Guest guest Posted July 2, 2007 Report Share Posted July 2, 2007 Today for you 37 new articles about earth's trees! (208th edition) Subscribe / send blank email to: earthtreenews- Weblog: http://olyecology.livejournal.com . --British Columbia: 1) Logging has become a massive waste, 2) Rural BC economies, --California: 3) Usal Redwood forest plan, 4) Tahoe forestry, --Oregon: 5) Judge shuts down loggin plan in Deschutes NF --Colorado: 6) Lots of Pesticides for the campgrounds --Kentucky: 7) Daniel Boone NF shuts down timber sale in Redbird area --USA: 8) USFS funding, 9) Off-road vehicles are number one threat, --Canada: 10) Nine out of 10 Ontarians want forest protection --Scotland: 11) Tracking big trees --Palestine: 12) A first time for justice, dug up trees returned / replanted --Israel: 13) diversification of reforestation --Turkey: 15) Housing taking over forests --Ghana: 16) public servants extorting money from illegal chainsaw operators --Haiti – Dominican Republic: 17) Bi-national solution that begins to resist deforestation, --South America: 18) Lapacho tree kills cancer, 19) Carbon not stored in thinned forests --Brazil: 20) Police broke up a logging ring on Friday, 21) A new era, --Mexico: 22) We won't forget Aldo Zamora was murdered for the trees! --Nicaragua: 23) 10 Flowing springs once lost now found --Madagascar: 24) Atsinanana represents almost all the remaining rainforest --India: 25) Pulp and Paper to evict millions of poor forest dwellers --Vietnam: 26) Tien Hai and Thai Thuî replanted / protected 7000 hectares of coastline --Thailand: 27) Great ad for how trees save lives --Vietnam: 28) logging under cover of darkness --Indonesia: 29) PT Keang Nam is corrupt, 30) 80% of Sulawesi lost, 31) 70% of mangrove forests lost, --Australia: 32) four giant trees in the Arve Valley, 33) UN to investgate Tasmania, 34) Protests at lake Gordon, --World-wide: 35) Tell Greenpeace to stop backing the destruction of ancient forests, 36) Specialization overrides mobility when it comes to bird extinctions, 37) Shake off the cognitive dissonance, British Columbia: 1) Enough material left behind to fill 200,000 trucks, resource policy analyst says. " Unconscionably high " volumes of usable logs are being left to rot in coastal forests, costing thousands of jobs and releasing carbon back into the atmosphere, according to a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report released Thursday. The report, by resource policy analyst Ben Parfitt, says that during the last two years 6.2 million cubic metres of timber was cut down but not hauled out of coastal forests -- enough material to fill 200,000 logging trucks. Further, when added to the 8.5 million cubic metres of logs exported over the same period, says Parfitt, one in every three logs from the coastal forest is not finding its way to a domestic sawmill. The report claims that log exports combined with logs not utilized because of their low value have cost 5,800 jobs a year over the last two years. And in terms of B.C.'s carbon footprint, the number of logs left behind on the coast and in the Interior adds up to seven per cent of the province's total greenhouse gas emissions, he said. " We are talking about an order of magnitude here with unconscionably high levels of wood being left behind. It's not good for the environment, it's not good for workers, and it's not good for communities, " Parfitt said Thursday in an interview. The centre focuses on issues of social and economic justice, and Parfitt links log exports and wood waste to government policies and jobs. In the report, he said changes in provincial forest policies paved the way for both the increase in exports and the increase in waste wood left behind. Specifically, the province severed a long-standing link between giving companies access to Crown timber provided it is processed in domestic mills. That led to mill closures, opening the door to increased exports, he stated. Secondly, Parfitt said the government lowered the wood utilization standards, permitting companies to leave wood in the bush in exchange for a nominal payment. He called on Victoria to introduce policies to limit the ability of companies to export logs, require sawmilling companies to build new mills or upgrade existing ones, and penalize loggers for leaving timber in the bush. http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=39ab6ec6-46e3-42f\ 8-9e06-fe1b33725 2d0 & k=5819 2) Times are good. Everyone is working, the economy is robust, investors and speculators are buying properties, building big box stores and playing the real estate market, looking for future gain. The problem is that these seeming good times hide the reality that we are facing two radically different visions of the future: one built on the dream of a continuing working class community, closely knit and vibrant, and the other built on land speculation and expected demographic shifts. One future is driven by the aging baby-boomer population which is selling up in the south and moving farther north. They have income, they don't need forestry jobs, they are retired or semi-retired and looking for a more rural, small town lifestyle. It is this future that the land speculators and the big box store owners are betting on, the new economy driven by investment, retirees and land price increases. For example, recently, a helicopter load of speculators from the western US dropped out of the sky in the Tatla area, just checking to see what was for sale, what the country looked like. Lakefront property is at an all time high, house prices are rising, and speculation is rampant. On the other hand, the future based on traditional forest economy is in trouble and faces two possible outcomes. To give you an idea of the scale of the forestry problem consider the Chilcotin, an area the size of Switzerland, predominantly forested with lodgepole pine. By 2010 it is estimated that the MPB will have killed roughly half a billion trees in the Chilcotin. Half a billion. That would represent 25 years of logging at current rates. All gone in the next few years. How well the working-class families that depend upon these jobs will fare in the next decade will depend on a lot of things like innovation, new products and markets but, in the end, there will be a sharp change in the community and lifestyle of the Chilcotin Cariboo as we have come to know and understand it. http://www.wltribune.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=37 & cat=48 & id=1015737 & more=0 California: 3) The Redwood Forest Foundation announced that it had acquired just over 50,000 acres of timber land in northerwestern Mendocino County — the so-called " Usal Redwood Forest, " which borders on the Sinkyone Wilderness. The $65 million deal was fully financed by Bank of America, which a few months earlier announced that it had created a $20 billion fund " to support the growth of environmentally sustainable business activity to address global climate change. " RFFI announced that it would pay back the loan through the sale of conservation easements, and through sustainable logging practices that adhered to the organization's " three E's " : environment, economy and social equity. The sale was covered in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times, and several major financial publications are apparently working on their own stories. The goal for Usal, and for any other project RFFI will become involved with, is what the group is calling " community forestry. " The term isn't yet well defined, Harwood said, and so one of the first things the foundation will do is arrange what some are calling a " constitutional convention " down in Mendocino County, bringing everyone to the table to hammer out the specifics. But there are a few baseline measures that are not only part of the foundation's bylaws, but also written directly in the terms of the Bank of America loan. The rate of harvest must be sustainable over the long term. The land must be managed to support the local economy; logs