140 - Earth’s Tree News

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Note: As world-wide access to tree news increases I have to be more and

more selective about what gets in. So please hit reply and tell me what

your tree news priorities are? What articles in Earth Tree News do you

most prefer?Today

for you 38 news items about Mama Earth's trees. Location, number and

subject listed below. Condensed / abbreviated article is listed further

below.--British Columbia: 1) End of an Era --Washington: 2) Boy Scouts and clearcuts, 3) Stavis Conservation, 4) Road saving, --Oregon: 5) Oregon Aspen--California: 6) Sierra Nevada that yields not gin-clear snowmelt, 7) Palm tree death,

--Idaho: 8) Handshake deal, 9) Restore Yellow Dog Creek 10) Rain on snow poisons lake--Mississippi: 11) 10,000 dead trees--Louisiana: 12) Save Cedar Swamp Forests--Ohio: 13) Girard city plans to manage forests, 14) Shaker Heights and the Emerald Ash,

--New York: 15) Best trees to plant for Climate change,--New Jersey: 16) One of George Washington's trees was cut down on a whim,--Massachusetts:17) First they cut Chicopee State Park, next is Robinson St. Park.

--New Hampshire: 18) Wood-turtle guy--Tennessee: 19) 4200 acres of mountain top saved near Picket Park--South East Forests: 20) Long Leaf pine is on the move, --Canada: 21) Expanding Canada's park system, 22) TreePlanting, 23) Park designation,

--Mexico: 24) Save the Yucatan--Brazil: 25) Amazon not for sale, 26) Deforestation is being reduced, 27) W.F. Laurance--Peru: 28) Protected areas for nomadic communities,--India:

29) Cultivable land per capita has declined, 30) Elephant survival, 31)

Bansagar project submerges 57,000 trees, 32) Tamil Nadu threatened with

desertification, --Indonesia: 33) Human chain at Campa tries to

save trees, 34) Papua economy, 35) Papua people driven off land by

military and loggers, 36) Elephants survive in Bali,--Australia: 37) Loggers try to shake off bad press, 38) Deal to protect 8,000 hectares of Strzelecki forest in Gippsland, British Columbia:1)

The forest industry is dying in British Columbia and good riddance to

it. The forests have been devastated by the forest industry and

chainsaws, bulldozers and logging trucks have scarred and polluted the

land from Washington to Alaska. We don't need to expand this industry,

we need to destroy it. The Pine Beetle is here because hominid apes

like us lack any sense of ecologically responsibility. I have no

sympathy for loggers. For two centuries these hominid bipedal termites

have been eating away at the trees, destroying the most magnificent,

and laying waste to the habitat of hundreds of species where the forest

is a home and not a source of toilet paper and cedar decks. When I look

out over the obscenity of a clear-cut I feel an overwhelming sadness

and a seething anger at the greed and excess of human society. I spent

6 months in the sixties planting trees and feeling like I was posing as

a Johnny Douglas Fir cone, dropping seedlings into the ground. I knew I

was wasting my time when we planted 10,000 dead trees one day. I

remember commenting to the crew boss that the trees were dead and he

answered that we were " paid to plant the bastards and nothing in the

contract says they have to be alive. " When I reported this I was fired.

Instead of planting trees I found more job satisfaction in spiking

trees although the health and salary benefits were not so good. Paul

Watson paulwatsonWashington:2) Camp

Sealth, on the southwest side of Vashon, is logging about 10 percent of

its 400 acres to protect the rest from laminated root rot. That's the

message from Jan Milligan, Director of Camping and Environmental

Education at the camp. Leigh Turner, who has property adjacent to the

camp, says she woke up one morning at 6 a.m. to the sound of trees

coming down, and she adds that she wasn't warned. She was also

disturbed that so many trees were being taken down, and she did not

know why. The project had been going on for about two weeks when

Milligan wrote an explanatory letter to Camp Sealth neighbors, and

Turner said she wished that she had been informed before the project

was under way. She liked looking at the trees and felt sad that they

were being taken down, and taken down in such apparently wholesale

fashion. To her, it looked like clear-cutting, and Milligan explained

in her letter and in a phone call with The Beachcomber that Turner was

right. The problem was, as Milligan explained, that the rot weakens and

kills Douglas fir and hemlock in particular, and that the best current

forestry practice has come to involve creating a 50 to 100-foot buffer

of healthy space around a diseased pocket of trees so that the fungus

will eventually die. The fungus lives for a long time, but not forever,

in dead roots. http://www.vashonbeachcomber.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=90 & cat=23 & id=751500 & more=

3)

A 320-acre parcel of forest land been purchased by the state for

protection within the 3,700-acre Stavis Natural Resources Conservation

Area. " This is a huge success to us, because it is a foundation for

doing the conservation work in that area, " said Kelly Heintz, a

biologist with the Department of Natural Resources, the agency that

completed the purchase with state and federal conservation funds. The

property, which contains the headwaters of Stavis Creek, was the

highest priority for purchase of any land in the area, Heintz said. It

contains intact chains of lakes and wetlands along the West Fork of

Stavis Creek as well as an unnamed tributary. It will support a

diversity of fish and wildlife for decades to come, she said. The

property was selectively logged in the early 1990s, but the

conservation status guarantees that it will never be logged again,

Heintz noted. The property was purchased from a Hawaiian company. It is

the largest property within the Stavis conservation area owned by a

single party. After additional land is acquired, the state will launch

a planning effort with the community and local Indian tribes to decide

what types of educational programs and public uses will be allowed,

Heintz said. http://www.kitsapsun.com/bsun/local/article/0,2403,BSUN_19088_5077162,00.html4)

The federal Forest Service road, the only route from their mountain

home to the outside world, is sliding toward the South Fork of the

Stillaguamish River. At times, it has gotten so bad that they worried

the propane-delivery truck wouldn't make it. " If it does go out, " said

Bob Roth, " I don't know what we would do." So far Bob Roth has spent

$30,000 buying a bulldozer to keep the road open. But " we can't say

what's going to happen when the rains come, " he said. The Forest

Service offers sympathy, but little more. It helped smooth the road

over the summer, but permanent repairs could cost $1 million, twice the

annual road-repair budget for the entire Mount Baker-Snoqualmie

National Forest. And there are plenty of other forest roads needing

work. But when logging in national forests dried up in the early 1990s,

so did the money to maintain the roads. Now there's an estimated $1.1

billion backlog on repairs to national forest roads in Washington and

Oregon alone. Nationwide, the backlog is estimated at more than $10

billion. In national forests all over the U.S., roads are crumbling,

washing away or clogging with underbrush. In Washington state's Cascade

Mountains alone, hundreds of miles of roads have essentially been

abandoned. Routes that Honda Civics could cruise a few years ago will

soon be passable only by pickups and SUVs. In some cases, the Forest

Service is intentionally neglecting roads or tearing them out. In

others, it's fighting a losing battle as it tries to keep up with too

many roads. On top of it all, residential subdivisions are being built

along some of the same roads, straining them even further. For hikers,

campers and other users who have come to expect nearly unbridled access

to the mountains, the situation means countless acres of backcountry

could soon be much harder to reach. Forest managers are forced to think

less ambitiously about the role of roads in the woods. Even for

environmentalists, who usually have little love for roads cut through

the wilderness, the neglect spells trouble for fragile streams and fish

runs. http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/15766623.htmOregon:5)

JOSEPH -- Wallowa County is arguably the quaking aspen capital of

Oregon, its spectacular alpine terrain a perfect backdrop for the

shimmering gold and scarlet leaves of the slender, white-barked trees.

