for a country to exploit its resources,” says Heuse, “but the problem is that the people get hardly any benefit from it.” Large swathes of forest have been sold to timber companies that have to fulfill a range of conditions in order to stay in business. They are allowed to cut down trees whose trunks have a diameter of between 60cm and 110cm, and only as many as can grow to maturity in 30 years. They also have to provide meat for their workers so these do not go hunting in the forest. Hunting is not illegal in Cameroon as long as the meat is for the hunters’ own consumption — but the temptation for forestry workers to kill a gorilla or an ape to sell its meat is strong. “The biggest problem is corruption,” says Klaus Schmidt-Corsitto, forestry expert with the German development organisation GTZ. “Cameroon’s forestry management has thrown away millions and the money has landed in the pockets of a few politicians,” he says. It is not difficult to get the right documents for timber that has been illegally cut down, as long as you know the right people to bribe. http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=260030&area=/insight/insight__africa/

Kenya:

20) What was expected to be a major clash between security personnel and settlers at the Mau forest of Narok district turned out to be much ado about nothing. The settlers who returned after being evicted five months ago, had left peacefully following a government order to move out or be forcibly ejected. But the Nation learnt that most had only gone into hiding, intending to return after the security personnel left. Led by Mulot district officer Hassan Burre, a contingent of about 40 armed officers arrived at the forest at 2.30pm on Thursday to find nobody. The settlers had returned to their farms after a court ruling.One of them, Mr Charles Kitur, said he would leave the forest only for the grave. “I can only move from this place to the grave,” he vowed. “The Government promised to settle us after realising we had genuinely bought this land, but it has not and we are losing patience.” Out of the 2,000 families evicted from the forest, only 285 have been resettled despite the Government’s promise to give land to all with genuine ownership claims. The 285 were given new land in Nakuru district in early October. Another settler, Mr William Cheruiyot, who claims 30 acres, said the group had not built huts so as not to draw the security agents’ attention. http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=64378

Galapagos:

21) “You see that wood inside the shoe? That’s there because T-Mac has to always have a piece of the court with him. Thing is he got it from the trunk of a tree down there in the Galapagos. T-Mac wanted it because the tree actually makes it rain on the island the way he makes it rain on the basketball court.” I knew right away about the trees that make rain. They grow in what are called tropical montaine cloud forests. Their evergreen leaves intercept the mists and fog that would otherwise float right on by, creating tiny droplets that merge into drops heavy enough to drip to the forest floor. Such forests create a special type of ecosystem. But the worst thing about the whole wood-in-the-shoe marketing gimmick is that it’s fake wood, though this is not what the sign says. I got fooled myself until I later read the fine print in the product description. I wonder how many kids with too much money on their hands are trotting around thinking that, like T-Mac, it’s cool to see the tree rather than the forest. An enormous corporation (Adidas) is using the superstition (wooden shoe) of a basketball player (T-Mac) to sell a high-end shoe. Their advertising misleads the consumer and makes it sound like logging the Galapagos cloud forest is a cool thing to do. http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/commentary/hc-plcthorson0101.artjan01,0,2086001.story?coll=hc-headli
nes-commentary

Panama:

22) PANAMA CITY, Panama, Dec 21 (Reuters) – A plan by Panama and Colombia to link power grids through a remote jungle is worrying environmentalists and indigenous groups, who fear it would benefit rebels, loggers and a flesh-eating parasite. In a summit last week in Mexico, leaders from Central America and Colombia agreed to an energy integration project to help reduce dependency on oil imports. That includes linking up power grids from Mexico to Colombia via Panama’s Darien Gap, where Central and South America meet. Colombia and Panama’s leaders have agreed to look at building a transmission line through the dense Darien jungle and will decide in 2006 whether to go ahead and which route to take. Environmentalists warn the project will require cutting a path of at least 130 feet (40 meters) wide through virgin rainforest, allowing people and diseases to enter and pass through one of the world’s most unspoiled wildernesses.
The Darien Gap hosts more than 900 different mammals and birds, including endangered species such as the spectacled bear and puma, along with over 2,000 plant species. Environmental engineer Scott Muller, co-author of a U.N. ecosystem assessment on the neighboring Kuna Yala region, says the plans are a time bomb. The Darien Gap marks the only break in the road linking Alaska with Argentina and acts as a bio-barrier for diseases such as foot-and-mouth, which is absent north of Colombia. Screw worm, a parasite that eats the living flesh of humans and animals, is controlled by a U.S.-funded program throughout the continent and the Caribbean. Disturbing the ecosystem could help it spread northward, say environmentalists. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that if screw worm were to infest the United Stated today, losses to the livestock industry would be over $900 million. Losses due to foot-and-mouth disease would be much greater. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/B417088.htm

