Guest guest Posted December 1, 2007 Report Share Posted December 1, 2007 Today for you 33 new articles about earth's trees! (260th edition) Subscribe / send blank email to: earthtreenews- Weblog: http://olyecology.livejournal.com --British Columbia: 1) $100K for GBR Logging / 'protection', 2) Stillwater plan, 3) Saving the Caribou means reducing logging, duh! --Washington: 4) 444 trees to be logged at Evergeen State College? --Oregon: 5) How fire affects thinned forests, 6) Studying catastrophic wildfire history, --California: 7) Gary Snyder, 8) Burned Area Emergency Response Assessment Report, 9) Save Smith's trees, 10) Bohemian Club wants to double cut, --Montana: 11) Environmentalists with common sense? 12) B-D Partnership, --Minnesota: 13) Dredging ancient logs form a sand pit --Maryland: 14) Army will cut nearly 300 acres of forest at Fort Meade --New York: 16) Chlorinated flame retardant Dechlorane Plus in the bark of trees --Georgia: 17) Save Moutaintown in Chattahoochee NF --Canada: 18) Ban logging in Algonquin Provincial Park? --UK: 19) New land rush for those who can't buy a home, 20) key to cutting CO2, --Czechoslovakia: 20) Selling off some of the country's state-owned forests --Ecuador: 21) Natives seek $12 Billion from Chevron --Argentina: 22) Logging Ban passes! --Brazil: 23) Protected forests can survive climate change, 24) An amazing satellite sensor, 25) Perfect Storm in the Amazon, --Japan: 26) Blossoming unseasonably this fall, 27) Forestry teachings, --Australia: 28) Ban on logging in Wielangta overturned, 29) $25,000 fine for logging, 30) Save the Weld Valley, --World-wide: 31) Deforestation emissions send a destructive ripple effect, 32) Parrots endangered, 33) Mass tree planting effort grows, British Columbia: 1) Scotiabank today announced a $100,000 donation to the Great Bear Rainforest Campaign. The donation to Tides Canada Foundation supports an innovative, globally-significant sustainability model and will contribute to a permanent conservation endowment fund to support science and stewardship jobs in First Nations communities. British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest is a global environmental treasure. It supports tremendous biodiversity and is home to the rare white Spirit Bear and ancient First Nations cultures. The coastal forest stretches north from Bute Inlet on B.C.'s south coast to the Alaskan border. Covering 6.4 million hectares, the Great Bear Rainforest represents 25 per cent of the earth's remaining ancient coastal temperate rainforests. " This is a great opportunity for Scotiabank to demonstrate our commitment to the environment, " said David Poole, Senior Vice-President, B.C. & Yukon Region, Scotiabank. " We're pleased to support this innovative initiative that protects not only important biodiversity areas but the livelihoods and communities where many of our employees and customers live and work. " " We are thrilled that Scotiabank is supporting this made-in-B.C conservation solution that successfully integrates environmental protection and sustainable economic development, " said Ross McMillan, President of Tides Canada and one of the principal architects of the conservation financing program that helped protect the Great Bear Rainforest. The model brings together multiple stakeholders: environmental organizations (sic), First Nations, logging companies, governments, and other businesses operating in the region. " Protecting the environment is a responsibility we all share, " said Kaz Flinn, Vice-President, Corporate Social Responsibility, Scotiabank. " Our donation to Tides Canada allows us to partner with a leading Canadian philanthropic organization and to support important sustainable forestry and habitat conservation practices. " http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/November2007/29/c5531.html 2) The investigation resulted from public complaints about the new plan, prepared under the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA). The Stillwater plan was produced under the Forest Practices Code as part of a pilot project the provincial government set up to test a results-based approach to forest regulation. Since government approved the original Stillwater plan, the forest licence has changed hands twice and the legislation governing forest practices changed from prescriptive to results-based. The complaints that prompted the board investigation were about the difficult format of the new forest stewardship plan, changes made to the membership of the local community advisory group, and the loss of objectives that were in the pilot plan. While the board noted that both the licensee and the forest district had made efforts to make the new plan more accessible, it also found that the planning requirements have changed under FRPA from providing clear, detailed information about proposed forest practices and community values, to providing broad and more general objectives. This made it difficult for the public to interpret and provide meaningful comment on the forest stewardship plan or to track existing commitments. The plan also covered all of the licensee's coastal operations including Vancouver Island, the Queen Charlotte Islands and the mainland, which added to the difficulty. The result is a plan that obscures at least some of the values identified by the community with its pilot plan, putting at risk public confidence in forest management for the area. " As we continue to develop and implement FRPA-based forest stewardship plans and to rely on voluntary advisory processes as the primary vehicle for more detailed public involvement, we need to ensure that we maintain the public trust, " said Fraser. The Forest Practices Board is BC's independent watchdog for sound forest and range practices, reporting its findings and recommendations directly to the public and government. Interested readers can view the entire report at http://www.fpb.gov.bc.ca 3) Six weeks ago the BC Government announced that logging companies, environmentalists, heli-ski companies and snowmobile clubs had collaborated on a plan to protect the endangered mountain caribou. Large tracts of old-growth forest are essential for the survival of the mountain caribou. Both the BC government and the environmental groups that helped to create the plan are promoting it as a huge achievement in forest protection: 2.2 million hectares of protected mountain caribou habitat, of which 380,000 hectares will be new protection. " What the government did not tell us then is that the plan will allow NO REDUCTION OF THE ALLOWABLE ANNUAL CUT (yearly rate of logging on public land) for five years, " says Anne Sherrod, a director of Valhalla Wilderness Watch. " The negotiating parties who agreed to this plan have failed to grasp the meaning of the mountain caribou crisis: our rate of logging is driving species to extinction. We either have to cut back drastically, or be honest and admit that we intend to maintain an extravagant and unsustainable rate of logging no matter what other species we wipe out. " Today VWW is releasing a new 26-page analysis of the plan entitled " Mountain Caribou Greenwash. " The analysis is largely based upon the Habitat Terms of Reference posted on the website of BC's Species at Risk Coordination Office, as well as many scientific reports. " There is much we still do not know because the plan was negotiated under the cover of confidentiality agreements, " says Sherrod. " But we wanted to let the public know that the Habitat Terms of Reference do not support the view that the plan is a 'big victory' for anyone but the logging companies. There are alarming aspects which, if implemented, would predict extinction for the mountain caribou. " The report can be found at http://www.inlandtemperaterainforest.org Washington: 4) A small but vocal group of students is questioning how authorities at the nearly 1,000-acre college manage trees that might pose a hazard to pedestrians, cars and buildings. At the center of the disagreement is a Comprehensive Hazard Tree Maintenance Plan that, when delivered to