But 95 percent of the county's aspens have vanished in the past 150

years, biologists say. And they worry that some ancient stands could be

gone within 10 years without proper management to prevent destructive

cattle and elk grazing, and encroachment by other tree species. This

summer, a dramatic die-off occurred in southwestern Colorado. Drought,

fungus, voracious caterpillars and even the great age of some aspen

stands are possible explanations for the downturn in Colorado, said

Paul Survis, a forest specialist with the Forest Service in Enterprise.

A Colorado-style decimation isn't happening in Oregon, but the

phenomenon has raised the anxiety level of foresters in the state.

Among the reasons for the diminished aspen stands in Oregon: Aggressive

prevention of wildfires has enabled dense conifer forests to grow up

and crowd out aspens, said Nils Christoffersen, deputy director of

Wallowa Resources. The nonprofit organization based in Enterprise works

to preserve aspens by building fences around remote groves. Elsewhere

in the county, the Forest Service has burned and cleared small acreages

for a decade to open up conifer stands and provide sunlight to aspens,

Survis said. " Aspen like sunlight, " he said. " They do not do very well

under the canopy of other trees. " Wallowa County is about the size of

Rhode Island and Delaware with a population of 7,150. It's on the

fringe of the aspen's natural range, which spans the Rocky Mountains

and much of subarctic Canada, Survis said. Aspens -- believed to be the

most widely dispersed species in North America -- are found in much of

Oregon. Wallowa County's aspen groves easily could be 1,000 years old

or older, according to Wallowa Resources. The stands tend to be small,

with the biggest probably 10 acres, in contrast to the vast groves in

Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, which sometimes cover hundreds or thousands

of acres, Survis said. Without the fences and thinning,

Christoffersen's group believes some groves might be gone within a

decade. http://www.oregonlive.com/metro/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1160708112292390.xml & coll=7California:

6)

Imagine a Sierra Nevada that yields not gin-clear snowmelt but

coffee-colored torrents from eroding canyons. Imagine shrub fields that

stretch for miles, so dense that even birds and backpackers avoid them.

That is the future Doug Leisz -- a former associate chief for the

Forest Service -- envisions unless the agency replants more quickly.

" It's an extremely serious matter, " said Leisz, 80, who lives near

Placerville. " Our forests are too precious to lose this way. " Large

fires across the West since 2000 have sparked enormous concern in

Congress, state legislatures and forest communities. The scope of the

challenge can be viewed not only from lonesome backcountry roads, but

also in a handful of government reports, including three by the U.S.

Government Accountability Office. Among their findings: 1) While the

Forest Service spends 40 percent of its $4.5 billion budget on fire,

only a tiny fraction -- about one percent -- goes toward reforestation.

2) As wildfire's footprint grows -- this year a record 9 million acres

have burned -- the agency's reforestation backlog grows, too. In 2004,

the most recent year for which data is available, 900,000 acres of

Forest Service terrain slated for planting was left unplanted, up from

722,000 in 2000. http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/39758.html7)

While Los Angeles area palm trees succumbing to a widespread fungal

disease that may slowly change the city's skyline, a quarantine on palm

trees has kept the disease at a distance from the Coachella Valley. The

California Department of Food and Agriculture established the Date Palm

Disease Interior Quarantine in 1980 to protect the state's date

industry. It prohibits the movement of all genus Phoenix plants into

Riverside County (east of Cabazon), Imperial County and portions of

Inyo County. Anyone purchasing such palms is required to verify that

the trees were grown inside the Coachella Valley or another protected

area. " They don't allow them to be brought in from outside, " said Zech

Holt, a salesperson at Moller's Garden Center in Palm Desert. " That's

probably another reason the disease is being curbed here. You can only

buy from licensed growers. " For that reason, he said, it is expensive

to purchase certain trees inside the Coachella Valley, compared to

other areas in Southern California. Angela Godwin, Riverside County's

deputy agriculture commissioner, said last month to The Desert Sun that

people can face civil and criminal actions if caught purchasing or

transporting restricted palms outside the quarantine area. To further

protect their palm trees, Holt suggests homeowners keep an eye on their

trees and call an arborist if their tree appears droopy and the tips of

its palm fronds turn brown. http://www.thedesertsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061016/NEWS07/610160311/1006

Idaho:8)

Lewiston — In an attempt to avoid lawsuits, a handshake deal has been

forged between the U.S. Forest Service and conservation groups for

logging and watershed restoration in northern Idaho. " We didn't

challenge (the logging) in court because it is not as bad as it could

be and there are other projects out there we may need to look at with a

more critical eye, " Gary Macfarlane, of Friends of the Clearwater,

said. The logging deal involves " stewardship contracting, " where

federal foresters trade work — restoration work in this instance — for

timber instead of selling the timber for cash. The two stewardship

projects involved in the deal are the 16.3 million board feet Crooked

River project, and the 8.3 million board feet American River project.

Three Rivers Timber Inc., in Kamiah, and Bennett Forest Industries, in

Grangeville, won the bid for the projects. The project trades about $1

million of timber for about $1 million of restoration work. " We were

struggling to get funding, so by putting up the timber as an economic

tool we were able to get tat work funded and completed, " said David

Harper, stewardship coordinator for the Forest Service. Timber company

officials said they hope the timber brings in more money than the

amount they are paying for the restoration. http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650199163,00.html9)

YELLOW DOG CREEK, Idaho – Logging trucks once rumbled up this narrow

creek valley 30 miles northeast of Coeur d'Alene. Today, there's not

even a trace of road left. Only a well-trained eye would notice the

signs of the recent $400,000 restoration project just completed here:

the flecks of surveyor's tape, the hidden cables anchoring massive logs

to bedrock along the stream, the faint tracks from the heavy machinery

that removed the dirt logging road. With increasingly limited budgets,

however, the agency is having trouble finding ways to pay for the

restoration needing to be done. District Ranger Randy Swick hiked up

the valley on a crisp September morning, showing off the stream as if

it were a once-troubled kid who just earned a spot on the honor roll.