will be sold on the open market, but only to mills in Northern California. In sum, the land must be managed as a community trust, so that future generations will continue to benefit from it economically. Harwood acknowledged that there has been one segment of the community that has yet to be significantly drawn into the RFFI fold. Apart from himself, there are few industry people at the table. But that won't last forever, he believes: " In light of this Usal transaction there's a lot of people looking at this here and saying this is a good deal, " he said. Most importantly: The conservation easements the foundation hopes to sell will insure that the land remain as working timber forest — it will never be divided up and sold off for the real estate value. This is one reason why Harwood figures that the idea of community ownership — whether through RFFI or another RFFI-inspired vehicle — is only going to grow in the coming years. http://www.northcoastjournal.com/062807/towndandy0628.html 4) Since 1997 the U.S. Forest Service, which owns 80 percent of the 200,000 acres around Lake Tahoe, has thinned out brush and dead trees in 12,700 acres of forests around the lake — an area nearly the size of Manhattan. Still, that's far short of the rate that Clinton called for a decade ago, when he approved a plan at the Tahoe summit setting a goal of 3,000 acres a year to be thinned. And it's only one-quarter of the 50,000 acres that the Forest Service says needs to ultimately be treated. In recent months, the Forest Service has approved a plan to thin 37,000 acres around Lake Tahoe by 2017 — tripling the annual rate of the last decade. The thinning involves hand crews cutting dead trees and brush with chain saws, raking it to large piles and burning it with fire trucks sitting nearby. " They have the right idea. The problem is that there haven't been that many acres treated. We aren't coming close, " said Malcolm North, a research scientist with the Forest Service and an associate professor of forest ecology at the University of California, Davis. The problems have been threefold, experts say. At first, residents who owned multimillion-dollar homes were wary of controlled burns near their property, fearing they might leap out of control. Second, residents and state air-pollution officials have raised concerns about large amounts of unhealthy smoke. Finally, because Tahoe is a complex jigsaw of public, private and state-owned lands, getting permits and consensus has taken time. And it's not cheap. Clearing the land can cost $1,200 to $2,500 an acre. The origin of the problem dates back nearly 150 years. Research by scientists at UC Davis on tree rings shows that the Jeffrey and sugar pines surrounding the lake burned roughly every 15 years from lightning-started fires before the 1800s. Those fires removed dead wood, accumulated needles and other fire hazards. As a result, when fires did burn, they typically burned slowly and remained close to the ground. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003764016_firethin27.html Oregon: 5) A federal judge Friday blocked the U.S. Forest Service from selling burned timber in spotted owl habitat in Oregon until she determines whether the project followed the law U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Eugene, Ore., granted a temporary restraining order stopping the Deschutes National Forest from offering for sale 190 acres of timber that burned last year in the Black Crater fire outside Sisters. She will hear arguments July 12 on the lawsuit brought by conservation groups claiming the Forest Service distorted scientific evidence that threatened northern spotted owls use burned forests for habitat and ignored the Northwest Forest Plan's prohibition against logging in old growth forest reserves for purely commercial purposes. " In this case, the Forest Service distorted the science and made a clear error of judgment in deciding to log the forest as if the habitat had vanished, " Jay Lininger, executive director of Cascadia Wildlands Project, said in a statement. The Forest Service prepared the Black Crater sale under what is known as a categorical exclusion, which allows small projects to go forward without an environmental analysis if they are not expected to cause any environmental damage. comment on pending litigation. http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-20/11831606831\ 20230.xml & story list=orlocal Colorado: 6) Trees in some of Colorado's popular national forests will get some extra relief this summer. The U.S. Forest Service announced Wednesday that $90,000 is available from the service's State and Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection funds to spray trees in the hopes of killing the devastating bark beetle. So far, 17,000 trees located in campgrounds and other recreation sites have been sprayed in an effort to deflect the beetles. Areas in the Roosevelt, Arapaho and Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests are being sprayed. " Spraying individual trees does not save every tree, but does slow the beetle down, " Brad Orr, outdoor recreation planner for the Arapaho Roosevelt National Forests-Sulphur District, said in a press release. The press release said that the beetles, which burrow into trees and harm their internal nourishment system, have emerged early this year. http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/20070627/NEWS/70627030 Kentucky: 7) The U.S. Forest Service has halted a proposal that would permit timber sales on a portion of the Daniel Boone National Forest in southeastern Kentucky. Environmental groups opposed the plan, which would have allowed logging in the forest's Redbird area. The plan also includes the building or refurbishing of more than 20 miles of roads. It was appealed in May by two groups that called for a fuller environmental impact test and more time for public input. The Forest Service said the project's focus was improving water quality and wildlife diversity in the Redbird area, which spreads over six counties and 145,000 acres. It also included creating a 10,000 area that would be managed as a habitat for ruffed grouse and developing grassy openings for foraging animals. The environmental group Kentucky Heartwood filed an appeal of the project earlier this year. The Morehead group objected to plans for timber sales on more than 1,400 acres, the use of herbicides throughout the district and cutting or burning on 12,500 acres of forest. http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=6723832 & nav=0RZF USA: 8) The House Appropriations Committee reported the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations bill, FY 2008 out of committee on June 7, 2007. It includes $2.593 billion dollars for the US Forest Service, with an additional $2.8 billion allocated for fighting wildfires. This is $92 million over the 2007 allocation and $355 million over the President's request. It also includes full funding of the Northwest Forest Plan timber sale program as a result of the Bush administration's sweetheart settlement with the timber industry's lawsuit to increase old growth logging in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California. With the Administration's plan to dismantle protections under the Northwest Forest Plan, full funding could mean full funding for old growth logging unless Congress prohibits this from happening. For up-to-the-minute news, reports, and analyses of congressional events, please visit http://www.americanlands.org and click on Eye on Congress. 