AFP-Wildfires have cost Russia 300 billion dollars in forest loss, environmentalists said on Thursday, explaining the scale of the disaster by Vladimir Putin’s “absurd” changes to forestry law. The economic damage amounts to 25,000 dollars per hectare (2.4 acres), or at least 300 billion dollars, according to estimates based on the market value of timber and the cost of reforestation, said Alexei Zimenko, general director of the Biodiversity Conservation Centre. “The figures are completely astronomical,” Zimenko told a news conference, adding that they did not include several factors, such as the loss of wildlife like insects and rare birds and animals -Read Article
AllAfrica .Com – A meeting held yesterday in Mendefera town highlighted the need for exerting coordinated endeavors on the part of all government institutions in raising public awareness in introducing renewable energy, as it has vital role to play in preventing deforestation. In the meeting in which the ministers of land, water and environment, as well as agriculture and justice took part, briefings were given regarding the condition of forests and the alarming irresponsible cutting down of trees in the Southern region -Read Article
Photographs from the Guardian Eyewitness series: A Greenpeace aerial survey reveals an area of deforestation in Sumatra stripped for pulp and palm oil plantations and logging. Photographer: Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images
BBC-An international team of researchers has developed a model that suggests degradation of tropical forests occurs in a series of “waves”. High-value trees were felled in the first “wave”, followed by a wave that removed mid-value timber before the remaining wood was felled for charcoal. The team hopes the model will help manage forests as vital carbon sinks and limit the loss of biodiversity -Read Article
On Saturday 31 July, the editor of www.OpenYourEyesNews.com, James Fairbairn, made a guest appearance on ABC720 Radio in Perth, Western Australia to discuss with host, James Lush, some of the key news events of recent days. The interview covered the following:
- Iraq
- Deforestation
- Church Sex Abuse Allegations
Check out our latest interview on our new Podcast channel and please subscribe to keep up to date with future episodes of OpenYourEyesNews
The Guardian-Large-scale deforestation in the Amazon rainforest fell dramatically last year, according to official figures released yesterday. Data from satellite sensors making fortnightly detections of only larger areas of forest destruction (greater than 25 hectares) was 1,500km2 between August 2009 and May 2010, compared with 3,000km2 in the same period a year earlier -Read Article
The Guardian-Environmental catastrophe looms as corruption hinders moves to halt illegal trade fuelled by construction boom. High above the village of Nawroz Baba, above the shrine, even above the pastures, is the forest. It stretches to the snowy peaks on the skyline. Ghulam Rasool Dar, who says he is somewhere between 60 and 70 years old but cannot be sure, remembers when the thick stands of fragrant pine reached down to the valley too -Read Article
NY Times-Great sweeps of Guatemalan rain forest, once the cradle of one of the world’s great civilizations, are being razed to clear land for cattle-ranching drug barons. Other parts of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Central America’s largest protected area, have been burned down by small cities of squatters -Read Article
NY Times-The environmental group Greenpeace has accused one of the world’s largest pulp, paper and palm oil companies of aggressively clearing Indonesian rain forests and throwing into doubt a landmark billion-dollar deal that aims to fight climate change by curbing deforestation -Read Article
A revolutionary scheme backed by the World Bank to pay poor countries billions of dollars a year to stop felling trees is the best way to stop logging and save the planet from climate change, according to wealthy countries and conservationists, yet documents seen by the Observer show the plan is actually leading to corruption and possibly more logging -Read Article
RadioAustralia-Environment groups are warning that the logging moratorium in Indonesia will have little impact unless it includes forestry and palm oil concessions. The Indonesian government recently announced a two year ban on deforestation, in exchange for one billion dollars from Norway but existing oil palm contracts will be exempt -Read Article
Independent – Logging of tropical forests can boost the incidence of malaria in the surrounding area by nearly 50 percent, according to new research tracking deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon. The study examined 2006 data tracking malaria rates in 54 Brazilian health districts and high-definition satellite imagery showing the extent of logging of nearby forests -Read Article
Independent-Planting of new trees has fallen to its lowest level in more than three decades across Britain, leading conservationists said yesterday. Efforts to replace woodland in the United Kingdom, once so densely forested that trees which have sustained human populations for 6,000 years covered 90 per cent of the land mass, have slowed dramatically in the past six years -Read Article
Reuters – Palm oil grown on recently deforested land is unlikely to be acceptable for use in European biodiesel, a draft report from the European Commission shows. The environmental standards add to a growing list of challenges for Asia’s palm industry, including Indonesia’s $1 billion climate deal with Norway last month [ID:nSGE65209C] and consumer worries about deforestation -Read Article
Science News-Some people can’t see the forest for the trees, but many can’t see them because they’re truly disappearing: About 3 percent of forests standing in 2000 were gone by 2005, a new analysis of satellite images reveals. Forests vanish for a variety of reasons, from agriculture and logging to natural phenomena such as wildfires, storms and insect infestations, says study coauthor Matthew Hansen, a geographer at South Dakota State University in Brookings -Read Article
Al-Jazeera – Global consumer product giants Unilever and Nestle have stopped buying palm oil for use in its goods from Indonesia’s largest producer Sinar Mas. The company is accused by environmental activists Greenpeace of illegally clearing forests in Indonesia for its plantations. Sinar Mas denies the claims and says it’s hired independent auditors to prove its case. Step Vaessen reports
