090OEC’s This Week in Trees

This week we have 37 news items from: British Columbia, Washington, California, New Mexico, Michigan, Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, USA, North America, Armenia, Russia, Rwanda, Ghana, Peru, Brazil, India, New Zealand, South East Asia, China, Philippines, Indonesia and Australia.

British Columbia:

1) The first forest stewardship plans (FSPs) under new results-based forestry legislation lack clear results, and make it difficult for the public and government to hold forest companies accountable, according to a Forest Practices Board special report released today. The board reviewed 15 of the first FSPs submitted by forest companies under the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA). FRPA replaced the detailed requirements under the former Forest Practices Code with objectives for a range of forest values, such as protecting community watersheds and conserving species at risk. This “results-based” framework allows forest companies wide discretion as to how they meet these objectives. “The Forest Practices Board supports the results-based regulatory regime,” said board chair Bruce Fraser. “Our goal with this report is to contribute to the successful implementation of FRPA, by ensuring that FSPs provide accountable and transparent information on forest practices in British Columbia.” The report identified four key concerns with the early FSPs: 1) FSPs provide very little detail about how, when and where logging will take place on Crown land. The plans cover huge land areas with no details of exactly where logging is proposed. 2) FSPs are written in complex legal language that makes it very difficult for the public to understand and comment on. 3) Most FSPs do not make commitments to measurable results or outcomes. 4) Except for default practices required by legislation, the commitments in FSPs tend to be vague and non-measurable, which will be challenging for government staff to enforce. –BC Forest Practices Board

2) It’s a drizzly Saturday morning and I’ve gone to hear anti-logging activist Betty Krawcyzk speak. Krawcyzk, a 77-year-old grandmother, is well known to environmental groups for her role in the lumber wars of the 1990s, first at Clayoquot Sound, then in the Elaho Valley. Krawcyzk was arrested at both and spent considerable time in prison for refusing to sign an agreement that would have barred her from both locations. NDP premier Glen Clark once described her-and those who were with her in Clayoquot-as “enemies of BC.” St Monica’s, a smallish, non-descript older wooden church, is hosting the event, and the room is filled with community activists, eager to learn something that Krawcyzk knows very well: the art of civil disobedience. Krawcyzk is introduced by Dennis Perry, the “leader” of the activist group, who leads off by stressing the need for action in the face of government intransigence. “Our rights are being trampled,” Perry tells the enthusiastic crowd, and when this happens, “there is no recourse but civil disobedience,” he says. Both Foy and Krawcyzk are peppered with questions: What happens when you get arrested? What are the stages? How long will you be in jail? After a short break, Zoe, another environmental activist, leads the group in the nuts-and-bolts of civil disobedience training using the Direct Action Network manual as a training guide. The group goes through role playing, ways to minimize conflict, and the practical details of legal support, staging of the protests, assessing risk factors-all the typical sorts of things activists think about. Anyone who’s been involved in environmental or anti-globalization protests has seen and done the same training. Krawczyk, Foy, and Zoe have likely given their talks dozens, if not hundreds, of times before. There is nothing strange about any of this, the mundane preparations before launching yet another group of activists into battle. Nothing strange, that is, except for one small detail: The radicals in the room don’t have spiked hair or dreads, nary a piercing can be found, and the dominant hair colour is . . . grey. This is a room full of middle-aged, white, upper middle class, West Vancouver property owners who drove to the church in their SUVs. They are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore. Welcome to radical activism, courtesy of the Coalition to Save Eagleridge Bluffs.
http://www.republic-news.org/archive/137-repub/137_chris_shaw.htm

3) Alberni-Qualicum NDP MLA Scott Fraser once said transport trucks carrying raw logs were leaving the Alberni Valley about every two minutes. Thursday night, Fraser said he believes that number to be much higher, especially during earlier, less-trafficked times in the morning. The MLA, who spoke at length about unsustainable logging practices in the Beaufort Mountains and the ensuing repercussions in the Valley, was just one of several speakers to address the Save Our Valley Alliance meeting at Echo Centre. Also on the agenda were Cariboo North NDP MLA Bob Simpson and Phil Edgell, director of the Alberni Valley Enhancement Association Citing Section 21 of the 2003 Private Managed Forest Lands Act (PMFL), Fraser said, “local governments can’t do anything to protect public interests if they affect private lands.” Corporate holdings are on private lands.
He reminded the crowd that “from the legislative angle, we are the opposition.”
He also reminded people the Liberal party put this legislation in place. Simpson said the Liberal government has changed the value of logging to the extent that British Columbia no longer benefits. He said, “corporate gain is winning.” http://westcoaster.ca:8080/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=615

4) There are six known pairs of spotted owls remaining in B.C. The province’s spotted owl population has declined from approximately 200 in 1993 to about 22 today. The Province is immediately activating a $3.4-million, five-year action plan to recover B.C.’s northern spotted owl, Agriculture and Lands Minister Pat Bell announced today. Based on the work of the Canadian Spotted Owl Recovery Team, the Province will act as soon as possible to: Initiate measures to re-build spotted owl populations. These measures include captive breeding and release, moving spotted owls to new locations, increasing food sources for spotted owls, and managing competing species such as barred owls; Evaluate and revise existing spotted owl management areas to ensure they better protect owls. This will be a collaborative effort working closely with staff in the ministries of Environment and Forests and Range, the Federal Government, First Nations and forest licensees; and Continue detailed, site-by-site analysis in consultation with Environment Canada to provide an appropriate amount of habitat protection in areas where the 2005 survey reported spotted owls. Over the last decade, B.C. has managed more than 363,000 hectares of spotted owl habitat by fully protecting 159,000 hectares in parks and protected areas and designating the other 204,000 hectares of provincial forest as “spotted owl range” areas within which: 1) 67 per cent of forested habitat suitable for spotted owls (i.e. old growth forest) must be retained; 2) Harvesting must not take place on more than 50 per cent of the land base; and 3)No forest harvesting is permitted within 500 metres of a nest site. — Despite this strict forest management regime, spotted owl surveys concluded last summer and evaluated last fall noted a continued decline in spotted owl numbers. NEWS RELEASE –Ministry of Agriculture and Lands. British Columbia, Canada

Washington:

5) Some of the trees in the Olympic National Forest have been here since long before the founding of the nation. The biggest Sitka spruce is something like 54 feet around and has lived for an estimated 1,000 years. There are cedars so big you can walk inside of them. Douglas fir and Western hemlocks can grow to 300 feet. They are not invincible. Storms pound the peninsula with Pacific fury, and when they hit these forests, they knock down giant trees by the thousands. In a climate of 12 to 14 feet of rain a year, they become moss-covered and start to decay in forest time, inevitable, relentless, unyielding and measured in centuries. Seedlings grow on the tops of the mossy bark. It is the best place, up off the forest floor and a few feet closer to the sun. A big tree might have 50 or more growing in a straight line right down the center of its rotting trunk. The strongest of these will survive and, again in forest time, stretch roots around the trunk and reach into the ground. You can see trees growing in lines so straight it seems as though someone planted them. They all took root on the same downed nurse log. Once the log rots, over centuries, they seem to be standing on legs. In the rain forest, I concluded, nothing ever really dies. It just changes, very slowly. You want a model for aging? That would be my suggestion, the thought that you are not really going anywhere, just constantly changing. Start thinking in forest time. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0605020208may02,1,6748984.column?coll=chi-news-col&ctrack=
1&cset=true

6) A 1994 plan intended to protect hundreds of species associatedwith old-growth forests and diffuse gridlock over timber management of America’s northwestern forests is getting a fresh look by nineteen nationally-renowned scientists, including several of the Northwest Forest Plan’s original architects. In the April special feature edition of the international journal, Conservation Biology, scientists offer their analyses of the Northwest Forest Plan’s effectiveness in achieving its ambitious goal to balance logging with forest protections on nearly 25 millions of acres of federal land. According to Jerry Franklin, University of Washington professor and principle architect of the plan, “the Northwest Forest Plan was the first attempt anywhere to address the many factors that contribute to forest ecosystem health and sustainability on such a large scale. Not surprisingly with a plan this complex, success has been mixed but has resulted in a great deal of learning. Timber harvest levels have been less than projected, partially because of efforts to log old-growth stands outside of reserves, something which is no longer socially acceptable.” Franklin added, “the Northwest Forest Plan has missed the mark on timber outputs for many reasons, including continuing efforts to log in old-growth forests and the need for extensive species surveys prior to timber harvesting activities.” Stream conditions have improved steadily, particularly where communities work side-by-side with restoration ecologists. Adoption of the Northwest Forest Plan in 1994 followed years of conflict over timber harvesting on the one hand, and protection of old-growth forests, watersheds, and wildlife on the other. The plan marked a transition from timber-focused planning to forest-wide ecosystem management. Incorporating input from numerous stakeholders, the plan sought to balance logging of the nation’s forests with conservation of salmon runs and other wildlife, old-growth forests, and northwestern watersheds. DellaSala added that “the Plan is working best in places where federal managers are working with local communities to thin overly stocked plantations for fuels reduction and restoration, such as the Gifford Pinchot and Suislaw National Forests, rather than where the agencies continue to log in older forests.” http://www.conbio.org

California:

7) The 4,000-plus acres within the Stanislaus National Forest that are proposed for sale by the U.S. Forest Service are scattered, a forest map shows. But when environmentalists examine that same map closer, they see that at least two-thirds of the forest land on the chopping block is surrounded by or adjacent to property owned by logging-giant Sierra Pacific Industries. Monday is the deadline for people to let the Forest Service know what they think of its controversial plan to sell more than 300,000 acres of public forest land nationally to help pay for rural schools and roads. The land sales, part of President Bush’s proposed 2007 budget, would generate $800 million over the next five years to backfill budget cuts. Once public comments are evaluated, the Forest Service will submit the proposal to Congress by the end of June. Environmental groups in the foothills, such as the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center in Twain Harte, have already submitted formal comments. On the Stanislaus forest, 4,063 acres — 3,285 in Calaveras County and 778 in Tuolumne County — are proposed to be sold. This includes land in the West Point and Wilseyville areas of Calaveras County, and the Yankee Hill and Cedar Ridge areas of Tuolumne County. There are also parcels a mile north of the Pine Mountain Lake subdivision in the Groveland area. Bruce Castle, president of Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch, said the Arnold-based environmental group opposes the sale of these local pieces of public land, especially those that SPI could buy. http://www.uniondemocrat.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=20291

8) IDYLLWILD – The U.S. Forest Service wants you — to join the frog squad. The new volunteer program is designed to protect the endangered mountain yellow-legged frog, which lives in the North Fork of the San Jacinto River near Idyllwild and a few other places in California. Fewer than 100 yellow-legged frogs are left in the national forest’s San Jacinto Ranger District, which stretches from Hemet east to the Coachella Valley and Interstate 10 south to the Anza and Pinyon areas, Poopatanapong said. At the San Diego Zoo, efforts to breed several frogs failed, with the last one dying this month. After the 2003 wildfires in the San Bernardino Mountains, government biologists rescued less than a dozen of the tiny frogs from City Creek above Highland and took them to The Los Angeles Zoo but later transferred them to the San Diego Zoo for breeding. The plan was to return the frogs to the Idyllwild wilderness. Andrew Circo, spokesman for the San Diego Zoo, said the last of those frogs died in April. Officials are not sure what killed the frogs, but more breeding efforts are planned, Circo said. The frogs dissappeared from San Diego County’s Palomar Mountain in the 1970s, Circo said. The frog, listed as an endangered species in 2002, also lives in the national forest’s Front Country Ranger District in the San Bernardino Mountains and the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains. The frog also lives in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The areas will be off limits to any activities within 10 feet of the creek’s edge, Forest Service wildlife technician Heidi Sellers said. Signs will be posted, volunteers will be on site, and citations may be issued to those who don’t comply, Sellers said. Citations for disobeying a forest order range from $50 to $5,000 for an individual and $10,000 for an organization, Poopatanapong said. Last year, one citation was issued, Poopatanapong said.”A lot of people don’t even know they are up there,” Poopatanapong said. “We are not going to be the frog police. That’s not our goal.” http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_H_frog30.8fb7681.html

New Mexico:

9) A four-year thinning and prescribed-burning project in the watershed will eventually treat about 7,000 acres of forest, lessening the threat of a catastrophic wildfire. Scientists worry a fire in the watershed would fill the reservoirs with silt and debris, cause flooding in Santa Fe and harm the city’s drinking-water supply. So far, about 4,650 acres have been thinned. As trees have been thinned, foresters have left some 1,800 acres of slash in the forest because weather conditions were too dry to allow them to burn the waste, said Lawrence Garcia, a fire-management officer in the Española Ranger District. He said burning of the slash would continue after the fire season. He said the slash piles have become a political issue, with many people wrongly assuming they make the fire danger worse. But the thinned forest — even with slash piles — is actually better than the original condition, scientists said. Trees were so tightly packed together that had a fire torn through the area before the thinning, it could have jumped from treetop to treetop, creating a “crown fire” — one of the hardest types of fires to control. Since foresters have harvested fire fuel and put it in piles on the ground, any fire that starts in the thinned areas of the watershed will be easier to put out, said Porfirio Chavarria, assistant wildland-interface specialist with the Santa Fe Fire Department. “If I was fighting a fire, I would much rather be fighting one where you have the thinned area,” Chavarria said. http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/42911.html

Michigan:

10) By the fall of 1990, the off-road vehicle (ORV) problem had spread like a plague across the American landscape. That’s when the Michigan Association of Conservation Districts conducted a survey on just a third of the state’s land. The survey revealed that 600,000 acres were damaged by ORV’s, with repair costs – if the daunting job were to be undertaken – conservatively estimated at one billion dollars. Since 1990, manufacturers have continually created bigger, more powerful machines, capable of going nearly anywhere. Documented impacts of ORV’s include not just air, water and noise pollution, but also soil compaction, erosion, destruction of native vegetation and the spread of noxious weeds, the crushing of small animals and their nests/dens/burrows, plus the disruption of wildlife migrations, winter ranges and denning behavior. Today, throughout the U.S., literally tens of millions of acres have been compacted, eroded, rutted, crushed, denuded and converted to weeds, all in the name of gluttonous fossil fuel-intensive play. Based upon a small chunk of Michigan, one needn’t be a math genius to calculate that today, nationwide, this insanity would cost the American taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars to repair, if the political will to do the job existed. http://www.lowbagger.org

11) And maybe Ernest Hemingway never immortalized it the way he did other northern Michigan pursuits, such as hiking and trout fishing. But the hunt for morel mushrooms has its own mystique, thank you very much. And this year’s hunt is on. From now through early June – give or take a few days depending on the weather – mushroom lovers in search of the honeycomb-capped fungus will comb forest floors, fields and fencerows from Hillsdale to Copper Harbor. But there’s also the challenge: “They’re hard to find,” he said. “They blend in really, really easily.” The prized mushrooms – Earthy Delights sells fresh ones at $36 a pound and up – are more elusive than a wily buck. Some attempts have been made to grow them commercially. Lansing’s Neogen Corp. patented the first successful commercial cultivation method, and morels are now grown by Scottville-based Diversified Natural Products. Still, not everyone believes they compare to what’s found in the wild. “They look right, but they don’t have that wonderful flavor,” Baker said. The wild ones tend to pop up near rotted wood, particularly around ash, elm, poplar and fruit trees. But a spot that yields a full sack of ‘shrooms one year may give nothing the next. Hunters often look forward to a heavy rain, as morels tend to sprout after the ground gets a good soaking. http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060428/LIFE/604280307/1079/life

Massachusetts:

12)The tiny woolly adelgid, a sap-sucking insect that many forest ecologists fear could virtually eliminate southern New England’s hemlock forests, proved to be no match for the recent frigid winters in the region. An estimated 86 to 98 percent of them died in Western Massachusetts during the winter of 2003/2004 and again in the winter of 2004/2005, victims of prolonged cold snaps, a study found, allowing infested trees to regain some lost health. However, during the past winter, temperatures rarely fell to single digits, and now researchers are cautiously monitoring the region’s hemlocks to see if the insects – and the damage they cause – will come roaring back. “It’s too soon right now to tell what will happen,” said David B. Kittredge, a professor of natural resources at University of Massachusetts in Amherst. “However, they reproduce pretty quickly. I think what we can say is we’ll see it moving into some new places we haven’t seen it before, which will be farther north,” he said. Charles M. Burnham, head of the forest health program for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, said woolly adelgid infestations have been found on hemlocks in nearly all communities in the Connecticut River Valley. In some stands, 50 to 100 percent of infested hemlocks have died. “We’re seeing them up to the New Hampshire and Vermont border (with Massachusetts), but how much further into those states they will go, we don’t know,” he said. Woolly adelgids are natives of Asia. They were accidentally introduced into the United States in the 1920s. The size of pinheads, they were first detected in Massachusetts in 1989 in Forest Park in Springfield and have since spread through most of the state. All the hemlocks in Forest Park have either died or been removed. In some areas of the 735-acre park, nearly half the trees were hemlocks. The insects kill hemlocks by sucking sap and by injecting a toxic saliva while feeding. The trees usually died in three to four years once infested. Typically, a cottony substance, which covers the insects and their eggs, is the visible symptom a tree is infested. http://www.masslive.com/hampfrank/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1146383216309060.xml&coll=1

Maine:

13) For years, while other states used federal funding sources to buy public land for hunting, fishing, and recreation, Maine did almost none of that. Instead, Maine used the federal funds to support the day-to-day operations of the Department of Inland of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. As a result, among the states, Maine has one of the lowest percentages of land in public ownership. We passed up the opportunity to purchase more public land, confident that our custom of allowing free public use of private land in our state would continue forever. It sure looks like ?forever? is over. In recent years, Maine sportsmen have seen their traditional access to land for hunting and access to rivers, lakes and streams nibbled up by residential development, or ?sprawl? in the southern part of the state. Now, thanks to Plum Creek, we are getting a glimpse of the future of the north woods: More creeping sprawl, and in the long run, loss of public access. Perhaps Maine hunters are put off by the idea that hunting is not allowed in national parks. The reality is that many different categories of land within the national park system would permit continued access for such traditional north woods activities such as fishing, hunting and snowmobiling. Some of the best hunting and fishing in this country is in or near federal preserves. http://www.flyrodreel.com/index.php/page/blog/?p=462

New Jersey:

14) The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will treat 27,589 trees susceptible to the Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) in New Jersey this spring, including approximately 4,800 trees to be added to the ALB quarantine as a result of an infested tree recently discovered in Linden, N.J. These treatments are part of the ALB cooperative eradication program’s effort to prevent further infestation of this invasive insect pest and reduce beetle populations. APHIS will treat trees in portions of the established 20-square mile quarantine area in New Jersey with the insecticide imidacloprid, which has yielded positive results in past treatments. Program officials will treat 12,279 trees in Linden, 6,557 trees in Woodbridge, 4,647 trees in Carteret, 3,585 trees in Rahway and 521 trees in Roselle. The 4,800 additional trees to be treated this year are in Linden and Roselle. Tree treatments began April 17 and will last until the middle of June. Program officials, through the use of certified pesticide applicator contractors, will be injecting imidacloprid into the trees through capsules placed at the base of the trunk or by treating the soil surrounding trees through the use of a hand held injector applicator that uses compressed air. Each site will be closely monitored. Regardless of the treatment form, the insecticide is dispersed through the tree’s vascular system. This enables the insecticide to reach ALB adults feeding on small twigs and leaves and the larvae feeding beneath the bark of host trees. Imidacloprid is currently used in the lawn care industry to kill lawn grubs and in domestic pet treatments to kill fleas. http://www.americanfarm.com/growtopstory5.01.2006c.html

15) Bill Wasiowich lives by very few rules. He gets up when he wants, goes to work when he feels like it. He has no family, no phone. His workplace: the woodlands and swamps of South Jersey’s Pine Barrens. While this vast and unique wilderness has been preserved through the efforts of the state Legislature, Congress and countless activists, Pineys such as Wasiowich have all but faded into history. If not the last, Wasiowich (pronounced Wasovich) is one of the few remaining Pineys, a breed that scraped by on whatever scant resources the woods provided throughout the seasons. And his time is running short.He says he’s running out of land to pick legally, but his hardscrabble lifestyle has long been destined to die away.”I gradually been gettin’ out of it because times have been gettin’ harder and harder out there,” Wasiowich says from his home amid the pines of Woodland in eastern Burlington County. “The state’s buyin’ all the ground; they’re buildin’ this and that developments and stuff.” The term Piney is synonymous with rural South Jersey, conjuring up differing images to different people. To many who live in the Pinelands, a Piney is anyone whose life remains somehow entwined with the land — cranberry farming or fighting forest fires, for example — and whose lineage in the pines goes back several generations. The term is often associated with self-reliance. But to outsiders, the word Piney stirs unsettling images of people living marginal lifestyles in rundown shacks in the woods, hillbilly-like people to ridicule or even fear.Wasiowich doesn’t fit neatly into either mold. http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060430/NEWS01/604300353/1006

USA:

16) About a month ago, I dropped over to a friend’s maple sugar shack to sit by his stove, drink tea laced with maple syrup, talk about the winter just passing and feel very much a Canadian. It was a strange winter. Almost no snow where we are in the Thousand Islands area, but lots of rain and freezing rain. It had been so mild, we wondered if there’d be much sap, but at the last moment it turned colder, and the sap flowed nicely. Not as nicely as some years, but well enough. My friend collected about two-thirds, maybe 60 per cent, of what he got in better years. It was pleasant, and I didn’t think more about it until I discovered that a study had just been completed on the maple syrup industry by Environment Canada’s Adaptation and Impacts Research Division in Toronto. Climate change, it says, is going to rearrange things. Preliminary research shows that within 20 years, not much of an industry will be left in the United States, the study says. In Canada, the industry will remain viable during those 20 years, but over 90 years the range for sugar maple trees will shift northward by up to two degrees latitude — that’s the equivalent of shifting north from Sherbrooke to Trois Rivières in Quebec, or from Brockville to Arnprior in Ontario. Now, this can be read as a climate-change horror story or as an early warning to start preparations for adapting to change. http://www.thestar.com

North America:

17) By most predictions, the Northern forests that cover much of North America, Europe, and Asia, should be getting greener. Scientists have always thought that plant growth in the world’s Northern forests was limited by temperature. Arctic summer provides a brief period in which plants can develop before the cold of winter ends the growing season. Over the past century, however, temperatures have gone up and the length of the growing season has increased, nearly doubling in sections of Alaska. With carbon dioxide, one of the key ingredients in photosynthesis, also on the rise, plants should be thriving. But they are not. A greening forest was what Scott Goetz, an ecologist at Woods Hole Research Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, expected to see when he began to track the forest’s health using satellite data. As he tracked changes between 1982 and 2003, he noticed something strange: the forest was getting browner, not greener as he expected. His results are shown in this image, which depicts how photosynthetic activity, an indicator of growth, has changed over the past two decades. For parts of the region, growth has not changed (gray), but in interior Alaska and a wide swath of Canada, growth has declined (brown). Only in the far north, regions of tundra, has growth increased (green). http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17252

18) Governments worldwide have issued an unprecedented warning about the greatest biotech hazards so far: GM trees. Trees modified to grow faster, yield better wood, produce whiter paper, resist pests and disease and tolerate herbicides are increasingly being cultivated. Elms resistant to Dutch elm disease are being grown in Dundee, Scotland. But the scientists involved will not say precisely where they are, or even exactly how many of them are being grown. The Government was forced to admit for the first time last week that GM poplar, apple and eucalyptus trees have been cultivated outdoors in Berkshire, Derbyshire and Kent.The admission came after warnings about such trees from ministers from over 100 countries at a UN conference in Curitiba, Brazil. They urged a “precautionary approach” towards them after hearing that they could “wreak ecological havoc throughout the world’s forests”. Some 16 countries around the world are developing GM trees, and more than a million have already been planted in China. At least 24 species, from papaya to silver birch, from olive to teak, have already been modified; the most commonly treated are poplar, pine and eucalyptus. http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article361056.ece

Armenia:

19) Armenia’s forests and urban green spaces barely survived the energy crisis of the early 1990s. Fifteen years later the nation’s forests are again under threat, this time from illegal logging, corruption and the lucrative trade in lumber. “The forest cuttings started spontaneously in the 90s,” says Hakob Sanasaranyan chairman of Armenia’s Union of Greens. “Then they became systemized and then powerful statesmen took the monopoly of cutting forests in their hands. From provinces that had abundant trees, firewood began being imported to the Ararat valley for sale. That is how the inhuman exploitation of forest began.” Today, trees in the republic’s three most heavily forested areas – the Tavush and Lori regions in the northeast, and south-eastern Syunik – are being cut at such a brisk pace that World Bank and environmentalists predict the landscape will be denuded in 20 to 30 years. According to the “Hyeantar” SCJSC (State-run closed joint stock company) the last records of the forests in Armenia were done in 1993, when the massive illegal cuttings were still ahead. Chief Supervisor Petrosyan does not deny that Armenian forests are damaged. But he insists the situation is not catastrophic. “As in all countries, it is impossible to immediately stop the cuttings because they are directly connected with the social-economic condition of the country, employment and the living standards of people,” he says. Armenia’s ties with furniture-producing countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, Italy, etc. have become stronger, the demand has grown, and Armenia has types of trees, oak and Greek walnut, for example, for which demand is high. “No matter how many criminal cases the law-enforcers bring into action, the forest cuttings will continue as they are done with the mediation of the representatives of forestry agencies with the sponsorship of high-ranked officials,” says Manvelyan, who heads the WWF office in Yerevan http://armenianow.com/?action=viewArticle&AID=1500&CID=1621&IID=&lng=eng
Russia:
20 Mutation isn’t the only adverse effect of the radiation. Working in the Red Forest area, James Morris, a USC biologist, has observed some trees with very strange twisted shapes. The radiation, he says, is confusing the hormone signal that the trees use to determine which direction to grow. “These trees are having a terrible time knowing which way is up,” Morris said. Gaschak, the Kiev ecologist, believes such radiation effects will diminish over time. He is celebrating the way that Chernobyl has burst into life and hopes that the area will become a national park one day. But Mousseau is less optimistic. “One of the great ironies of this particular tragedy is that many animals are doing considerably better than when the humans were there,” he said. “But it would be a mistake to conclude they are doing better than in a control area. We just don’t know what is normal [for Chernobyl]. There just haven’t been enough scientific studies done.” http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0426_060426_chernobyl.html

Rwanda:

21) Genocide survivors in Mukura Sector of Huye District have requested the local authorities to turn a forest that contains mass graves of the victims of the 1994 genocide into a memorial site. According to Mukura Sector Coordinator Alex Munyamfura, the killers dumped bodies in Kabakobwa Forest and thereafter planted trees so as to conceal evidence of the mass killings in the area. “Some of the bones we got there were intertwined with roots from various trees, and this is so painful,” Munyamfura said during the reburial of remains in Icyeru Cell on Saturday, April 22. A lady who testified during the reburial said that more than 3,000 people were murdered and dumped in the forest. About 2,976 victims have so far been given a decent burial in Mukura sector. Edward Kabarega, the southern region Coordinator of the Genocide survivors association, ARG Impuhwe, lamented that there was a group of people who were indifferent during the mourning period.”Everything possible has been done to re-establish communication with those who wronged us, but many have instead increased their brutality,” Kabarega said. http://allafrica.com/stories/200604270326.html

Ghana:

22) Members of the Ghana Timber Association (GTA) have spent 16 million dollars to plant different tree species on 280 hectares of degraded forest at Ananekrom, near Agogo-Ashanti in the Asante-Akim North District to support the Government’s afforestation programme. The members financed the project with two per cent levy contributions. Mr Jonathan Armah, out-going National President of the association, announced this at its 165th annual general meeting held at Obo-Kwahu in the Kwahu South District in the Eastern Region on Saturday. He said the project would be extended to cover 1,000 hectares within the next five years and commended Technical staff of the Forestry Services Division (FSD) of the Forestry Commission for the supply of seedlings and technical assistance. Mr Owusu Abebrese, Chief Executive of the Forestry Commission, urged members of the association to involve themselves in activities of the National Timber Task Force to check illegal chain saw operators who normally operated within forest reserves and concessions of members. He said it was the responsibility of members to be involved in afforestation programmes to ensure sustainability of the forest and timber industry in the country. Mr Abebrese advised them to ensure regular payment of their property marks, renewal of their concessions and number of trees felled for the Commission to pay the appropriate royalties to Stool Land Owners. http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=103469

Peru:

23) I’m president of the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit with offices in West Chester, Penn., and in Iquitos and Puerto Maldonado, Peru. Later this summer, in partnership with the Amazon Conservation Association, we will begin construction of the world’s first canopy walkway in a cloud forest. It will be an engineering marvel with a unique classroom/laboratory; when completed, faculty, students, and visitors will be able to literally walk among the treetops of the cloud forest. And then — if they are truly adventurous — they can travel downriver to our Los Amigos and Tambopata field stations, crossing seven ecological zones in the process. It will be like visiting all of the ecosystems from the North Pole to the equator! My formal training has been in environmental science and public health. In 1993, while dean of health sciences at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, I traveled to the Peruvian Amazon and ACEER on a World Wildlife Fund workshop. I was so blown away by that experience that I resigned my dean’s position to go back into the faculty and promote rainforest conservation. Shortly thereafter, I met with someone at ACEER to see how I could help. My local hero is Aura Murrieta, ACEER’s director of Peru programs. Aura was born and raised in Amazonia. She beat the odds by finishing school (many Amazonian girls fail to go beyond fourth grade) and works tirelessly, carefully, mindfully, passionately in village after village, school after school, making life better for one child at a time, one teacher at a time, one village at a time. It is in-the-trenches work, but it is also the work of heroes. http://www.grist.org/comments/interactivist/2006/05/01/mustalish/index.html?source=daily

24) The canoes began to fill with rainwater. Every half an hour we had to bail out the canoes to keep them from filling with water. The rain continued as we slowly made our way down river to towards a sacirita. A sacirita is a narrow waterway through the flooded forest, which cuts off a large loop in the main river channel. The sacirita that we were looking for would shorten our trip to the next ranger station by almost 15 miles. A ranger at the last ranger station told us that we could find the sacirita by looking for a large Ponga tree on the side of the river near where we needed to enter the flooded forest. We spotted the Ponga tree, and turned down a narrow channel of water that rushed through the forest. The channel was clogged with downed trees, and it was hard to follow the main channel. Several times we had to grab hold of vines and trees to keep our canoe from crashing into logs. Every time we tried a new side channel we were stopped by impassable log jams. Fifty years ago, if you were to canoe through what is now the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, trees like the cedar and the mahogany would have been a common sight. Today, those trees are few and far between, because of illegal logging. Since the Reserve was established in 1982, logging has been illegal in order to keep the cedar, mahogany, and other sought after trees plentiful. Unfortunately, loggers continue to cut valuable trees which are sold at a high price. On our trip through the Reserve, we have passed three groups of illegal loggers. These loggers use motor boats and chainsaws to go deep into the forest, and then, after cutting the trees, send huge barges of logs down the river to be sold overseas. The wood is primarily sold to build furniture. Not only are we losing the gift of seeing cedar and mahogany everywhere, animals like monkeys and birds are losing their homes. Illegal loggers are getting away with logging because there is nobody stopping them. Police do not patrol the Reserve, and because the loggers have guns and other weapons, the Park Rangers have no way of getting the loggers out of the reserve. I wonder why the illegal loggers choose to do what they do. Maybe logging because they can’t find work anywhere else and need money for their family. Maybe they don’t care about trees. Maybe nobody has ever told them why it is important to preserve these beautiful trees. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0502-wc11.html