It's a small but important part of the U.S. Forest Service's long-term

plan to fix hundreds of square miles of damaged watersheds in the

region, he said. " It took time to create the impact. It will take time

to heal the impact, " Swick said. A few months back, Yellow Dog Creek

was not much more than a channelized spillway running along the old

logging road. When the creek surged with snowmelt or rain, the water

would chew away at the road, sending torrents of mud downstream into

the North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River. Today, the creek meanders,

curves and gurgles over rocks and logs. Instead of a road, there's a

floodplain along its bank, giving the stream more room to accommodate

and dampen the power of floodwater. Swick also walked along nearby

Tepee Creek, another heavily damaged stream the Forest Service recently

nursed back to health. The $500,000 project focused on a 1.2-mile

stretch near the old Magee Ranger Station. Not long ago, that section

of the creek was wide and shallow with only two pools. Now there are 17

pools, and the creek is loaded with curves and water-slowing logs.

Beavers have returned to the meadows along the creek, creating new

wetlands. Cutthroat trout big as a logger's forearm have also returned

to this section of the creek, even on the hottest days of August. http://www.spokesmanreview.com/idaho/story.asp?ID=15478510)

But Osburn worries some of this work could be flushed away unless the

Forest Service does more to prevent floods in rivers that flow into the

valley. The low-elevation forest is already prone to flooding thanks to

a rare weather phenomenon in which rain falls on snow. Without a forest

canopy to dampen the energy from this rain, the snow can rapidly melt,

producing massive amounts of floodwater. One such flood in the winter

of 1996 caused upward of 1.4 million pounds of lead to flow into Lake

Coeur d'Alene on a single day, according to estimates by the U.S.

Geological Survey. Lead is deadly to both wildlife and humans. Federal

scientists estimate there already are 100 million tons of toxic

sediment from Silver Valley mines resting on the bottom of the lake.

Spokane physician John Osborn, a Sierra Club member and founder of The

Lands Council. The Forest Service is in the midst of creating a new

plan for managing the 2.5 million acres of national forest in North

Idaho. Osborn accuses the agency of ignoring how its actions –

including continued plans to conduct large-scale timber harvests in the

region – continue to be responsible for what he describes as " toxic

floods. " Osborn said there should be a moratorium on logging in the

drainage of the North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River. He also said the

Forest Service needs to work more closely with the EPA to make sure its

practices in the backcountry don't harm humans downstream or undo

expensive cleanup work. " What we have are the two federal agencies each

producing plans, and the plans don't connect to each other, " Osborn

said. Forest Service officials say he is wrong. Jeff Johnson, a

geologist for the Idaho Panhandle National Forests, sits on the

technical review committee for the commission responsible for the Coeur

d'Alene Basin cleanup. Johnson said he has reviewed the study by the

National Acadamies " page by page " and carefully considers how actions

by his agency mesh with the cleanup plan. The EPA has reviewed and

signed off on the Forest Service's proposed management plan for the

forests, he said. http://www.spokesmanreview.com/idaho/story.asp?ID=154785Mississippi:12)

PASCAGOULA -- Up to 10,000 dead trees in flood and surge zones are

targeted for removal in Jackson County under a Federal Emergency

Management Agency Public Assistance program The FEMA program will cover

90 percent of the cost for removal of the trees if the trees are

located in a surge zone within 125 feet of a house and 25 feet away

from a driveway, said Neel-Schaffer Inc. engineer Brian Fulton. The

state will absorb 9 percent and the county, 1 percent, said Fulton.

Neel-Schaffer is Jackson County's debris monitor. " Each tree has to be

inspected by FEMA before being cut down, " Fulton told the Jackson

County Board of Supervisors Monday. Through field inventories and

sampling, an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 standing dead trees are on

private property within the surge zone in the unincorporated Jackson

County, said Fulton. " Neel-Schaffer has developed a plan to accommodate

this program that includes new ROE forms, a dead tree ROE database and

a validation process, " said Fulton. Forestry Contractors has already

removed about 528 standing dead pine trees. Forestry Contractors

receive between $225 to $490 per tree based on size. http://www.gulflive.com/news/mississippipress/index.ssf?/base/news/116109827565960.xml

Louisiana:12)

Swamp forests that were once exclusively freshwater are now brackish,

stunting or killing trees and rapidly erasing a crucial line in

Louisiana's natural hurricane defenses. Areas that used to dry out

periodically now stay flooded year-round, preventing any new cypress

trees from taking hold. Louisiana's timber industry for decades enjoyed

nearly automatic exemptions from federal laws protecting wetlands, on

the assumption that whatever the loggers cut would grow back over time.

Extensive cypress logging has occurred in recent months around Lac Des

Allemands in St. Charles and Lafourche parishes and in scattered sites

within the Atchafalaya River Basin. Corps officials say logging is

permissible in those areas. But regulators from the Army Corps of

Engineers recently have taken a more aggressive stance, issuing at

least three cease-and-desist orders on timber operations in the

Maurepas Swamp over the past four years. Still, the current pace is

only a fraction of the industry's heyday. Cypress logging peaked in

1913 with the harvest of 744 million board feet of cypress lumber --

several hundred times the current rate, according to state Forester

Paul Frey. Today, with the industry much more aware of sustainability

issues, Frey said, landowners have realized they can no longer cut any

and all cypress in their path. Yet the state's $5 billion timber

industry has a powerful ally in Louisiana Agriculture Commissioner Bob

Odom, whose agency helped arrange financing for construction of a new

cypress mill that opened in Roseland, in Tangipahoa Parish, last year.

This summer, the federal Environmental Protection Agency weighed in on

a fourth case, questioning whether a 200-acre cypress logging operation

in Livingston Parish represented silviculture, or sustainable logging.

The owner's request for a Clean Water Act exemption remains hung up in

the permitting process. Michael Farabee of the corps' regulatory branch

said the case is the first Louisiana cypress logging operation in

memory for which a permit has been required. http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1160895609206690.xml & coll=1

Ohio:13)

GIRARD — A proposed forestry management plan calls for harvesting and

maintaining Girard's wooded lands over the next 25 to 30 years, but one

councilman said he isn't sold on the idea just yet. ''I haven't figured

out yet if I'm a tree hugger or not,'' said Councilman Mike Costarella.

Costarella asked last week to postpone the legislation so council could

give it a bit more thought. The forestry management plan basically acts

as a preservation guideline for how Girard's forested areas surrounding

lower Girard Lake should be maintained and possibly harvested.

