Guest guest Posted January 25, 2008 Report Share Posted January 25, 2008 Today for you 37 new articles about earth's trees! (285th edition) Subscribe / send blank email to: earthtreenews- Weblog: http://olyecology.livejournal.com --Malawi: 1) Trees for cans --Guyana: 2) Conservation International's saves 200,000 acres --Brazil: 3) When the Amazon floods, 4) Biggest year of logging now underway, --India: 5) Gujarat's coastline plans to host 10 shipyards, 6) Plant saplings in memory of loved ones, 7) 4.7% is protected, 8) Views of N. India, 9) Sandalwood coffin making, --Kashmir: 10) Legislators blame government for not enforcing forest laws --Japan: 11) Lying about its pulp source, 12) 30 months for mass theft, 13) Garden city, --Taiwan: 14) Expanding forests around Taiwan --Cambodia: 15) US bans Cambodian forest officials --Thailand: 16) Ecology Monks protect and honor with ribbons, 17) New corridors, --Vietnam: 18) 3,500 incidents of illegal logging, 19) Wild apricot blossom harvesting, --Papua New Guinea: 20) Don't amend forestry act --Papua: 21) He wants to preserve 7 million ha --Indonesia: 22) Failing Teak plantations, 23) Orangutan orphans, 24) Greenomics Indonesia, 25) RM1 billion for creating 375,000 hectares, 26) Aceh reconstruction ruin, --Borneo: 27) Anatomy of a rainforest --Sumatra: 28) Put more focus on " regreening " programs --Philippines: 29) DENR involved in massive illegal logging --New Zealand: 30) Bank facing severe criticism over funding loggers --Australia: 31) 85% of rare forest harvest turned to pulp, 32) Protest Huon valley, --Northern Hemisphere: 33) Wood-decay fungus --Australia: 34) Poor countries trampled by huge environmental footprints of the rich, 35) Plantations not worthy of carbon credits, 36) Extinction stats, 37) Deforesting the Earth, Malawi: 1) A FRUIT tree will be planted in Malawi for every tonne of aluminium drinks cans and foil recycled in Ribble Valley over the next two years. Ribble Valley Borough Council has signed up to a scheme launched by aluminium recycling organisation Alupro and British charity Ripple Africa, aimed at tackling de-forestation and establishing new fruit drying and juicing businesses. Ribble Valley Borough Council's waste management officer, Peter McGeorge, said: " As recycling aluminium is 20 times more efficient than making it from the raw material, bauxite, recycling drinks cans and foil saves large amounts of energy and thanks to this scheme will also contribute towards planting 85,000 trees in rural Malawi. " The potential for this scheme to make a real difference to building a sustainable future in Malawi is enormous. At the moment, the only fruit trees in the area are imported in small numbers from South Africa, so combining a good source of fruit tree stock with training at Ripple Africa's demonstration nursery is going to help a lot of people. http://www.clitheroeadvertiser.co.uk/clitheroenews/Fruit-trees-planted-in-.36989\ 99.jp Guyana: 2) The goal of Conservation International's renewable 30-year agreement with the Guyana Forestry Commission is to protect 200,000 acres of rainforest from logging and other destructive development–a conservation concession rather than a timber concession. Through contributions and product sales, Save Your World™ helps pay the annual lease fees required to maintain the agreement. " We are pleased to accomplish saving nearly a quarter of a million acres of rainforest, and want to thank eco-conscious consumers and all our retail distribution partners including Whole Foods Market and Vitamin Shoppes, as well as local and regional partners Mollie Stone's in San Francisco, Fruitful Yield Health Foods in Chicago, and Wild Birds Unlimited of Michigan and Florida for helping to achieve this goal, " said Save Your World's President, Scott Cecil. " The project has been an enormous success with the government and people of Guyana because, for the first time, they haven't had to choose between conservation and economic development, which is a real plus for a country like Guyana, one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere, " said Dick Rice, Chief Economist at Conservation International. Rice recently visited Guyana with Save Your World's President Scott Cecil to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the historic rainforest agreement, one of the first of its kind in the world. Attendees celebrating the event included Guyana's Prime Minister Hon. Samuel A. Hinds, and Guyana's Forestry Commissioner James Singh. While in Guyana, Cecil and Rice discussed potential expansion plans for 2008. Save Your World's new goal is to expand the area under protection to 500,000 acres by the end of 2010. Dr. Phil Willink of the Chicago Field Museum's Fish Division accompanied the group and observed, " The aquatic ecosystems of the Upper Essequibo Conservation Concession are one of the most pristine, if not the most pristine, on the planet. Biodiversity is high, with many species unique to the watershed or new to science. It is imperative that we act quickly as pristine areas are disappearing quickly around the planet, so it is critical to learn about them before they are altered. " http://world-wire.com/news/0801230001.html Brazil: 3) During the rainy season, the Amazon River may rise as much as 30 feet. When it floods into the surrounding forest, strange things happen. If you could take a trip on this great South American river, you'd see fish swimming through the trees, feeding on fruit. And, if you are very fortunate, you might witness a jaguar fishing with its tail. The Amazon is generally considered to be the second longest river in the world, after the Nile. It begins in the mountains of Peru and flows for some 4,000 miles through Brazil to the sea. This river carries 20 percent of the earth's fresh water to the Atlantic Ocean. In flood times, the river can expand to more than 25 miles wide. As you cruise through the flooded forest, you notice fish that seem to be trying to eat the trees. The jaraqui use their suction-cup lips to feed on snacks that have been deposited on tree trunks by the rising waters. Then, in the distance, a shock! Something has leapt out of the river toward a tree branch. Moving closer, you see that it is a " water monkey. " These large arawana fish can jump up to three feet to capture frogs and small birds from the trees. The tambaqui plays a different game. It swims under the branches and waits for fruit to fall. Then, plop! The fish darts to the surface and feeds. River people love these tasty fish. The traditional way to catch them is to hook fruit to fishing lines and flop it into the water. The jaguar uses the same method. It crouches by the river and slaps its tail on the surface. Hearing this, the tambaqui appears. The jaguar leaps for it, even diving to the bottom to pursue its lunch. Finally, the floodwaters recede. Fruit-fattened fish return to their homes, ready to spawn. But some remain. Killifish seek a puddle in wet leaves on the forest floor where they lay their eggs. The young will hatch during the next flood. Lungfish dig into the mud. They leave holes in the mud for breathing and wait for rainy days to return. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0124/p18s02-hfks.html 4) The Brazilian government has announced a huge rise in the rate of Amazon deforestation, months after celebrating its success in achieving a reduction. In the last five months of 2007, 3,235 sq km (1,250 sq miles) were lost. Gilberto Camara, of INPE, an institute that provides satellite imaging of the area, said the rate of loss was unprecedented for the time of year. Officials say rising commodity prices are encouraging farmers to clear more land to plant crops such as soya. The monthly rate of deforestation saw a big rise from 243 sq km (94 sq miles) in August to 948 sq km (366 sq miles) in December. " We've never before detected such a high deforestation rate at this time of year, " Mr Camara said. His concern, outlined during a news conference in Brasilia on Wednesday, was echoed by Environment Minister Marina Silva. Expensive soya Ms Silva said rising prices of raw materials and commodities could be spurring the rate of forest clearing, as more and more farmers saw the Amazon as a source of cheap land. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7206165.stm India: 5) Gujarat's coastline is all set to be flooded with investments worth thousands of crores of rupees as ten green-field ports, ten shipyards and a slew of other maritime projects have been cleared. But the regulator, Gujarat Maritime Board, is struggling to identify land to execute these projects? " We are facing severe difficulties in acquiring coastal land between Okha and Navlakhi where age-old ports existed and these areas overlap with recently notified forest areas. This includes the Marine National Park and other sanctuaries. " The letter adds that some of the areas were ports even before independence but no further development can take place since these areas are notified under Forest Conservation Act and Wild Life Protection Act. The issue was also taken up at the Maritime States Development Council (MSDC) meeting in Goa earlier this month. P N Roychowdhary, Gujarat principal secretary (forests and environment) said, " There are some old ports with forest land nearby but we will take up the cases on project-to-project basis. " But, he says, developers must remember that clearances will be required from the Supreme Court, Union Forests Ministry and state wildlife board, which may take time. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Ahmedabad/Denotify_forests_to_build_ports/art\ icleshow/27261 20.cms 6) In a bid to promote afforestation in unique manner, Madhya Pradesh forest department will soon develop a 'Smriti van' (memorial park) in Gwalior where people will be motivated to plant saplings in the memory of their dear ones. " The forest department was preparing special saplingss for starting the park. Once the saplings are planted, the department will take care of the park " , Minister of State for Forests Narayan Singh Kushwah said on Tuesday. Voicing concern over declining forest cover, the minister said people should be made aware of the benefits of forests and motivated to plant sapplings. " Every individual should take a pledge that he would plant 20 saplings during his lifetime. This will help tide over the crisis " , he said. Kushwah said the state government was providing gas stoves to families living in the forest areas through the forest conservation committees. The government will also provide necessary quantity of firewood to the forest dwellers, he added. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Flora__Fauna/Smriti_van_to_promote_afforestat\ ion/articleshow /2721472.cms 7) In a scenario where Protected Areas account for just 4.7% of India's total land area and most wildlife areas are already under intense pressure from a rapidly-growing human population and livestock, the moot question is: shouldn't the solution for tribal welfare be within the context of the survival of natural forests and wildlife? Our wilderness areas are the catchment areas of our rivers and the gene pools of food and medicinal plants; they offer benefits as varied as drought prevention, flood loss mitigation, soil conservation, nutrient recycling for agriculture and carbon storage -- our last respite from the impending disaster of climate change. The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, in its current form, is largely open to exploitation. All non-tribal traditional forest dwellers have been included and the Forest Rights Act (FRA) recognises the rights of tribal and traditional forest dwellers even in Protected Areas. The FRA leaves the word 'traditional' open to interpretation, and this could potentially result in the transfer of over 60% of India's forests into the hands of 8.2% of its population. The FRA also includes a clause that notifications of " inviolate`` conservation areas and curtailment of rights in PAs in the future would require people's consent. No penal provisions for punishment of forest dwellers have been included and no conservation responsibilities have been assigned to either the right-holders or the gram sabhas. It also allows claimants to fell up to 75 trees per hectare for a range of 14 activities without obtaining environmental clearances from the MoEF. Suggestions to delete clauses that could promote the misuse of the new law by commercial interests have been dismissed. Parliamentarians have also refused to order the mandatory Environment Impact Analysis. http://www.infochangeindia.org/analysis238.jsp 8) And just yesterday a group of friends and I hiked up the mountain from where we're staying, our destination is a small colony of stone mediation huts, populated by old Tibetan monks and lamas, cozily nestled in the calm, peaceful tranquility of the deep forest. Is it any wonder that the tree is sacred to India? Or that forests are considered to be places of pilgrimage as holy as any temple? So, with all this adoration, all this history, all this sigificance, it seems beyond belief that Indians could have permitted half the trees of India to be cut down by the administrators of the British Empire to make way for railways and mines, and then themselves cut down half of the remaining trees in the past 50 years. What has happened, and is happening to the subcontinent's forest cover is shocking. Riding the train from Behar to Delhi one travels through miles and miles of what were once forests and are now fields. It is beautiful in it's way, and very " India " with the goats and water buffalos and squatters and mud huts, but it is also very sad. Of the thousands of miles of dense jungle that covered the great range of the Nepal Himalaya, virtually none of it is left. And logging and stone-quarrying have destroyed the forest cover of the Indian Himalaya with equal devastation. http://mwinwood.blogspot.com/2008/01/husbands-and-trees.html 9) The ceremony sought the permission of the deities for the logging of the three sandalwood trees designated for the making of the royal funeral urn. The trees are each five to six metres high and 100 to 170 centimetres in circumference, and are expected to produce a total of 2.47 cubic metres of wood for the making of the urn. During the 20-minute ceremony the delegation also planted three new sandalwood trees in the forest. While people were allowed to take pictures with the selected sandalwood trees, they were prohibited from touching them. Mr Chalermsak said the wood was hard and dry, in line with the specifications set by the Fine Arts Department, which will make the urn. Staff of the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department will fell and process the trees later in accordance with the advice of the Fine Arts Department. The cremation of the Princess, His Majesty the King's elder sister who died of abdominal cancer on Jan 2 at the age of 84, has not been scheduled. The government has extended the official mourning period to 100 days, to end on April 10. The princess' body is being kept at the Dusit Maha Prasart Throne Hall inside the Grand Palace and funeral chanting rites are being held daily. Members of the public are allowed to attend the chanting. http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/21Jan2008_news03.php Kashmir: 10) The Forest Minister Qazi Muhammad Afzal had to face opposition fury in state Legislative Council over rapid vandalisation of forests in Jammu and Kashmir. The opposition blamed the state's Forest Department for remaining mute spectator to the wanton loot of the green gold. Expressing serious concern over fire incidents in forest-covered areas, the members in a united voice alleged that the government is misleading the House over number of fire incidents in the forests. The members alleged that either the government is ignorant of the facts of fire incidents, which engulfed forests of the state or is deliberately giving inadequate statistics in the House. MLCs Muhammad Sharief, Ashok Sharma, Muhammad