staff in September, called for the removal, topping or pruning in the next five years of about 458 high-risk trees. They were deemed unhealthy and close enough to trails, roads and buildings to potentially topple and threaten people and property. " We want to make every effort to preserve trees, " Evergreen graduate student Deane Rimerman said. " We'll do everything we can to make sure no healthy trees are cut down. " Concerned students might organize tree sit-ins, depending on how everything unfolds, Rimerman said. When the college's Campus Land Use Committee, which consists of faculty, staff and students, received the draft hazard tree report, the committee changed the major recommendation. The plan approved by the committee Monday calls for removing 14 of the most hazardous trees and putting the 444 others on a monitoring list. " Ten of the trees have been cut down, much to the chagrin of Rimerman, Environmental Resource Center coordinator Maya Elson and others. That group hired Braun Arboricultural Consulting of Hood River, Ore., to come to campus Nov. 16-17 for a hazard tree assessment workshop and on-site inspection of about 10 of the high-risk trees. David Braun's assessment differed from the previous one, including a second-growth Douglas fir next to Seminar II that was cut down because of root rot that Braun found no signs of. " While I looked at only eight to 10 trees, it seemed like a high rate of error, perhaps a quality-control problem with the collection and entering of data, " Braun said Tuesday from his Hood River office. " I'm not passing judgment on the report, " Braun said. " On paper, it seemed reasonable, but it raised enough questions that the school is owed a second look. " Rimerman said his major goal is to stimulate long-range planning for how to sustain and restore the forest ecology on campus in the face of ever-increasing development around the property. Steve Herman, a retired Evergreen faculty member, said the unmanaged forests at Evergreen are the college's greatest environmental asset. " Think of 2050, " Herman said. " The college campus forests could be a gem, if they don't sterilize the place. " http://www.theolympian.com/570/story/283641.html Oregon: 5) The research team measured the effects of fuel treatments in a Douglas-fir--tanoak forest. Scientists were fortunate to have data collected before the Biscuit Fire with which to directly quantify the relationship between forest structure and fire severity. The effectiveness of two fuel treatments at reducing tree damage and mortality was measured by comparing treated and untreated forests that burned in the fire. " The number of trees killed in the Biscuit Fire was highest in the thinned areas we studied, most likely due to slash left after the thinning treatment, " Raymond explains. " Overstory tree mortality was lowest in sites that were thinned and then underburned, and moderate in sites that were not treated prior to the Biscuit Fire. Thinning ladder fuels is just the first step in effective fuel treatment for most forests. " Ladder fuels are the small trees that carry fire from the ground to the overstory tree crowns. Fuel treatments intended to minimize damage to the overstory are more effective if fine fuels on the ground are reduced following removal of understory trees. " We have known this in principle for many years, " says Peterson, a research biologist at the Station, " and the Biscuit Fire gave us a chance to validate the effectiveness of on-the-ground fuel treatments. " Federal agencies are mandated to reduce fuel accumulations in dry forests throughout the West. However, studies like the one conducted by Raymond and Peterson that validate the effectiveness of fuel treatments are rare. " Data from the Biscuit Fire provide new scientific evidence that will help improve techniques for treating fuels. As more wildfires burn through treated areas, we will have additional opportunities to document how well those treatments are working, " adds Peterson. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060312211341.htm 6) Zybach is a former reforestation contractor who earned a Ph.D in 2003 from Oregon State University, studying catastrophic wildfire history in western Oregon. He has spent the summer studying the South Santiam and Blue River headwaters on contract from the Grand Ronde Indian nation. His 80-page report on how the forests were used by Santiam Molalla Indians between 1750 and 1850, before white settlers began arriving in droves, is going through peer review by other scientists and experts, and he will speak on some of his findings to the South Santiam Watershed Council tonight at the Lebanon Senior Center. He said he plans to focus on the difference between the ways the Kalapuya and Molalla tribes used the forest for commercial purposes and how those uses have changed since white settlement. " The history of land use will be the main theme and I'll talk about how that is reflected in water quality and fish numbers, " he said. Zybach, 59, was born into a family of loggers, though his father owned a tavern. He started planting trees as a schoolboy in the Tillamook Burn 45 years ago and later ran Phoenix Reforestation Inc. in Western Oregon for some 20 years that was the subject of an Inc. Magazine in 1982. " My crews did about 80,000 acres of reforestation and I personally planted over 2 million trees, " he said. " How did I become unemployed? He has been involved in a wide variety of studies since then and runs a company called Northwest Maps, through which he does consulting work, political opinions and scientific research and communication. He also has been program manager for Oregon Watersheds and Websites Inc., which offers on-line tools for the learning about and stewardship of Oregon's watershed resources. " The important thing that people in Washington D.C. need to know is that the forests to the east of Sweet Home have deteriorated significantly in the last 50 years and created an extreme wildfire risk to rural and urban residents in the Sweet Home area, " he said in an interview last week. http://www.sweethomenews.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=7669 California: 7) Snyder's lifelong passion and commitment to place and the natural world flourished in his forested setting. When logging trucks began lumbering down his road carrying large-diameter trees, his concern helped form the Yuba Watershed Institute in 1990. The close-knit Ridge community founded the group to help protect the last stands of old-growth trees in the area and the wildlife such as spotted owls that nested there. The Yuba Watershed Institute and the Bureau of Land Management now cooperatively manage 1,800 acres of public and private forested land by thinning brush and small trees to help " speed up the process " of reaching an old growth forest. " That's a different kind of relationship than most environmental groups. We're critical of agencies, but we don't demonize them, " Snyder said. In the coming century, the institute's goal is to selectively harvest a few quality old growth trees to show how sustainable forestry can be done. " The Yuba Watershed Institute is not intrinsically against logging, " Snyder said. The land became known as the 'Inimim Forest, paying tribute to the Native Americans who once lived there. 