Specifics on how harvests are to be carried out would be part of the

bidding process, explained Councilman Tom Seidler, chairman of the

Community Development Committee. But exactly how such things are to be

carried out are among Costarella's concerns. For example, some trees

are planned to be taken out of an area that juts into Tod Park, and

Costarella doesn't want to see any mistakes made to earn an extra

dollar. ''It could take a lifetime to reproduce a tree that we cut

down,'' he said. Costarella also mentioned that trees will have to be

brought out from the forests on paths and wants to know if existing

trails will be widened or if other green space will be damaged to allow

enough room to move the logs. With only around $30,000 expected to be

generated over the next few years, Costarella said he's not sure the

possible damage to public land is worth the trouble. However, he does

believe in the beneficial nature of harvesting and is open to hearing

that side of the debate. http://www.tribune-chronicle.com/News/articles.asp?articleID=1000714)

The city of Shaker Heights is taking extreme measures to stop a

destructive insect. The emerald ash borer has invaded several northeast

Ohio communities. The bug eats ash trees until they rot. In an effort

to cut off the destruction, Shaker Heights will start a five-year

program to chop down 1,800 ash trees. The city is also encouraging

residents to chop down ash trees on their property. It will cost about

$200,000 to cut down the trees and replace them with other trees. http://www.newsnet5.com/news/10096217/detail.htmlNew York:15)

Trees with denser wood, such as hawthorn trees, are most effective at

removing carbon dioxide from the air than others. Other trees emit what

are known as volatile organic compounds, which can contribute to the

formation of ozone. Although ozone in the upper levels of Earth's

atmosphere has a protective effect, particles of ozone in the air we

breathe are considered a pollutant. To create the ideal combination of

trees for Syracuse, the group chose trees with an optimal

carbon-sequestering ability and minimal emissions of volatile organic

compounds. They also considered practical concerns for urban trees: For

example, it is necessary to include a diversity of tree species and

best to avoid trees that are very susceptible to disease, such as the

American elm. Large and long-lived trees are also crucial, particularly

for the shade they provide.The researchers suggest that the optimal

vegetation for Syracuse would be a group of 31 different types of

trees, including dogwood, red hickory, and hawthorn. Additionally, the

trees would be most valuable if they were planted in the center of the

city, where areas of continuous asphalt typically send CO2 straight

into the atmosphere. If the recommended combination of trees were

planted, it could reduce CO2 by 2 percent by the year 2046, the team

believes. http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/10/finding_the_right_mix_of_trees.phpNew Jersey:16)

Morris TWP - George Washington during his days as general of the

Continental army encamped in Jockey Hollow, according to local lore.

The tree, Emmer said, was saved in order for its seeds to repopulate

the nearby forest, which had been cut down by Washington's forces. If

true, the tree has since done its job, and some 200-plus years later,

the grace of one of the Founding Fathers has become a problem for the

modern day Cape Cod home of Emmer. Emmer's patio, once a flat series of

flagstones, is now an uneven bunch of panels, raised by the growing

roots of the tree which is located about 20 feet from the house. The

tree's shade, thanks to its roughly 90- to 100-foot-wide canopy, was

among the reasons Emmer, a retired prosthodonist, and his wife, Rose,

both of whom are in their mid-70s, moved to the house six years ago.

But eventually Emmer noticed his patio and the grass around it began to

ripple, and one of the branches that fell off the tree broke through

the roof of his detached garage. " This was level six years ago, " Emmer

said, pulling up one of the flagstones to reveal one of the roots. He

tried to cut the root out, but it instead only grew larger. After

months of discussions with his wife, Emmer said the couple opted to cut

the tree down. " We're getting older, and you can't go stumbling out

there, " Emmer said. Emmer said the legend of the tree's rescue by

Washington came to him from neighbors. He never bothered to verify it

-- nor did he want to find out if the tree was protected for that

reason before he cut it down, in fear that it might draw some protest,

he said. Pat Donnelly, owner of Tri-County Tree Experts, the company

hired by Emmer to cut down the tree, hadn't yet counted its rings, but

estimated that the tree was at least 200 years old and may even be 300

years old. http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061017/COMMUNITIES33/610170340/1203/NEWS01

Massachusetts:17)

AGAWAM, Mass. --Roberta Green just finished hiking past towering oaks,

clusters of birch trees and an unusual black maple in the Robinson

State Park when she pulled three photographs from her backpack. The

pictures posed an ugly comparison to the bright foliage surrounding her

on a recent early fall day. Instead of a vibrant, lush forest, they

show invasive plants and chunks of fallen trees littering the woodsy

floor of the nearby Chicopee Memorial State Park.Green uses those

pictures as a warning against the state's plan to cut down about 2,000

acres of trees during the next year. " This is what happens, " said

Green, a regular member of the Wednesday Walkers, a group of seniors in

western Massachusetts who take weekly strolls through the region's

parks and forests. " They want to come in and destroy the forest. " State

officials say the " thinning " is needed to weed out dead, decaying and

diseased trees that threaten to injure hikers and prevent healthy trees

from properly maturing. Foresters say the practice is common throughout

New England, across the country and around the world. But opponents

liken it to an act of violence. Robinson State Park has become a

flashpoint in the state's forest thinning programming. A group led by

local residents is trying to stop the harvesting of 130 acres in the

800-acre park, and the issue will be the main topic of discussion at

Holyoke Community College's annual Forest Summit scheduled for Oct. 27.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2006/10/15/facing_opposition_state_tries_to_manage_forests/

New Hampshire:18)

WARNER, N.H. -- David Carroll walks slowly through waist-high

underbrush, his eyes scanning for wood turtles hiding among the thorns

and fallen leaves. The seven- and eight-inch-long creatures blend in

with the brown earth, but if he's lucky this day, he says, he might

catch one basking in the autumnal sun. Last month, the MacArthur

Foundation rewarded Carroll's devotion to turtles and to the

preservation of local ecosystems with one of its prestigious ``genius "

grants. The $500,000 award is a financial boon to any recipient, but

perhaps none this year more so than Carroll, 64, whose finances are

such that he hasn't been able to afford health insurance for 30 years.