Hussain Qureshi, Devender Rana and Sakina Ittoo alleged that due to the nexus of security forces, smugglers and forest officials, the green gold of the state is vanishing and the government is acting as a mute spectator. The members alleged that thousands of trees were gutted due to number of fire incidents in the recent past. They alleged that in most of the cases it appeared that after the smuggling the timber smugglers use fire as a means to suppress the loot. " All these incidents are of similar nature but government is not taking cognizance, " the members said. Afzal while replying to members' queries said, " The government has formulated a comprehensive project of Rs 29 crore to safeguard the green treasure of the state " . He said that the fire incidents which occurred during the dry spell in most of the forests of the state had been dealt with affectively. However, he added that there was a shortage of human resource for protecting the green treasure effectively from the smugglers. " The matter is being examined and the list of officials indulging in smuggling would be exposed and shown the door, " he added. http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=21_1_2008 & ItemID=33 & cat=1 Japan: 11) Japanese paper companies have admitted lying about their use of Tasmanian native forest woodchips instead of recycled fibre in their products. Far from being leaders in Japanese recycling as they have claimed, the companies - facing an escalating consumer scandal - have damaged their credibility by widespread falsification, the Economy, Trade and Industry Minister, Akira Amari, said. At least eight of the larger paper companies - including the two biggest, Nippon and the Oji paper company - have admitted inflating the amount of recycled material in their products. These two companies are major buyers of the 3 million tonnes of native forest woodchips exported annually from Tasmania, some of it from pristine old growth, the Wilderness Society said. " Tasmanian native forest woodchips are essentially the cheapest woodchips going. " The scandal broke after the Japanese media reported the percentage of recycled paper used in the traditional Japanese New Year greeting cards had been falsified. Yomiuri Shimbun reported that the Japan Paper Association had known six months ago that member companies were making false claims about the level of recycling. Nippon Paper's president, Masatomo Nakamura, has resigned as a result of the scandal, while Oji's Kazuhisa Shinoda apologised for his company's lies about the amount of recycled paper used in some products. http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/recycled-paper-not-what-it-seemed/2008/01\ /23/1201024993 029.html 12) KUSHIRO, Hokkaido -- A real estate company president was ordered Tuesday to spend 30 months behind bars for illegally logging trees in virgin forests in a Hokkaido national park. The Kushiro District Court convicted Tadashi Okado, 67, president of a Yokohama-based real estate company, of violating the Forest Law and the Natural Parks Law. " The defendant turned to the forests' trees to make money after his business failed, " Judge Akihiro Motomura said as he handed down the ruling. " It will take a considerable amount of time before the forests have recovered from the damage. The consequences of his crime are extremely grave. " The defense counsel immediately appealed the ruling to a higher court. Okado logged 679 trees, worth about 14 million yen, in virgin forests situated in the Akan National Park in Teshikaga in October 2006 without obtaining permission from the environment minister, and stole them, according to the ruling. http://www.hdrjapan.com/index.php?option=com_myblog & show=Realtor-sent-to-prison-\ for-illegally- logging-trees-in-national-park.html & Itemid=99999999 13) I am working on a 19-acre project in western Tokyo where the developers are building a 'garden city'. The land has an interesting history, and when I first saw it two years ago, it was being used as a sports ground. It is an extraordinary thing for this much ground to have survived as open space in a city where space is the ultimate luxury, but here it was, a vast green expanse of beautifully maintained pitches and running tracks ringed with giant zelkova and established shrubberies. The developers showed me images taken just 100 years ago, when Japan had a very different economy. A scruffy stream ran alongside little paddy fields, but in the Twenties, once Tokyo started to develop at a pace, the landowners built an ocean liner of a lido and sent someone to Wisley to study the plants to make a collection befitting this burgeoning interest in the west. Vast kalmias, complete with their 1929 labels, rhododendrons and giant cherries were all being prepared to be moved, and it was my job to decide how they could be reintegrated so that the feeling of maturity could be retained in the garden city. It is a rare thing to work with developers who see the value in greenery, and rarer still to see so many specimens being prepared for new homes rather than simply being replaced. Some of the fully mature cherries had already been reduced to thin their crowns in readiness to be moved. The roots were severed at a safe distance and then the root balls wrapped in hessian and rope to hold them in one piece. These sculptural wrappings were far too beautiful to be covered over again, but the trenches were being backfilled for a year to encourage the hair roots that will enable them to be moved successfully. The development has moved on considerably in the past year and most of the trees had been transported to their new positions, but this time I was to choose new trees which will complement the old and help us to establish a series of forested courtyards that will nestle the buildings into the site. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,2242288,00.html Taiwan: 14) The government will continue its efforts to expand forests around Taiwan to promote sustainable usage of territorial lands, officials from the Construction and Planning Administration (CPA) said. The CPA said it would focus this year's reforestation efforts in Hualien County, where trees and seedlings would be planted at three locations covering a total area of 75 hectares. Some 165,000 trees and seed-lings were planted on an area of 110 hectares nationwide between 2005 and last year under the CPA-authorized projects. Covering areas in Chihshang Township Taitung County, along the Sichiaolin Tidal lands in Taichung County and on coastal lands in Shoufeng in Hualien County, the projects are expected to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 743 tonnes a year when all the seed-lings mature. CPA officials said a grown tree is able to absorb more than 4.5kg of carbon dioxide a year. In related news, some 100 members of the Penghu Association of Taipei traveled to the outlying island of Penghu on Friday to plant trees to help boost the county's tourism efforts. The Penghu Association, led by chairman Kao Chien-wen, planted a total of 210 long-leaved conifers called podocarpaceae (Podocarpus nerifolius) at a park in Makung, Penghu, in the first stage of the tree-planting drive. Some clan members even came from the US and Australia, Kao said. He said that the " only viable way " to promote tourism in Penghu during the fall and winter months was to plant trees to green the islands and make them more appealing. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/01/20/2003398020 Cambodia: 15) The US has passed a law that could see travel bans for Cambodian officials accused of looting the country's natural resources, a move hailed Wednesday by conservationists as a strike against illegal logging. The law, enacted in December, endorses calls by the US Congress to deny visas to Cambodian officials identified in a 2007 report by the environmental watchdog Global Witness as being guilty of plundering Cambodia's forests. London-based Global Witness's caustic study, titled " Cambodia's Family Trees, " accused a " kleptocratic " elite of systematically clearing Cambodia's woodlands. It named several figures close to Prime Minister Hun Sen, including Forest Administration Director General Ty Sokhun and Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun, as being directly involved. In response, an outraged government last year banned the Global Witness report from Cambodia and continues to dismiss its allegations. A Cambodian government spokesman could not be reached Wednesday for comment on the US legislation. But the law " sends a clear message that the exploitation of Cambodia's natural resources by a small group of powerful individuals at the expense of the country's poor is unacceptable, " Global Witness director Simon Taylor said in a statement received Wednesday. The legislation, which authorises spending by Washington, instructs the US State Department to identify foreign officials, and their relatives, who are believed to have " been involved in corruption relating to the extraction of natural resources in their countries. " It also endorses a congressional subcommittee recommendation to " prohibit corrupt Cambodian officials identified in the June 2007 Global Witness report ... from entering the United States. " But it is unclear if the law will result in visa refusals for individual Cambodians. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iWsMI26EuggZjvBLi7RPh4zSP4og Thailand: 16) Active since the late 1980's and early 1990's, Ecology Monks around Thailand have taken action to protect every tree they can, each one a remaining symbol of the famed Bodhi tree, under which the Buddha first achieved " Bodhi " (in Pali), otherwise known as " enlightenment " and " nirvana. " What have the ecology monks been doing? Ordaining trees as monks: Monks recite Buddhist prayers and tie a saffron colored robe around each tree's trunk. Because Thailand is 97% Theravada Buddhist, the saffron robes help to deter any potential loggers; the trees become, in effect, monks. Of course, this may not be " fool " -proof (see the fifth chapter of the Buddha's Dhammapada), but ideally this will dissuade a faithful Buddhist from logging although they may be in need of financial assistance. Some monks have also been active in creating fish sanctuaries in order to protect river ecosystems. If the foot feels the foot when it feels the ground, as the Buddha said, then does the hand feel the hand when it feels a tree? Due to commercial and illegal logging, the rate of deforestation in Thailand has been one of the highest in Asia. Most of the primary forest in Thailand is gone, with secondary forest only covering roughly 20% of the land area. This is compared to over 70% forest cover prior to World War II. As Perry Garfinkel states in Buddha or Bust: " The environmental impact [of this deforestation] is inestimable—from silting that kills fish and leaves riverbeds dry, to the loss of nesting and feeding for birds and other wildlife. " There are a number of websites that contain resources about the Ecology Monks. http://www.dharmanet.org/engagedasia.htm Thinking about the practice of these monks, I look at the trees in the park behind my apartment in northeast South Korea. How ugly the world would be without these trees stretching broadly, firmly rooted in the ground below, reaching toward the heavens. Yes, this is home. Each tree is worth saving. http://ecoworldly.com/2008/01/19/thai-monks-combat-deforestation/ 17) New wildlife corridors will be created in the western and eastern regions, linking forest complexes and giving animals larger areas to roam and help prevent inbreeding. The corridors, which are strips of vegetation connecting forest areas separated by roads and other human activity, will also reduce the number of animals hit by vehicles, acting Natural Resources and Environment Minister Yongyuth Yutthawong said. The corridors will link Dong Phya Yen forest with Khao Yai national park; Kaeng Krachan national park with the western forest complex; and Srinakarin dam with Salak Phra national park. Once the Kaeng Krachan forest is linked with the western forest complex, which covers dozens of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, the area will be the largest forest complex in Southeast Asia. The minister will seek cabinet approval for the projects tomorrow. The forest areas have been broken up by human activity, crowding the animals into limited space. Wildlife experts say the wildlife will be weakened by inbreeding if the animals cannot travel to find mates from other areas. ''The wildlife corridors will hopefully increase exchanges between animal populations and strengthen wildlife breeds,'' said Mr Yongyuth. State agencies will map out the areas where the forests will be created. For the Dong Phya Yen-Khao Yai corridor, the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department has yet to finalise the type of corridor, which will run across a highway. The Highways Department earlier suggested an elevated crossing, but some experts prefer a tunnel. http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/21Jan2008_news12.php Vietnam: 18) Ha Cong Tuan, director of Forest Protection Department, said of the number, there were 3,500 incidents of illegal logging, 1,230 forest fire and wild animal violations, 20,270 cases of smuggling timber and forestry products and 2,357 incidents of slash-and-burn farming.The ranger force dealt with a total of 32,785 incidents in 2007. Of those, nearly 4,000 were handled in court. The force also confiscated trucks, motorbikes, ships, timber and wildlife.Total fines reached VND234bil (US$14.6mil), of which VND193bil went to the State budget.Last year rangers busted several companies for illegally trafficking timber and seizing hundreds of cubic metres of precious timber, and several hundred kilos of tiger meat and skin, elephant ivory and bear gall.Tuan said Vietnam currently has 12.87mil ha of forest, covering 38% of the total natural land.In 2007, a total of 956 forest fires occurred in the country, damaging more than 4,000 ha.Last year, the Forest Protection Department organised 458 training courses on firefighting and prevention for more than 30,000 people. The department also employed 4,000 technicians to help grassroots authorities in 5,266 communes protect their local forests.To raise the capacity for forest fire prevention, the central Government has approved a project to train rangers until 2010, with an investment capital of VND502bil ($31.3mil) going to local provinces. http://english.vietnamnet.vn/social/2008/01/765390/ 19) Starting at 7am, we reached Ta Nang Mountain at 8am after crossing two streams and many high slopes. We hid our motorbikes near the base and our group began to climb the somewhat steep slope. After one hour walking, the group leader named Manh decided to stop, saying this was a suitable place to seek yellow apricot trees. " Do you know how to choose a good yellow apricot tree? There are many yellow apricot trees here but it is very difficult to find something of quality, that you can sell, " Manh said. I tried to follow Manh to learn yellow apricot hunting, hoping to find some good ones. Manh said they use tricks similar to those of yellow apricot growers to make wild yellow apricot flowers blossom on the day of Tet. After the wild yellow apricot stem is removed, it must be burnt at its root and soaked in water and all old leaves must be plucked off. It takes 15 days for young leaves and buds to blossom. To have flowers bloom during Tet, the best time for seeking wild yellow apricot trees is in mid-January. By noon, the forest on Ta Nang Mountain was animated with yellow apricot seekers. Thong, from Cam Ranh Town, Khanh Hoa province, luckily found a good tree with many buds. The whole group gathered around to see and comment. While picking leaves, Thong said: " I've hunted wild yellow apricot trees for ten Tets. Each January I quit my job and to go to forest. " According to Thong, he hunts these trees for three reasons: firstly, he enjoys this work; secondly, wild