1.voanews- 98 percent of the country’s forests have been cut down. Edgar Griffin has lived on this hillside outside the town of Petit Guave for 80 years. He says when he was young, it was lush and green. So green, he says, “You couldn’t see a house across from you because it was so green.” Not anymore. Today the mountains are brown and barren. Farmers here try to grow peanuts, but the fertile topsoil washes away in the rain – Read Article
Telegraph – The new policy to convert forests to ‘open habitat’ will increase the area of heathland across England by 1,000 hectares (2,470 acres) every year for at least the next five years. This will mean chopping down thousands of hectares of mostly commercial conifers to allow rare animals like sand lizards, adder, woodlark and curlew to return. It is estimated that 80 per cent of lowland heathland has been lost in the past 200 years to plantation forestry, agriculture and housing development – Read Article
BBC – Half a million people will need to be moved from their homes in mountainous areas of Uganda because of the risk of mudslides, the government has said.Uganda has one of the highest population growth rates in the world but, as more people settle on the mountains, the trees have been felled to make way for agriculture – making mudslides and flooding more common. Read Article
AFP _ It is blamed for everything from deforestation to threatening the extinction of the orangutan, but palm oil is a vital source of income for many developing countries, the crop’s producers say. In Indonesia, the world’s largest palm oil producer, where the plant provides work for three million people, the government is keen to promote the benefits of the crop. Read Article
Ed – The fact of the matter is however that most palm oil production is owned by big corporations (not the peasant farmers), that it leads to massive deforestation, and that despite this it still counts towards ‘carbon off-setting’ for corporations
Times of India – Opposition leader Manohar Parrikar has lambasted the state government, alleging that it is abetting deforestation even as rampant illegal mining continues. “For the past three years alone, 1,500 hectares of forest land has been converted to mining land. The forest department should be renamed as the de-forestation department,” Parrikar told the media at a press conference here on Thursday. “From statistics made available to me, about 18 to 22 per cent of iron ore exported from the state is being extracted from illegal mines. Goa is currently exporting 43 million tonnes of iron ore, which is double to the quantity of exports in 2005. The government is unable to give an account of the source of ore for more than 33 million tonnes,” Parrikar said. He also said that chief minister Digambar Kamat should be made accountable for growing illegalities in the mining sector. Read Article
The Times – Using fossil fuel in vehicles is better for the environment than so-called green fuels made from crops, according to a government study seen by The Times. The findings show that the Department for Transport’s target for raising the level of biofuel in all fuel sold in Britain will result in millions of acres of forest being logged or burnt down and converted to plantations. The study, likely to force a review of the target, concludes that some of the most commonly-used biofuel crops fail to meet the minimum sustainability standard set by the European Commission. Read Article
BBC – When was the last time you had a “rainforest picnic”? Or even, perhaps, an “all-day Amazon breakfast”? Next time you are in a supermarket picking up a chicken sandwich for lunch, or fancy tucking in to a hearty breakfast of eggs, sausage and bacon before setting off for work, spare a thought for the Amazon. A new report by Forest Footprint Disclosure reveals for the first time how global business is driving rainforests to destruction in order to provide things for you and me to eat. But it does also reveal what companies are doing to try to lighten their forest footprint. Sadly, however, the answer is: not much, at least not yet. Consumers “eat” rainforests each day – in the form of beef-burgers, bacon and beauty products – but without knowing it. Read Article
Jakata Post – By declaring 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity, the United Nations has demonstrated its strong commitment to saving threatened biodiversity around the world. The fact that the most diverse ecosystem on Earth is the tropics should those us who live tropical countries more aware about threats to biodiversity. Tropical forests contribute to large portions of nature’s rich diversity, just as coral reefs are a major component of marine biodiversity. The massive destruction of these species’ rich ecosystems will lead to a global species extinction crisis. An ecosystem is an integrated living system. The loss of one species does not only mean that we just lose that species, but also means it is a decline for the ecosystem. Since humans are part of nature’s system, the loss will also affect human survival. The lost biodiversity may have medical importance or act as a biological control.Habitat degradation is the major driver of extinctions of many tropical species. In many tropical countries, including Indonesia, deforestation is the major form of habitat loss. Read Article
Mongabay – Business-as-usual agricultural expansion to meet biofuel production targets for 2020 will take a heavy toll on Brazil’s Amazon rainforest in coming years, undermining the potential emissions savings of transitioning from fossil fuels to biofuels, warns a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The research suggests that intensification of cattle ranching, combined with efforts to promote high-yielding oil crops like oil palm could lessen forecast greenhouse gas emissions from indirect land use in the region. Conducting a spatially-explicit analysis of potential land-use change from biofuel feedstock expansion in Brazil, David M. Lapola of the University of Kassel (Germany) and colleagues find that while relatively little forest land will be directly converted for biofuel production, large swathes of rainforest and cerrado will be indirectly impacted through displacement of cattle ranching, presently the dominant form of land use in the Brazilian Amazon. Read Article
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Photographs from the Guardian Eyewitness series: A Greenpeace aerial survey reveals an area of deforestation in Sumatra stripped for pulp and palm oil plantations and logging. Photographer: Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images