``The only part is I've got to live the next five years to receive all

the money, so I'm considering just sitting all day in the rocking chair

with a bike helmet on, " he said, his dry wit ever present. ``My friends

have told me, `Don't shovel any snow.' " That Carroll marches to his

own beat there is no question. As an art teacher at Silver Lake

Regional High School in Kingston , Mass., in the late 1960s he ``walked

to school, bought his clothes at second-hand stores, and was rumored to

have turtles living in his bathtub, " recalls former student Wendy Wyman

Campbell. At age 60, he took up German -- he already knew Italian and

Spanish -- and became so proficient that he co-taught a high school

German class two years ago. Philosophically, he stands at the far end

of the naturalist movement, lobbying not only for conservation lands to

be set aside but for lands to be preserved as untouched habitats where

not even bikers, hikers, or joggers are allowed. His message isn't

always popular, but audiences are drawn to him nonetheless, both as a

charismatic speaker and a writer who crafts mundane field observations

-- a love triangle between three spotted turtles, the drowning of a

female ruby meadowfly -- into intensely personal stories. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2006/10/16/for_genius_grant_naturalist_tur

tles_are_a_lifetime_passion/Tennessee:19)

More than 4,200 mountaintop acres near Pickett State Forest have been

purchased by The Nature Conservancy-Tennessee for $4.7 million and

could be open for hiking within a year. The property, on the Cumberland

Plateau about two hours northeast of Nashville, is a " hot spot " of

significant wildlife habitat, according to the Tennessee Wildlife

Re-sources Agency. It's home to big-toothed aspen and butternut trees,

several bat species and the cerulean warbler, a rare songbird that

migrates as far as Ecuador and Colombia each year. The Cumberland

Plateau itself, where timber companies and others have been selling off

land in recent years, is a focal point of the conservancy's efforts to

protect land and water. The piece of property encompassing Skinner

Mountain is one of those areas where native hardwood forests are still

standing, he said, offering nesting sites to birds that need deep

forest and offering recreation for the public. Those birds not only

" make the forest musical in spring and summer, " but are excellent

insect predators, protecting trees, crops and humans, she said.

" They're giving us billions of dollars of pest-control services for

free, " she said. Among the more than 200,000 acres that the conservancy

has helped protect in Tennessee are more than 5,200 in Fentress County,

not including this latest buy. Generally, the properties are put into

public hands through private-public partnerships. The nonprofit group,

which took out a loan, bought Skinner Mountain from Tower Investments

LLC, a California company that had held the property about two years.

" It's a great area to go camping and hiking, just to get away from the

busy part of life, " said Pete Broehl of Sparta, a school bus driver and

special-education assistant. " We're losing our forests, especially the

older hardwoods. " Developments and strip mining are among the forces

eating up the older forests with their tall canopies, and Davis says

it's time to act. " We're lucky in Tennessee, " he said. " We have a

natural legacy that's still there to be saved. In so many places, it's

already gone. " •http://www.dicksonherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061017/NEWS01/610170352/1297/MTCN02

South East Forests:20

Agriculture officials announced a new initiative Wednesday to increase

longleaf pine forests by 250,000 acres in nine Southern states, a move

aimed at restoring one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems

outside the tropics. Teresa Lasseter, a Tifton native who heads the

USDA's Farm Service Agency, outlined the new longleaf pine Conservation

Reserve Program at the Sunbelt Agricultural Exposition, a major farm

show held annually near Moultrie. " As a Georgia native, I'm keenly

aware of the important role that longleaf pine forests play in the

overall environmental and financial health of the South, " she said.

" This project builds on the more than 200,000 acres of longleaf pines

already planted through other CRP projects, and it represents the Bush

Administration's continued commitment to working with private

landowners to improve the land through cooperative conservation. " She

was accompanied at the news conference by U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a

Republican who has championed agricultural issues, and Harry Kemp,

acting director of the state office of the Farm Service Agency in

Athens. The South was covered with between 70 million and 90 million

acres of longleaf pines when European settlers arrived, but today only

about 9,000 acres of the original forest remains. Experts attribute the

decline to clear-cutting of Southern forests, changing agricultural

practices, the lack of regular fires to burn the forest understory and

a switch to faster growing trees such as loblolly and slash pines. But

with a growing recognition of longleaf's benefits to wildlife and the

environment and the value of the lumber it produces, about 3 million

acres of new trees have been planted over the past 15 years, including

the 200,000 acres under previous conservation programs. http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=81886Canada:

21)

The federal government has pledged to complete Canada's national park

system, starting with work on a brand-new park bridging forest and

tundra. The plan, announced Friday by Environment Minister Rona

Ambrose, also includes a long-awaited timeline for expansion of Nahanni

National Park in the Northwest Territories and promises to move ahead

with parks from southern British Columbia to Manitoba to Quebec and

three marine conservation areas. " We'll be focusing on eight

unrepresented regions across Canada, " said Ambrose. " We're going to be

taking very concrete action in the very short term to achieve these

results. " Ambrose was in Lutsel K'e, a Dene community on the southeast

shore of Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories that should one

day be on the boundary of East Arm National Park. She announced an

agreement between the Lutsel K'e First Nation and Ottawa to begin

drawing the boundaries and setting the rules for the park. " For the

first time, these communities are saying they want to work with us, and

they want to work with the federal government, " said Ambrose, speaking

at the end of a week in which she faced heavy criticism over her

proposed Clean Air Act. Parks Canada first identified East Arm as a

possible park in 1970, but the amount of land singled out Friday is

more than four times the original amount. In all, a total of 33,525

square kilometres is included in land now described as an " area of

interest " - more than 50 times the size of the city of Toronto or about

60 per cent of New Brunswick. East Arm is home to vast herds of caribou

as well as beaver, muskrat, lynx, wolf, red fox, wolverine, martin,

mink, otter, moose and black bear. The land, a transition zone between

the northern boreal forest and the open tundra, includes innumerable

deep, clear lakes, a rich scattering of islands in Great Slave Lake,

long fault-block escarpments, gorges and waterfalls. Negotiations to

turn the area into a park began in 1970, but talks stalled over

resistance from local aboriginals. Since then, those leaders have

consulted other First Nations such as the Haida in B.C. and the Deh Cho

Dene, who have completed successful negotiations with Parks Canada. http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=00bb62c6-b2c8-440f-a7b6-04ee8fab51c2 & k=8478

622)

Tree-planting is a piecemeal occupation. An Ontario planter earns 8½ to

10 cents a tree. So. Consider you are carrying 30 pounds of wet trees.

These trees have to be planted in appropriate microsites, but the

terrain has been bulldozed, making these microsites difficult to find.

Consider further that the trees have to be planted roughly six feet

apart. Consider that much of northern Ontario is swamp. Each tree

involves bending over, digging a hole big enough for a root system, and

accurately planting (roots go down!). Michael Kohn's Greener Than Eden

is as good as any primer for the would-be young planter. It's got the

macho jargon, the rugged landscape, the camp and campy dynamic, the

renegade planters, the bears, the heat, the cold, the sex, the food,

the aches and pains, the full-body soaker, the ostracism. Greener Than

Eden is also superficially a rough guide to the underside of the

logging industry, for every seasoned planter knows that planting is an

adjunct to a less than idealistic industry. Planting pine and spruce in

Northern Ontario is as noble as toilet paper. Okay, we need toilet

paper, you argue. Yes, we do. But as a result our northern " forests "

are really crops -- toilet paper crops. Admit it, it's hard not to

smirk. It's also hard not to be enraged. And there is lots of rage in

this book to reflect that. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061014.BKEDEN14/TPStory/Entertainment

23)

TORONTO - The government and native groups agreed Friday to move

forward to preserve an area almost four times the size of Yellowstone

Park in far northern Canada, and said they would study making other

areas off-limits to burgeoning diamond and uranium mining interests

there. The agreement begins the work to make a huge national park on

the eastern edge of the Great Slave Lake, a frigid, pristine area of

the Northwest Territories prowled by grizzlies and grazed by caribou.