'Inimim is the Maidu word for ponderosa pine. Every year, the partners clear brush and small trees with equipment and control burns to give remaining trees room to grow. http://www.theunion.com/article/20071128/NEWS/111280130 8) Roughly a month after the Ranch Fire blazed through the Angeles and Los Padres national forests, an assessment report has been released and the U.S. Forest Service has allocated $114,562 to implement the report's recommended treatment methods. Under the Burned Area Emergency Response Assessment Report, approved treatment methods for the Ranch Fire include: 1) road stabilization to restore road drainage function, culvert and side drain repair and maintenance of Piru Lake Road, 2) strengthen waterbars and dips and outslope the trail tread on Potholes Trail, 3) placement of six warning signs, 4) conduct a noxious weeds survey --- " We received the authorization to work on the treatment methods, " said Kathy Good, Public Affairs Officer for Los Padres National Forest. According to Good, the team of analysts who prepare the report include specialists knowledgeable about each aspect of forest life and terrain. Each specialist recommends the issues that need be addressed immediately after the fire is contained. " One of the processes of the Burned Area Emergency Response Assessment Report is to assess the threat immediately and make recommendations on what needs to be addressed upon completion of the report, " she said. http://www.the-signal.com/?module=displaystory & story_id=51929 & format=html 9) John Smith knows sidewalks. He is, after all, the former Inyo County director of public works. So it's with a growing sense of frustration that Smith is trying to prevent Caltrans from ripping out trees on and near his property to build what he calls " sidewalks to nowhere. " His lifelong domain has been a wood-frame house in a grove of elms and sycamores at the north end of this isolated burg on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada. Caltrans engineers say 100 trees are standing in the way of plans to widen a stretch of Highway 395, the town's main thoroughfare, from two to four lanes and line it with about 400 feet of sidewalks. The project, they say, would improve safety and the flow of vehicles on the rural fringe of the community 200 miles north of Los Angeles, where a third of the traffic on any given day consists of Southern Californian vacationers. Though sidewalks appear intermittently in Independence, none run the length of the town, and the extra 400 feet proposed by Caltrans wouldn't change that. West of Highway 395, the sidewalks would front vacant land, not houses.Standing beside one of his massive sycamore trees a stone's throw from wide-open high desert country, Smith shook his head. " I've lived here all my life, " he said, " and through it all, these trees have provided shade to my home, my family and my gardens, so I'd hate to see them go. " I want Caltrans to come up with something more rational than sidewalks in the desert, " he added. " But when I ask for one good reason why they want to cut down our trees, they say, 'It fits our regulations.' I say regulations should be adjusted if they don't make sense. " http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-trees26nov26,1,2019334\ ..story?coll=la -headlines-pe-california & ctrack=2 & cset=true 10) The Bohemian Club's board proposes harvesting as much as 1 million board feet (305,000 meters) of redwood and other trees annually, which it says will help protect the remaining trees from wildfires. Some members disagree -- at least one to the point of quitting. California redwoods are the tallest trees in the world. The 2,700-acre (1,100-hectare) Bohemian Grove also has tanbark oaks and Douglas firs among its hundreds of thousands of trees, says Ralph Osterling, a 30-year club member and licensed forester. The lumber the club seeks to cut each year is the equivalent of about 1,000 average-size redwoods, according to Brian Steen, executive director of the Sempervirens Fund, a Los Altos, California-based land preservation group. The Bohemian Club will take on its critics, including the Sierra Club, at a public hearing before the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection as early as next month. For two decades, the Bohemian Club used short-term permits to cut an average of 500,000 board feet of lumber a year. In May 2006, the board petitioned the forestry department for the right to harvest about twice that much annually in perpetuity. The club doesn't think enough trees are being cut down to reduce the fire risk sufficiently, Osterling says. It wants the right in perpetuity because obtaining short-term permits is time-consuming. The Bohemians won't touch old-growth stands, where some trees are more than 1,000 years old, unless they are sick or on the verge of collapse, he says. Proceeds of the lumber sales will be used for forest management, Osterling says. A million board feet would sell for about $253,000, based on current prices for January lumber futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Outsiders as well as members are divided on whether thinning the trees will hurt or help. Philip Rundel, distinguished professor of biology at the University of California, Los Angeles, says removing trees may backfire. Opening gaps in a mature redwood forest encourages growth of small, flammable plants, creating ``fuel ladders'' that allow fire to spread, he says. California politicians disagree about the plan. Assemblywoman Patty Berg, whose district includes Monte Rio, says it could undermine a valuable natural resource. Assemblyman Roger Niello, a Bohemian Club member, says he supports the proposal. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103 & sid=a5c73co5CkN0 & refer=us Montana: 11) The Big Sky Coalition is moving forward with legislation, hopes to participate on the Bitterroot National Forest's restoration committee, and may seek to launch education campaigns directed at East Coast and West Coast environmentalists, organizers told the Chronicle Tuesday. The group, which characterizes itself as " environmentalists with common sense, " drew an eye-popping 650 people to a public informational meeting in Hamilton earlier this month, with the crowd overwhelmingly in support of increased logging on the national forests as a way to mitigate catastrophic wildfires. The group has already received over $10,500 in donations. The summer's smoke in the valley--again--frustrated a lot of Bitterrooters, explained organizer Tom Robak. " After the smoke started to die down, we spent a lot of time talking to people, and everybody had the same message---this is getting old. We need to try something different. " He and his wife Charlotte decided to rent the county fairgrounds, advertise a meeting, and find out if other people felt the same way. " We have no ties to the logging industry. We're not loggers. Let's find out what would happen if we did that. " The first guy he approached wrote a check for $3,000, Tom said. " I went, 'Wow, I guess I've got to do this now.' " Organizer Sonny LaSalle explained, " This is just not the timber industry saying, 'We need more logs.' This is the common everyday citizen saying, 'I'm tired of the situation the way it is. It's only going to get worse and we want something done.' We believe there is something that can be done, and that the silent majority needs to become the vocal majority. " That silent majority has felt disenfranchised and helpless, he said, watching from the sidelines while the courts and Forest Service interact only with litigants. " We in the Coalition honestly believe there are things we can do, and the way we can do it is by speaking with one large voice to our elected officials at the state and the national levels. " http://www.clarkforkchronicle.com/article.php/20071128124546340 12) In attempt to divvy up lands on the BDNF, the Montana Wilderness Association (MWA), National Wildlife Federation (NWF), and Trout Unlimited (TU) have reached a joint agreement with representatives of the timber industry and other interest groups called the Beaverhead Deerlodge Partnership (BDP). With the support of these conservation groups, this plan proposes logging up to 730,000 acres of the BDNF in exchange for timber industry support of 570,000 acres of new wilderness areas. Not only is this proposal a tripling of logging over what the BDNF originally determined as suitable for timber cutting in its forest plan, but it also involves potential entry into 200,000 acres of roadless lands. The BDP is based upon false premises. To justify this increased logging, these conservation groups have adopted the pejorative language of the timber industry, including words such as " unhealthy " forests, " catastrophic " fires, and other terms that feed public misconceptions