Trinidad:

23) Chatham Youth Training Centre sits above the Southern Main Road on a breezy hill, affording Sweeping views over rolling meadows and green forest canopies towards the Gulf of Paria. A more peaceful and pleasant location to hold a public consultation you could not imagine. But a few Fridays ago, as the sun sank beneath the trees filling the hall with heavenly light, neither pleasantries nor peace could be found at the National Energy Corporation’s (NEC) presentation of its industrial estate to house Alcoa’s aluminum smelter. Amplified, angry voices sailed into the sunset, tumbling over hill and dale, filling the inky night that followed with indignation and hurt. The irony of exploring an area whose “heavy gas-based industries” would fell the forests needed to soak up the carbon dioxide produced by this output that was melting the glaciers which would flood these plants, hit me with such force I nearly drove off the narrow pitch road I had suddenly taken, leading me into the depths of the doomed forest, as though I had been winged by an aluminum bullet. The Irois forest was dark and thick, silent and mysterious, the tips of the trees golden in the waning afternoon sunshine, birds flocking in the branches as the shadows lengthened. I found a modest home in a clearing, boys and their father on a veranda with a caged songbird. Of course, they had no idea their forest existence was earmarked for industry. As I left, I urged them to go to the meeting, their expressions of bewilderment and disbelief reflected in my rearview mirror as I drove away. http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_news?id=125679871

Madagascar:

24) It used to be that even the most dedicated animal researchers were not supposed to worry much about preserving the species they studied. “People told me when I started working in Madagascar that if I got interested in conservation, I might never get tenure, that this was not science,” Patricia Wright, director of the Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, recalls of her experience of 20 years ago. Now, “I teach my students you can do really good research and apply it to conservation goals, and it’s not a sin.” In fact, she says, conservation plans can succeed only if it’s known where the animals roam, what they eat and how they behave, so that disturbances can be minimized. In Madagascar, human pressures continue to threaten endangered lemurs, even in national parks. But the presence of a scientist in the forest may make hunters think twice, Wright says. “They’re scared to do it if there is a researcher there,” she says. …Even more recently, illegal logging of rosewood trees for export to China has expanded inside Marojejy’s park boundaries, an ominous development in a country where “slash and burn” agriculture has destroyed 85 percent of indigenous forest. Subsistence farmers clear land to grow rice. “You kind of feel like it’s on your shoulders,” he says. “Who else is going to do it?” Patel tells impoverished villagers that ecotourism can help them economically. To encourage tourism, he produced a poster about the silky sifaka for the park and, when in the forest, helps European and American visitors spot the elusive lemurs, even if it disrupts his research. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.conservation01jan01,1,2888535.story?coll=bal-news-nati
on&ctrack=1&cset=true

India:

25) IDUKKI: The buzz in Idukki’s Cardamom Hill Reserve region is disturbing. The filthy rich and politically and religiously powerful land sharks hold thousands of acres of land in CHR under the lease (kuthakapaattam) agreement and have added more areas through land-grabbing. They are now getting ready to convert the lease agreements into title deeds and change the CHR from forest land to revenue land, which will make disposal of land and transit of timber easier. But the move will squeeze the last drop from this hopelessly plundered land. The axe will fall on the remaining trees. They will become fodder for the insatiable construction industry which has grown to monstrous proportions in the State, posing a grave threat to the ecology. And on the land new tourism ventures, the means for Malayalis to make mega bucks, will come up. Many of them are major players in the hospitality sector, including the liquor business. Remember, Kerala, the tourism supermarket, is frantically trying to offer new products as existing destinations and products have been almost exhausted. http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IER20060101001059&Page=R&Title=Kerala&Topic=0