The small native band living in the area seeks to call it Thaydene Nene

National Park, which means " land of the ancestors. " " Nowhere is the

opportunity more real " for wilderness protection " than in northern

Canada, " said Canada's environment minister, Rona Ambrose, who flew to

the isolated village of the Lutsel K'e Dene native tribe to sign the

memorandum of understanding with Chief Adeline Jonasson. The area is

included in land claimed by the natives, whose tribe -- named after

" the place of small fish " -- numbers about 400 and lives on a granite

point jutting into the lake. The Dene have lived in the region for at

least 7,000 years, they say. Jonasson called the agreement a

" significant step toward the conservation of our sacred places and

cultural heritage. " Environmentalists hope that the creation of parks

and other reserves will limit the rapid increase of mining, drilling

and development expected to accompany the pipeline They want to protect

the Boreal Forest, a great green swath across North America that is

vital to wildlife, summer home to many of the continent's birds and

crucial to slowing global warming. " The area is already under

significant development pressure because of the diamond mining boom and

the uranium boom, " said Steve Kallick, director of the boreal

conservation campaign for the Pew Charitable Trusts, speaking from

Seattle. " The big companies already are working the most promising

claims, and there are plenty of other places where development will

continue, " he said. " What is new is this government is announcing that

conservation will go hand in hand with that. " http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2006/10/15/facing_opposition_state_tries_to_ma

nage_forests/Mexico:24)

Our organization protects land in the threatened rainforest of southern

Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. We sign

lease agreements with local landowner groups, called ejidos. In

exchange for an annual payment, these ejidos agree to give up their

logging rights and engage in conservation activities. Communities vote

to enter these agreements, and the compensation they receive is more

than what they would get paid from a logging company. Plus we are

helping them generate additional income through developing

conservation-friendly activities on their land. Our approach provides

an alternative to creating or expanding a national park (in most of the

developing world, national parks are terribly underfunded already), and

allows local people to maintain ownership of their land. Last December,

our organization received a $350,000 grant from Conservation

International's Global Conservation Fund, which is allowing us to

expand the land that we are protecting from 200,000 acres to 350,000

acres. Just last month, we signed the first of three agreements we plan

to sign this year, adding 57,000 acres to the land that is now

permanently protected from logging and other development. http://www.grist.org/comments/interactivist/2006/10/16/sugal/index.html?source=daily

Brazil:25)

" The Amazon is the heritage of the Brazilian people, and it is not for

sale, " Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and Environment Minister Marina

Silva said in a signed article on the opinion page of Folha de S.Paulo

newspaper. Two weeks ago Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported

that British Environment Secretary David Miliband was promoting a

proposal for an international trust to buy and sell trees in the

Amazon, the world's largest rainforest and the source of about a

quarter of all fresh water on earth. Environmentalists scoffed at the

idea but the report reverberated in Brazil, which sees itself as the

best caretaker of the vast Amazon, most of which falls within its

sovereign territory. " Such proposals are ignorant of the realities of

the Amazon rainforest, " the ministers wrote. " Well-meaning individuals

concerned about global warming should dedicate themselves to

influencing their own governments. " Brazil has been criticized because

deforestation, which releases carbon from trees into the atmosphere, is

responsible for about 20 percent of the human greenhouse gas emissions

linked to global warming. In Brazil, a huge swathe of rainforest is

razed every year. http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews & storyID=2006-10-17T171352Z_01_N1723

8590_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL-AMAZON.xml & WTmodLoc=SciNewsHome_C1_%5BFeed%5D-726)

Brazil is to reduce Amazon deforestation by 11 percent in 2006, and has

improved on a series of policies aimed at preventing environmental

crimes in the region, Minister of Environment Marina Silva said on

Tuesday. Silva made the remarks after a meeting with former U.S. Vice

President Al Gore in Sao Paulo. Silva also rejected the option of

selling parts of the Amazon rain-forests, to groups that claim to have

better means to preserve it. The Amazon forest is " not for sale, " said

the reports. During the meeting with Gore, Silva presented a proposal

asking wealthy countries to provide financial incentives to developing

countries that have succeeded in reversing deforestation.The Minister

asked for Gore's support on the proposal, in order to better preserve

natural forests in developing countries. She intends to formally

present the proposal at the 12th session of the Conference of the

Parties to the Climate Change Convention, which will be held at the

United Nations Climate Change Conference next month in Nairobi, Kenya.

Gore was in Sao Paulo, southeast of Brazil, to promote the Portuguese

version of his book An Inconvenient Truth, which deals with

environmental issues such as global warming. http://english.people.com.cn/200610/18/eng20061018_313037.html27)

William F. Laurance, a distinguished scholar and president of the

Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) -- the world's

largest scientific organization dedicated to the study and conservation

of tropical ecosystems, is at the forefront of this effort. Laurance,

who as a senior staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research

Institute has spent years studying the ecological impacts of habitat

fragmentation and degradation in tropical forests, is actively involved

in conservation efforts and development policy in the Amazon and

central Africa. In this capacity, Laurance recently advocated an

innovative strategy to compensate developing countries for conserving

their rainforests while helping fight global climate change. Laurance

is also co-editor of Emerging Threats to Tropical Forests. Released on

October 1, 2006, the book chronicles the threat facing the world's most

biodiverse ecosystems. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1016-interview_laurance.htmlPeru:28)

Protected areas for nomadic communities in isolation are managed by

INRENA, which works in conjunction with the Peruvian police and

maritime units to keep loggers off the land. Perez blames the rise in

illegal logging on logging ''mafias,'' lax government enforcement of

protective boundaries of Native territories, difficult geographical

access, complicated bureaucratic procedures to receive legal permits

and corruption within INRENA. Though nongovernmental organizations like

WWF have set up monitoring posts, he said, they have little authority

or power to actually stop the loggers. Enforcement personnel were

recently reduced in the Madre de Dios region, and the budget for

illegal logging investigation cut. Peru shares the Amazon jungle

territory with Brazil which, Perez said, has a much higher budget for

its war against illegal logging and has claimed greater success. There

are five levels to the logging hierarchy, he explained, starting at the

bottom with the people who actually cut the trees, moving up through

contractors and money ''facilitators'' to the large international

companies that export wood to the United States, Europe and Asia.