about our forests and associated natural processes like wildfire and periodic insect population increases. And in what can only be called Orwellian, these conservation groups also support increased logging to fund rehabilitation of past, present and future logging impacts. This is like advocating the construction of casinos and using their profits to fund rehabilitation of gamblers. Nearly all of the roadless lands proposed for wilderness lie outside of what the FS considers the suitable timber base. In other words, the timber industry would never get to log these lands anyway. With the full complicity of the MWA, TU, and NWF, the timber industry is getting access to more logs than they could even get from the Forest Service, while giving up virtually nothing by supporting wilderness. http://www.counterpunch.org/wuerthner11292007.html Minnesota: 13) Forestry consultant Justin Miller was on site when the MDOT heavy equipment operators found themselves dredging up more logs than sand. Miller, who had been preparing a management plan for the forested sections of Myllyla's property, was a 2000 graduate of Michigan Technological University's School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, and he knew just whom to call. " I'll rush right down and take a look, " James Schmierer responded. The forester from Michigan Tech was there within 24 hours. What he saw amazed him. " We find a lot of trees lying on the forest floor, but this was the first time I've seen so many trees thousands of years old and so well preserved in the soil, " he said. Dozens were tangled together, some of them 20 feet long and more than 2 feet in diameter. " What could bury a whole forest 15 feet underground? " Schmierer wondered. " It had to be a single catastrophic, violent event, and it must have happened a long time ago for 15 feet of soil to build up. " Schmierer and his colleague, Michael Hyslop, a GIS analyst and instructor of geomorphology and vegetation at Michigan Tech, speculate that the trees were either transported or mowed down by the last glacier to move across the Keweenaw, before Lake Superior covered the peninsula. " That would make them more than 10,000 years old, " he said. Schmierer and Hyslop have recovered some of the logs and are hoping to carbon-date them. Schmierer also hopes to identify the species of tree. " If I had to guess, I'd say it was an elm, " said Miller, " but I really don't know. I'll be real curious to find out how old they are and what species. " Schmierer plans to make two displays from chunks of the ancient trees, one to put on exhibit at Alberta Village, the Michigan Tech School of Forestry's field site, and the other for the atrium of the U.J. Noblet Forestry Building on campus. " And Michigan Tech is going to give me one as a momento, " said Myllyla. http://www.terradaily.com/reports/A_Prehistoric_Forest_Emerges_From_A_Farmer_Pon\ d_999.html Maryland: 14) The U.S. Army will cut nearly 300 acres of forest to move sensitive departments at Fort Meade closer to the installation's center and expand for incoming military employees. The Army released its final report on how it will accommodate nearly 6,000 new jobs and an additional 5 million square feet of office space accompanying the Base Realignment and Closure program. The report listed environmental impacts, disturbance of wildlife and transportation as the most significant negative effects new construction will create. The Army wants to build over its two golf courses in the center of the fort to make way for the new employees and buildings and to provide better security. But all golf is not lost — Fort Meade will build two new golf courses on 367 acres of wooded property near Route 175. The Department of the Interior suggested the Army use golf courses in Anne Arundel and limit development by private contractors, but the Army said the number of golfers would be too great to share the county's golf courses, according to the report released Monday. The Army plans to mitigate the effect with stormwater management practices approved by the Maryland Department of Environment. The Army also will monitor nutrients from the golf course entering the watershed of the neighboring Patuxent Wildlife Refuge. " Use of this land as a golf course rather than as a site for construction of new facilities still strikes us as the most responsible use of the space, " said fort spokesman Travis Edwards, who added that the golf courses fund youth services at the fort. http://www.examiner.com/a-1072621~Army_to_raze_forests_at_Meade.html?cid=rss-Bal\ timore New York: 15) A study by Indiana University researchers found the chlorinated flame retardant Dechlorane Plus in the bark of trees across the northeastern United States, with by far the highest concentrations measured near the Niagara Falls, N.Y., factory where this chemical is produced. The study, by Xinghua Qui and Ronald A. Hites of the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs, was published online last week by the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Hites is a Distinguished Professor and director of the Environmental Science Research Center at SPEA; Qui is a postdoctoral research scientist. Hites said the study demonstrates that tree bark can be used as nature's own passive sampling device for detecting the presence and relative concentrations of chemicals in the air. Rough, porous and high in lipids, tree bark soaks up airborne gases and particles, then keeps them protected from the elements. The study, " Dechlorane Plus and Other Flame Retardants in Tree Bark from the Northeastern United States, " provides the first data on the prevalence of the chemical in the atmosphere outside of the Great Lakes area. It identifies the epicenter of DP concentrations as being near the factory where the chemical is produced by OxyChem (Occidental Petroleum Corp.). Concentrations in tree bark within a few miles of the factory were several thousand times higher than those found in bark at more distant sampling sites, including Indiana, Virginia and Maryland. http://www.treehugger.com2007/11/northeastern_us_1.php Georgia: 16) Mountaintown is a special place in the Chattahoochee National Forest. It contains the headwaters for Mountaintown Creek, one of Georgia's premier trout streams. The area is marked by steep ravines, many creeks, rare plants and old-growth forests. Mountaintown is a popular destination for traditional hunting, camping and fishing. From the 1960s to 1996, the U.S. Forest Service was busily building hundreds of miles of roads and clear-cutting thousands of acres of our public forest. Here in Gilmer County, many landowners downstream of these " improvements " were outraged as streams ran red with mud, old hunting and fishing haunts were ruined by clear-cuts and the agency wouldn't even maintain its logging roads. The Forest Service was not a good neighbor, prompting concern about the future of special areas like Mountaintown. Forest planning rolled around in 1997, and for five years we understood that Mountaintown was included in the plan as " Wilderness Study, " indicating agency support for designating the area as wilderness. At the end of the planning process, the agency dropped the " Wilderness Study " designation. Local folks were very disappointed. Before long, we saw growing momentum for something to be done to permanently protect Mountaintown. It was not long before a local resolution for protection garnered more than 900 signatures. Regular citizens and local leaders alike were realizing the new role national forests were coming to play for our changing North Georgia economy. Traditional uses like hunting and fishing continued, but many new folks were coming to our area to recreate, to build second homes, to retire, to start new businesses. Citizens realized special areas should stay special. Deal was approached and suggested we hold a town hall meeting and engage the U.S. Forest Service one last time. The agency's position did not budge, but nearly 200 folks attended the town hall meeting, most in support of further