26) So they have no time to waste. The farmers’ party, and the minister who is its leader, have been systematically clearing the hurdles in their way. The Kerala Promotion of Tree Growth in Non-Forest Areas Act enacted in 2004 comes in handy for them to uproot the remaining trees from the CHR. Contrary to the title of the Act, it has been conceived, formulated and enacted to legalise tree felling on the land.
All their effort will bear fruit only if they succeed in stripping the CHR of its forest status. This is easier said than done. In several affidavits filed in various courts, including the Supreme Court of India, the State Government has argued and admitted that the CHR is forestland. Even as per the definition of forest in the Forest (Conservation) Act introduced by Parliament it is forestland. The empowered committee appointed by the apex court to look into the dispute on CHR has observed in its report that the CHR is unarguably forestland. All this makes it next to impossible to legally establish that CHR is not forest, but revenue land. So now they are playing a new game. They don’t dispute the forest status of the CHR, but they argue that the area of the CHR is only 15,672 acres and not 2,15,672 acres as said in the government records. To buttress their argument, they have dug out an archaic document – a gazette notification by the Travancore Government dating back to August 28, 1897. As a pre-emptive move to silence any opposition to this argument, the Government has pleaded to the Supreme Court to take action against the NGO, One Earth One Life, for ‘misguiding’ the court by stating that the area of the CHR was 865 sq km in its prayer to the court to intervene in the CHR issue. http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IER20060102005700&Page=R&Title=Kerala&Topic=0

27) Philippines:
BAGUIO CITY – Environment Secretary Michael Defensor will sign Monday two documents recognizing the traditional forest management systems of indigenous peoples in the Cordillera, who for centuries, sustained this mountain region as watershed area for northern Luzon. The signing will be a sidebar of a scheduled visit of President Arroyo to Sagada, Mountain Province, a popular tourist destination known for its lush pine forests maintained through time-honored indigenous practices. Defensor’s initiative will resolve the long-drawn conflicts between state forestry laws and customary practices, covering ownership and utilization of the pine forest resources, which are unique to the Cordillera. The policy of state ownership overnatural resources, including the forests developed and maintained by indigenous peoples, has restricted villagers in the Cordillera from harvesting lumber and other forest products for their houses and other domestic needs. Defensor took the cue from a resolution in March last year of the Mountain Province provincial board asking him to issue a policy prescribing guidelines in the registration, management and harvest of planted trees within community, private and customarily-owned lands. http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=26139

28) MALAYBALAY CITY — Floods have become an almost yearly occurrence in Butuan City. They usually occur in the months of December and January when typhoons would lash Mindanao’s northern provinces or monsoon rains would last for days or weeks. I may not be faulted if I say that the floods in Butuan are a “normal” phenomenon in that these have been with us for decades. City denizens have practically accepted it as a fact of life. And I, a child and teenager then who lived in a neighboring town, could only render unspoken sympathy to them. But what about the other parts of Caraga Region which have experienced floods only now or in the past few years? For sure, faulty drainage is not to blame for floods in rural areas where there are no clogged waterways and congested communities to speak of. I can only say Amen whenever an accusing finger points to logging — legal or illegal (what’s the difference) — as the culprit to which the Department of Environment and Natural Resources always turns a blind eye. This is not the complete picture, though. What’s often ignored is the political context which has enabled logging to thrive despite the people’s growing environmental consciousness. Since the post-war years, politics in the region has largely been shaped by those who have access to forest resources, timber in particular. Profits obtained from logging are used to buy a politician’s ticket to the halls of power, and political power ensures that he or she will continue to enjoy the privilege of exploiting the forests. Meanwhile, the floods will continue to periodically afflict Caraga like an ancient curse that can only die with time. http://www.mindanews.com/2005/12/30vws-boymords.htm

