Guest guest Posted May 6, 2008 Report Share Posted May 6, 2008 Today for you 32 new articles about earth's trees! (337th edition) Subscribe / send blank email to: earthtreenews- Weblog: http://olyecology.livejournal.com --Washington: 1) Finally, Wildsky is a signature away from being wilderness, --Oregon: 2) Enviro supported fire salvage, 3) Tree Farm or subdivision? 4) The next giant trees? 5) Trees have rights too! 6) small scale logging grows to $1 million a year, --California: 7) More on women fined for cutting FS trees, 8) To clearcut or not to clearcut: logger-facts vs. Enviro-facts 9) 30,000 acres a year converted to brush, 10) Mendo Redwood Co. is likely heir to PL/Maxxam wasteland, --Arizona: 11) Heal Your Body, Heal the Planet tree planting scheme --Minnesota: 12) Rebuttal to ignorant logger rant --Illinois: 13) 340 trees lost for " flood control " for new ball fields --Maine: 14) Nothing left except maybe wood pellet businesses? --USA: 15) Refusing peer review of " credible " owl plan, 16) Dogwood Alliance and FE's new markets campaign, 17) Record paper recycling in '07, --UK: 18) Expanding Robin Hood's last scrap of forest, 19) Developers lie to neighbors, then cut 100 year old trees, 20) Wales forests must change to tackle climate change, 21) Unilever backs down & starts greenwashed promises, --Ireland: 21) Angry Irish want FSC fraud put to an immediate end! --Nigeria: 22) 85% of forests cut illegally --Ghana: 23) " Schools-Under-Trees " project --India: 24) Threatened green cover of Shimla --Fiji: 25) Twelve landowning companies not receiving royalty from loggers --Indonesia: 26) Preserving North Sulawesi is popular --World-wide: 27) 83% of Earth's land under direct human influence, 28) DNA mapping of all the world's trees, 29) Protected areas with lots of people do as well as super remote areas, 30) Seasonal leaf growth correlates to a 7 PPM rise / decline of carbon in atmosphere, 31) Legal logging just as bad as illegal logging, 32) Chinese take over world, Washington: 1) After a gestation period of 3,405 days, Washington's newest wilderness area has won overwhelming approval from the House and heads to President Bush's desk for his signature. " I have learned so many of life's lessons with this bill, " exclaimed Murray, D-Wash., who has championed the Wild Sky Wilderness Area. The new 106,000-acre wilderness is in the front range of the Cascades, north of the U.S. 2 Stevens Pass highway. It reaches from the north fork of the Skykomish River, a few hundred feet above sea level, to the 6,200-foot summits of Mounts Merchant and Gunn above Index. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/361153_joel30.html The new wilderness designation would shield the vast area inside the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest from the kind of changes that environmentalists fear most: logging, mining, and even cars and off-road vehicles. The federal Wilderness Act bars virtually all motors. You can't even fire up a chain saw. The land that would wind up inside the Wild Sky boundaries isn't a top hiking destination. Still, some advocates hope the new designation will mean more visitors — and federal money to improve trails. " It really opens doors, " said Jonathan Guzzo, advocacy director for the Washington Trails Association, a hiking advocacy group. " When we're talking to our [congressional] delegation, when we're talking to members from other states, we can talk about the level of commitment to this area. The legislation will direct the Forest Service to come up with a trail plan for the wilderness and surrounding land. What's outside the proposed wilderness, meanwhile, is in some ways as important as what was kept in. With an eye toward winning over potential opponents, the boundary was drawn to leave out 4,000 acres in an area popular with snowmobilers, and the trail to Barclay Lake, a route heavily used by Boy Scouts and other groups. U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, who championed Wild Sky, said it was " an example of wilderness done the right way, " with support from local groups and elected officials. The Senate OK'd the designation April 10. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Lake Stevens, who represents the area, called the House's 291-117 passage of Wild Sky, which was part of a large package of proposals concerning public lands nationwide, the " end of a long hike. " http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004382079_wildsky30m.html Oregon: 2) The two salvage logging sales are the subject of a proposed agreement between the timber companies and environmentalists that would log about 38 million board feet of timber in Grant and Harney counties. " The conservation community, the timber industry and the local elected officials in Eastern Oregon have proposed an agreement that will salvage valuable timber, provide needed product for local lumber mills and aid the ailing economies in a rural area of my state, " Wyden, D-Ore., said in a letter Tuesday to Mark Rey, the undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment at the Department of Agriculture. Eastern Oregon's timber industry has been teetering during the recent downturn in new home construction. One of Grant County's three mills shut down last year. Another, Malheur Lumber in John Day, furloughed its 80 employees more than two weeks ago and has been idle since because of a lack of logs, said Mike Billman, the mill's timber manager. The quarter-century-old pine mill, which supplies lumber for window and door manufacturers, gets about 10 percent of its logs from the surrounding Malheur National Forest. In 2006, about 16 million board feet were cut from the Malheur National Forest. That's about 5 percent of what it was 20 years ago. Environmentalists traditionally oppose salvage logging, citing harm to soils and habitat. Tim Lillebo, east Oregon field representative for the group Oregon Wild, said his organization is making an exception in this case because it wants to ensure that local mills survive the present economic downturn so the timber industry can perform future thinning and conservation projects on public lands. Under the proposal, conservation groups would support some salvage logging parts of the Malheur National Forest burned by the Shake Table and Egley fires. In return, the timber companies would agree to not log in sensitive areas. http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2008/04/sen_ron_wyden_is_asking.\ html 3) Portland author Molly Gloss wrote " Jump-Off Creek " almost 20 years ago about a pioneer woman homesteader on Mount Emily near the northeastern Oregon town of La Grande. Now a vast tree farm on the same 6,040-foot mountain where Gloss' fictional mule-riding heroine Lydia Sanderson homesteaded in 1895 is in the cross hairs of a land-use conflict. At issue is whether the 3,669-acre tree farm should become a high-end subdivision for homes or be preserved for recreational use, wildlife habitat, logging and grazing. Union County voters will decide in an advisory vote in the May 20 election. If it becomes a subdivision, " we can look for locked gates and 'No Trespassing' signs, " and an end to a century of public access, warned Union County Commissioner Nellie Hibbert. She favors public ownership but has pledged to abide by the advisory vote. The county's two other commissioners support acquiring the land. Only five minutes from downtown La Grande, the tree farm is on the south end of the 15-mile-long mountain. Residents have found solitude among its meadows and dense fir, larch and ponderosa pine forests. They ride horses and bicycles on a maze of roads and trails, bird watch, cross-country ski, pick huckleberries and wild mushrooms, jog, hike, hunt, and ride motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles, or ATVs, there. " Folks have had the use of this for so long, they just assume it's publicly owned land, " said Hanley Jenkins, Union County planning director. " It would be an incredible loss to this community. " User groups got worried three years ago when landowner Boise Cascade Corp. sold the tree farm to the Boston-based Forest Capital Partners as part of a five-state land transaction. Now it's for sale again, and this time a development group wants to subdivide it into 15 upscale 240-acre homesites. " Once Forest Capital sells it, it's going to be closed to the public, " said Mark Barber, a member of the 180-member Eastern Oregon ATV Association and the 500-member Mount Emily Recreation Coalition. The coalition was formed to keep the land in public use. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/120978872135970.xm\ l & coll=7 4) The interest in large, old trees is a natural human inclination. Here in the Northwest, marveling at trees that shoot hundreds of feet into the air is a cultural birthright. The question is, will future generations have any big trees left to look at? The Klootchy Creek Sitka spruce was estimated to be 750 years old and died a natural death. However, across Oregon we have millions of acres of old-growth forests, ranging in age from 100 to over 1,000 years old, that face the threat of a very unnatural death at the whirring blades of a chainsaw. Our forests have faced a consistent onslaught over the past seven-plus years as the Bush administration has ignored science and the public will in an attempt to increase logging of our old growth. Their most recent plan is the Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR). This scheme would increase clear-cut logging of old-growth forests by 700 percent on over 2 million acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) forest in western Oregon. That means the Bush administration wants to drastically increase logging of trees-some older than the Klootchy Creek giant-even while the broad majority of Oregonians want these trees protected. Luckily, the Bush WOPR plan isn't the only game in town. In recent months, Representative Peter DeFazio and Senator Ron Wyden have been talking up plans to put forest management agencies on a path towards a sustainable future. Both Oregon officials say they want to protect the old growth we have left as a legacy for future generations and focus work in our forests that restores the natural landscape. http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080505/OPINION/8050\ 50302/1049/OPIN ION 5) " It sometimes pains me to think that we have no ability to control their destiny -- that a private landowner can take this tree down on a whim. So I think somewhere, woven into all this, is that we establish more of a notion that trees have rights, too, that trees have rights. And that's what we're looking at in terms of some of the enforcement policies that we're working on and the continued designation of more heritage trees for their protection where we have willing property owners but I do think we have to look where we don't have willing property owners . . . . " Where to start here? Is it Saltzman's notion that " trees have rights, too " ? Is it his obvious appetite to control the destiny of trees that their owners can take down on a whim? (Question: If trees have rights, too, how can Saltzman arrogate unto himself the control of their destiny?) Is it his condescending notion that Portlanders are too impulsive and arboreally insensitive to recognize the importance of the trees on their property? Is it his itch to use the force of law to bring " unwilling landowners " into line? Or is it the fact that this " trees are people, too " mumbo jumbo comes from the City Council's most measured member? It's an odd calculus Saltzman has in store for us. The rights that Saltzman wants to give trees will come at the expense of the rights that Americans have long held, even in Portland: property rights that allow private landowners to tend to the trees, shrubs, grass and rocks on their piece of heaven. Which reminds me: If trees have rights, on what philosophical grounds can we deny shrubs, bushes and rocks rights? They can be as " incredible " and " show-stopping " as a mighty oak, a towering elm or a broad maple. If you go in for extending rights to nonhumans, isn't Saltzman guilty a kind of speciesism? Or some other " isms " ? Lookism and ageism? After all, it's hard to believe that Saltzman wants each and every tree to have rights. It's likely that only gorgeous trees will get them. Or heritage trees that, as Saltzman said, " have been there long before us. " But shouldn't plain or young trees have rights, too? At least in the moral universe of our Thomas Jefferson of trees? Or maybe not. Here's the most unsettling aspect of the " trees have rights, too " talk: Saltzman would have sparked a real firestorm if he had dared to say that Portland's unborn children should have rights and protections, too. The ultimate ageism. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/david_reinhard/index.ssf?/base/editoria\ l/120977432925 6180.xml & coll=7 6) " I was a passive activist against clear-cutting when I was younger, " says Schattler, who was raised in Sacramento. " When I first started cutting, people on the environmentalist side thought I had sold out. Loggers thought I was crazy because I was leaving all the money trees behind. " Over time, his methods have grown on the environmentally minded and won respect from loggers. " Schattler, 51, moved to the Applegate area in 1985 and encountered eco-forestry. Not long after that, he encountered Orville Camp, who wrote the Forest Farmer's Handbook, in Selma. Soon he was putting his new practice to work, thinning, cutting small-diameter trees, restoring and enhancing habitat as well as doing blackberry removal and riparian jobs for the Applegate Watershed Council. " I try to educate private landowners about healing and treating property that has been logged and damaged, " Schattler says. " At the beginning, I'd do one job and people would ask who did it and then I'd get the neighbor's job — it just spread. " Five years ago, he branded his venture Out of the Woods Eco-Forestry and today he has a crew of 12 that works in a landscape he holds dear. " It's gone beyond whatever I thought it would be at this point, " says Schattler, whose annual revenue is nearing $1 million. A significant component of eco-forestry is utilizing resources near the extraction site. Out of the Woods' mill is on Yale Creek, where the firm does custom milling, operates a drying kiln and a molder-shaper-planer to produce barn siding, dimensional lumber, peeled poles, finish wood and hardwood. Because the machinery is mobile, Out of the Woods can produce poles on a client's property to build unpermitted structures such as barn annexes and storage sheds. " With a 6-inch tree, you can't mill a 2 by 4, but you can take bark off and use the poles as structural elements, " says Aaron Krikava, a foreman for the company. " We hike into areas that don't have roads, but when we do fuel reduction we are within an area people can see or drive. " Although Schattler wants to keep his crew as active as the next, he's philosophically opposed to expanding beyond his own community. " My major focus is on micro (forest) management, " Schattler says. " There is plenty of work to do in this area. Driving clear to Glendale or two hours a way to do a job in Roseburg or something like that is inefficient when there is a lot of work to be done in the local community. " He says work has been spurred by Oregon Department of Forestry grants that cover a third to a fourth of private landowners' fuel-reduction costs, or $330 per acre. http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080501/BIZ/805010332 California: 7) An Incline Village woman who hired a company to chop down trees on national forest land to enhance her view of Lake Tahoe agreed Thursday to pay $100,000 restitution and do 80 hours of community service in a plea deal with federal prosecutors that likely will keep her out of prison. Patricia Marie Vincent, 57, was indicted in January by a federal grand jury in Reno on felony charges of theft of government property and willingly damaging government property. She faced up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of those original counts if convicted. But in exchange for her guilty plea on Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ron Rachow agreed to drop the felony charges and charge her with one misdemeanor count of unlawfully cutting trees on U.S. land. That crime carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison, a $100,00 fine and possible restitution. But Rachow said under the plea agreement, she would face a year of probation, 80 hours of community service and pay $100,000 in restitution -- with $35,000 going to the U.S. Forest Service and $65,000 going to the National Forest Foundation. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-tahoe2-2008may02,0,5017693\ ..story Wow! Three trees? Not that she shouldn't pay a substantial fine, but... 1) Michael Milken, yep that creep, cut down ten old growth Sugar Pines on his Tahoe waterfront in the very same town. But, as it was private property, nothing happened. He even got away with installing a fence that goes out 100 feet into the water, so no one can walk the beach. 2) In 1993, Weyerhaeuser stole 88,000 trees worth $5 million off the Winema NF with the added crime of Forest Service personnel tipping off Weyerhaeuser of the investigation and destroying documents. Instead of big fines and jail time for the perps, those two Big Green darlings - Bill Clinton and Jack Ward Thomas - responded by disbanding the Timber Theft Task Force that had unearthed the crimes and no one was ever held accountable. 3) It gets worse. Here's the whole story, complete with more despicable examples: http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair03062004.html 8) Spotted owls, silted streams, raging wildfires - there has been no shortage of fuel for the timber wars over the decades. Add climate change to the mix. Loggers will return to the forested lower Sierra Nevada this spring armed with a peer-reviewed study that says " intensive " forestry practices - including clear-cuts - may ultimately assist in the battle against rising worldwide temperatures. No way, environmentalists say. Their own report, released one week after the industry's, says precisely the opposite: Larger, older trees will remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Neither side will budge from its position. " They're not telling the whole story, " said Susan Robinson, a forest activist who lives in Arnold. " They're way off base, " said Mark Pawlicki, a spokesman for Sierra Pacific Industries. The timber giant owns 74,000 acres, or about half of the forestland, in Calaveras County. No one disputes that trees are among the greenest of Earth's features, in color and behavior. Forests suck carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, out of the atmosphere and essentially store it in tree trunks, branches, leaves and pine needles, keeping the rest of us nice and cool. The study by Sierra Pacific suggests that more " intensive " logging practices can speed up the storing of carbon by up to 150 percent. This is because young trees grow faster and take in carbon more rapidly, according to the scientists who prepared the company's study. " We were surprised at the difference, " Pawlicki said. Cutting and replanting all of the company's 1.6 million acres over 80 to 100 years would remove enough carbon dioxide from the air to offset 877,000 cars, says the study, which Pawlicki said will be submitted to a scientific journal for publication. Even after the harvest, at least some carbon remains sequestered in wood products - furniture, your back deck, or your home. But the timber company has glossed over a few details, the environmentalists counter, citing other studies and reports. In the long run, an old-growth forest will have the greatest carbon capacity, says ForestEthics, an international conservation group. Clear-cutting releases carbon through soil erosion, the burning of logging debris and the decay of exposed roots. The resulting plantations of same-aged trees, meanwhile, are especially fire-prone - and in a fire, all of that banked carbon is released right back into the atmosphere. " The timber company is ignoring the emissions, " Robinson said. " They tell a half-truth. " http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080504/A_NEWS/805040321/-1\ /A_NEWS07 9) The Forest Foundation of Auburn CA and the National Association of Forest Service Retirees have issued a joint review of California forests. Their finding is that the lack of reforestation following forest fires is responsible for converting an average of 30,000 acres per year of forest to brush. Nearly 150,000 acres of forest has been converted to brush over the last seven fire seasons in CA, not including conversion that has occurred in wilderness areas. Recent homilies about " renewing the forest " with wildfire as uttered by obsequious government functionaries and power-grasping eco-terrorist BINGOs are supercilious, pusillanimous, and specious. Wildfires do not " renew " forests, they decimate and destroy forests and convert them to tick brush. Blood-sucking, disease-carrying tick populations thrive, but forest creatures lose their habitat when wildfires ravage forests. Those vegetation changes are permanent without intervention, because fire-type tick brush generates yet more fires that exclude trees. http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2008/05/05/california-forests-are-being-converted-to\ -tick-brush/ 10) Pacific Lumber Co. and its parent company, Maxxam Inc., have struck a deal with the Mendocino Redwood Co. and a key creditor, and raised the ante with an all-cash offer for the Scotia company's timberlands. The deal was announced in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Thursday. Palco and Maxxam will now support the Mendocino Redwood and Marathon Structured Finance Fund plan of reorganization, which calls for the timberlands and the Scotia mill to be operated as a single entity. Jordan said that Palco's position is to support the plan that best preserves the town of Scotia, the Palco mill and its employees, and one that keeps the timberlands tied to the mill. As part of the deal, Maxxam apparently would get $2.25 million in exchange for tax protection measures, and Mendocino Redwood would buy logs Maxxam has purchased in recent months, said an attorney for Marathon. The Palco-Mendocino pact now offers $530 million in cash to the noteholders, up from a package of $175 million in cash and $325 million in notes. " We believe we have enhanced the valuation to the full extent we can, " said Mendocino Redwood attorney Allan Brilliant. The arrangement moves significant support to the plan proposed by Marathon and Mendocino Redwood, which already enjoys broad support from unsecured creditors and state and federal agencies. Palco subsidiary Scotia Pacific has held out, and is presenting witnesses to back its own plan, which banks on a value of $900 million for the land. Judge Richard Schmidt will have to decide whether to confirm the Mendocino plan, another pitched by Scotia Pacific, or another backed by bondholders, whose $714 million is secured by Scotia Pacific's 210,000 acres. Testimony was taken from forestry experts Thursday, and from Gary Clark, a Palco vice president who resigned as an officer of Scotia Pacific Wednesday. Clark testified that Palco should have enough cash to continue operating through May 20. Waiting possibly months to allow the noteholders to hold an auction -- should their plan be confirmed -- would likely find Palco out of cash, he said. " My understanding is the mill would probably shut down, " Clark said. He also testified to an expected $8 million to $10 million in road work and environmental work coming due for Scotia Pacific, and questioned whether that entity could count on selling significant numbers of redwood logs if the mill were closed. While the parties continue to brawl over their positions, Schmidt seemed to feel that progress had been made. http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_9129189 Arizona: 11) In the Southwest United States alone, nearly two million acres of forest are now gone, destroyed by