Brazil:

25) In the northern Brazilian state of Pará, where the mouth of the Amazon cuts into the continent, illegal logging, industrial farming, and a human-driven cycle of massive wildfires are destroying the tropical forests. Since he was a teenager, Tarcísio Feitosa da Silva has considered it his mission to help protect these forests, and the isolated communities that live within them. Feitosa works in the Xingu and Middle Lands of Pará, some of the most remote areas of the Amazon basin. He is one of the leaders of the Movement for the Development of the Transamazon and the Xingu — a coalition of grassroots agriculture and sustainable-development groups — and he works with the country’s National Conference of Bishops on social-justice issues. Though several of his fellow activists have been assassinated because of their efforts, Feitosa continues to work with local communities and other allies to document and protest illegal logging activities. His work helped convince the government to establish a mosaic of parks and reserves in the region, which — when combined with existing indigenous landholdings — cover nearly 100,000 square miles, the world’s largest area of protected tropical forest. Feitosa, 35, was awarded one of six 2006 Goldman Environmental Prizes at a ceremony in San Francisco on April 24. He spoke to Grist through a translator. : “In this moment, we’re able to protect an area that represents 55 percent of the region. This is the work of many organizations, which include workers, laborers, fishers, and rubber-tappers. These people have found, in this network of institutions, support to defend their area of use in the forest… To buy wood that has been illegally logged, to buy soybeans raised and cultivated in the Amazon — if people would stop buying these things, we could save the forest, and we could save the Amazon. http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/04/28/nijhuis-silva/

India:

26) The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has agreed to bear the cost of land acquisition for compensatory forestry alongside the highways in Uttar Pradesh. As per the agreement reached between the NHAI and the UP government and ratified by the cabinet here today, the authority would pay the cost of land acquisition to the state government for the compensatory forestation. The NHAI, in the process of executing several road projects in UP under the National Highways Development Programme, has urged the UP government to exempt it from the provisions of the Forest Act, 1980, for preventing the time and cost overrun on the road-widening projects in UP. The NHAI is executing several projects in the state as part of the Golden Quadrilateral and the East-West Corridor project. The state government has taken the decision following the intervention of the Centre. Earlier, the state forest department, in its forest clearance order to the NHAI for road-widening projects, had imposed an additional condition of providing a 10-metre-wide strip along the widened highways for compensatory forestation. http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?storyflag=y&leftnm=lmnu2&leftindx=2&lselect=1&chklogin
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27) At the park gates there is a pause while formalities are completed and a department of forestry guide hops into the front seat. Nobody is allowed to enter Kanha National Park unaccompanied, nor get out of the jeep and wander about, except in designated areas. “There she is!” I swing the binoculars around, sweeping the expanse of grassy golden meadow from right to left. Nothing. “No,” says a calm voice in my ear. It’s our driver, a naturalist and tiger fanatic called Adityaraj Dev. “Look with your eyes first. See where the trees are? Do you see the black tree in the shape of a V?” I do. “So look through the V. She’s sitting beyond it, in a patch of shade. Just where that bank starts to rise.” I scan the area once more. Nothing. And then it happens. Suddenly one of the clumps of grass isn’t a clump of grass any more. It’s a fully-grown Bengal tiger, just sitting there, casual as you like, the beautiful head in clear profile. The moment is beyond magical: my first sighting of a tiger in the wild. Once I see her, of course, I can’t understand why I couldn’t see her before. She is enormous, perhaps two metres (seven feet) long and 150 kilos (330 pounds), or thereabouts, of solid muscle. When she unfurls herself and sets off up the leafy bank with that unmistakeable rolling tiger gait, I forget to breathe. There’ll be other tiger sightings over the next few days, but nothing to compare with this one. Kanha was declared a national park in 1953, six years after India achieved independence; since it was designated one of the country’s main tiger reserves, under the aegis of Project Tiger, a programme begun by Indira Gandhi in 1973, careful management has helped make Kanha one of the world’s finest wildlife reserves. I could spend an hour studying the intricate trunks of a banyan tree or listening to the mysterious music of the forest. There’s so much to take in – and you’re supposed to watch for animals as well, for goodness’ sake? There’s more to the wildlife at Kanha than just tigers. The park is home to 300 species of bird, 117 species of butterfly, 15 kinds of mammal and more than 100 varieties of tree. For a wildlife dunce like yours truly, exposure to this cornucopia of evolutionary excellence is a heady business. A pond proves to be full of turtles, popping to the surface for air. What looks like an oak leaf settling on a bush is in fact a butterfly. Deer, when startled – by what? Tiger? Leopard? – spill through the trees like a living river. We become blase about the bright splash of turquoise that is a white-throated kingfisher, the deeper blue of an Indian roller. http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/04/29/1624024.htm

New Zealand:

28) All options, including removing the deforestation cap and reversing the decision to nationalise carbon credits, are on the table as the Government takes another look at its climate change policies, Forestry Minister Jim Anderton says. A group representing 80 per cent of New Zealand’s forest owners sent a brochure to MPs at the weekend calling for policies to encourage the planting of more trees to help the country turn around its estimated $500 million Kyoto carbon deficit. The group called on the Government to remove the deforestation cap – a tax on foresters not replanting forests – and to establish a carbon trading market which would penalise polluters and allow forest owners to earn credits for planting more forests. Mr Anderton said those options, and others, were being considered. “Officials are prepared to look at this from a first principles perspective, given that the framework under which this is being considered has changed since we started down this road.” When New Zealand ratified the Kyoto protocol in 2003 it was thought the country would be able to meet its Kyoto targets and earn a windfall of carbon credits. But recent advice from the Treasury is that the country will face a deficit of at least $522 million for the first Kyoto commitment period of 2008-12. http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3654319a13,00.html