9) A new group of retired land managers and forest rangers said Thursday that reckless off-road vehicle recreation was the No. 1 threat to public lands in the West. The 13-member Rangers for Responsible Recreation said it was voicing the concerns of many federal land management employees in the West, including in California, who report that an increasing number of riders and the growing power of the vehicles are endangering natural resources and public safety. Spokesmen for the group were participating in a teleconference from Tucson that was arranged by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. PEER, which describes itself as an " alliance of local, state and federal resource professionals, " helped found the new organization. Damage from off-road vehicles is worst when riders leave designated routes and head into sensitive areas such as fragile desert and riparian zones, members of the new group said. Jim Baca, who headed the Bureau of Land Management under President Clinton, said the cumulative effect was serious for watersheds. Matt Chew, former ecologist with Arizona State Parks, said, " Creeks are often the most drivable places, so they become highways. " Fences and signs are often cut down, group members said. Agencies have suffered sharp budget and staff cuts in recent years — especially in the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service — making it more difficult to police legal trails and close illegal ones, members said. Illegal trails are blazed regularly, making it difficult for future riders to distinguish legal from illegal routes, they said. In California, about 45,000 miles of roads and routes are open to off-road vehicles, according to Forest Service officials. Tom Egan, a former wildlife biologist with the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service in California, said that improper off-roading " causes erosion; contaminates streams; spreads invasive plants; kills, harasses and stresses wildlife; and creates noise in certain environments that are not pleasing to certain individuals like landowners or other recreationists. " http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-me-offroad29jun29,1,753415.sto\ ry?coll=la-head lines-nation & ctrack=1 & cset=true Canada: 10) Nine in ten Ontarians are in favour of protecting more of Ontario's Boreal forest as a shield against global warming according to a new poll by Pollara that was commissioned by ForestEthics. Sixty seven per cent of the respondents strongly agreed that the Ontario government should do more to protect the Boreal forest, another 23% somewhat agreed, while women over the age of fifty five were the most in favour, with 85% in strong agreement. Respondents in rural Ontario were just as likely as those in urban centers to want more protection. " These findings reinforce that Ontarians want the Boreal Forest protected as part of the response to global warming, " said Tzeporah Berman, Strategic Director at ForestEthics. " Unfortunately, only ten per cent of Ontario's Boreal is under protection and not a single acre has been protected in the last four years. " The poll was undertaken during the rollout of the Ontario government's long-awaited climate plan, which included no measures for forest protection. Meanwhile, already close to half of the Boreal forest in Ontario is licensed out to logging companies. Ontario is home to some of the largest intact forest on the planet; forest that if cut down that would worsen the climate change situation the planet faces. According to the Kyoto rules, each year logging in Ontario emits roughly the same amount of greenhouse gas as all light duty trucks on the road in the province. ForestEthics wants the Ontario government to protect intact Boreal Forests from logging and mining and put in place rules for development in Ontario's Northern Boreal Forest.http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=78786 Scotland: 11) The Fortingall Yew near Calendar in Scotland - believed to be the oldest tree in the UK and possibly Europe - is 5,000 years old. And Britain - because of its legacy of hunting forests established at the time of the Norman Conquest - has more ancient tress than any other country in Europe. Now the Woodland Trust, with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund, has launched the Ancient Tree Hunt to find, record and preserve the oldest specimens. The five-year project aims to create a database of at least 100,000 ancient trees by 2011 and will rely heavily on the public to find suitable candidates for the list in their own areas. The Trust's President, Clive Anderson, the TV and radio personality, said: " We're asking people to look out for and record trees which are particularly old, fat and gnarled so obviously I am just the person to get this message across. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/06/28/eatree128.xml Palestine: 12) When Mukbal discovered that his olive grove had been uprooted, he rushed to inform the civil administration about it. The administration in turn ordered the settlers to restore the trees to their place by week's end. On Wednesday he observed how the settlers, under orders from the civil administration, were replanting the olive trees on his plot. The deal includes 140 of the original trees, 40 old trees from a different location and another 130 younger trees. The replanting of the trees is considered to be an exceptionally rare act in view of the realities in the West Bank. …Ten days ago, Muhammed Mukbal from the village of Karyut discovered that his olive grove near the settlement of Shvut Rachel had been uprooted. A total of 300 trees, which he says were planted in 1965 on a plot inherited from his father, were taken by settlers. Some of the trees were used to beautify the way to the Adei Ad outpost nearby. Attorney Michael Sfarad, the legal counsel for Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights - told Haaretz yesterday that he is not certain what prompted this action. Sfarad pointed out that the theft of trees is a daily occurence in the West Bank, especially in areas where Palestinian access to their plots is severely limited. " I cannot remember a case in which the civil administration intervened to replant the trees, " he said. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/876385.html 13) When Mukbal discovered that his olive grove had been uprooted, he rushed to inform the civil administration about it. The administration in turn ordered the settlers to restore the trees to their place by week's end. The deal includes 140 of the original trees, 40 old trees from a different location and another 130 younger trees. The replanting of the trees is considered to be an exceptionally rare act in view of the realities in the West Bank. Ten days ago, Muhammed Mukbal from the village of Karyut discovered that his olive grove near the settlement of Shvut Rachel had been uprooted. A total of 300 trees, which he says were planted in 1965 on a plot inherited from his father, were taken by settlers. Some of the trees were used to beautify the way to the Adei Ad outpost nearby. On Wednesday he observed how the settlers, under orders from the civil administration, were replanting the olive trees on his plot. Attorney Michael Sfarad, the legal counsel for Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights - told Haaretz yesterday that he is not certain what prompted this action. Sfarad pointed out that the theft of trees is a daily occurence in the West Bank, especially in areas where Palestinian access to their plots is severely limited. " I cannot remember a case in which the civil administration intervened to replant the trees, " he said. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/876385.html Israel: 14) Nature filled the Land of Israel with olive, cypress, tamarisk, acacia, and carob trees. Now, after years of planting pines in their place, the Jewish National Fund is replenishing the trees native to Israel's northern forests which were devastated by the Second Lebanon War. The 34 days of the Second Lebanon War ravaged more than 12,000 dunams of northern forest land that had been painstakingly planted by the JNF as far back as 100 years ago. Hizbullah's rockets sparked more than 800 forest fires in the North. The dry summer heat and winds fed the flames, forcing forest rangers to wage daily battles. The JNF has salvaged opportunities from the scorched ruins of those forests by implementing a new design for Israel's landscape that will include a greater variety of flora and fauna than ever before. " This is not like any other forest. I grew these trees. Out of my own hands they came and went into the ground. I feel like their father, " said Yossi Karni, who has worked as a forest ranger in the Biriya forest, one of the hardest-hit areas of the war, for more than 24 years. " Now I am planting new trees, new children. I have much more knowledge and resources to make this crop better... It is a second chance. " In 1901, when the JNF first began its forest projects in Israel, the pine tree was one of the few plants that the organization could afford. Decades later, Theodor Herzl's famed " blue boxes " have done their work. The JNF now has millions in funds that they use for various projects. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1182951030730 & pagename=JPost%2FJPArti\ cle%2FShowFull Turkey: 15) The Milas district in the southwestern province of MuÄŸla is now seeing a controversy similar to that earlier this year in Ä°stanbul when a court ruled to demolish an illegal housing development called AcarÄ°stanbul which had felled hundreds of trees during construction without permission. In Milas the culprit is the international real estate investment company Capital Partners, currently set to open five square kilometers of forest for human settlement. Undertaking the project is Bodrum A.Åž., the Turkish representative of Capital Partners, which bought the forested area for YTL 80 million. The company asserts that the land's status as a forest was removed based on a court ruling, issued on the grounds of a disputed expert report. Casting more doubt on the case was a recent fire in the forested land and the Forestry General Directorate's reluctance to appeal the initial court ruling removing the forest status of the area. Legal experts say the forest can only be saved by a criminal complaint filed by public prosecutors. http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay & link=115466 Ghana: 16) Ghana Police Service has begun investigations into allegations that one of the District Commanders, ASP Alex Asubonteng Donkor has been extorting money from illegal chainsaw operators before releasing them. ASP Asubonteng, who is in charge of the Nsuea District in the Wassa West District, is alleged to have extorted various sums of money ranging from ¢300,000 to ¢6 million at different times from the illegal chainsaw operators before releasing the boards to them. Those who could not pay the money being demanded upon their arrest would have their logs seized and sold on the open market. In a two-page petition sent to the Regional Commander and copied to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), the Minister of Interior and the Divisional Commander at Tarkwa, Mr. Enoch Cudjoe, the Chief Farmer at Trebuom in the Mpohor Wassa East District, said ever since he assumed office in the District, ASP Asubonteng's actions had always been influenced by his own parochial interests and not that of the nation. Mr. Cudjoe, who said he had evidence to prove all the allegations, said ASP Asubonteng had been moving from one village to the other, tracking down illegal chainsaw operators. According to Mr. Cudjoe, upon an arrest, the ASP would seize the logs and sell them without any reference to the Forestry Commission who are mandated by law to do so. http://allafrica.com/stories/200706270751.html Haiti – Dominican Republic: 17) Dominican Republic's and Haiti's deforestation problem must be confronted by designing and conducting integral environmental policies, in which the communities in both countries participate. The proposal is from the press conference headed by the presidents of the Haitian Integral Development Institute (IHDI) Fratz Falmbert, and of the Dominican Integral Institute (IDDI), David Luther. Falmbert said that to face deforestation it's necessary to start with an island approach, as neither nation can successfully do so if it doesn't have the other's participation. " We are speaking of a bi-national solution, that begins to resist deforestation and promotes production, which is going to affect many other fields, as well as immigration because reforestation helps Haiti with foods and to create jobs. " He said Dominican Republic has a decisive influence in solving Haiti's deforestation problem, where only 3% of its land is cultivatable because it's deforested, whereas its main river, the Artibonito, whose source is in the Nalga de Maco mountain, in Dominican territory. Luther said that the IHDI's and the IDDI's reforestation strategy is to propose a global approach, considering the island as a whole, and especially the border zone, " an ecological zone of bi-national importance. " They said the Artibonito, whose mouth is in Haiti, is used to produce energy for Port au Prince, as well as to irrigate the valley of the same name. Both institutions set out to develop what they defined as " mirror projects " on both sides of the border, in order to observe how these evolve and benefit both nations, since in terms of deforestation and other aspects the problems are common. http://www.dominicantoday.com/app/article.aspx?id=24487 South America: 18) Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have determined how a substance derived from the bark of the South American lapacho tree kills certain kinds of cancer cells, findings that also suggest a novel treatment for the most common type of lung cancer. The compound, called beta-lapachone, has shown promising anti-cancer properties and is currently being used in a clinical trial to examine its effectiveness against pancreatic cancer in humans. Until now, however, researchers didn't know the mechanism of how the compound killed cancer cells. Dr. David Boothman, a professor in the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and senior author of a study appearing online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has been researching the compound and how it causes cell death in cancerous cells for 15 years. In the new study, Dr. Boothman and his colleagues in the Simmons Cancer Center found that beta-lapachone interacts with an enzyme called NQO1, which is present at high levels in non-small cell lung cancer and other solid tumors. In tumors, the compound is metabolized by NQO1 and produces cell death without damaging noncancerous tissues that do not express this enzyme. " Basically, we have worked out the mechanism of action of beta-lapachone and devised a way of using that drug for individualized therapy, " said Dr. Boothman, who is also a professor of pharmacology and radiation oncology. In healthy cells, NQO1 is either not present or is expressed at low levels. In contrast, certain cancer cells - like non-small cell lung cancer - overexpress the enzyme. Dr. Boothman and his colleagues have determined that when beta-lapachone interacts with NQO1, the cell kills itself. Non-small cell lung cancer is the most common type of lung cancer. http://www.interndaily.com/reports/Substance_In_Tree_Bark_Could_Lead_To_New_Lung\ _Cancer_Treatme nt_999.html 19) In the journal Science (November 11, 2005), a research group led by modeler Daniel Bunker at Columbia University recently reported that carbon storage in a selectively logged forest could be reduced by up to 70 percent if certain species are permanently removed. Bunker's analysis is not the only evidence that selective logging may be more damaging than realized. The Carnegie Institution's Gregory Asner, working with colleagues in Puerto Rico and Brazil, measured forest degradation in the Brazilian Amazon caused by selective logging. By tweaking remote sensing methods, they reported in an earlier issue of Science (October 21) that selective logging is degrading the Amazon rain forest at twice the rate previously estimated. In a finding consistent with Bunker's, Asner's team calculated that selective logging adds 25 percent more carbon to the atmosphere than accounted for