recent catastrophic wildfires. An estimated 1.2 million hectares of Brazilian Amazon rainforest have been destroyed by illegal soya bean farming. And throughout Honduras, Panama, Belize, and Nicaragua, slash-and-burn farming is the leading cause of rainforest destruction in that region. This ongoing destruction upsets many land and water-based ecosystems, which in turn will take many, many years to replace. Plus, the loss of millions of trees increases the negative effects of carbon dioxide (CO2). Trees act as a carbon sink by removing the carbon from carbon dioxide and storing it as cellulose in the trunk while releasing the oxygen back into the air. One healthy tree stores around 13 pounds of carbon each year, or some 2.6 tons per acre every year. Jigsaw Health, a Scottsdale, Arizona-based provider of nutritional foods, dietary supplements, educational information, and functional self-assessment testing materials for those suffering from chronic illnesses, has recognized the importance of helping restore the fragile ecosystems in areas devastated by wildfires and poor farming practices. The company, led by founder and CEO Pat Sullivan, is taking steps to help the environment through their new " Heal Your Body, Heal the Planet " tree planting program as well as introducing a company-wide " Going Green " initiative. http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=851436 Minnesota: 12) I've seen plenty of poorly-considered and ill-informed editorials before, but Bill Hanna set a new low in the Mesabi Daily News last Sunday with his diatribe entitled: " Don't let the Canadian Lynx ruin our future. " To hear Hanna tell it, the sky will literally fall on our region if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service moves ahead with its proposal to designate much of the region as " critical habitat. " Mining operations, logging, and even recreation could be literally shut down if the proposal is approved, warns Hanna. Here's my real beef. The fact is (and, yes, it's a real fact), the critical habitat designation currently being considered by the Fish and Wildlife Service will have almost no detectable impact on anything in our region. Period. Here's why. First of all, the provisions of the Endangered Species Act, under which the critical habitat designation is required, pertains only to federal projects or actions, or projects involving federal funding or permits. It will not apply to private property or state or county lands, unless a project involves federal funding or permits. And even in those cases, the effect of this designation is still essentially zero, because virtually every federal agency in our area has been managing as if the region is critical habitat already. In our region, of course, we're primarily talking about the US Forest Service, within the confines of the Superior National Forest. And the Forest Service has been managing the Superior as critical habitat since the lynx was first listed as threatened in 2001. That's not a matter of opinion. It's a simple fact. And its impact on the management of the national forest has been minor to say the least. Far from crippling its timber program, the Superior is planning a significant increase in the number of timber sales it issues this year. None of this should come as a surprise. While Mr. Hanna didn't tell his readers this, most of our region was designated as critical habitat for the eastern gray wolf way back in 1978. Any logging or mining operations shut down as a result? Of course not. In fact, the Forest Service routinely used the wolf's endangered status as a reason for additional logging, because they argued that younger forests were better for deer, the wolf's primary prey. Much the same arguments can be used with the lynx, which prey almost exclusively on snowshoe hare, another species that favors dense, younger forests. http://www.timberjay.com/current.php?article=4312 Illinois: 13) Over the objections of many local residents, the Village of Glen Ellyn and the Glen Ellyn Park District are moving ahead with plans to cut down more than 340 trees at Ackerman Park this spring as part of a stormwater control project. The affluent suburban village lies about 20 miles west of Chicago. The area at issue is between Lenox, Riford and St. Charles roads and is characterized by woods and wetlands. Although the project was approved by the village and park district boards in November, residents who have showed up at public information meetings about the project hope they can still put a stop to it. Opponents plan to turn out to the next Park District Board meeting on Tuesday, May 6, saying this project " must be stopped immediately. " Construction is expected to begin in June. The Park District owns the land and is letting the village use it for stormwater retention from the 5-Corners commercial area. In exchange, the village is permitting the park district to build two soccer fields on land that is now heavily wooded area with trees over 30 " in diameter. Resident Melissa Creech started a website to express opposition to the project at http://www.saveackermanwoods.com - http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2008/2008-05-04-092.asp Maine: 14) If Maine is going to sprout new and successful business ventures, it's likely that more than a few of them will be based on local resources and local traditions. The new will have its roots in the old. So it's no surprise that Maine's third wood-pellet mill began operation a couple of weeks ago on the edge of the northern forest in Athens. That's where Maine Woods Pellet Co. is making small slugs of compacted pulp wood and sawdust to be burned as fuel. In what's called a vertically integrated operation, the pellets are made from the leftovers -- tree limbs and tops, for example -- of the logging operations run by two of the project partners. As long as those logging operations continue, there will be a guaranteed source of material to manufacture the pellets. Maine Woods Pellet Co. plans to expand production to 100,000 tons of pellets per year. Now, they're making 120 tons daily and, so far, they have one large industrial customer, Sappi Fine Paper of Skowhegan. Two other mills in the state, in Corinth and Ashland, together produce 95,000 tons of wood pellets. Another mill is slated to begin operation this fall in Strong, on the site of the former Forster Manufacturing toothpick mill, which closed in 2003. And at a recent meeting of the Maine Pulp and Paper Association, state Conservation Commissioner Pat McGowan said the state has the capacity to annually produce 900,000 tons of pellets based on the wood fiber that's left in the woods after harvesting. http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/view/columns/5025223.html USA: 15) The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) refused direct requests made by both Chambers of Congress to allow for scientific peer review and public comment of the soon to be released Northern Spotted Owl recovery plan. This blatant disregard of Congress came on the heels of the release of a report by a panel of experts assembled by the Sustainable Ecosystems Institute (SEI) in Portland that found the draft spotted owl recovery plan underestimates the importance of protecting old-growth forest habitat, compared to the threat from a competing species, the barred owl. The review was commissioned by the US Fish and Wildlife Service after the draft owl recovery plan was flunked by three organizations who also conducted peer review on the plan, the Society of Conservation Biology, the American Ornithologists Union, and the Wildlife Society. " By refusing a legitimate request for independent scientific review of the recovery plan, the Administration has once again demonstrated its disdain for relying on science to make decisions on threatened and endangered species, " said Randi Spivak, Executive Director of American Lands Alliance. " Instead, they prefer to manipulate the science to suit their agenda. " The Northern Spotted Owl was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1990, and critical