''Corruption is a big problem on all levels,'' he said. INRENA

officials are especially vulnerable because they are underpaid,

overworked and responsible for hugely valuable quantities of wood. Four

U.S. companies, Bozovich Timber Products, Maderera Gutierrez, T. Baird

International and TBM Hardwood, have been accused in a lawsuit brought

this year by the Natural Resources Defense Council, representatives

from the Hopi and Navajo nations and the Native Federation of Madre de

Dios River and its Tributaries (FENAMAD) of importing illegally logged

Peruvian wood. NRDC representatives are also suing the U.S. Departments

of Homeland Security, Agriculture and the Interior, calling on the U.S.

government to outlaw the import of mahogany until illegal logging is

stopped. Logging company representatives have denied the charges,

claiming that their wood comes from legal areas. ''It's difficult to

prove where the wood comes from,'' said Perez; ''it can't tell you

where it comes from.'' http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096413843India:29)

The population of India has crossed 1000 million. Cultivable land per

capita has declined significantly. With the present rate of

deforestation, there would be hardly any forest cover in coming fifty

years. Sharp scant supply of forest-based raw material has devastated

the livelihood of millions of tribal and others dependent on forests,

as also their culture and way of life. Social forestry is seen as an

instrument of sustainable development. This is due to its potential of

resolving the three basic issues of rural poor simultaneously. It has a

capacity to provide food security, fuel security and livelihood

security with eco-friendly approach to development, thus leading to

sustainable development. India's forest cover, according to the latest

official estimates, has been put approximately 23.68% accounting for

77.8229 million hactares of the total geographical area which is 328.65

million hectares. About 175 million hactares of land is supposed to be

wasteland due to degradation, while 18 million hactares constitute

non-cultivable or barren land. It is estimated that at least 10 million

hactares of degraded land needs to be brought under forests per annum

to maintain balance. In order to reduce the gap between demand and

supply of forest resources, it is inevitable to raise forests on all

available government and private lands. What is more, if we realise the

importance of trees and start tending them properly, we will be able to

restrain the growth of desert which is the result of the neglect of

trees. In India what is required is to cut one crore fully grown trees

daily and as such, it is necessary that deforested lands must be

replaced by new trees to balance the cutting. http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=17_10_2006 & ItemID=3 & cat=12

30)

Long-term conservation of elephants must include conservation of large

contiguous wildlands. Elephants are a far-ranging species with large

nutritional requirements, which utilize a variety of habitats including

forests, shrublands/savannas, and grasslands. In South India, the

continuous elephant range extending from the Brahmagiri Hills, south

through the Nilgiri Hills, and east through the Eastern Ghats is one of

14 out of Asia's 59 known elephant ranges containing wildland area

large enough to support substantial elephant populations. This 12,000

sq. km area, spanning three states (Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala)

is thought to house 6,300 elephants, the largest remaining population

of Asian elephants in the world. The contiguity of the region's forest

habitat is not maintained by the patchwork of protected areas, and the

range has become highly fragmented. The Nagarhole, Bandipur, Wynaad,

and Mudumalai protected areas and the adjacent Nilgiri North Division

have been identified as one of the four most important zones within

this range for long-term conservation of elephants, due to its

relatively intact habitat and large elephant population. These four

parks and their adjoining Reserve Forests cover over 3300 sq. km of

forest and support a population of 1,800-2,300 elephants. The Nilgiri

Biosphere Reserve encloses this entire region. However the Sigur

Plateau, on the east side of the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary in Tamil

Nadu state, which serves as the link between the Eastern and Western

Ghats for migrating elephants, remains largely unprotected as a buffer

zone. In addition to elephants, tigers, panthers, wild dogs, gaur,

hyenas, and several other large mammals also live in the forests of the

Sigur plateau. The conservation of this critical elephant habitat would

not only serve to protect one of the largest Asian elephant

populations, but would also benefit the entire ecosystem, including

other rare species and vital ecosystems services. All of the elephant

corridors are suffering from varying levels of degradation due to their

proximity to settled areas. Corridor width between settlements varies

from only 400-1000m. These corridors can be secured by the protection

and restoration of forested areas within Revenue Lands that are in

proximity to the corridors, which amount to about 400 ha or 10 sq. kms

Write a letter: http://www.ecoearth.info/alerts/send.asp?id=india31)

Satna -- The issue of compensation of 57,000 trees which were submerged

after the completion of the ambitious multipurpose Bansagar project has

become a subject of discussion again. The trees were in two villages

which were also submerged. In this matter the forest department has

feigned ignorance but the project administrative officer said that the

department has sufficient time to evaluate the compensation amount of

these trees. According to sources, the compensation amount was

distributed to the oustees of two dozen villages of Ram Nagar after

identifying the kuchcha and pucca houses. Due to the laxity of the

officials 57301 trees had submerged. Had these trees been awarded then

the government might have received a good amount in bids. These trees

were on the revenue land and if they had been handed over to the forest

department in the year 2003, they might have been sold through bids. In

this way neither the farmers received compensation nor they were handed

over to forest department for bids. The administrator of the project

Anoop Singh said that all the trees of submerged areas have been

identified and they would not melt like salt. He said there is no loss

as green belt to be developed there. http://www.centralchronicle.com/20061017/1710101.htm\32)

Chennai - Ecological depletion is creeping across Tamil Nadu at a fast

rate, threatening it with desertification, says spiritual leader

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev whose non-profit organisation is planting

hundreds of thousands of trees in the state to increase the green

cover. Vasudev's Coimbatore-based public service organisation, Isha

Foundation, launched a drive to plant 700,000 tree saplings on Tuesday

across the state, a record of sorts. Isha Foundation has taken up this

massive ecological task through 'Project Green Hands', which aims to

create a green cover on 10 percent of land area in Tamil Nadu in the

next 10 years that will involve planting of 120 million trees. Vasudev,

quoting an international agency report, said that by 2025 as much as 60

percent of Tamil Nadu will be a desert. " I have been watching the

ecological depletion in Tamil Nadu. I think desertification will happen

much earlier, " Vasudev told IANS in an interview. " Tamil Nadu used to

be a land where crops could once be grown 12 months of the year. " Ten

years ago in a city like Coimbatore water could be found 150 feet below

the surface, Now, a bore well has to reach 1,400 feet before it can

locate water, he pointed out. " Palm trees grow in the desert. In Tamil

Nadu, palm trees are dying. Which tree can reach roots 1,400 feet

underground? " he asks. Through its Oct 15-17 tree planting campaign,

220,000 volunteers in more than 1,000 villages and 65 towns of Tamil

Nadu fanned across villages, educational institution and industrial

areas to plant trees. More than 100 nurseries in nine districts of the

state grew 850,000 seedlings for the campaign. http://www.teluguportal.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=18062Indonesia:

33)

The peaceful agitation began on Saturday morning with citizens from

various sections forming a human chain at Campal protesting the

approvals granted for felling trees. The gathering consisted of

representatives from the People's Movement for Civic Action, Save Goa

Front, Goa Foundation, Goa Heritage Action Group, Goa People's Forum

and many others. This also included concerned citizens' ranging from

children, students, senior citizens' and the young at heart who carried

banners lambasting the heartless government for destroying Goa. Some of

the banners sent out strong messages like '10 days IFFI, 365 days

misery', 'heartless government', 'Don't forgive them for they know what

they are doing.' Interestingly, Commissioner of CCP D Hawaldar was also

seen at the site of the agitation. He told Herald that the CCP would

not proceed with the axing of trees if the people did not want it. "Let

the CCP pass a resolution prohibiting the felling of trees," he said.