by deforestation alone, contributing to the " greenhouse effect " thought to drive climate change. " Logging is widespread and cause an important gross loss of carbon from the Brazilian Amazon each year, " says Asner, an ecologist. Another complication is the growth rate of tropical trees and hence the time taken for the forest to regenerate after logging. Greg Asner contends that there are " misconceptions about this issue. " Regeneration takes a lot longer than some people think, he says. " In just a few years, the foliage from secondary plant regrowth will obscure satellite sensors, making the forest look like it has grown back. " Field studies show that this growth accumulates little biomass. Bunker notes, " As the forest recovers, it would likely be dominated by fast-growing yet low-density pioneers and lianas, neither of which will store much carbon. " Thus, decades pass before the forest returns to its former carbon-absorbing ability. " This is no surprise, considering recent studies showing that trees in mature forests of the Amazon can be 300 to 800 years old, " Asner says. One such study was published in December in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study's lead U.S. scientist, ecologist Susan Trumbore of the University of California, Irvine, says modelers need to rethink the Amazon forest's role in determining global carbon dioxide levels. Trumbore says that trees in the Amazon are older and grow more slowly than scientists thought, so previous studies have overestimated the Amazon rain forest's capacity to absorb carbon. http://www.forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=52025 Brazil: 20) Brazilian police on Friday broke up a logging ring whose members are suspected of using fake permits to fell a half million trees in the biologically sensitive Amazon rain forest, media reports said. Computer hackers and former state employees tapped into the government's electronic system and forged the permits so loggers could transport illegal lumber, the reports said. " These are gangsters not loggers, " police officer Sergio Rovani from Belem, a city at the mouth of the Amazon river, told Globo television. " This is a million-dollar fraud. " Some 155 illegal loggers were involved in the ring, which may have netted 16 million reais ($8 million) from just one operation, according to state news agency Agencia Brasil. Police officers in Belem were not available to comment. Police have broken up several illegal logging rings in the past two years, winning praise from environmentalists. The government has long been criticized for failing to crack down on crime in the continent-sized Amazon, which covers half of Brazil and holds a fifth of the world's fresh water and some 15 percent of all plant and animal species on Earth. Friday's operation, Green Gold II, took its name from a bigger operation in 2005. In Green Gold I, several government environmental agents were arrested on suspicion of printing fake documents to help illegal loggers transport lumber. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N29253083.htm 21) " A new era is beginning for the Amazon, " said Tasso Rezende de Azevedo, the youthful head of Brazil's National Forest Programme, running a hand through his thick, brown hair. Bringing up on his computer a bewildering array of maps and aerial photos, he went on: " Today, thanks to modern satellite technology, we have instant information. We know almost immediately when someone is illegally cutting down the forest and we can send in one of our teams to arrest those responsible. From now on, loggers and farmers will have to obey the law. " Tasso belongs to a young Brazilian generation of environmental technocrats who have a fervent belief in the power of technology. Under the leadership of Marina Silva, the charismatic environment minister, who herself comes from the Amazon, they have developed an ambitious strategy for ending deforestation, now running at 1.3 million hectares a year, making Brazil the fifth largest global contributor to greenhouse gases. At the centre of this strategy lies a vast mosaic of conservation units, stretching across the heart of the Amazon Basin from north to south and already covering some 20 million hectares (an area the size of England and Scotland together), with more units planned. The idea is that these reserves will act as a buffer and stop the human predators - the land-grabbers, illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and soya farmers - moving into the western Amazon, which is still largely untouched. Some of these are old-fashioned nature parks, where no human activity is permitted. Others are so-called " extractive reserves " for the Amazon's long-term inhabitants such as the ribeir inhos (riverside dwellers, mainly descended from 19th-century rubber tappers or from runaway slaves). Yet others, created under Brazil's Project for Sustainable Development (PDS), are for the Amazon's shifting population of former gold prospectors, dam workers and landless families that have invaded indigenous reserves. Key to the success of all these conservation units are Tasso's satellite images, which will allow the government to ensure that only permitted, sustainable economic activity is undertaken. http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/062907ED.shtml Mexico: 22) Twenty-one-year-old indigenous environmental activist Aldo Zamora was shot to death May 15 near Mexico City, in what Greenpeace and Mexican human rights leaders say was the latest in a pattern of violent repression against peasant activists across Mexico, fighting to defend their lands against illegal logging and other special interests. Zamora's 16-year-old brother, Misael, was also wounded when gunmen ambushed them outside the family's Tlahuica indigenous community of San Juan Atzingo in Mexico state, about a two hour's drive from the capital. Witnesses, including Misael, identified the attackers as loggers named earlier in federal complaints for cutting down trees illegally, filed by the victims' father, Idelfonso Zamora. Arrest warrants tied to the murder were issued against the four suspects in May, but by mid-June no one had been arrested. Activists complain state prosecutors have been slow to respond. " Every day that passes is a negative sign, a sign that you can commit crimes, destroy the natural heritage and even worse kill those who defend the forests, and nothing happens, " said Héctor Magallón, coordinator of Greenpeace's forest campaign in Mexico. The organization has led public demonstrations calling for the suspects' arrests and charged that police, prosecutors and the courts are protecting powerful local loggers. Idelfonso Zamora has led a campaign against logging in and around his farming village in the Lagunas de Zempoala National Park, and his sons had joined that fight. The three were working with Greenpeace to assess the impact of deforestation and with the federal environmental prosecutor to stop it. Idelfonso Zamora heads a committee of 19 villagers documenting illegal logging for the federal environmental prosecutor, Profepa. Last year, two pickup trucks approached Idelfonso during a protest march. The occupants yelled out: " Your days are numbered. If you don't back down we're going to give it to you where it hurts you the most, " witnesses say. Now Zamora is demanding justice for his son's death and pledging to continue his environmental struggle. " In the name of my son Aldo I will continue the battle, despite the fear that I could also be killed, " a somber Zamora told a press conference in Mexico City in May. " In his memory, we must restore the forests. " Activists called for a moment of silence to honor his son. Zamora stood, head bowed, wiping away tears. http://www.latinamericapress.org/article.asp?lanCode=1 & artCode=5205 Nicaragua: 23) More than six years ago, the residents of the rural community of Lomas del Viento, on Nicaragua's Pacific coast, took up the task of recuperating the 10 flowing springs that