South East Asia:

29) ) So, why is it that oil-palm plantations now cover millions of hectares across Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand? Why has oil palm become the world’s number one fruit crop, trouncing its nearest competitor, the humble banana? The answer lies in the crop’s unparalleled productivity. Simply put, oil palm is the most productive oil seed in the world. A single hectare of oil palm may yield 5,000 kilograms of crude oil, or nearly 6,000 liters of crude according to data from JourneytoForever. For comparison, soybeans and corn—crops often heralded as top biofuel sources—generate only 446 and 172 liters per hectare, respectively. Beyond biofuel, the crop is used for a myriad of purposes from an ingredient in food products to engine lubricants to a base for cosmetics. Palm oil is becoming an increasingly important agricultural product for tropical countries around the world, especially as crude oil prices top $70 a barrel. For example, in Indonesia, currently the world’s second largest producer of palm oil, oil-palm plantations covered 5.3 million hectares of the country in 2004, according to a report by Friends of the Earth-Netherlands. These plantations generated 11.4 million metric tons of crude palm oil with an export value of US$4.43 billion and brought in $42.4 million (officially) to the Indonesian treasury. Since then, the value of palm oil has only climbed. The price of palm oil currently stands at more than $400 per metric ton, translating to about $54 per barrel—quite cost competive to petroleum. Palm oil is derived from the plant’s fruit, which grow in clusters that may weigh 40-50 kilograms. A hundred kilograms of oil seeds typically produce 20 kilograms of oil. Fruit clusters are harvested by hand, difficult work in the tropical climate where oil palms thrive. In Malaysia, much of palm oil harvesting is done by foreign workers, often Indonesians. While oil palms can live longer than 150 years and exceed 80 feet in the wild, cultivated palms are generally clear cut or poisoned once they are about 25 years old when they stand around 30 feet tall. Beyond 30 feet, harvesting fruit clusters is a challenge. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0425-oil_palm.html

China:

30) In 2004, the Chinese government implemented broad macro economic regulations to curb its overheated industries and slow down fixed asset investment growth. However, China’s GDP reached 9.5% in 2004, much higher than the targeted 7% by the Chinese government. As a result of the overall economic growth, China’s papermaking industry saw positive developments in 2004. Total paper and paperboard production reached 49.5 million tons, 6.5 million tons or 15.1% more than in 2003. Total paper and paperboard consumption reached 54.4 million tons, 6.3 million tons or 13.2% more than in 2003. Production and consumption growth rates in 2004 were even faster than those in 2003; 13.8% and 10.9% respectively. The structure of China’s raw material industry has improved gradually. Waste paper pulp breakdown increased to 52% of the country’s total pulp consumption from 49% in 2003. Wood pulp breakdown increased to 22% from 21% in 2003. Meanwhile, non-wood pulp breakdown dropped to 26% from 30% by as many as four percentage points. As far as raw material was concerned, Chinese paper production quality experienced significant increase in 2004. http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060428005229&newsLang=en

Philippines:

31) THE bus was approaching Don Salvador Benedicto when passengers like me saw thick smoke billowing almost at the top of the North Negros mountain ranges. It was so thick that even an untrained eye would understand there was fire somewhere in that mountain. About two hectares of the trees in the Malirong and Tinago ridges were eaten by a fire believed to have been caused by charcoal-makers. That amount of the forest was a great loss to Negros and to the several mountaineering organizations of the Philippines, which have earlier raised its concern for the North Negros mountain ranges, it being one of the three remaining forests on Negros Island. Mountaineer or not, each one of us could do our share in protecting whatever is left of the forest. After all, we really don’t need to belong to an organization or need some foreign funding to plant just one single tree. Several hundreds of trees may have been destroyed but this could be replaced with a thousand seedlings when the rain time comes if each one of us will volunteer a few hours of our time and perhaps a few pesos from our pockets. It may take decades before those seedlings may mature but replacing it now will surely bear fruit in time. Earlier, our local Department of Environment and Natural Resources officials raised its worry over the lack of budget to maintain and protect Mt. Kanlaon. It appeared that some department officials in Manila decided to pour all the funds to a project in Iloilo province. http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/bac/2006/05/03/oped/giovanni.a..nilles.open.sentence.html

Indonesia:

32) A month ago I made the audacious statement that the rainforest movement had achieved a victory in protecting Indonesia’s rainforests and orangutans from a huge oil palm plantation. I made this statement fully aware that Indonesia’s rainforests were in frenzied crisis and hoping that supporting those in government working to conserve rainforests from such atrocities could make a positive difference. This hope has proven fleeting. I now realize I was wrong, am retracting the victory claim, and have realized there is little or no hope for Indonesia’s large and intact ancient rainforests. I apologize for my error. The latest news is that a Chinese company intends to set-up a massive timber plant in Indonesian Papua to process rare rainforest timbers for Olympic construction. This will set the stage for the final destruction of these relatively intact rainforests. The second story details the ongoing power struggle between various Indonesian factions for and against the massive oil palm project. These actions – which are so grossly unjust and unsustainable, and our inability to stop them – show just how impotent the rainforest movement has become.Together with the nearly four million hectares of deforestation already occurring annually in Indonesia’s rainforests, the new forces of rainforest destruction arrayed against Indonesia’s rainforest ecosystems are simply too great. Nothing can stand against a billion Chinese consumers all aspiring to the wasteful and deadly living standards of Americans and Europeans. Ecological Internet will continue our campaign to support those in the Indonesian government that oppose these projects. But frankly, there is little hope that anything but the smallest little fragmented bits of Indonesia’s rainforests will ever be protected, and perhaps I was crazy for saying there was. Let’s keep on trying nonetheless. http://www.rainforestportal.org/news/

33) KOTA KINABALU — Sabah is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with India’s pulp and paper giant, Ballapur Industries Ltd, next month for a joint venture in the state. Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman said the state, through its Innoprise Corporation Sdn Bhd (ICSB), will sign the MoU which is expected to be followed by joint venture agreement before end of this year. “Ballapur is the biggest paper producer in India and an exporter to the United States, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and South America,” he said. “I believe there are many advantages to be gained in working together as India is advanced in information technology and research and development, especially in providing added value to products,” he added. “There will be more business ventures arising from the various meetings we have there,” Musa told reporters on his return here Saturday after leading a 16-member delegation on an industry and investment mission to India for seven days. On the proposed venture with Ballapur, he said the state government has identified a 60-hectare site with 36 hectares suitable for timber cultivation under the project. He also said that though Sabah is a paper producer through Sabah Forest Industries, the paper quality could not match that of Ballapur. Musa said another Indian company, Aditya Birla Group, is interested to invest in the palm oil industry cluster area in Lahad Datu, especially in producing fertiliser and cement. http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news_business.php?id=194495