protection. Deal listened to the local residents and is working with them to protect Mountaintown as a National Scenic Area. That means no new roads, no commercial timber harvest. Hunters and fishermen, hikers and campers, nature lovers and anyone who just wants to walk in and get away from their hectic life will find a place of beauty and solitude for contemplating the Creator's handiwork. The Scenic bill will maintain the area as it is and preserve it for future generations. http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/11/29/mountainsed_1130.h\ tml Canada: 17) Just three weeks into the job, Natural Resources Minister Donna Cansfield has angered environmentalists over whether to curb, or even ban, logging in Algonquin Provincial Park. She'll probably come under more pressure next week, when provincial environmental commissioner Gord Miller releases his annual report. Although it's not usually evident to the million or so people who camp, canoe or hike each year in Ontario's oldest park, trees can be cut down and hauled out of more than three-quarters of the popular " wilderness " preserve. While logging areas and seasons are separated as much as possible from tourist routes, " it's not a park with logging in it; it's an industrial zone that permits canoeing, " says Evan Ferrari, of CPAWS Wildlands League, an advocacy group – and chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society – originally formed to preserve the park.Current practices threaten birds, animals and old-growth trees in the 763,000-hectare park, four hours' drive north of Toronto, he said in an interview yesterday.The league and other groups want Cansfield to change a policy that's been a cornerstone of the park since it was created in 1892.The province, they say, should at least adopt a recent recommendation from the Ontario Parks Board, a government agency, that the area protected from logging be increased from 22 per cent to 54 per cent. The move would allow logging to continue at its current rate, but in a smaller area, the board said in a report made public last May. The Algonquin Forestry Authority, the crown corporation that allocates cutting areas in the park to forestry companies, said it supports a protected area only slightly smaller than what the board proposed. http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/280575 UK: 18) It may be cold and damp with a chill wind in the air, but Brian and Jill Woodward's sheltered clearing in the middle of their woodland is always warm and welcoming. This is where they set up camp and cook bacon and eggs on the stove. Sometimes they just sit in silence, watching the wildlife and marvelling at nature. There are deer in their woods and squirrels, as well as butterflies and birds including woodpeckers, wrens and ravens. There are foxgloves, bluebells, bilberries and blackberries and a host of wild mushrooms. It is their sanctuary, an escape from the pressures of everyday life. " It is good for your mind, to go somewhere different away from work and the house and the garden, where there are always things you have to do, and just switch off, " says Jill. The self-employed leather workers are part of a growing band of people buying their own small patch of woodland - with prices starting at about £5,000 an acre - purely for pleasure. It's a way of ensuring that previously neglected woods are cared for, although not all woodland experts agree that dividing up huge areas in this way is the best way to protect biodiversity. Brian and Jill bought the wood, at Brancepeth, near Durham, from Woodlands.co.uk, a company which specialises in buying larger woodlands and parcelling them into smaller plots to sell to individuals. The company's North of England manager, Dan Watson, has seen sales more than double over the past three years. He has sold about 70 small woods in the North in the last six years, including 20 recently in Durham and at Wynyard, near Billingham. Dan feels buyers like the idea of owning a part of the great British countryside. " Most of all, they are buying for the love of the woods, " he says. But it is also an investment opportunity. " Previously, people who had some disposable income might have bought a house as an investment, but now that is beyond most people's reach. Instead of buying stocks and shares, conservation-minded families see it as a medium to long term investment while being able to use and enjoy it as well. " http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/features/leader/display.var.1868046.0.the_wo\ odlanders.php 19) Planting more trees could be the key to cutting CO2 emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, according to a new scientific study. Between 1990 and 2005 the expansion of forests in the 27 EU countries absorbed an additional 126m tonnes of carbon each year - equal to 11 per cent of the continent's emissions. The findings stunned a research team from the University of Helsinki who had in 1992 estimated the rate of increase of CO2 absorption through the expansion of forests at no more than 5 per cent. " This shows that forests have been more important than switching to renewables in combating carbon emissions. Renewables have a part to play but they don't have as big a role as forests, " said Professor Pekka E Kauppi who led the research. The researchers, writing in UK journal Energy Policy, said meeting the ambitious goal would require more than energy efficiency, new technology and reduction of non-CO2 gasses such as methane. Giving carbon credit for expansion of forests could also play a decisive role. The performance of the forests as effective carbon sinks rate varied from 10 per cent in the 15 old member states - Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, UK - to 15 per cent in the 12 new states (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia). In Latvia forests more than offset per capita emissions and forests in Lithuania, Sweden, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Finland absorbed a large part of national emissions. But it did not have such a big impact on lightly-forested countries such as Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Cyprus and Denmark. Last year Prof. Kauppi and his international team revealed the shift from clearing to planting trees in the world's most forested nations. They urged a more sophisticated approach to measuring forest cover that considered not just the area of forest but also the density of trees per hectare. The team calculated the biomass and atmospheric carbon stored in forests and reported that forests had in fact expanded over the past 15 years in 22 of the 50 countries with most forest, including several EU members. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml;jsessionid=WW44VN03JFY4NQFIQMFSFFWAV\ CBQ0IV0?xml=/ear th/2007/11/29/eaforest129.xml Czechoslovakia: 20) An announcement made by Agriculture Minister Petr Gandalovic on Friday was surprising: the government, he said, was considering selling off some of the country's state-owned forests to private companies. I spoke to Vojtech Kotecky of the Friends of the Earth organisation, which is very much against the idea. " I think it would be bad for sustainable management of Czech forests because it would substantially limit the government's ability to promote more non-productive functions of our forest, like recreation or promotion of biological diversity. " Q: So it would be difficult to control the private companies in terms of nature protection. A: " The problem is that the government can set standards in forestry law for sustainable management. If the government owns the forests it can put sustainable limits over timber production and it can use management practices that wouldn't be used in purely commercial forestry. For example to improve the health of our forests we need to reduce clear cutting and replace it with more sustainable harvesting methods. " Q: So what do you think are the main reasons behind the decision to privatise the forests? A: " It seems that it is an immediate reaction of the minister to