New Zealand:

29) Police are looking for a man seen acting suspiciously just before a fire that destroyed 15 hectares of trees, scrub and dune tussock at Waimairi Beach, north Christchurch yesterday. A New Brighton police spokesman said the man was seen jogging away from an area in the adjacent Bottle Lake Forest Park where the massive blaze is believed to have started. The man changed his top as he was jogging and got into a car, the spokesman said. Police and fire investigators are probing the cause of the blaze which is believed to be suspicious. At the height of the fire late yesterday 12 appliances and three helicopters battled the flames, taking until late evening to bring it under control. Christchurch City Council principal rural fire officer Keith Marshall said earlier today the blaze was being investigated. “The cause is definitely suspicious but other than that I can’t say any more – the police are assisting with investigations.” http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3529080a10,00.html

Indonesia:

30) a leading British charity has been handed the first international humanitarian aid grant given specifically for environmental work. Fauna & Flora International has been awarded nearly $20 million (£12m) from the United Nations-led humanitarian fund specifically to protect Aceh’s precious tropical forests and mangroves. ‘It’s the first global recognition of the importance of natural resources to livelihoods,’ said Mark Rose, Fauna & Flora’s chief executive. ‘We can stack millions [of pounds] in here in terms of relief and rehabilitation, but unless this forest remains it’s completely screwed. There will be no water, no agriculture, nothing. [Across] the top of Sumatra people will be starving.’ The forest acts ‘like a sponge’ soaking up winter rainfall and releasing it steadily down streams over the year, while the mangroves protect the coastline from erosion and flooding, explained Rose. Without either ‘you’d have no soil, no food, no clean water, and no security from the sea or torrential rain’. http://www.guardian.co.uk/tsunami/story/0,15671,1676115,00.html

31) Oyos Saroso H.N, Bandarlampung Sawmill owners operating in West Lampung can easily get permits saying wood taken from the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park is legal, an activist says. Joko Santoso from the Lampung chapter of the Illegal Logging Response Center said the local forestry office’s failure to properly check up on loggers and enforce regulations, meant the certificates it issued were no better than fakes. To process timber, sawmill operators must possess small-holding timber permits (IPKTM) issued by the West Lampung Forestry Office. However, according to the law, only operators who grow and harvest their own trees are entitled to the permits. “We have found many (sawmill) operators possess IPKTMs but do not grow the trees they process. They simply buy timber from residents, who take the timber from the national park,” Joko said. The center’s data found that the forestry office had issued operating permits for 12 sawmill operators, which produce at least 1,200 cubic meters of sawn timber a month — the equivalent of 2,400 hectares of forested area in the park. “Since the companies hold these timber processing permits, illegal timber becomes a legal commodity in their hands. They generally use these to dupe the authorities when they conduct illegal logging raids, claiming the timber comes from community forests. But community forests in Lampung no longer produce such timber,” Joko said. Investigations by the center, however, showed many sawmill operators held permits that were issued without a field inspection, meaning the operators did not have to prove they could meet the quota legally. “This is when the timber traders come in. Some of them pay residents to steal timber in the national park,” Joko said. “The sawn timber is often of high quality, like meranti wood, which can only be found in the park. If they are carrying such timber, it is most likely being stolen from the park,” Iwen said. “Offenders usually place the resin at the rear part of the truck. But after unloading, the truck contains kruing, meranti or tenam wood taken from the park. Data from the World Wildlife Fund for Nature and the Illegal Logging Response Center shows deforestation in the park has reached an alarming rate. Of its 360,000 hectares, around 50 percent has been damaged by illegal logging. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20060102.D07&irec=6

32) JAKARTA, Jan 2 Asia Pulse – The Forestry Ministry said it is selling by auction 20 natural and plantation forest concessions in Kalimantan and Sumatra. Forestry Minister M.S. Kaban said the auction will take place in 2006 and that the ministry is checking the status of the areas to ensure they are clean and clear. Kaban said the auction is part of a program by the ministry to build five million hectares of plantation forests until 2009 to reduce dependence on natural forests in developing forest-based industries. He said the government will focus more on expanding plantation forests, but it does not mean it has closed natural forests to business exploitation.Timber processing industries still rely more on natural forests for log raw materials supply, as supply of logs from plantation forests still falls short of requirements. http://au.news.yahoo.com/060102/3/xf8l.html