34) The highlands of Papua New Guinea cradle some of the most remote places in the world, and are home to an astounding diversity of languages, cultures, and plant and animal life — including the Asian Pacific’s largest intact stand of tropical forest. Since the 1980s, industrial logging has torn through the forests of this island nation. The government of Papua New Guinea has a cozy relationship with the timber industry, particularly with Malaysian logging companies, and illegal logging is rampant. Though traditional communities are guaranteed land rights under the national constitution, these rights are often ignored, and forest landowners report extreme intimidation and abuse at the hands of timber companies. Attorney Anne Kajir has spent most of her adult life fighting for traditional landowners. The CEO of the Environmental Law Center in the capital city of Port Moresby, Kajir has used court cases and legal education work to force the logging industry to pay damages to some indigenous landowners. Though she has been physically attacked and robbed in retaliation, she has persisted with her campaign, and is currently the lead attorney in a Supreme Court case against a multinational timber conglomerate. Despite victories by Kajir and her allies, the power of the timber industry is growing. Last year, a new national forestry bill stripped away landowner-consent requirements for timber permits. It also removed a seat for environmental interests on Papua New Guinea’s National Forest Board, replacing it with a seat for the timber industry. “We’ve gone back to square one,” says Kajir. Kajir, 32, was awarded one of six 2006 Goldman Environmental Prizes at a ceremony in San Francisco on April 24. She spoke to Grist from San Francisco Q: What gives you the energy, and the strength, to keep going? A: “Seeing people satisfied at the end of the day, I suppose. Seeing the light in the landowners’ eyes when they say, “Oh, we didn’t know that we had [these rights], and now we know.” They know they’ve got somebody to help them, and you know you’re there because they’ve asked you. It’s a special relationship that you have with these people. I just like seeing people happy, you know? So it basically gives me the kicks every time the landowners smile and say, Thank you.” http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/04/26/nijhuis-kajir/

35) LONG ALONGO, Indonesia For as long as anyone can remember, Anyie Apoui and his people have lived among the majestic trees and churning rivers in an untouched corner of Borneo, catching fish and wild game, cultivating rice and making do without roads. But all that is about to change. The Indonesian government has signed a deal with China that will level much of the remaining tropical forests in an area so vital it is sometimes called the lungs of Southeast Asia. For China, the deal is a double bounty: the wood from the forest will provide flooring and furniture for its ever-expanding middle class, and in its place will grow vast plantations for palm oil, an increasingly popular ingredient in detergents, soaps and lipstick. The forest-to-palm-oil deal, one of an array of projects that China said it would develop in Indonesia as part of a $7 billion investment spree last year, illustrates the increasingly symbiotic relationship between China’s need for a wide variety of raw materials, and its Asian neighbors’ readiness to provide them, often at enormous environmental cost. For Mr. Anyie and his clan, the deal will bring jobs and the opportunity for a modern life. “We love our forest, but I want to build the road for my people I owe it to them,” said Mr. Anyie, 63, an astute elder of the Dayak people. “We’ve had enough of this kind of living.” From Indonesia to Malaysia to Myanmar, many of the once plentiful forests of Southeast Asia are already gone, stripped legally or illegally, including in the low-lying lands here in Kalimantan, on the Indonesian side of Borneo. Only about half of Borneo’s original forests remain. Those forests that do remain, like the magnificent stands here in Mr. Anyie’s part of the highlands, are ever pressed, ever prized and ever more valuable, particularly as China’s economy continues its surge. http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060429/ZNYT03/604290444

Australia:

36) GOVERNMENT plans to phase out clear-felling in Tasmanian forests by 2010 are “an expensive sham” and actual changes on the ground will be insignificant, conservationists said yesterday. The Wilderness Society says the Government’s promise to phase out clear-felling has been “rendered meaningless by devious use of statistics, definitions and spin”. On Tuesday the state and federal governments announced a new $6 million research program aimed, in part, at finding alternatives to the clear-felling of ancient native forests while protecting forestry jobs. The Government has committed to reducing clear-felling to 20 per cent of the total area of old growth forest logged on public land by 2010. But the Wilderness Society’s Tasmanian campaign co-ordinator, Geoff Law, said Forestry Tasmania’s definition of “old growth” is so narrow, and its definition of “regrowth” so broad, that few forests will qualify for the reduction in clear-felling. Also, he said Forestry Tasmania had adopted a very narrow definition of “clear-felling”, so that “aggravated retention” — clear-felling leaving small clumps of trees — will be defined as “selective harvesting”. http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,19017993%255E3462,00.html

37) FRAMLINGHAM’S koala population could be extinct within 15 years if more isn’t done to save them, an expert said yesterday. The Australian Koala Foundation’s chief executive officer Deborah Tabart made the call when planting trees in the forest yesterday. The foundation’s general manager Bill Fritz said just planting trees in the forest wouldn’t help koalas unless they were planted to link the forest with other reserves. He said Framlingham Forest’s isolation from other potential koala habitats was a problem. “It will take about four years before these trees are high enough for the koalas to sit in, but we don’t really want koalas in these trees until there’s suitable habitat linkage out of the forest,” Mr Fritz said. “The piece of habitat there is not big enough. Koalas were released back here by the Victorian Government in the 1980s and the forest wasn’t ready then and wasn’t big enough … there aren’t enough trees for them.” Mr Fritz said trees were dying in the forest because of increased wind exposure, insect attack, farm run-off, feral and domestic animal activity and disease.“Koalas are seen as the culprit when trees die en mass, though neglect of the land prior to the 1980s is the reason most of the manna gums are dying in the area.“The koalas are merely the last man standing,” he said. Volunteers from the National Australia Bank, the Australian Koala Foundation, Camperdown College, Conservation Volunteers and other community members will plant more than 1000 trees and build fences in the forest this week. http://the.standard.net.au/articles/2006/05/03/1146335768805.html