were drying up as a result of logging in the surrounding forests. The area was always forested, with mountains filled with a variety of plants and animals and abundant springs and rivers. But about 12 years ago everything began to change. Little by little, the farmers began taking over the forests in the hills, and burning off the vegetation to clear the land to plant grains, MarÃa Margarita Carmona, who was born in the area, told Tierramérica. Other families, faced with poverty and the impossibility of obtaining loans to improve their farms, sold their land to livestock and logging companies, who extracted the valuable lumber and cleared the land for cattle, she said. " We were scared when the rivers began to dry up and we had to travel kilometres up the mountains to get water, " said Carmona. Of the 10 springs that quenched the thirst of many generations in Lomas del Viento, by 2001 only two were available to the 40 families living in the area, community leader Marcial Umaña told Tierramérica. The other eight had dried up and were filled with rubble from the construction of a highway to carry tourists to the Chacocente wildlife refuge on the Pacific beaches. " People began to worry because every day it was more difficult to find water and there was very little rain. We had to climb the hills to look for water in the wells, but almost none of them had any, " recalled Umaña. The local government had no resources but did have information that led them to the non-governmental organisation Tierra y Vida (Land and Life). After six years, the community has seen the eight springs once filled with mud and garbage now produce water. The giant trees they managed to preserve have seen the return of howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata) and bird species that had disappeared from the area years ago. No longer are there dark clouds of smoke from the annual burnings of fields in preparation for planting. Since the official launch of the rural tourism project 16 months ago, 1,560 visitors from within Nicaragua and abroad have hiked the hills and have seen the miraculous resurgence of the crystalline waters. This year the Health Ministry certified that the water coming from Lomas del Viento's springs is suitable for human consumption. But not all of Nicaragua's rural communities have had such an opportunity. In May, a study by the non-governmental Alexander von Humboldt Centre found that 70 percent of the country's surface water sources are contaminated by household and industrial waste. Madagascar: 24) Six national parks along the eastern part of Madagascar have been found so unique that they were inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List today. The Atsinanana site represents almost all the remaining rainforest on the Great Island, and almost 90 percent of all species in the forest live no other place on earth. The mini-continent of Madagascar completed its separation from all other land masses more than 60 million years ago and has since that lived in splendid isolation. During these years, the Malagasy flora and fauna has become unique, diversifying in the island's desert, savannah and rainforest climate regions. Especially the Malagasy rainforests, mostly located in the east and north, have a high degree of biodiversity. But deforestation has left just 8.5 percent of Madagascar's original forests and the new World Heritage site - the Rainforests of the Atsinanana - is now to protect the remaining habitat. The Atsinanana site comprises six national parks of the eastern part of the island and was approved of by a UNESCO committee currently united in New Zealand. Following the inscription, a delegation from Madagascar noted that this is " a wonderful present for the country " and also supported " the commendable vision " of President Marc Ravalomanana to triple the size of the island's protected area system. Also the UNECO committee applauded what it called " the tremendous efforts of Madagascar in protecting its remaining eastern rainforests, " after most has been lost to deforestation. President Ravalomanana has strongly increased efforts to stop deforestation, protect remaining valuable natural sites and boost ecotourism to Madagascar. The inscription of Atsinanana had been prepared for a long time by Malagasy authorities, who won the full support of the world conservation union IUCN. " These forests are critically important for maintaining the island's unique plants and animals, 80 to 90 percent of which can only be found in Madagascar and some of which date back to glacial periods, " IUCN noted prior to the decision. " The site comprises a representative selection of the most important habitats of unique rainforest life, including many threatened and endemic plant and animal species, " the recommendation read. http://www.afrol.com/articles/25915 India: 25) A plan to lease out India's degraded jungles to pulp and paper companies has sparked criticism from activists who say the scheme will leave millions of poor forest dwellers homeless and with no livelihood. With inadequate financial resources to meet a target of covering a third of India with trees by 2012, the Environment Ministry plans to invite private firms, particularly from the pulp and paper sector, to help grow forests. Under the " Multi-Stakeholder Partnership for Forestation " , the government proposes to invite bids for areas with a tree cover of less than 10 percent under a contract that will see the paper industry farm trees in return for making paper pulp. Authorities say the plan will benefit both the environment and industry, as well as provide employment to millions in poor communities who live off meagre forest resources. But social activists are sceptical. " The forests do not belong to the state or industry and cannot be owned or traded, " said Shankar Gopalakrishnan of the Campaign for Dignity and Survival, an umbrella organisation of forest community groups. http://in.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews & storyID=2007-06-2\ 9T084347Z_01_NO OTR_RTRMDNC_0_India-282351-1.xml Vietnam: 26) Starting in 1994, Mangrove forests cultivated in a project sponsored by the Danish Red Cross have proven their great value in protecting lives and property of thousands of people in the northern province of Thai Binh during storm seasons in Vietnam. Nam Phu, a coastal village in Tien Hai District with nearly 1,000ha of seafood breeding areas, was one of the areas to have benefited most from the mangrove-planting project. In the first phase, coastal villages in Tien Hai and Thai Thuî districts planted more than 7,000ha of various types of salt water-tolerant trees. In 2006, the project shifted from an emphasis of planting new forests to one on maintaining existing forests. Although the initial purpose of the mangrove forest project was natural disaster prevention, the forests have significantly contributed to the socio-economic development of the area. Jobs were created for 3,210 households and the protection of the " green armour " has allowed the local aquatic products sector to prosper and diversify Provincial authorities estimate that each village has benefited by as much as VND35-40 million (US$2,200 - 2,500) per month due to the protection of the mangrove forests. Thai Binh Province has also been able to save 15-20 per cent annually on the costs of dike maintenance. The mangrove project has also raised the awareness of the local population on natural disaster preparedness. They have become more active in planting and caring for forests and battling deforestation, recognising that the trees help minimise storm damage and create a better local living environment. The province has held a number of training courses on caring for and preserving the forest areas. Teams of rangers have been established and public information campaigns have been conducted. This year, Thai Binh plans to plant 1,000ha more mangrove forests, increasing the total area of mangrove forest in the province to more than 