–Latin America: 1) Stopping deforestation when it’s how we set up our countries
–Haiti: 2) Get involved online, help reforest Haiti!!!
–Panama: 3) Forest vines and climate change
–Guyana: 4) Money to save forests is not going to the people who care for the forest
–Brazil: 5) Veracel must uproot 96,000 hectares of eucalyptus, 6) Violent conflict between rice farmers and Indian tribes,
–Chile: 7) Illegal logging for construction of a road to a dam on the Cuervo River
–Peru: 8) Coffee farms transformed into partial forests to earn higher bean prices

Articles:

Latin America:

1) One problem with trying to stop deforestation in developing countries is that the developed countries cleared forests right and left in setting up their countries. The reason we’re talking to other countries about deforestation now is that we did not know about the environmental hazards before, or understand what that meant. Now we do, and it is essential that the deforestation of the Amazon rain forest be stopped. But we have a credibility problem, because it seems like the big, industrialized (and largely white) countries are coming in and telling the poor South Americans what to do. There may be a little of that going on, but mostly, we’re really concerned about the deforestation, and we have that credibility problem. Not only do we not sound particularly sincere; these people benefit from deforestation. They have clear land to raise cattle, farm, build homes, and build roads. As far as they’re concerned, it’s “their” forest, and they’re doing what it takes to improve their lives. Yes, there are many negative consequences. In addition to the climate issues, soil erodes and nutrients are lost, so that the ground quickly becomes unusable. Lack of trees to hold water and support watersheds results in floods, which can cause landslides. On top of these difficulties, indigenous people, plants and animals are driven out, and many plants and animals may become extinct. It is definitely not a good situation, and even the “benefits” that the local residents receive are paltry in comparison to what they lose. But they believe that they have the right to make the decision, and so far they see no other viable solutions. Stopping deforestation and reforesting the area depends on finding a way to offer them more, for not tearing down the trees, than they get by doing it. And the offer will have to appear as more to them, not just to the countries helping them find solutions. http://edu.udym.com/pros-and-cons-of-deforestation/

Haiti:

2) It has been said that some stories need to be told; ache to be told. As empty stomachs ache for food, as bare mountains ache for the forests that used to cloak them, as the oppressed ache to taste freedom, so this story aches to be told… Forgotten by most of the world and considered by experts as one of the most impoverished and ecologically devastated countries in the world, Haiti is in the midst of a truly remarkable grass-roots movement toward ecological restoration, through socially-embraced democratic processes. To find out more about this exciting new documentary, please visit:
http://www.HopeMakesUsLive.org – http://www.myspace.com/reforesthaitidocumentary
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=507940296#/pages/Espwa-Fe-Viv-Hope-Makes-Us-Live-A-film-
about-reforestation-in-Haiti/64522585429?ref=mf

Panama:

3) Among the hundreds of species of woody vines that University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee ecologist Stefan Schnitzer has encountered in the tropical forests of Panama, the largest has a stalk nearly 20 inches in circumference. “That’s like a large tree,” says Schnitzer. “And because it winds itself up to the forest canopy and spreads, it can cover as much canopy area as a community of trees.” Such vines, called lianas, concentrate their energy on extending high and wide, and plunging their roots deep into the earth, rather than on building a thick trunk, says Schnitzer, an assistant professor of biological sciences at UWM who specializes in the vines and forest diversity. They are essentially structural parasites, he says. But tropical lianas, even more so than their temperate counterparts (like kudzu, grapevine and poison ivy), are important players in tropical forest dynamics. Growing evidence suggests that lianas are becoming more abundant with rising levels of carbon dioxide (C02) in the atmosphere, choking out trees. While all plants remove C02 from the atmosphere and store it, vines do not sequester as much as trees do – so vines may cause a net forest-wide loss in carbon. Scientists would like to know if lianas really are becoming more numerous in tropical forests and what – if any –effects that would have on C02 and climate change. One problem in testing the theory of lianas on climate change, says Schnitzer, is that scientists aren’t sure whether C02 is acting on lianas or the other way around. To find out more, he is involved in one of the most comprehensive community-level studies on liana-tree interactions ever conducted. http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/08/06/vine.invasion.uwm.ecologist.looks.coexistence.tre
es.and.lianas

Guyana:

4) In an article appearing in the Caribbean Net News about financial aid for combating tropical deforestation, the President was reported to be unhappy about the way payment will be done. All about money. What about the Indigenous peoples who have tremendously contributed to the preservation of the forest where they live? There has been no mention about how these people will benefit and how this will affect their lives. In the meanwhile concessions to loggers and miners continue to be dished out lavishly on ancestral lands occupied and used by Indigenous peoples for thousands of years, and these very activities contribute to deforestation and permanent damage to the environment as well as people. Most times if not all, there is only talk about preserving and conserving and protecting the environment, and the people component of the environment is always forgotten or down-played. When will we ever be allowed to participate meaningfully in activities which will affect our very lives and the future generation of our peoples, through our own representatives and institutions? Where are the government’s international obligations which speak about the meaningful participation of Indigenous peoples and which they have ratified? We need to know much, much more about this selling of forest or what is being done to the forest and other issues affecting other Guyanese. http://www.stabroeknews.com/letters/we-need-to-know-more-about-forest-issues-as-they-relate
-to-indigenous-peoples/