33) The police also reported in May that they had submitted case files on at least 25 suspects, including three middle-ranking Papua police officers, to prosecutors, while case files on the remaining 151 suspects were still being completed. The crackdown has also affected the market for merbau timber, a hardwood used mainly for flooring, with shortages and price rises reported in both Indonesia and China. But the crackdown failed to impress long enough, nor failed to stop the country’s rapid deforestation rate, claimed to be the world’s worst with an area the size of Switzerland being lost every year. During raids, the bosses escape arrest, leaving smalltime workers in the hands of law enforcers. Telapak’s forest campaigner, Muhammad Yayat Afianto, said the crackdown had an immediate affect on reducing illegal logging but lamented the significant fact that the major criminal networks were not broken although the government has been informed of the officials involved in the racket. Come December, the magic has completely worn off. Around the country, illegal logging continues as before — even reaching deep into protected forested areas like national parks. From 144 million hectares of tropical forests that the country had in 1991, it has shrunk to 110 million hectares in 2003 as deforestation caused by illegal logging, forest fires, forest conversion is unstoppable at a rate which is estimated at more than 2.8 million hectares per year. With the magic gone — no real law enforcement by handing down the maximum sentence for big timber bosses involved in illegal logging, no support for the forestry community, more natural forest conversion and no coordination among institutions like law enforcers and officials — the future of the country’s forests is bleak. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20060102.D08&irec=7

34) In Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, millions of hectares of forest are currently at risk if the government proceeds with a plan to open the world’s largest palm oil plantation on the island. The plan — which is expected to cover an area of 1.8 million hectares along the 850 kilometer Indonesia-Malaysia border in the northern areas of West Kalimantan and East Kalimantan provinces — is feared might harm not only the forest but also the rich forest biodiversity in Kalimantan, which has a vast area of tropical rain forest and is home to several near-extinct species, like orangutans. All these years, according to the World Wife Fund for Nature, Kalimantan, which has 27 million hectares of forests, has suffered from rapid deforestation at the rate of 1.2 million hectares per year. The World Bank even predicts that by 2010, all of Kalimantan’s lowland forests will disappear if nothing is done to curb deforestation. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20060102.D08&irec=7

35) Indonesia is blessed with some of the most extensive and biologically diverse tropical forests in the world. But the tragedy is that Indonesia has one of the highest rates of tropical forest loss in the world. Minister of Forestry M.S. Kaban, in his many speeches at various events, repeatedly warns that Indonesia’s forests are under serious threat. Based on forest cover interpretations of landsat images ETM-7 in 2000, of 120.3 million hectares of total forest area, 59.7 million hectares were degraded. The average annual rate of deforestation for the last five years has been 2.8 million hectares. If the current problem of forest loss continues, it is estimated that all natural forests of Indonesia will be gone within 15 years. The country now finds itself the unwelcome center of world attention, as domestic and international outrage mounts over the rampant destruction of a great natural resource. Indonesia’s economy is plagued by lawlessness and corruption. Illegal logging has been rampant for years and is believed to have destroyed tens of millions of hectares of forest. Indonesia’s wood-processing industries operate in a strange legal twilight, in which wood processing mills obtain more than half their wood supplies from illegal sources. Timber is routinely smuggled across the border to neighboring countries, costing the Indonesian government millions of dollars in lost revenue each year. More than 35 years of bad forestry management and logging operations are responsible for the heavy forest degradation, the depletion of forest resources and massive and life-threatening environmental problems across the archipelago. Other main factors is the conversion of natural forests (land clearing) to develop timber plantations, oil palm plantations and transmigration resettlements areas, and forest loss due to forest fires and open pit mining operations. The implementation of regional autonomy in the beginning of 2001 has had a devastating effect on the forestry sector, with uncontrolled exploitation leading to the further depletion of an important and vital natural resource on which the people of Indonesia rely for their livelihood and survival. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20051231.P15&irec=14