habitat was designated in 1992. Recovery of the owl is about more than this one species. Like a canary in a coal mine, the owl is an indicator species of the health of the remaining old-growth forests, clean water, salmon, and habitat for many other species. In 1994, the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) became the cornerstone for conserving the Northern Spotted Owl on 24.4 million acres of federal forests in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California. The Bush administration has been trying to increase old-growth logging on these public lands for the past eight years by dismantling the Northwest Forest Plan. A weak owl recovery plan is needed by this Administration to meet timber industry demands to significantly increase old-growth logging on federal forests. Reducing old-growth forest protections for the spotted owl would also allow the Bureau of Land Management's proposal for a 700% increase in old-growth logging in Southern Oregon to move forward. http://www.americanlands.org/index.php 16) A recent USA Today ad placed by environmental groups Dogwood Alliance and ForestEthics highlighted the forest-related paper practices of Corporate Express, FedEx Kinko's, Office Depot, OfficeMax, and Staples. The groups say Staples, which just last month switched all of its 1,400 Copy & Print Centers in the U.S. to recycled paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, is making significant progress in their paper purchasing, while OfficeMax, which had probably hoped the campaign against it by Dogwood Alliance and ForestEthics ended last year when it introduced a new paper procurement policy, " has been doing the least to back up its green spin with concrete actions. " In addition to several other cities, the ad ran in USA Today's New York City edition, where paper industry executives were gathered for the American Forest & Paper Association's annual " Paper Week. " The environmental groups released their latest Green Grades report card with the ad. " While no office supply company is perfect, Staples and FedEx Kinko's are making real progress and lead the sector overall, " said Daniel Hall of ForestEthics. " The two companies have been the industry's most responsive in shifting their paper sourcing from Endangered Forests to more sustainable sources. " The " Green Grades " report card also notes that Office Depot and Corporate Express are making strides in some areas, but the jury is still out on key questions. In February, Staples joined other retailers,Office Depot being one of them, in no longer doing business with Asia Pulp & Paper due to environmental concerns The groups released their last Green Grades report in September. http://forestethics.org/article.php?id=2112 17) A record 56 percent of the paper consumed in the United States was recovered for recycling in 2007, it was announced recently by the American Forest & Paper Association (AF & PA). " Paper recycling is a great American success story, " said Patrick J. Moore, chairman and CEO of Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation, an AF & PA member, the world's largest paperboard and paper-based packaging company and one of the world's largest paper recyclers. " Americans already recycle a large percentage of two paper grades, corrugated containers and newspapers, so achieving AF & PA's 60 percent recovery goal by 2012 will require focus on increasing recovery of other grades including printing and writing papers, catalogs, and direct mail, as well as extracting additional fiber from our country's waste stream. " Smurfit-Stone is investing in advanced waste sorting line technology to extract more fiber from the waste stream. This enhanced sort-system technology allows Smurfit-Stone to dig deeper into the municipal solid waste stream to recover more fiber and other recyclables using a series of mechanically separating screens, discs, magnets and air currents to separate various recyclable materials into their base components. Placed at landfills or municipal waste transfer stations, Smurfit-Stone's systems help communities and waste haulers reduce their tipping fees, landfill expansion requirements, and fuel emissions related to waste processing. Total paper recovery reached 54.3 million tons in 2007, equaling 360 pounds of paper for every man, woman, and child in America. That's enough paper to fill the Empire State Building 100 times. http://www.pulpandpaperonline.com/content/news/article.asp?docid=eaf5a077-95de-4\ 78a-8da0-fb7432 fca748 & atc~c=771+s=773+r=001+l=a & VNETCOOKIE=NO UK: 18) Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest must be turning over in his grave. The beautiful forest in England, which played safe house for his merry men, is all but vanished. Sherwood Forest once covered about 100,000 acres, a big chunk of present day Nottinghamshire. Today its core is about 450 acres. Experts say urgent action is needed to regenerate the forest and save the rare and endangered ancient oaks. Over the centuries, the forest was carved up for farms, mines, towns and logging. Now the ravages of age and climate change are taking their toll. The forest is beloved for its connection to Robin Hood, the legendary 13th century bandit who supposedly hid there from the Sheriff of Nottingham. One of Sherwood's oldest and most celebrated trees is Major Oak near Edwinstowe, the town where legend has Robin marrying Maid Marion. Historians believe it and other Sherwood oaks could have been saplings back in Robin's time. Park rangers say the collection of ancient oaks is one of the greatest in Europe. But sadly enough, they see an increase in the trees rate of decline. While both Robin and Marion would be shocked to see the demise of their beautiful Sherwood Forest, they would also be happy to hear of the plan to save it. A comprehensive rescue plan is now being prepared, which will focus on planting 250,000 trees to knit the parts of the forest back together. It's almost a once in a lifetime opportunity to save this particular forest. While we don't have a Sherwood Forest here in this province, AbitibiBowater and the provincial government recently signed two agreements to provide long-term investment in the forests of Newfoundland and Labrador. These investments are akin to creating a possible safe haven for the industry the same as Sherwood Forest did for Robin Hood. A new four year cost-sharing agreement will see investment of $12.3 million spent on silviculture projects. The silviculture treatments will include tree planting, pre-commercial thinning and plantation maintenance. http://gfwadvertiser.ca/index.cfm?sid=131810 & sc=294 19) Powerless neighbors watched in dismay as six ancient trees along Gypsey Bank were torn down this week to make way for a new development. The trees, which are believed to be over 100 years old, stood in the grounds of Beechwood house between St John's Avenue and Medina Avenue. The area is due to house a new 49 unit residential complex and locals were invited to an open consultation last moth to discuss the development but were not told that the trees would be a casualty of the new complex. " I think the whole street is upset about it, " said St John's Avenue resident Katherine Redshaw, " It was a lovely view. " The trees were something for our children to see and enjoy but we are just destroying things that can't be replaced. " She added that had the neighbourhood known that the trees would be removed completely she felt sure they would have got together to try and prevent it from happening. " At the meeting we were told that the trees would just be trimmed, " said Mrs Redshaw, " I think it has all been done very sneakily, you just cannot replace 100 year old trees. " http://www.bridlingtonfreepress.co.uk/news/Anger-as-trees-are-cut.4034957.jp 20) Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones yesterday outlined how forests in Wales need to change to help tackle climate change and give rural communities an economic boost. Addressing the UK Forest Products Association (UKFPA) annual meeting, she said: " First, forests will need to become