8,000ha. http://www.scandasia.com/viewNews.php?news_id=3449 & coun_code=dk Thailand: 27) This is a remarkable award winning print advertisement launched by World Wildlife Fund in Thailand. The insightful advertisement clearly aims at explaining the fact that what situation would arise in future if people keep incessantly cutting down trees. The advertisement is showing a few persons after cutting all the trees in the background taking shelter from heat under the shadow of a tree, which has probably sustained the recent onslaught. The advertisement depicting that people are indulged in deforestation activities despite the fact the origin of life emanates from this very source. The presentation of the campaign is very impressive that conveys its message with utmost ease. In addition, strong visualization of the concept and its perfect execution had made the ad compelling and engaging. The advertisement won a gold in the Cannes 2007. The tag line of the campaign reads, 'Forests for life'. The advertisement was created by Ogilvy & Mather, Bangkok. http://www.adpunch.org/entry/wwf-thailand-forests-for-life/ Malaysia: 28) Illegal loggers are using the cover of darkness to cut down trees worth millions of ringgit daily. They are skilled timber workers who are felling the trees in dense, mosquito-infested jungles at night and sending them sent to unlicensed sawmills. Police uncovered this " dark " side of the timber trade on Monday when they busted an operation involving over RM1.5mil worth of timber. Eight men were arrested and seven trucks loaded with logs were seized on the Bintulu-Tatau road. Bintulu police chief Supt Sulaiman Abdul Razak said locals were behind the illegal operation. " We believe that the illegal timber felling and extraction are carried out under the cover of darkness. " The transportation of logs is also done at night. The police are trying to find out where the logs were acquired, how they were taken out and where they were sent. " We have not yet established if there is a syndicate controlling such illegal logging. We are tracking the ringleaders, " he told The Star. The eight suspects were detained when they came with their lawyers to surrender themselves, he said Earlier, the suspects escaped in a four-wheel drive vehicle while police were inspecting the logs during a downpour. http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/6/28/nation/18138490 & sec=nation Indonesia: 29) Adelin, the financial director of PT Keang Nam Development Indonesia, is accused of violating corruption and forestry laws in relation to illegal logging and illegally collecting timber products in areas outside the company's concession in Mandailing Natal regency, from 2000 to 2005. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to life in prison. The prosecution claims his actions caused the state financial losses of Rp 119 billion and US$2 million. Responding to the minister's letter, several environmental activists urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to immediately dismiss Kaban. The activists accused the minister of trying to intervene in the trial. Deputy director of the North Sumatra chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, Monang Sinaga, said Kaban also wrote to the North Sumatra Police chief on April 21, 2006, and appeared to side with Adelin. " We want to question Forestry Minister MS Kaban's credibility in the Adelin Lis case. Is it proper for a minister to write a letter, the contents of which seems to defend the suspect? What's going on between the two of them? " he said. Kaban told the Post last Saturday in Medan he wrote to then North Sumatra Police chief Insp. Gen. Bambang Hendarso Dahuri, not to interfere in Adelin's case, but to ask that the case be handled professionally. Adelin was handed over to the Attorney General's Office by the Indonesian Embassy in China last September, following his arrest in Beijing. http://www.thejakartapost.com/misc/PrinterFriendly.asp 30) Roughly 80 percent of Sulawesi's richest forests have been degraded and destroyed for agriculture, logging, and mining, reports a ground-breaking assessment of the Indonesian island's forests. Straddling the Wallace line, an area of biological discontinuity between Asia and Australia, Sulawesi is characterized by high levels of endemism--more than 60 percent of its mammals and more than one third of its birds are found nowhere else on the planet. So unusual the island's biodiversity, it helped inspire Alfred Russel Wallace to independently propose a theory of natural selection that pushed Charles Darwin to publish his masterwork, The Origin of Species before he was ready to go to press. Nevertheless, despite its storied history and species richness, Sulawsi's biodiversity is poorly known by scientists. More troubling, the island has long been overlooked conservationists. Their neglect has been costly--Sulawesi's forests have fast been converted for agriculture, felled by loggers, and degraded by miners. A new study, published in the journal Biotropica reveals the extent of these losses by creating an extensive ecosystem disturbance map of the island. http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0628-sulawesi.html 31) Around 6.7 million hectares or 70 percent of Indonesia`s mangrove forest areas measuring a total of 9.4 million hectares were damaged, an expert said. " The damages of the country`s mangrove forest areas were mainly due to human encroachment such as for settlement, ponds, and plantation, " Prof. Dr. Cecep Kusmana, a lecturer from The Bogor Institute of Technology, said here on Monday after visiting a mangrove development area at Batu Ampar, Pontianak District. Data from the Indonesian forestry ministry showed that 4.5 million hectares of mangrove areas were moderately damaged, and 2.2 million hectares were seriously degraded. Rehabilitation programs launched by the government could not catch up with the phase of the damage. Between 2004 and 2005, the government managed to rehabilitate 34,601 hectares of mangrove areas, and in 2006 around 2,790 hectares. " Despite the vast damages, Indonesia relatively has better mangrove forest areas than other countries in the region, because Indonesia still has intact mangrove areas in on Papua and Kalimantan Islands, " he said. He said that mangrove forests have crucial functions in the ecology. Mangrove areas are habitats of various animals such as bird and fish, and could prevent coastal area abrasion and intrusion of sea water. Meanwhile, Executive Director of the Mangrove Development and Study Institute (LPPM) Nyoto Santoso said that his institute was currently replanting mangrove trees in Kubu Raya and Batu Ampar subdistricts covering a total areas of 65,000 hectares. http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=78543 Australia: 32) Forestry Tasmania has confirmed four trees in the Arve Valley, discovered last summer, will be classified as 'giants'. As a result, they will be added to the Giant Trees Register and protected from all forestry activity. Forestry Tasmania's manager of field services, Graham Sargison says the trees were discovered when a number of other trees were being re-measured to ensure the accuracy of records. He says the measurements of the four trees have been confirmed by an international giant trees expert. Mr Sargison says Forestry Tasmania is consulting on naming some of the trees, and that none of the 82 protected 'giant' trees were killed or damaged in regeneration burns during the autumn. http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/06/30/1966421.htm 33) Backing concerns that extensive logging is threatening the World Heritage-listed forests in Tasmania, the United Nations (U.N.) agreed Tuesday to send a high-level delegation to the state. The mission of international delegates will assess the ongoing damage and threats to the Tasmanian wilderness. Twenty-one countries supported the resolution, which passed Tuesday as part of the World Heritage Committee 31st Meeting in