36) Illegal logging has reached epidemic proportions as a result of Indonesia’s chronic structural imbalance between legal wood supply and demand. The problem of overcapacity in the wood processing industry continues. According to the Ministry of Forestry, total effective demand for wood to feed domestic wood processing mills is 63.4 million cubic meters, but total log production is 22.8 million cubic meters. The huge gap between demand and the supply of wood, i.e. 40.6 million cubic meters, is supplied by illegal logs from illegal logging operations. The total economic loss to the country from illegal logging is estimated in the range of Rp 31 trillion to Rp 41 trillion a year, or US$3 to 4 billion annually. This does not include the environmental costs and social costs that occur due to the destruction of tropical forest ecosystems, with estimated values of several times higher than the total economic loss of revenue for the government. Illegal logging and the illegal trade that facilitates this has reached crisis levels. The root cause of this is corruption and nonexistent law enforcement. In addition, the problems of poverty and unemployment in the remote districts that are rich in forest resources have forced some people who live in these areas to get involved in the quick and dirty business of illegal logging, financed by the big financiers who work together as an organized crime ring with corrupt government officials. In 2005 we saw the government introduce a tougher illegal logging policy. Presidential Instruction No. 4/2005 was issued by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in which the President instructed 18 government institutions to work together to combat illegal logging and the illegal trade of logs all over Indonesia. It worked for a while. But the success did not last very long. There are almost daily media reports of illegal logging and the illegal trade in logs across the country. This happens because demand for cheap illegal Indonesian timber from consuming nations continues, and does the problem of overcapacity in the domestic wood processing industry. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20051231.P15&irec=14

37) Another serious source of forest destruction is open pit mining operations in protected forests. The government has allowed such activities through the enactment of Law No. 19/2004, which revised Law No. 41/99 that banned open pit mining in protected forests. Six mining companies have been granted exploration permits by the government to work in protected forest areas. In 2006 and beyond, more mining companies will be operating open pit mines in protected forests, completely destroying almost one million hectares of tropical forest. The continued destruction of the forest will eventually lead to environmental changes that will threaten our very way of life. We are racing against time, and in fact are running out of time to save Indonesia’s remaining tropical forests. If we fail, we will only reap disaster because nature cannot be compromised. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20051231.P15&irec=14

38) Endangered orangutans in Indonesian Borneo are suffering routine physical abuse when they stray into palm oil plantations, say wildlife groups and campaigners in the region. Poor migrant workers, often encouraged by the offer of extra pay from rainforest loggers, trap the animals and beat them to death. Wildlife rescue centres in Indonesia are overflowing with displaced and injured orangutans, many of which have suffered horrific injuries at the hands of their captors, says the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS). In a particularly cruel killing, a male was buried alive, and in another an orangutan was doused in petrol by rainforest loggers and set alight. “Orangutans are particularly resilient animals and hard to kill,” said Michelle Desilets, director of BOS UK. “Sometimes they are shot but more often than not they are killed with machetes or beaten to death.” Iolo Williams, a wildlife expert who recently returned from the region, said he went to a rescue centre near the Kalimantan Rainforest in Indonesian Borneo where he saw baby orangutans who had had their hands cut off as they clung to their mothers. “What I saw was horrendous. Coming back from Borneo made me doubt if there was any hope for mankind”. Loggers in Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo are notorious for killing large numbers of orangutans every year, but new claims of abuse on the Indonesian side suggest a level of vindictiveness not seen before. The global demand for palm oil, one of the world’s most popular vegetable oils and used in products such as soap, chocolate and lipstick, is encouraging the destruction of the orangutan. Ninety per cent of the world’s palm oil comes from Malaysia and Indonesia, and most of the plantations are on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. As rainforests are cleared to make way for plantations, the orangutans are forced out, and are either killed or captured to be sold as pets. http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article336050.ece