more resilient and better adapted to the challenges that might develop through a changing climate. " Secondly, some woodland might be better as different habitat and some agricultural land might deliver more as woodland. " UKFPA president Gordon Callander added: " It is vitally important we see an increase in commercial forestry in Wales, to enable the industry to prosper and to deliver more benefits to the nation. " Wales' forests cover 14% of the nation's land area. http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/05/02/seeing-the-wood-for-th\ e-trees-91466-2 0851145/ 21) Anlgo-Dutch food and consumer goods giant Unilever said Thursday it would back a moratorium on further palm oil deforestation in Indonesia and intended to use only fully traceable palm oil by 2015. The company, the target of environmental protests in Britain and the Netherlands last month, said it would start using palm oil from certifiable sources in the second half of this year as it becomes available and would try to ensure that oil it uses in Europe is certified as sustainable by 2012. Unilever markets such products as Dove soap, Omo and Surf detergents, Knorr food products and Lipton tea. " Palm oil is an important raw material for us and the whole consumer goods industry, " said chief executive Patrick Cescau, adding that the company for the past 10 years had been trying to " build an industry consensus on criteria for sustainable palm cultivation. " " Now we need to take the next step. Suppliers need to move to meet the criteria, by getting certified both the palm oil from their own plantations and the palm oil they buy from elsewhere, " Cescau said. " We also intend to support the call for an immediate moratorium on any further deforestation in palm oil in Indonesia. " Indonesia is this year expected to surpass Malaysia as the world's number one palm oil producer. The two countries combined supply 85 percent of the world's palm oil needs. Environmental protesters dressed as orang-utans targeted Unilever on April 21, accusing it of contributing to the destruction of the Indonesian rainforest. About 40 members of Greenpeace entered the multinational's factory in Merseyside, northwest England, where they said they had chained themselves to machinery to halt production. A dozen demonstrated outside Unilever's headquarters in London, with some scaling its external walls, while another 20 held a protest outside the Rotterdam offices of the company. http://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Unilever_backs_call_for_moratorium_on_palm_o\ il_deforestat ion_in_Indonesia_999.html Ireland: 22) Coillte, the Irish state forestry company, has impacted on many a wild Irish bog, mountain and wetland, including from planting in the last few years more than a million acres of pesticide-laden, monocultural and exotic Sitka spruce plantations. What is as dismal as the trees, though, is that this " green desert " was certified by the Soil Association and the Forest Stewardship Council as " sustainable forestry " . Now the Irish are revolting. " We call on the Soil Association and FSC to immediately withdraw this abomination of a certificate, and we call on all environmentalists everywhere to help us in our struggle, " says a group writing to Eco Soundings and calling itself the Irish Environmental and Social Stakeholders http://www.fsc-watch.org Nigeria: 22) Illegal felling of trees for wood fuel accounts for 85 per cent of deforestation in Nigeria, a senior government official said Tuesday in Abuja. Mrs Halima Alao, the Minister of Environment, Housing and Urban Development, made the statement while flagging off the National Climate Change Awareness and sensitisation Exercise (NCCASE), tagged " Abuja Climate Change City Storm''. Alao, who attributed the statistics to the World Bank, said the activity had left fewer trees to absorb and store up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thereby changing significantly, the balance of gases in the atmosphere. She explained that greenhouse gases were now being generated through the increased use of fossil fuels by the burning of fossil fuels and the cutting down of forests. " The more heat trapped, the warmer the earth becomes and the greater climates across the globe will change. " Climate change is already affecting and will continue to affect the whole world's land, water and air. http://www.thetidenews.com/article.aspx?qrDate=05/01/2008 & qrTitle=Illegal%20tree\ %20felling%20a ccounts%20for%20deforestation%20%E2%80%93Minister & qrColumn=ENVIRONMENT Ghana: 23) Mr Mireku said the project dubbed " Schools-Under-Trees " seeks to provide decent school block and accommodation for teachers to help improve the standard of education especially in the rural areas. At Tontro and Nobi, Mr Asihene inaugurated a three classroom-block with stores, office and computer centre for each community at the cost of GH¢35,000 each and four units teachers quarters at Obodan at the cost of GH¢52,000 all funded from the GETFUND. The Municipal Chief Executive addressing separate durbars said, Government was committed to the welfare of the people and rejected claims by the opposition parties that, Government was insensitive to the plight of Ghanaians. He said Government had put in place a lot of programmes to improve the welfare of the people and cited the School Feeding Programme and the Capitation Grant as some of measures. Mr Mireku urged the people to have confidence in Government and continue to vote for the NPP to continue the good works it had started. Mr Joseph Boakye Danquah-Adu, the Member of Parliament for Abuakwa North said the Constituency had benefited from a lot of development projects such as electrification, school buildings, and clinics roads to improve the welfare of the people. http://www.myjoyonline.com/education/200805/15972.asp India: 24) The threatened green cover of Shimla, always vulnerable to constructions coming up within the town and its peripheral belt, has witnessed yet another onslaught near Ragyan, a village witnessing a construction boom. After complaints of a local resident, Atma Ram Sharma, who has alleged serious violations and encroachment on the forest land, the Town and Country Planning Department two days back stopped the construction. However, just 24 hours after officials sent a compliance department to the Chief Minister's office, the construction resumed. The complainants say some of the full grown deodars and a dense forest will fall victim to the construction soon as the forest is not even at a distance of five metres from the new construction site. Today, when TCP officials raided the spot, they faced strong resistance of the women, alleged an official. Earlier in Shimla town, more than 100 trees have been damaged by recent constructions in Jakhu, Khalini and Navbahar areas in the past three months. http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Threat-to-forests-Despite-govt-crackdown\ -construction- goes-on/305748/ Fiji: 25) The Fiji Independent Commission against Corruption is investigating logging companies in the Northern Division after twelve landowning units complained of not receiving royalty after their forests were logged. FICAC Manager Investigations Sanaila Seru says initial enquiries indicate companies that defaulted on royalty payments continued to be granted logging licenses – as a direct breach of the Code of Logging Practice. Seru says FICAC is also investigating the lack of reforestation programs and other breaches of the logging code causing environmental damage. Some of the loggers have not paid royalties and by virtue of that they should not be given a license unless they have cleared their royalties but what's been happening they don't pay royalties and after a while they are given their license and jump to another mataqali and in the end it's the mataqali who's suffering but the sad thing about this that some members of the mataqali are in collusion with the companies and all corruption involving mataqalis some are involved because they are easily bought of. http://www.radiofiji.com.fj/fullstory.php?id=11108 