Brazil:

5) A Brazilian Federal Court ruled in June 2008 that Veracel must uproot 96,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations and replant the land with native trees. Veracel was also fined US$125 million for deforesting areas of the Atlantic Forest with bulldozers and tractors during its first years of operation. Veracel removed forest by fastening chains between tractors and driving them through the Atlantic Forest. In February 1993, the Brazilian authorities temporarily suspended Veracel’s operations after local NGOs and the Union of Forestry Workers documented how the company was clearing the Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica) to make way for its tree plantations. Greenpeace also demonstrated against Veracel’s forest destruction. This ruling is significant on several different levels. First, it upholds the arguments that local groups such as Socio-Environmental Forum of the Extreme South of Bahia and the Alert Against the Green Desert Network have made against Veracel for the past 15 years. Second, it shows that the FSC-certification of Veracel was a sham. The certificate should never have been awarded – particularly as it took place while FSC is carrying out a review of its certification of plantations. And third, it shows that banks that lent to Veracel, including the European Investment Bank, failed to carry out sufficient due diligence. The Socio-Environmental Forum of The Extreme South of Bahia is asking for signatures to a motion of support to the Federal Public Prosecution Service and the Federal Court in Bahia for its decision against Veracel. Please sign on to the motion by clicking here. http://pulpinc.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/federal-court-rules-that-veracel-must-uproot-its-trees/

6) A violent conflict between rice farmers and a handful of Indian tribes in the northernmost reaches of the Brazilian Amazon has the country’s Supreme Court warning of civil war and top generals openly challenging the civilian government for the first time since the dictatorship. Its resolution could redefine Brazil’s indigenous policy and the future of the Amazon — whose remaining jungles provide a critical cushion against global warming. The court is expected to decide in August if the government can keep evicting settlers from 4.2 million acres (1.7 million hectares) for an Indian reservation decreed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2005. The evictions were halted in April when rice farmers turned violent, burning bridges and blockading roads. Justices said they feared a “veritable civil war” and decided to study the constitutionality of the reservation. While Indian tribes have fought for decades to regain their ancestral lands, there has been increasing pressure on the government to limit the size of reservations as logging, ranching and farming expand into the Amazon. “The question here is much bigger than the state of Roraima. It’s a question of national integration,” said rice farmer Paulo Cesar Quartiero, who has been jailed twice for resisting eviction — once for blocking a federal highway and again on weapons charges after his ranch hands shot and wounded 10 Indians. Roraima state Gov. Jose de Ancieta sued to stop the evictions, arguing that the reservation is strangling economic development in a state where 46 percent of the land is already in Indian hands. And many Brazilians — including some military leaders — are beginning to criticize the nation’s indigenous policy as isolationist and even a threat to national sovereignty. But Paulo Santilli of Brazil’s National Indian Foundation says a court ruling in favor of the settlers would spell havoc in the Amazon, “not just on the part of Indians, but from land grabbers, prospectors and loggers who would take it as a signal that reservations could be invaded.” http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/04/america/LA-GEN-Brazil-Indian-Conflict.php

Chile:

7) The investigative police in Chile are looking into a report of illegal logging in a native forest for the construction of a road to a dam on the Cuervo River, a project of the Energía Austral company. Peter Hartmann, regional director of the National Committee for the Defense of Flora and Fauna, filed a complaint with the regional attorney general’s office. It involves 10 to 20 hectares of native forest, “including the protected cypress of Guaitecas (Pilgerodendron uviferum), which is environmental harm against the heritage of all Chileans. The government must uphold this right and apply the corresponding sanctions,” Hartmann told Tierramérica. Energía Austral has an agreement with the Ministry of Public Works for the construction of the road, despite the fact that the proposed dam has not yet been approved by the Regional Environmental Commission. http://www.forestrycenter.org/headlines.cfm?refID=103562

8) QUILLABAMBA — Once bleak and lifeless places degraded by years of high-impact farming, Peruvian coffee farms are being transformed by a growing trend for certification schemes offering ethical and environmental guarantees to western consumers. One scheme run by the Rainforest Alliance has helped farmers in eastern Peru return to traditional ways of farming, finally laying to rest the damaging maximum production techniques of the 1970s. “My parents systematically deforested in order to plant more coffee plants. Now we know that this was a mistake,” said Evangelino Condori Rojas who has a small plantation near Quillabamba in the east of the country. The plantation was one of the first to be certified by the New York-based organisation. Its seal of approval gives consumers an assurance that the coffee they buy has been produced according to a range of criteria that balance ecological, economic and social considerations. Coffee certified by the Rainforest Alliance is guaranteed to have been produced on farms where rivers, soil and wildlife are protected. “The certification is a mechanism to avoid the slide towards deforestation,” said Gerardo Medina of the Rainforest Alliance in Peru. Such schemes are increasingly popular worldwide as a way of bolstering consumer concerns. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gY2_c6xAmM2JVaFD79F4r1mg43gQ