Earth's Tree News

--Alaska: 1) Tongass economics
--Washington: 2) Humans migration to wildfire landscapes
--Oregon: 3) State’s forests good for 8 million tons of carbon per year
--Montana: 4) Frisbee golfers protest logging in Stillwater State Forest
--Colorado: 5) Hiker Bill loves burned forests, 6) Gov. talks about forest changes,
--Minnesota: 6) Littlefork river water pollution caused by logging 80 years ago
--North Carolina: 7) Estimates on loss of Hemlocks to woolly adelgid
--Canada: 8) two million acres clearcut annually
--UK: 9) Kesgrave woods illegally logged
--Georgia: 10) Mtirala National Park created
--Ghana: 11) Tanosro forestry reserve destroyed by gold miners
--Uganda: 12) N. Uganda destruction, 13) Mabira Forest Reserve threatened again,
--Congo: 14) Lion eating apes, 15) Pygmy people threatened,
--Cameroon: 16) FSC is very, very corrupt!
--Ivory Coast: 17) Traditional healers running out of herbs and salves
--Mexico: 18) Calderon sidesteps logging issues with treeplanting promises
--Brazil: 19) Brazil desperate to sell maximize Ethanol sales,
--Chile: 20) Loggers throw the indigenous in jail then steal their forests
--Guyana: 21) Kyoto pays more for logging and replanting than preserving
--Japan: 22) Imports on the decline, 23) Illegal logging in Akan National Park,
--Nepal: 24) Stopping the handover of community forests in the tarai
--Malaysia: 25)$2 billion Bakun Dam project, 26)Equipment and logs seized, 27)Borneo rhino,
--Indonesia: 28) Give more power to forest rangers, 29) Greenpeace challenges government to deal with fires, 30) disappearing 30 percent faster than estimated,
--New Zealand: 31) Crown forest land prepared for massive sell off
--Australia: 32) Industry rallies for Gunns mill
--Tropical Forests: 32) tropical rainforest food web, 33) Poverty and corruption linked to higher incidence of fire,

Alaska:

1) People joke about tree huggers, but no one laughs when old-growth woodlands are described as cathedral forests. We stand in awe amid columns that soar toward the light. The air takes on weight. It feels preternaturally close and still, yet behind the silence, is alive with faint rustlings, as in the moments before a hymn begins. I wondered whether groves of grand trees didn't in fact inspire the design of humanity's first temples and later edifices: the architecture of praise. Forest economists have different ways of describing such habitats. "Overmature" is one. "Decadent," and "stagnating" are popular. The favorite is still "falling down and going to waste." All imply that where we don't harvest a forest to stimulate a new round of growth, the system lingers past its prime and decays. Well, they have a point, but only from the standpoint of maximum timber production. In terms of the maximum production of life, they are not seeing the forest for the trees. People on both sides of the Tongass dispute get mad at the Forest Service. Maybe it is more to be pitied—as the recipient of conflicting marching orders. The new law essentially forced the agency to promote heavy logging even as other laws held it responsible for protecting wildlife and watersheds. Citizens outside the state were increasingly alarmed by the pace of rain forest destruction and annoyed that they were funding it. With only three modest-size mills and ten small ones scattered around the region today, the Tongass timber industry provides about 200 jobs—less than one percent of total employment in Southeast Alaska. The gargantuan cruise ships plying the waters hire nearly a thousand workers—on each vessel. In Ketchikan alone (city population 8,000), more than 800,000 visitors walk off cruise ship decks and into the stores every year, generating upwards of 120 million dollars in tourism revenue. http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0707/feature4/index.html

Washington:

2) There was a time when you could tell a forest from a suburb. One was a place filled with towering trees and rugged trails that lent itself to camping and weekend jaunts. The other one was where you lived. But over the past three decades, homeowners coveting scenic views and pine-tinged air have descended upon the boundaries of national forests, blurring the line between wilderness and civilization. That, in turn, is creating a dangerous wildfire-risk territory that is changing the nature of firefighting and has U.S. Forest Service officials scrambling for more money and wishing for tougher land development regulations. The problem is acute in Washington State, where almost half of all homes border forests or are surrounded by heavy vegetation, creating an area known as the wildland-urban interface, according to University of Wisconsin research. And about 65 percent of the homes in Washington’s wildland-urban interface are in severe-fire zones, according to a study soon to be published in the scientific journal Landscape and Urban Planning. “It’s the continuation of a trend that has been taking place across the West over a number of years,” said Joe Shramek, a fire control employee with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, which is responsible for protecting more than 12 million acres of private and state-owned forests. “Homeowners and towns and counties have the opportunity to enact ordinances that would make their homes safer,” said Bobbie Scopa, a forest fire manager for the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests. “But there’s a certain amount of pressure to allow development. Some of these ordinances may cost the developments money.” While the Forest Service can try to manage the buildup of dry brush and other fire fuels in the forest through controlled burns and thinning, it has no jurisdiction over how homeowners manage vegetation on their own land. That means firefighters must sometimes contend with badly managed housing lots, which can be fodder for fast-moving, catastrophic wildfires. The Washington state legislature began to address the issue this winter, creating a study group of state and county fire officials, environmentalists, housing developers, landowners, insurers and realtors, charged with eventually recommending new fire policies. http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/washington/news.aspx?id=40791