Indonesia: 26) The number of Indonesians concerned with preserving North Sulawesi's flora and fauna -- one of the country's most precious natural treasures -- has been rising amid the uncontrollably high rate of deforestation. Beginning with an awareness on how to maintain the existing wealth for the benefit of all, their selfless acts are aimed at protecting the Tangkoko-Batuangus Nature Reserve in Ranowulu district, Bitung regency, North Sulawesi. This is in stark contrast to some government officials who view the existing forests merely as a quick source of easy cash. The environmentalists, on the other hand, see far beyond that in wishing to preserve the forests for future generations. The groups' activities also put to shame the conduct of certain members of the House of Representatives who abuse their influence by withdrawing protected status for preservation areas, hence turning them into prime targets for development projects, in return for bribes. Corrupt government officials and legislators fail to see the forest for the trees in an attempt to enrich themselves by any means necessary, as seen in the case of legislator Al Amin Nur Nasution, who was arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for allegedly receiving bribes to change the status of protected forests in Bintan regency, Riau province. A number of other legislators admitted to having received similar kickbacks for the redevelopment of other nature reserves, including in Bandarlampung and Banyuasin in South Sumatra, for proposed construction. http://old.thejakartapost.com/detailfeatures.asp?fileid=20080506.T01 & irec=0 World-wide: 27) Human are transforming the global environmental. Great swathes of temperate forest in Europe, Asia and North America have been cleared over the past few centuries for agriculture, timber and urban development. Tropical forests are now on the front line. Human-assisted species invasions of pests, competitors and predators are rising exponentially, and over-exploitation of fisheries, and forest animals for bush meat, to the point of collapse, continues to be the rule rather than the exception. Driving this has been a six-fold expansion of the human population since 1800 and a 50-fold increase in the size of the global economy. The great modern human enterprise was built on exploitation of the natural environment. Today, up to 83% of the Earth's land area is under direct human influence and we entirely dominate 36% of the bioproductive surface. Up to half the world's freshwater runoff is now captured for human use. More nitrogen is now converted into reactive forms by industry than all by all the planet's natural processes and our industrial and agricultural processes are causing a continual build-up of long-lived greenhouse gases to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years and possibly much longer. Clearly, this planet-wide domination by human society will have implications for biological diversity. Indeed, a recent review on the topic, the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report (an environmental report of similar scale to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports), drew some bleak conclusions – 60% of the world's ecosystems are now degraded and the extinction rate is now 100 to 1000 times higher than the " background " rate of long spans of geological time. For instance, a study I conducted in 2003 showed that up to 42% of species in the Southeast Asian region could be consigned to extinction by the year 2100 due to deforestation and habitat fragmentation alone. Given these existing pressures and upheavals, it is a reasonable question to ask whether global warming will make any further meaningful contribution to this mess. Some, such as the sceptics S. Fred Singer and Dennis Avery, see no danger at all, maintaining that a warmer planet will be beneficial for mankind and other species on the planet and that " corals, trees, birds, mammals, and butterflies are adapting well to the routine reality of changing climate " . http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=35 28) Researchers are about to embark on a global project in which they hope to capture DNA from thousands and thousands of tree species around the world to create a database that catalogues some of the Earth's vast biodiversity. The leader of the effort is none other than the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx — better known to the general public for its orchid shows and colorful blossoms than its world-renowned environmental research. The garden is hosting a meeting this week that brings participants from different countries together in New York City to lay the groundwork for how the two-year undertaking will proceed. The project is known as TreeBOL, or tree barcode of life. As in a similar project under way focusing on the world's fish species, participants would gather genetic material from trees around the world. A section of the DNA would be used as a barcode, an identifying marker that is similar to the way a barcode on a product at the grocery store is scanned to bring up its price. The resulting database will help identify many of the world's existing plant species, where they are located, and whether they are endangered. The results are crucial for those interested in conservation and protecting the environment in a world of increasing population and development, said Damon Little, assistant curator of bioinformatics at the Botanical Garden and coordinator of the project. " If you don't know what you're potentially destroying, how can you know if it's important or not? " he said. " We know so little about the natural world, when it comes down to it, even though we've been working on it for hundreds of years. " It's a massive undertaking — trees make up 25 percent of all plants, and Little estimates there could be as many as 100,000 species. The participants hail from far and wide, countries such as South Africa, India, and of course the United States. In order for the database to be useful, the same section of DNA must be used in all the samples, so that comparisons can be made across species. Part of the work of this week's meeting is to figure out which part to use, as well as other logistical issues among the more than 40 participating organizations. The garden received a two-year grant of nearly $600,000 to coordinate the project. http://www.silive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/news-33/1209703786235700.xml & sto\ rylist=simetro 29) " What is exciting is that while remote protected areas seem to be protected quite well simply because they are inaccessible, protected areas located in areas of high human pressure also seem to be maintaining their legal boundaries, " Lucas Joppa of Duke University told environmentalresearchweb. Joppa and colleagues Scott Loarie and Stuart Pimm looked at protected areas in the Amazon, Congo, South American Atlantic coast and West Africa. " The first two are the last remaining moist tropical forest wilderness areas in the world, while the last two are biodiversity 'hotspots' – areas with high biological diversity as well as intense human pressure, " said Joppa. While the two wilderness regions had very low levels of fragmentation around their protected areas and low levels of deforestation, the hotspot regions were markedly different. " Protected areas in both regions showed a marked decrease in deforestation at their boundaries, but the West Africa region showed very low levels of fragmentation outside of protected areas, simply because deforestation was so high that no forest was left to fragment, " said Joppa. " The South American Atlantic Coast region, however, showed high levels of fragmentation outside of protected areas, meaning that the opportunities to connect those fragments is potentially quite significant. " But there is one major caveat – while the two wilderness areas have many large protected areas, the researchers say that the two hotspot regions don't have enough protected areas, and many of those areas are too small to conserve species