trees are very beautiful and durable; thirdly, the cost is low. By late afternoon, the group had found and chopped down over 100. They said they can earn tens of millions of VND from these alone. http://english.vietnamnet.vn/lifevn/2008/01/765708/ Papua New Guinea: 20) Environmental groups have appealed to Papua New Guinea Parliament Speaker Jeffrey Nape not to certify two controversial amendments to the Forestry Act. The PNG Parliament in December passed two amendments to the Forestry Act, which environment groups fear overturns the 1991 reforms that were recommended by the Barnett Commission of Inquiry into the timber industry. The amendments are the Forestry (Amendment) Act 2007 and the Forestry (Timber Permits Validation) Act 2007. Attempts to seek clarification from the Legislative Counsel's office on the definition of the first amendment were unsuccessful but the second amendment, the Forestry (Timber Permits Validation) Act 2007, will upon its certification ensure that no timber permit granted under the 1991 Forestry Act will be invalidated " due to the absence, expiration or defect in a national forest plan or a national forest inventory. " Environmental groups led by the Eco-Forestry Forum (EFF) charge that the amendments pushed by the Somare government are a deliberate attempt to circumvent the law as there are currently two cases before the PNG Supreme Court challenging the National Forest Board's decision to allocate the logging rights for the East Awin and Kamula Doso forest concessions to Malaysian logging giant Rimbunan Hijau (RH). The EFF argues that the national forest plan, which the board relied on in December 2005 to make its decision, is flawed and consequently the decision on the two timber concessions in PNG's Western province should be overturned. " The inventory has never been done in the intervening 16 years and the 1996 national forest plan was fundamentally flawed. All this has been revealed in current court cases instituted by the Forum challenging the illegal allocation of logging rights for East Awin and Kamula Doso forest concessions, " the EFF said in a statement. http://www.pacificmagazine.net/news/2008/01/24/speaker-urged-to-not-certify-timb\ er-law Papua: 21) Making his dream come true could be a nightmare but Mr Barnabas Suebu, the Governor of Papua — home to the most dense jungle in Indonesia, where stone-age warriors live among the most bio-diverse region in the planet — wants to preserve huge swathes of rainforest. In fact, he wants to preserve 7 million ha — about 110 times Singapore's land mass. Papua's forests have been carved up by Chinese, South Korean, Malaysian and local companies, and much of the logging is done illegally. Local companies then launder the logs and sell them at an astounding rate, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency, which has been monitoring Papua's logging since 2002. Greenpeace estimates that every hour, three football fields of forest are logged in Indonesia. In Papua, home to 42 million ha of forest, an estimated 7.2 million m3 of timber, much of it prized hardwood merbau, is being logged each year. But Mr Suebu said almost none of this vast natural wealth and rapid exploitation has benefited local people. Papua is still one of Indonesia's most impoverished provinces, with 40 per cent of the 2.5 million people living on less than 50 US cents (72 cents) a day, according to the World Bank. " The benefit for the local people is trivial but the impact is devastating. There is no benefit at all in plundering the forests, " Mr Suebu told reporters, during the Bali climate change conference. " A timber log is priced at US$10, but the price can climb to more than US$10,000 after being processed into wooden goods, " he said, referring to an entire hardwood tree trunk. The governor said he has banned the export of unprocessed logs and will also ban the export of unprocessed palm oil. He said he plans to begin enforcing this proposal in January, regardless of the province's lack of palm oil processing plants, and any viable furniture or wood processing industry. He has also signed a decree with his counterpart, the Governor of West Papua, agreeing to a moratorium on deforestation in the vast jungles covering the whole of the western and Indonesian part of Guinea Island. http://wildsingaporenews.blogspot.com/2008/01/saving-papuas-rainforest-is-heros-\ job.html Indonesia: 22) Experts say the deforestation of the areas that support the Bengawan Solo River was one of the main causes of the recent floods in Central and East Java. Most teak forests in the regions that suffered floods have been completely razed to the ground in the past decade. The replanting of these forested areas has been a failure. Customarily the task of replanting teak forests is given to the communities who live around the forests, in a system called mbaon. The root word of mbaon is bau, which means labor. The mbaon people are allowed to plant ground crops such as peanuts, sweet potato or maize, and are responsible for the young teak while it grows. When the teak matures and shades the ground, the villagers are supposed to leave and let the forest grow. Forestry officials in this area have decided against a homogeneous teak plantation and have given him seedlings of quicker maturing hardwood trees such as neem, sengon and mahogany. Because he has elected to plant rice he can only plant the forestry's trees on the dividing walls between the plots. " Officials told me they would come and harvest the trees in eight years, " he explained as he spread a concoction of three types of chemical fertilizer on his rice plants. " After three years the mbaon people are supposed to leave. But usually by that time the young hardwood trees have disappeared, " Joned said. This forces the authorities to start another mbaon term, and the forest never matures. Joned's mbaon plot is not far from Begal, a village that used to be deep in the middle of an old teak forest. This sizable forest once covered the districts of Jogorogo, Kedunggalar and Widodaren in Ngawi regency in the Western part of East Java. Now there are barely any big trees here. The teak has been carted away, and every other type of tree has been chopped down. With the local price of firewood exceeding Rp 200,000 for a small pickup truck full, any type of wood now fetches worthwhile money. This is one reason why it is nearly impossible to find a really old, big tree in Java today. Surveying the horizon there is only one tall, lonely tree in the distance. Look up the north side of Mount Lawu and you see whole slopes that have been completely deforested. The ridges of the mountains form a depressing silhouette against the sky: scraggly pines where the forest should be thick. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailfeatures.asp?fileid=20080123.R01 & irec=0 23) Every morning, the cage doors swing open and 34 orangutan orphans climb into the outstretched arms of their human mothers. Grabbing at wrists, tugging at elbows, these baby apes cling to the young women like Velcro, happy to be free of their cages, to play in the dappled sun of the nearby forest for a few hours. It's primate day care, a scene that seems choreographed for the Animal Planet channel. But this spectacle of one hominid helping another is more than entertainment. It is a genuine reflection of environmental collapse. These rust-red fluff balls were born in the wild, in the steamy, lime-green rain forest of tropical Indonesia. Today this jungle is being leveled and its great apes captured, killed and orphaned to grow palm oil, a plantation crop refined into biofuel for environmentally conscious consumers in Europe and the United States. We live in a world of wanna-be-green commerce, of guilt-ridden citizens eager to protect nature, shrink their carbon footprints and free themselves from Middle East oil. But not every new fuel and eco-friendly product soothes the planet. Some are saddled with environmental baggage of their own, with not-so-obvious links to pollution, climate