the chaos within the commercial relationships between the state forest company and private companies which provide it with services such as logging trees. There have been long-term conflicts over those contracts and many contractors sued the state forest company. Now it seems that the minister wants to avoid future discussion over the relationship between state forest and private contractors with simply selling the state forest. " Q: If the forests were in private hands, will it in any way limit the access of the public to the forests? A: " No, the problem is not with the access of the public to the forests. We have the right to roam and everybody has got a right to enter private forest land. There has always been a tradition of state forests in the Czech Republic and no-one ever questioned that. And actually I don't think that this proposal will be successful because it would meet with very strong reaction from the public and from the political parties. " http://www.radio.cz/en/article/98066 Ecuador: 21) BBC Television Newsnight has been able to get close-in film of a new Cofan Indian ritual deep in the heart of the Amazonian rainforest. Known as " The Filing of the Law Suit, " natives of Ecuador's jungle, decked in feathers and war paint and heavily armed with lawyers, are filmed presenting a new complaint in their litigation seeking $12 billion from Chevron Inc., the international oil goliath. It would all be a poignant joke - except that the indigenous tribe is suddenly the odds-on favorite to defeat the oil company known for naming its largest tanker, " Condoleezza, " after former Chevron director, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. For Newsnight, reporter Greg Palast, steps (somewhat inelegantly) into a dug-out log canoe to seek out the Cofan in their rainforest village to investigate their allegations. Palast discovers stinking pits of old oil drilling residue leaking into drinking water - and meets farmers whose limbs are covered in pustules. The Cofan's leader, Emergildo Criollo, tells Palast that when Texaco Oil, now part of Chevron, came to the village in 1972, it obtained permission to drill by offering the Indians candy and cheese. The indigenous folk threw the funny-selling cheese into the jungle. Criollo says his three-year son died from oil contamination after, " He went swimming, then began vomiting blood. " Flying out of the rainforest, past the Andes volcanoes, Palast gets the other side of the story in Ecuador's capitol, Quito. " It's the largest fraud in history! " asserts Chevron lawyer Jaime Varela reacting to the Cofan law suits against his company. Chevron-Texaco, Varela insists, cleaned up all its contaminated oil pits when it abandoned the country nearly 15 years ago - except those pits it left in the hands of Ecuador's own state oil company. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0711/S00417.htm Argentina: 22) Pressure exerted by civil society and the creation of a compensation fund were crucial in securing the passage of a national law suspending all logging in native forests in Argentina, until such time as each province has a land use plan defining forest areas to remain untouched, and those that may be developed. In the early hours of Thursday morning, the lower chamber unanimously approved the law on minimum environmental protection standards for native forests, which had been passed by the senate a week earlier, with amendments. It took the bill 18 months to make it through Congress. Provincial governments will not be able to grant logging permits for one year, and if they delay their land use plan, for which strict guidelines are given in the text of the law, the suspension will be extended. " This is a huge stride, we have overcome a giant hurdle, and now we have a very good instrument " to protect the forests, Hernán Giardini, coordinator of the forest campaign in Greenpeace Argentina, which spearheaded the lobbying for the law together with some 30 other environmental and social organisations, told IPS. Native forests in this country covered 127 million hectares a century ago, but now there are only 31 million hectares, mainly because of the uncontrolled expansion of the agricultural frontier. According to satellite images provided by the Secretariat of the Environment and Sustainable Development, 300,000 hectares of forest are being lost every year. The draft law ran into heavy resistance from lawmakers from northern provinces, such as Salta, Misiones, Chaco and Santiago del Estero, who are in favour of maintaining the right to exploit the forests, even in nature reserves or areas lived in by indigenous peoples who depend on forest resources. In May 2006, a preliminary draft was submitted by Greenpeace, the Argentine Wildlife Foundation (FVSA) and the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN), among other organisations, with the goal of declaring a one-year moratorium on logging. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40277 Brazil: 23) The Amazon rainforest can withstand climate change and can help to mend the global climate as long as enough forest cover is protected, scientists said. Previous computer simulations by the Meteorological Office's Hadley Centre suggested that if global average temperatures rose more than 3ºC - the amount predicted by the end of this century - the Amazon forest would be likely to dry out and the rainfall in the region would drop. Researchers say there is mounting scientific evidence that intact Amazon forests are more resilient to drying out than was previously suggested because of their deep root systems and because plants would acclimatise to increased temperatures and lack of water. However, where fragmentation and clearing has already occurred, forests are more vulnerable to drying out and the spread of fires, according to an article in the journal Science. Scientists calculated that the zone with the highest drought risk is in the south east, with a 70-80 per cent risk, while the risk of drying out in the west is only 20 per cent. Prof Yadvinder Malhi from Oxford university, which led the research with the Met Office in conjunction with some of the world's leading experts on the Amazon, said: " The latest science points to intact rainforests being fairly resistant to a possibly drier 21st century climate in the eastern half of Amazonia. " However, this resistance breaks down when the forests are opened up and fragmented by roads, logging and agriculture, and become vulnerable to fires. Once burnt, a forest becomes even more vulnerable to the risk of fires. " Once the forest starts breaking up, rainfall in the region is likely to decline. Hence maintaining sufficient forest cover in Amazonia is an effective means of protecting the region from climate change, as well as directly contributing to slowing down global warming. " Scientists involved in writing the paper will be among the experts attending next week's UN conference in Bali next week where new financial mechanisms for funding the protection of standing forest will be high on the agenda. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/29/eaforest229.xm\ l 24) Dr. Josef Kellndorfer, who is leading the project for the Center, says, " The Japanese Space Agency JAXA has launched an amazing sensor which exhibits unprecedented geometric and radiometric accuracies allowing us to generate high quality cloud free radar image mosaics with nearly no user interaction required. The ALOS observation plan will ensure, that these high-resolution data are acquired several times per year for years to come. With a strong sensitivity of the ALOS radar imaging sensor to vegetation structure, this marks a new era in remote sensing of natural resources. " The image mosaic is a composite of 116 individual scenes acquired by the Phased Array L-Band SAR (PALSAR) carried on board ALOS. The acquisition was made over the Xingu basin in Mato Grosso, Brazil, between June 8 and July 22, 2007. From the mosaic, Dr. Kellndorfer's group has generated a preliminary land cover classification with emphasis on producing an accurate forest/nonforest map. In the forested areas, the sensitivity of the PALSAR data to differences in aboveground biomass is also being investigated in collaboration with the Amazon Institute of Environmental Research (IPAM). " The area that is mapped with the mosaic of images centers on the headwaters of the Xingu River, one of the Amazon's mighty tributaries. The indigenous groups, soy farmers, smallholders, and ranchers that live in this region are top candidates to receive payments for reducing their carbon emissions. Where this has previously taken us several months to prepare, this new mosaic took only a few days, a turnaround window that carries real significance. " says Woods Hole Research Center senior scientist Daniel Nepstad. http://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/ALOS/index.htm 25) Perhaps the most cogent discussion in " The Perfect Storm in the Amazon " is the recognition that deforestation is caused by individuals responding to economic opportunity. The desire of the individual to make money is often made to look like avarice, but the people involved have a completely different perception of their actions. They feel that they are building a nation and know they are supporting their families; even agro-industrial magnates are convinced they do well by providing jobs to rural and urban populations. To save the Amazon, society must provide economically attractive alternatives to individuals rather than invoking ecological disaster or moral reprobation. Working with communities is essential, but ignoring the motivations that govern the actions of the individual will lead – indeed, has led – to failure. So how to create a new development paradigm for the Amazon, one that embraces both the utilitarian and utopian scenarios described earlier? The focus must be on economic growth, job creation and forest conservation. Some of these ideas have been around for decades but are now proposed in the context of an integrated regional transportation system and access to global markets. The more notable examples include long-rotational forest management, fish farming and tourism, as well as the potential for replicating the experience of Manaus to create urban economies based on technology and services. The capital of Brazil's Amazonas State, Manaus is home to a number of mobile phone manufacturing plants. The potential for biofuels is a double-edged sword. Biofuels can transform the productive capacity of approximately 65 m hectares of previously deforested land, or lead to a massive new deforestation cycle if the current development paradigm is replicated along the transportation corridors planned by IIRSA. http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/opinion/32013 Japan: 26) Ornamental cherry trees all over the Japanese archipelago have been blossoming unseasonably this fall, according to local media reports. A few sakura trees—as they are known in Japan—bloom in fall most years. But with more blossoms appearing earlier this year, there is concern that climate change is affecting a much-loved national symbol of spring. The popular Somei Yoshino variety of cherry tree produces buds in mid-summer, but a hormone in the leaves causes the buds to hibernate. When the leaves fall from the tree in spring, the flowers blossom, creating for a few short days a brilliant cloud of white to pale pink blooms. If the tree loses its leaves prematurely for any reason while the weather is warm, the buds may bloom early—and once they have bloomed, they won't flower again that year.According to Hiroyuki Wada, chief researcher at the Flower Association of Japan, this year a number of factors have contributed to cherry trees' early leaf loss. One was an unusually dry, hot summer followed by a severe typhoon that stripped many trees of their leaves. Another was a warm, late fall that allowed leaf-eating cherry caterpillars and fall webworms to flourish. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/11/071127-cherry-blossoms.html 27) The speakers maintained an air of authority as they spoke scientifically and bureaucratically about forest management. The volunteers were left to listen and shuffle through a small mountain of paper. By lunchtime all of us were itching to get outside--not so much to be in the forest (as was the supposed goal of the day)--but just out of sure boredom. After lunch we did finally begin our small trek up to the bamboo forests at the top of what is known as Tennozan mountain. At the foot of the mountain was a shrine whose bright orange paint managed to pierce through the blazing red of the Japanese maples. Bamboo stands also resided near the shrine and we visited a makeshift studio used by local volunteers (exclusively middle-aged men) to make various trinkets using the trees they have harvested--and also, presumably, to escape their wives and children for an afternoon. About halfway up the mountain the bamboo forest gave way, quite starkly, to stands of akamatsu (red pine). A few more vertical meters, followed by a sharp turn to the south, brought us back into the bamboo forest. Stands on one side off the small mountain path were clean and spaced so that someone walking with an opened umbrella could make their way through, while those on the other were crowded and strewn with deadfall. I saw several trees marked with a Japanese sa, which I latter learned stood for sa-n-to-ri (Suntory), the local beer brewery. After about a half an hour's walk we gathered within the bamboo to listen to instructions from an experienced forester. The forester was an 82 year old gentleman who had lived his entire life in a house near the base of the mountain. He talked to us about the history of the forest, how bamboo had not even existed in the location until after the war, and stressed the need for thinning. As he began to discuss felling techniques, I looked around and saw the markings of wild boar that had been digging for takenoko (bamboo shoots)--a local delicacy for boars and humans alike. The old forester exhibited how to fell a bamboo tree, and how to use ropes in order to release it from the grasp of neighboring branches and gently slip it to the ground. Next, each of the volunteers had a chance to fell a couple of trees. After each tree fell we stripped its branches and cut it into 2-3 meter lengths, which we stacked on existing piles. Having volunteered two weeks in a row now, I can tell you that it is great fun to fell trees. After our destructive tendencies were satiated we made our way back down the mountain, cleaned saws, and said our goodbyes. http://ericjc.blogspot.com/2007/11/spirit-and-forests.html Australia: 28) The Greens Leader, Senator Bob Brown, is considering a High Court challenge after a decision by the Federal Court today to overturn a ban on logging in Tasmania's Wielangta State Forest. Last year the Federal Court ruled that logging the forest was illegal because it impacted on 3 threatened species. Forestry Tasmania appealed against the decision. Today a full bench of the Federal Court unanimously decided in favour of the forestry company. The court said because the forestry operations were done in accord with the Regional Forestry Agreement they were exempt from the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Senator Brown says his battle to save the forest from logging is not over. " Let me make this unequivocal, " he said. " We will continue to pursue this matter of defending Tasmania's great forests and their wildlife in the courts, in the political arena and in the public arena and in the forests. " http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/30/2106640.htm 29) Forestry Tasmania has received a $25,000 fine for logging in the wrong area of the Arve Loop Forest Reserve in May. Forestry says the overcut was not intentional and was caused by a combination of equipment malfunction, human error and failure to follow correct protocols for boundary marking. The Tasmanian Greens leader Peg Putt says slapdash logging without accurate boundary markings is unpardonable. The Greens say the only way to keep reserves safe is to have a buffer zone between the reserve and logging operations. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/30/2105724.htm 30) The Weld Valley and the Upper Florentine bordering the World Heritage Area will be the main focus of this summer's conservation efforts, environment groups say. Alongside direct action will be efforts to lobby the World Heritage Committee, which is due to visit the state next March. Activists want the World Heritage Area extended to include adjacent areas of high conservation value which are in danger of being logged. The Wilderness Society aims to have 500,000 hectares added to the state's protected forests. " The Wilderness Society isn't organising any forest protests at the moment, but there are some obvious flashpoints when it comes to other groups and other individuals as well as the Upper Florentine and also the Weld, " spokesman Geoff Law said. " Those are the two obvious ones, simply from the point of view of where protests have occurred in the past and also Forestry Tasmania's proposed logging operations. " He said lobbying of the newly elected Labor Federal Government would be a high priority. " We'll wait and see who the environment minister is and then start putting our position to them and see how we go. " The Wilderness Society proposal is to extend the Tasmanian wilderness World Heritage Area to include adjacent areas of unlogged wilderness forests -- that includes places in the Florentine and the Weld as well as a number of other valleys. " If you look at the proposals statewide it adds up to approximately 500,000 hectares of additional formal reserves. " Jenny Webber from the Huon Valley Environment Centre said her group would be keeping a watching brief on the Weld Valley. " There's a proposed bridge going over the Weld River that Forestry Tasmania wants to build and that's a huge concern for the Huon Valley Environment Centre. " That will access a huge unprotected wilderness area which is of world heritage value. " http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,22835252-3462,00.html World-wide: 31) Hao said deforestation fires - 80 percent of which occur in tropical areas in South America, Africa and Southeast Asia - send a destructive ripple effect through the world's ecosystems. That ripple threatens human health, air and water quality, the atmosphere and global climate, he said. The IPCC, which formed in 1988, was established by two governmental bodies, the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program. The panel's role was to assess the best available scientific and socioeconomic information on climate change around the world. The panel was divided into three main groups of 200 individuals each, with headquarters in Colorado, England and the Netherlands. Running, a well-known ecologist and climate-change expert at UM, was a lead author for his part of the project, which researched the effects of global warming on North America. Hao, a soft-spoken man who is lesser known outside the science community, also was a lead author. His chapter focused on coming up with a methodology to quantify nitrous oxide, methane and other greenhouse gases produced by fires in different ecosystems. It took Hao a year to compile and synthesize the material into eight pages for the IPCC report. Hao, 54, a native of Taiwan, received his doctorate from Harvard University and worked for a time in Germany, where he first studied the then-emerging field of fire chemistry. Hao said he hopes his research promotes public understanding of how people are contributing to climate change. But he said he didn't have any solutions for stopping deforestation burning, which is done by both impoverished peasants and wealthy corporations. He said his role was to provide sound science to help policy-makers find the answers. " How do we tell them to stop the burning? " he said. " It's part of their life. The people doing it understand the consequences of what they're doing, but the economic reality is they just keep doing it. " http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/11/25/news/mtregional/znews06.txt 32) Predators chomp them up at alarming rates. Human development has consumed their forest habitats. And, most alarmingly, says Texas A & M University parrot specialist Don Brightsmith, demand from bird collectors has created a thriving market in wild-caught birds. " Rarity and beauty all contribute to the desire to have new and cool birds, " said Brightsmith, who recently came to A & M's Schubot Exotic Bird Center. As a result, more than one-quarter of the world's parrot species are threatened with extinction, according to BirdLife International. The threat to the colorful, talkative birds comes as scientists have only just begun to seriously study and understand them. Among the mysteries that scientists such as Brightsmith are trying to understand is why some South American parrots eat dirt. Understanding this peculiar behavior is key, he said, because bird trappers grab parrots at clay licks, where hundreds can congregate at a time. There are two primary theories about why parrots eat soil. The first says that the birds eat soil to get minerals they need, most notably sodium. Most of the food eaten by parrots has about half the salt content of iceberg lettuce. But at tall river banks in South America, parrots can tap into clay licks that contain as much sodium per bite as salted french fries from McDonald's. At the Tambopata Research Center in Peru, which Brightsmith often visits, as many as 1,700 birds show up at the site each day. Mothers also carry sodium-rich soil to their nests to feed babies. " As a biologist, when you first see this in person, you're like 'Wow, something really, really special is going on here,' " Brightsmith said. There's a second possible explanation for the behavior: Birds consume the soil to help clear toxins from their body that they ingest from other parts of their diet. Compounding the mystery is that some birds regularly eat at the clay licks, but some never do. Scientists have only recently begun rigorous study of parrots, Brightsmith said, because their habitats are typically remote. But now, among other developments, new technology has enabled scientists to study birds in their habitats atop the rain forest tree canopies. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5327936.html 33) The Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said the mass tree planting, inspired by Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai, will help mitigate effects of pollution and environmental deterioration. " An initiative to catalyze the pledging and the planting of one billion trees has achieved and indeed surpassed its mark. It is a further sign of the breathtaking momentum witnessed this year on the challenge for this generation -- climate change, " UNEP chief Achim Steiner said in a statement. " Millions if not billions of people around this world want an end to pollution and environmental deterioration and have rolled up their sleeves and got their hands dirty to prove the point, " he added. UNEP said the total number of trees planted is still being collated, but developing countries top the list with more than 700 million and 217 million planted in Ethiopia and Mexico respectively. Ethiopia's high demand for fuel wood and land for cropping and grazing has slashed its forest cover from about 35 percent of its landmass in the early 20th century to just 4.2 percent by 2000, environmentalist say. Others planters include: Turkey 150 million, Kenya 100 million, Cuba 96.5 million, Rwanda 50 million, South Korea 43 million, Tunisia 21 million, Morocco 20 million, Myanmar 20 million and Brazil 16 million. Maathai's Green Belt Movement planted 4.7 million trees, double the number it had initially pledged, according to UNEP. The army has participated in re-afforestation drives in Kenya and Mexico. http://www.terradaily.com/reports/More_than_a_billion_trees_planted_in_2007_UN_9\ 99.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.