effectively. According to the team, protected areas are generally protecting against deforestation but major geographical considerations come into play. " This geographic variation must be incorporated into the way that the global network of protected areas is considered, " said Joppa. " Also, we could find no evidence that management category within a region shaped our results. This should calm fears that the distribution of management categories somehow affects the way protected area boundaries interact with deforestation. " http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/futures/34007 30) Several trends pop out of the data, says Ralph Keeling. First, in the Northern Hemisphere the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide rises and falls about 7 parts per million over the course of the year. The concentration typically reaches a peak each May, then starts to drop as the hemisphere's flush of new plant growth converts the gas into sprouts, vegetation and wood. In October, the decomposition of newly fallen leaves again boosts CO2 levels. Populations of algae at the base of the ocean's food chain follow the same trend, waxing each spring and waning each autumn. A second trend is that each year's 7-ppm, saw-tooth variation in CO2 is superimposed on an average concentration that is steadily rising. Today's average is more than 380 ppm, compared with 315 ppm 50 years ago. And it's still rising, about 2 ppm each year, mainly from burning fossil fuels. Largely because CO2 traps heat, Earth's average temperature has climbed about 0.74 degrees Celsius over the past century (SN: 2/10/07, p. 83), a trend that scientists expect will accelerate. In the next 20 years, the average global temperature is projected to rise another 0.4 degrees C. Squelching additional temperature increases depends on limiting, if not eliminating, the rise in CO2 levels, many scientists say. And, Keeling says, " It's clear that if we want to stabilize CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, we need to stop the rise in fossil fuel emissions. " But halting the increase in amounts of CO2 in the air doesn't necessarily mean doing away with fossil fuels. Many experts suggest that capturing CO2 emissions, rather than only reducing them, could ultimately provide climate relief. Some researchers, including Ning Zeng, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park, seek to harness the prodigious carbon-storing power of forests. Right now, forest floors worldwide are lined with coarse wood — everything from twigs and limbs shed during growth to entire fallen trees — containing about 65 billion tons of carbon, says Zeng. Left undisturbed, that material would return its carbon to the atmosphere via decomposition or wildfire. Bury that wood in an oxygen-poor environment, however, and the carbon could be locked away for centuries. Furthermore, Zeng notes, each year the world's forests naturally produce enough coarse wood to lock away about 10 billion tons of carbon. Burying just half of that amount would significantly counteract the estimated 6.9 billion tons of carbon released into the atmosphere each year via fossil fuel emissions. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/31431/title/Down_with_Carbon 31) It is easy to rail against " illegal " logging, when in fact typical " legal " commercial logging is far more extensive and destructive in total to the world's biodiversity, climate, water and biosphere. Both liquidate life giving natural habitats, and more people are realizing they are mostly ecologically indistinguishable. Ancient primary forests industrially harvested for the first time are in fact destroyed — in terms of being a fully intact ecological system with a unique, unimpaired evolutionary trajectory — regardless if society considers it legal or illegal. Natural and planted secondary forest ecosystems managed industrially as tree farms become further ecologically diminished with each successive harvest including continued toxification, soil diminishment, species and genetic loss, reduced carbon and water holding potential, and so many other symptoms of ongoing biological homogenization. Humanity's relationship with all forests must be transformed if we are to stop the hemorrhaging of lost species and halt transformation of the atmosphere. Industrial forestry is incompatible with sustaining the full range of natural forest values — from species to genes, from soil microbes to local microclimates, from a forest stand to the Earth system and everything in between. Solving the biodiversity, climate and water crises requires a new forest protection paradigm that optimizes ecosystem, biodiversity and climate values while ecologically sustainably harvesting the annual growth increment (minus ecological restoration of natural capital to account in the future for past damage). To maintain an operable biosphere while achieving equitable and just global ecological sustainability, the forest protection movement must unite behind a rigorous set of goals know to be actually sufficient to stop forest and climate decline. This includes ending ancient forest logging and all industrial destruction of relatively intact natural ecosystems, gaining permanent protections for all remaining primary and old-growth forests (with appropriate compensation and continued small scale use for local peoples), promoting the ecological restoration and certified management of regenerating and planted natural forest ecosystems, and assisting local peoples with small-scaled, community-based eco-forestry projects based upon regenerating secondary and standing ancient forests. http://redapes.org/news-updates/legal-logging-destroying-the-earths-biodiversity\ -climate-wat er-and-biosphere/ 32) In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a Chinese telecommunications giant, ZTE International, has bought more than 7 million acres of forest to plant oil palms. In Zimbabwe, state-owned China International Water and Electric Corp. reportedly received rights from the government to farm 250,000 acres (101,174 hectares) of corn in the south. Indonesia is moving to develop biofuel plantations with The China National Overseas Oil Corporation. The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency, an advocacy group, believes other deals are in the works, often through proxy companies because of long-running anti-Chinese sentiment in the country. The group says the project would destroy natural forest. In Myanmar, rubber concessions have gone to at least two Chinese companies, Ho Nan Ching and Yunnan Hongyu. Refugees fleeing Myanmar's military regime say troops are forcibly evicting farmers to make way for rubber plantations, including some run by Chinese enterprises. A Chinese-Cambodian joint venture, Pheapimex-Wuzhishan, converted land of the Phong tribal people into a tree plantation 20 times larger than allowed by law in Cambodia, according to the environmental group Global Witness. The group says the concession in Mondulkiri province encroached on grazing grounds, destroyed sacred sites and used toxic herbicides. Another Chinese enterprise in Kratie province circumvented the size restriction by registering as three separate companies, Global Witness says. " The Chinese companies do everything in their power to take advantage but they are also taken advantage of. The system is corrupt and there are loopholes and sometimes it works in their favor and sometimes against them, " says Weiyi Shi, an American economist who recently completed a study on the rubber industry. The study found that when the China-Lao Ruifeng Rubber Company moved in, the frontier village of Changee lost most of its rice fields and grazing land and its burial grounds were desecrated. The pleas of villagers got no result and some protesters were reportedly held at gunpoint, with the Chinese using coercion through local authorities. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/04/asia/AS-FEA-GEN-China-Farming-the-Worl\ d.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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