change and deforestation. During the past year, supported by a fellowship from the Alicia Patterson Foundation, I have reported on two such cases: a gourmet line of " conservation-based " Starbucks coffee that was grown on a plantation in a threatened Ethiopian rain forest and a petroleum substitute fueling U.S. cars that was strip-mined from Canada's boreal forest. http://redapes.org/news-updates/dark-side-of-a-hot-biofuel/ 24) Forest watchdog group Greenomics Indonesia has urged the government to audit the country's wood processing industry and respond to claims of a diminishing supply of raw materials.The call was made after a Greenomics report showed 31.9 percent of 122 wood processing companies enjoyed a surplus of raw material in 2006, while 46 firms, mostly from plywood and cut timber industries, lacked supply in the same period. " It shows a contradictory fact... On one hand, many wood players protest the declining amount of raw material but others enjoy a surplus, " Greenomics national coordinator Vanda Mutia Dewi told The Jakarta Post on Saturday. " If the government takes no action, such contrary conditions will remain in place this year. " Greenomics reported its finding to the Forestry Ministry on Friday. " We just analyze reports of wood processing firms submitted to the ministry. The ministry knows the names of the companies that recorded a raw material surplus, " she said. Vanda said the raw material surplus absorbed by processing companies reached 2.22 million cubic meters. " Seventy percent of raw materials were absorbed by the plywood and cut timber industries, and the remaining by the pulp and paper firms, " she said. Vanda alleged the wood supply surplus resulted from illegal logging activities that would further damage the forests. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20080121.H02 & irec=1 25) The government has earmarked more than a RM1 billion to fund the cultivation of some 375,000 hectares of forest plantations by private firms across Malaysia over the next 15 years to cut dependence on imported wood. Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui said the authorities had disbursed a total of RM267.6 million to 16 companies to cultivate 58,935ha since the scheme took off in 2006 with an initial RM200 million budget. An additional RM865 million was subsequently added to the programme's total budget, to be funded via the government's internal funds, instead of a bond issue suggested earlier. " About 30% of timber from Sabah and Sarawak should be marketed to west Malaysia, " Chin told reporters yesterday after witnessing the signing of loan agreements between the government and firms involved in the forest plantations. " Firms intending to qualify for the loans, offered at a 3% annual interest rate, need to comply with a minimum land area criterion. Rubber tree growers in Peninsular Malaysia, for example, need to have at least 2,500ha of land, while those cultivating other wood species are required to have a minimum of 15,000ha. In Sabah and Sarawak, companies must have at least 15,000ha at their disposal, regardless of the species planted. Bursa Malaysia-listed firms need to have a minimum 51% local equity to qualify for the scheme, which involves species like acacia and teak. Chin said the trees would be planted on " degraded land " which, essentially, means sites where logging activities had taken place and which were intended to be kept as " permanent production forest " . http://www.theedgedaily.com/cms/content.jsp?id=com.tms.cms.article.Article_9f949\ 65e-cb73c03a-1 0ebe180-419e467e 26) After three years post-tsunami reconstruction in Aceh has resulted in worsening deforestation, Greenomics Indonesia says.The non-government organization said in its release international donors failed to translate their campaign against global warming into action in their reconstruction program in the country's westernmost province. The Aceh Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR) which is coordinating the mega-project, as well as the international organizations involved, had instead accelerated the deforestation, the NGO reported, citing the use of timber without legal verification. " The Aceh reconstruction has disrupted the forest ecosystem, which has protected the life of four million people in a sustainable way, " the national coordinator Greenomics Indonesia Vanda Mutia Dewi said. She said the floods that hit six regencies in Aceh last December were a result of the diminished forests in the area. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20080124.H05 & irec=5 Borneo: 27) BBC News science correspondent David Shukman has been looking at the effects of deforestation on Borneo's rainforests. The towering habitats play host to a diverse range of species and are also responsible for absorbing huge amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Scientists believe that protecting them will play a vital in curbing climate change. As he inches his way down one of the rainforest's vast trees, David offers an insight into the layers that make up this vibrant ecosystem. The tops of the rainforest's very tallest trees - some reaching heights of more than 60m (200ft) - make up what scientists describe as the emergent layer. Towering above the ground below, the trees withstand weather extremes, including searing heat, strong winds and fierce rain storms. Despite this, many animals make these heady heights their home, including eagles, gliders, bats and butterflies. A ceiling of densely packed foliage, jostling to catch as much sunlight as possible, forms the rainforest's canopy layer. Loaded with fruit and seeds, the canopy provides a rich food source for the huge number of species that dwell there, including insects, primates, bats and birds. Because trapped rainwater continuously evaporates from this layer, the canopy impacts upon local and global weather. Little sunlight makes its way through to the understorey layer, where insects dominate. Here, juvenile trees wait - often for years and years - for a taller tree to fall and leave a break in the canopy that will let in the light that they need to grow. The dark, humid forest floor is home to detrivores - animals such as microbes, fungi and insects that feast on rotting organic material. As the creatures break down the dead leaves and branches, nutrients are released back into the soil to be soaked again up by the enormous root systems of the vast trees. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7127687.stm Sumatra: 28) The South Sumatra Legislative Council urged the local province administration Monday to put more focus on " regreening " programs, saying the deforestation rate in the province had reached an alarming level. Arudji Kartawinata, one of the local legislators, said the call was made in response to data from the South Sumatra Forestry Office showing deforestation in the province had reached 60 percent of its total forested lands of about 3.7 million hectares. The deforestation had multiple causes, ranging from forest fires and illegal logging to land conversion into plantation projects and other development programs. Of the damaged forests, only about 358,000 hectares had been reforested through the timber estate development project, according to the data. Arudji said the high rate of deforestation had lead to an increased incidence of flooding in several areas in South Sumatra. Even though it is the task of the central government to rehabilitate the damaged forests, the province administration should not sit quiet, he said. " The province administration should have had its own program to deal with the damaged forests; don't just wait for guidelines from the central government, " Arudji said. " If we are passive, the program from the central government won't come until our forests have totally been damaged, " he said. He urged the province administration to be serious in handling the issue and in the event the province was short of funds it could coordinate with the central government. http://cempaka-nature.blogspot.com/2008/01/s-sumatra-told-to-heed-to-reforestati\ on.html Philippines: 29) In a Davao del Norte town, a local official, reportedly in cahoots with the local official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), is involved in massive illegal logging. So widespread and rampant is illegal logging in that mountain town, according to my sources in Davao del Norte, that in a few years the forest cover in the town will become bald. The town is considered the province's " last frontier " because it's still thick with forest. Why do the town executive and the local DENR officer continue to engage in illegal logging in the mountain town with impunity? Because, according to my sources, the DENR officer allegedly enjoys the protection of a former Cabinet member who still has strong Palace connections. If this is true, then, Malaca & ntilang is tolerating illegal logging in that Davao del Norte town. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/metro/view/20080122-113908/Is-Mal\ acaang-abetti ng-illegal-logging New Zealand: 30) TVNZ is facing severe criticism over its decision to allow the National Bank to sponsor its news updates. The National Bank is a subsidiary of the ANZ Banking Group, which is providing financial services to one of the world's largest and most controversial logging companies, Rimbunan Hijau. This Malaysian logging company is responsible for large-scale rainforest destruction in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Greenpeace, the Green Party and the Indonesia Human Rights Committee are calling on TVNZ to reassess their commitment to the National Bank. Green Party Co-Leader Dr Russel Norman said TVNZ now had a vested interest in protecting the National Bank brand, which could lead to news going unreported if it could harm the National Bank. He said this could compromise TVNZ's ability to carry out its democratic functions as a credible news media. " Once again this demonstrates why we need public news broadcasting free from commercial linkages in New Zealand, " he said. He said media should be holding large corporations accountable for their environmental performance. " It is disturbing to find these same news organisations being sponsored by the companies linked to the destruction of the environment, " he said. http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-1-21/64434.html Australia: 31) Most of the trees logged in Victoria's native forests last year ended up as pulp, much of it exported to Japan to become photocopying paper. More than 85% of the 1.59 million cubic metres of the state's native forest logged last financial year — the equivalent of 4745 MCGs — was turned into woodchips, sawdust and waste. The figures were released after a freedom-of-information request. They show that despite claims the industry is based on providing sawlogs for the state's building needs, this type of wood accounted for only 11.9% of the amount logged, with the remaining 2.8% turned into shipping pallets. VicForests, the quasi-government agency charged with commercialising the state's forests, said the figures were only indicative as it does not keep records on how the wood is used, but are based on " our industry knowledge " . Luke Chamberlain, of the Wilderness Society, said poor industry practice meant vast areas of forest were being logged for a small amount of sawlog. He said plantation wood could supply most of the state's needs, other than the highest-quality sawlogs, which he argues should be logged selectively rather than the current practice of clear-felling large coupes of native forest. " These figures prove that logging of our native forest is not driven by the need for sawlogs, but for woodchips, " he said. " Under the national competition policy and the rules under which VicForests was established, it must be commercially viable and obviously it isn't. " The Sunday Age reported in December that VicForests sold last year's harvest for $99 million but reported a $17,000 loss. Last year, pulp fetched about $10 a metric tonne, while high-quality sawlogs fetched more than $70.Two of the three big mills that bought the timber — Australian Paper, a subsidiary of PaperlinX and Japanese-owned South East Fibre Exports — posted a combined profit of $87 million last financial year, the Australian Securities Exchange and Australian Securities and Investments Commission filings show. http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/pulped-8212-vic-forests-end-up-as-copy-pa\ per/2008/01/19/1 200620280798.html 32) Environmental activists say they have stopped logging in a section of forest in Tasmania's far south. The Huon Valley Environment Centre says 15 activists have entered a coupe near Dover. Forestry Tasmania says it is aware of the situation. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/22/2143566.htm Northern Hemisphere: 33) Many people fail to think about the fact that rotting logs don't just fall apart on their own; they need help. Thus is the job of Phellinus nigrolimitatus, which has no common name, other than a wood-decay fungus. It lives in the deep temporal forests across the Northern Hemisphere, and essentially having the same interactions with a tree there as vultures in Africa have with the zebras. The fungus kills nothing, just feasts on the remains, allowing nutrients to be passed back into the soil. While I have had problems finding information about species in the past, this fungus yields a different issue, similar to the problem I had with the Sagalla Caecilian. There is information out there about P. nigrolimitatus, but it's all in scientific journals. It's amazing how convenient ARKive's format is: listing what it is, where it's found, why it's endangered, with a big picture on top. But, since the information is out there, I don't want to shy away from writing about it just because I'm lazy (or don't speak Swedish or Norwegian). Its diet consists mainly of old (well, dead) Spruces, as well as a few Pine species. I'm not exactly sure how it spreads from tree to tree, but it likely has airborne spores that are scattered throughout the forest in hopes of landing on a beautiful, rotting tree carcass. While P. nigrolimitatus may be found around the world, it is only listed in Norway and Sweden. This means one of two things: either Norway and Sweden have specific problems with the fungus, or the entire Northern Hemisphere does, and only those two countries recognize it. The problem, according to many articles, is the fact that these fungi are really only found in very dense, unmanaged forests, where tree corpses are littered throughout. In managed forests, with a low number of huge, dead trees, it is that much more difficult for the spores to find their way to a suitable habitat. http://endangered-ugly.blogspot.com/2008/01/old-dead-tree.html World-wide: 34) A study has revealed the extent to which poorer countries are trampled by the huge environmental footprints of the rich. The environmental damage caused by rich nations disproportionately impacts poor nations and costs them almost £920 billion, on par with or exceeding their combined foreign debt, according to a first-ever global accounting of the dollar costs of countries' ecological footprints. Meanwhile, the effect of poor on rich nations, such as Britain, is less than a third of the impact that the rich have on the poor. Because the global environment does not respect political borders, the impact of ecological damage wrought by one country can be felt across the world. To illustrate that point, an American team has attempted to determine which nations are driving ecological damage and which are paying the price. The study, led by former University of California, Berkeley, research fellow Thara Srinivasan, assessed the impacts of agricultural intensification and expansion, deforestation, overfishing, loss of mangrove swamps and forests, ozone depletion and climate change from 1961 to 2000. In the case of climate change and ozone depletion, the researchers also estimated the impacts that may be felt through the end of this century. " Low-income countries will bear significant burdens from climate change and ozone depletion. But these environmental problems have been overwhelmingly driven by emission of greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting chemicals by the rest of the world, " Srinivasan says. When all these impacts are added up, the portion of the footprint of high-income nations that is falling on the low-income countries is comparable to or greater than the financial debt recognised for low income countries, which has a net present value of 1.8 trillion in 2005 international dollars (International dollars are US dollars adjusted to account for the different purchasing power of different currencies.) " The ecological debt could more than offset the financial debt of low-income nations, " she says. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS & grid= & xml=/earth/2008/0\ 1/21/earich121.x ml 35) How do you prevent environmentally harmful forestry projects, like vast monocultures of palm trees, from getting credits? And can you really come up with a way to pay people not to do something, i.e., not to cut down a tree? They say all these problems can be solved, so that polluters in the developed world can offset their emissions by buying credits from forestry projects. " We would like the see the carbon markets support high quality forest restoration and preservation projects, " Toby said. But he acknowledged that " it's a hot potato, to allow forestry in, " he said. Other activists—notably Wangari Muta Maathai, the Kenyan Nobel prizewinner ––have argued that keeping forestry credits out of carbon markets amounts to an unfair trade barrier. They say the global south has a commodity to sell, i.e., the ability to reduce carbon emissions, and that Europeans are unfairly refusing to by it. " Sub-Saharan Africa won't be able to participate in the carbon markets unless forestry is allowed in, " said Joanna. To show how forestry projects can reduce GHG, a group of six companies and seven NGOS including CI, The Nature Conservancy, Rainforest Alliance, Intel, S.C. Johnson and Weyerhauser have come up with standards. The group is called The Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance and its standards are designed to reduce emissions, help communities, conserve biodiversity and insure that the projects generate credible offsets. (Dozens of standards have been put forth for voluntary offset projects; no one standard has yet emerged.) One of the first projects developed under the climate, community and biodiversity (CCB) standards is a reforestation project [PDF, download] in the Tengchong region of southwest China. Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, local NGOS and the Chinese government up a pilot program to plant native species in five different villages. They are creating a buffer forest around a nature preserve—it is creating jobs, it will permit slow harvesting of wood for firewood or construction, it will preserve biodiversity and become a storehouse for carbon. The project developers say it will generate about 167,000 tons of carbon benefits over 30 years, and that they can sell those offsets for about $7 to $10 a ton. http://www.marcgunther.com/?p=317 36) In 2007, of 41,415 species assessed for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, 16,306 (39 percent) were categorized as threatened with extinction: one in three amphibians, one quarter of the world's pines and other coniferous trees, one in eight birds and one in four mammals. Another study identified 595 " centers of imminent extinction " in tropical forests, on islands and in mountainous areas. Disturbingly, only one-third of the sites surveyed were legally protected, and most were surrounded by areas densely populated by humans. We may not be able to determine the cause of past extinction events, but this time we have, indisputably: We are our own asteroids. Still, the primary concern here is the future welfare of us and our children. Assuming that we survive the current mass extinction event, won't we do okay? The disappearance of more than a few species is regrettable, but we can't compromise an ever-expanding population and a global economy whose collapse would leave billions to starve. This dismissal, however, ignores an essential fact about all those species: They live together in tightly networked ecosystems responsible for providing the habitats in which even we humans thrive. Pollination of flowers by diverse species of wild bees, wasps, butterflies and other insects, not just managed honeybees, accounts for more than 30 percent of all food production that humans depend upon.What will the quality of life be like in this transformed new world? Science doesn't paint a pretty picture. The tropics and coral reefs, major sources of the planet's biological diversity, will be hugely debilitated. The 21st century may mark the end of the line for the evolution of large mammals and other animals that are now either on the verge of extinction, such as the Yangtze River dolphin, or, like the African black rhinoceros, confined to small, inadequately supportive habitats. And devastated ecosystems will provide warm welcome to all those opportunistic invader species that have already demonstrated their capacity to wipe out native plants and animals. We, and certainly our children, will find ourselves largely embraced by a pest and weed ecology ideal for the flourishing of invasive species and new, potentially dangerous microbes to which we haven't build up a biological resistance. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011101994.\ html 37) Michael Williams's _Deforesting the Earth_ is a majestic work both in depth and dimension. Divided into three chronological parts, it puts together the history of world deforestation in the last seven millennia with fitting illustrations, maps, and graphs, plus twenty-three pages of bibliographic notes and essay. A recurrent theme of the book relates to causation and agency. Williams persistently criticizes the constructivist argument that human actions largely did not affect the pre-industrial forest. Williams traces the causes of deforestation to the use of fire, mobility of foragers, and extension of cultivation by primitive farmers. Contesting the notion of the prehistoric pristine state of nature, through the example of fire, Williams claims that Pleistocene " overkill " was more likely to have been Pleistocene " overburn " (p.21). Postpredation agricultural production was combined with cultivators' tendency to use axe technology and to cultivate in rain-fed forests, such as on the highland of Mexico and among the Maya, resulting in significant deforestation. In the classical world, Williams argues, Greek expansion to the eastern Mediterranean and Roman expansion westward led to remarkable deforestation; the consequent soil degradation was a major factor in the decline of the classical world. For the medieval period during which a " chain from theology to manuring " existed, in contradiction to the notion of ascetic indifference to material progress, Williams documents the ways in which remarkable increases in population, medieval technology of plows and horsepower, cottage industry, shipbuilding, and crusades led to large-scale deforestation. In addition to dealing with deforestation in the temperate world, Williams extensively discusses tropical regions. He describes the varied ways in which over 222 million trees disappeared from the tropical world, particularly in southern and southeastern Asia from 1750 to 1920. To make this argument, he analyzes the impact of indigenous uses of forests, including shifting and permanent agriculture, grazing, and burning, as well as capitalist penetration and colonial consolidation that led to the use of tick forests, railways, plantation, and commercial farming. Published by H-Environment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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