However, former councilor of the PMC Patricia Pinto said that the CCP

should also take the initiative of conserving the natural heritage. She

regretted and alleged that attempts were being made to damage trunks of

healthy trees in a bid to kill the tree cover at Campal. "We need to

see that the Tree Authority is activated and functions to save trees

rather than license the felling of trees," she said. She also added

that the 'save the trees movement' would need to be furthered with

demonstrations outside the forest department "who are ever willing to

give licenses for felling trees," she alleged. The on-going movement,

she said, will not rest and ensure that not a single tree is cut. Pinto

also proposed that the CCP conduct a tree census failing which NGOs

would take the initiative. Advocate Satish Sonak of the Goa People's

Forum also said that the axing of trees for the purpose of road

widening for IFFI was all a farce. http://oheraldo.in/node/19763Papua:34)

They assert that the special autonomy status granted in 2001 has failed

as an instrument to accelerate development in the

420,540-square-kilometer territory which is three times the size of

Java and has a population of only about 4.5 million. Ferdinando Ibo

Ikin, a member of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) from

Papua, says that most of the Papuans still live below the poverty line.

Ferdinando warned that this condition could sow the seeds of hatred

among the people against the government and encourage the support of

anti-government movements. " We should not blame Australia or other

countries if they accept Papuan asylum seekers but we must introspect

as to why they do not feel at home or why they sympathize with

secessionists, " he said. The Indonesian government has been dealing

with smoldering, low-intensity, disorganized armed separatist

rebellions spearheaded by the Free Papua Organization (OPM) since the

1960s. Ferdinando admitted he was ashamed by what he saw as Papuan

politicians' inability to fight for Papuans' well-being, leaving them

in backwardness and poverty. " I often feel as if I am crying out in the

desert when speaking out about my home province, " he said. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20061018.H05 & irec=4

35)

Environmental campaigners say people in Indonesia's Papua province are

being driven from their land by the military to make way for illegal

logging of Kwila. The hardwood is commonly used in New Zealand for

flooring, decking and outdoor furniture. Reverend Socratez Yoman, from

the Fellowship of Baptist Churches in Indonesia, says there have been

dozens of arrests recently in the area. And Greenpeace claims that

almost all of the Kwila imported to New Zealand comes from illegally

logged forest. It is urging consumers to clearly question the origin of

any timber they are buying to ensure it comes from legal sources. MAF

is currently developing a policy on illegal logging, including draft

regulations. http://www.newswire.co.nz/main/viewstory.aspx?storyid=341975 & catid=0Bali:36)

Logging, as well as slash-and-burn techniques used by local farmers

trying to eke out a living, had made the elephants' habitat in Central

Sumatra impossible to live in, so they foraged in the forest. The

forestry department then captured the elephants and held them in camps.

" These elephants were doomed and the Indonesian government was at a

loss about what to do, " Mr Mason said. After ploughing through

paperwork, he and his team went to Riau Province in Central Sumatra to

bring eight elephants to Bali on a 3000km journey, including two sea

crossings. Again in 2004, 10 elephants were saved, including two

babies. A documentary, Operation Jumbo made by Threefold Films and

directed by Sydney's Brad Cone, tells the story of the rescues and has

been nominated for a PANDA award – the wildlife and environmental

equivalent of the Oscars. Each of the elephants at the park has a

handler who cares for and rides them. They start to train the elephants

when they are about five to six years old. There are two elephant shows

daily and an elephant painting exhibition, as well as a museum. A

28-room Safari Park Lodge is expected to be open in January. http://www.news.com.au/travel/story/0,23483,20596424-27977,00.htmlAustralia:

37)

What do you do when your logging company can't shake off continuing

negative publicity about illegal logging and human rights abuses,

generated by a never-ending series of reports by international

financial institutions, aid donors, journalists and non-government

organisations? If you are multinational logger Rimbunan Hijau, you call

in a team of Australian spin doctors to give the company a makeover.

Everyone loses from illegal logging except, presumably, the loggers.

The environment is exploited beyond recovery, forest-dwelling

communities lose their sources of food and are left with no lasting

benefits. Governments are deprived of royalties and timber producers in

countries such as Australia are forced to compete with cheap illegal

imports. Unfortunately, the consultant's method is merely to blame

others for the problems swirling around the logging industry. It's

either PNG's fault ( " There have been irregularities in forestry

administration, as expected in a low-income developing country, " Oxley

wrote in Inquirer on September 16), or it's the forest communities that

are to blame ( " landowner aspirations are often very short-term and

focus on consuming monetary benefits only, " Rimbunan Hijau's PNG

director James Lau was quoted in an ITS Global report). Or it's the

NGOs. It's a tried and true stalling tactic. You could call it " talk

and log " : keep arguing the issues and keep cutting down trees. After

all, it is much easier to attack others than to address the deep-rooted

problems of illegal logging in PNG. But in the meantime the forests,

the landowners who rely on the forests for survival and the PNG economy

suffer. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20575400-30417,00.html38)

The Victorian Government has struck a deal to permanently protect 8,000

hectares of the Strzelecki forest in Gippsland. After six years of

negotiations, the Government has paid Hancock Plantations $7 million

for the Cores and Links. The new reserve features cool-temperate

rainforest and mountain ash and will link Tarra Bulga National Park to

the Gunyah Rainforest Reserve. But Deputy Premier John Thwaites says a

pocket of plantation timber within the reserve will be logged under the

deal. " They'll be able to log once and then it will never be logged

again, " he said. Greens candidate Louis Delacretaz says the compromise

is inappropriate. " It's incredibly difficult to put back the

biodiversity after you log an area, " he said. This morning's

announcement in Gippsland by the Deputy Premier was kept secret to

prevent protests by green groups. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200610/s1764594.htm