Christchurch, New Zealand this week. The World Heritage Committee further urged the Australian Government to consider extending the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage area by including adjacent forests also threatened by logging. Geoff Law, The Tasmanian Campaign Coordinator for The Wilderness Society, said in a media release that " the Australian Government can now be under no illusion that the destruction of forests in Western Tasmania is not of international concern. " Featuring Australia's greatest tract of temperate rain forest in Tarkine and the tallest flowering plants on Earth, Tasmania has one of the highest rates of land clearing in the developed world. An average of 20,000 hectares of native forest are clear felled and burnt each year. Which is why Law argued, " the Australian Government should respond to this wake-up call by immediately ceasing all logging and roading operations in forests identified as having World Heritage values. " http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7007758519 34) Ula Majewski from the group Still Wild Still Threatened, says about 15 activists went into the area near Lake Gordon early this morning to protest against cable logging of the forest. Representatives of the same group signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Forestry Tasmania last month, ending a six-month blockade in the Upper Florentine Valley. But Ms Majewski denies today's protest undermines the MOU. " The Wedge is quite a different area. It's a different patch of forest which we believe is of World Heritage value and should be protected and not be subjected to industrial scale clearfellling, " she said. But Forestry Tasmania has dismissed today's action as a misguided stunt. District Forest Manager Steve Whitley says he's disappointed a protest has taken place so soon after the MOU was signed. " Even though it's a different area, it's certainly not keeping faith with the sort of approach we'd taken in the Upper Florentine. " Mr Whitely says Forestry will continue to honour the MOU. http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/06/25/1961616.htm?section=business World-wide: 35) There is no denying the fact that Greenpeace supports Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) efforts to certify logging of primary and old-growth forests as environmentally acceptable. It is a matter of public record. FSC's international board is chaired by a Greenpeace forest campaigner and they have long promoted FSC as the source of " green " timber. Greenpeace supports industrial ancient forest logging even as they are apparently suppressing their own report on specific problematic forest certifications. Transparency and depth of ecological understanding are not Greenpeace's strength. When the whole notion of certified logging in ancient rainforests is questioned, the Greenpeace PR machine shifts into full gear and seeks to mislead rather than respond substantively to the concerns of those working to end ancient forest logging as a key response to climate change and requirement for global ecological sustainability... It is a difficult decision to campaign against this greenwashing; but FSC, Greenpeace and WWF are so insular, and so defensive of their failed support of industrial certified forestry, that true forest conservationists no longer have an option... Primary forests are irreversibly diminished when logged. Environmental groups cannot support nonsensical promises of " certified sustainable " ancient forest logging with impunity any longer... Greenpeace has invested years of effort into this nonsense, and presumably now would find it nearly impossible to admit they have been wrong. Let's renew our call that Greenpeace end their support for ancient forest logging, while publicizing the matter and urging their supporters to cancel their membership until they do so. http://www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp?id=greenpeace http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2007/06/alert_greenpeace_come_clean_a 36) " Specialization overrides mobility, " he said. " Specialized birds are more vulnerable to extinction, even if they are mobile. Increased specialization correlates highly with increased extinction risk. " Because they are dependent on specific habitats, niches and behaviors, sedentary and specialized birds face particular risks from habitat loss, which can be result from deforestation, fragmentation, and climate change. Migrant birds can look for alternative nesting and feeding sites in altered landscapes, though these can still fall short of meeting a species' needs for survival. Habitat conservation is the key to protecting sedentary and specialized bird species Sekercioglu says the results emphasize the importance of conserving large tracts of primary forest habitats for sedentary and specialized bird species. " Highly specialized birds, like the army ant-followers mentioned in the Current Biology article, can go extinct following fragmentation even if they are also highly mobile, " Sekercioglu explained. " This means that although habitat connectivity is important for many species and corridors have an important role, for some species, especially tropical forest species, we simply need extensive areas of primary habitat. High mobility does not make up for the loss of habitat for habitat specialists like ant-followers. " http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0625-birds.html 37) Despite an endless stream of ecological science that indicates the Earth's biosphere is being devoured for a few generations of gluttonous consumption, nary a few are able to shake off the cognitive dissonance of paying the mortgage while fully integrating and assimilating the implications of modern ecocide that fills the news each day. The man-ape with opposable thumbs has come full circle -- from indigenous peoples staring in awe at the stars around a campfire, utterly dependent upon local ecosystems for sustenance; to technologically advanced, yet ecologically challenged societies, grappling to come to terms with our oneness with all of being. Yet there exists a powerful new eco-movement that acknowledges all of the exciting yet frightening implications of these truthful observations and calls for dramatic personal change and social reform to avert global ecological collapse. The emerging field of political ecology -- of which I am a practitioner -- seeks ecologically based policies and strategies to reconnect the human project with requirements for sustaining land, air, water and oceans. Ecological requirements for Planetary sustainability mean nothing is sacrosanct in the human sphere of existence -- not cars, or cities or the right to bear young -- as the global ecological system is failing under the weight of humanity. New light bulbs and hybrid cars are simply not enough. To survive we need to limit our numbers, consumption and ecological impacts; as we work to protect and restore Gaia. Perhaps no one is more threatened by this new bright green paradigm than the career environmental bureaucrat seeking technological, managerial approaches to stem the tide of environmental loss. Political ecology concerns itself with ecological requirements for global ecological sustainability, and a radical, transformative political agenda for its achievement; not with inadequate, puny half-measures. Ecology integrates the sum total of knowledge regarding creation and humanity. There can be no economy, culture or society without a fully functioning Earth. Humans are but one species that have evolved to live here. The ecology of the Earth System explains not only what the Earth and her creatures are and do, but where they are heading. As the discipline that best explains being, it is natural that we turn to ecology to address the myriad of environmental and social concerns facing the planet. http://earthmeanders.blogspot.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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