Oregon:

3) A recent study by my old friends from the forestry department at OSU finds that when you add up the gains and losses, ecosystems in Oregon stored about 8 million tons of carbon per year between 1996 and 2000. The forests west of the Cascades, in particular, were prodigious carbon sinks. (A carbon sink is basically something that removes more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases; it’s mostly being stored in trees and soil in this case). In case you’re wondering, 8 million tons is a lot of carbon storage. In fact, it’s enough to offset about half of the state’s total fossil fuel emissions. Which raises a huge question: given the huge amounts of carbon that Northwest forests can capture and store, what role should they have in climate policy? I still haven’t decided how I feel about this issue. Forests store so much carbon that policymakers ought to pay attention to them. But as this study shows, integrating forest protection or reforestation into, say, a cap and trade system carries huge risks. As someone who’s worried about over-reliance on forests as a major tool of climate policy, these three things concern me most: 1) Oregon was a big carbon sink some years and a source in others. For example, the state was a net source of carbon in 2002 for two reasons: the notorious Biscuit Fire (which caused huge carbon losses all by itself) and dry weather (which slowed tree growth). 2) The size of the carbon sink is closely correlated with precipitation, especially in the spring and summer. When it’s really dry, trees don’t grow as much (Makes sense, right?) But most regional models of climate change predict that Oregon’s summers will get warmer and drier. That suggests that Oregon’s forests may be a smaller carbon sink in the future, or even perhaps a source of carbon emissions. 3) According to this study and others, the best way to store carbon in forests is to avoid logging them (or at least cut them less frequently), because wood products store only a portion of the carbon stored in standing forests. http://www.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2007/07/13/everything-but-the-carbon-sink

Montana:

4) Before their informal tournament in the Stillwater State Forest, a dozen disc golfers gathered among the massive pines to discuss their sport – and the potential impact on it of a logging project proposed by the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.
“Depending on what trees are removed here, the course would be worthless,” said Ken Deeds, the unofficial organizer of the weekly tournaments. “It’s such a low-key sport that nobody really knows about it,” added Hugh Black. “But there are a lot of people that enjoy this place.” Disc golf, or “Folf,” is played how it sounds: golf with flying discs resembling smaller, heavier Frisbees. The “hole” on most courses is a chain basket, but the Stillwater course simply has posts with metal tops that give off a satisfying “bing” sound after a successful putt. “A lot of young adults use it and they use it responsibly and respectfully,” said state Sen. Dan Weinberg, D-Whitefish. The 18-hole Stillwater course’s difficulty derives almost entirely from the location and density of trees. Thus, a logging project on the area has the potential to disrupt the growing and enthusiastic numbers who show up to talk, amble through the forest, and huck their discs. http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/logging_round_the_lake/C52/445/

Colorado:

5) Hiker Bill Thousand could’ve picked anywhere in Colorado — perhaps a place where the trees weren’t black and destroyed — on a beautiful Saturday for a walk. But beauty, he said, “is in the eye of the beholder,” and he beheld plenty in the burned hills around Beulah. “I don’t see waste. I see the progress of nature, kind of reclaiming her own,” Thousand said. It’s been two years since the Mason Gulch fire burned 11,700 acres of San Isabel National Forest. No homes were destroyed, but it came close enough to force evacuation of 5,000 people. The fire was contained July 16, 2005. Though the air still carries the faint scent of burnt wood, the burn scar is now a sea of green. Grasses, weeds and flowers aplenty thrive there, and some tree seedlings have sprouted. Saturday, Dave Van Manen, director of the nearby Mountain Park Environmental Center, led a tour of the area for the two-year anniversary of the blaze. He wanted to show the regrowth there, and more importantly, how a century of extinguishing every wildfire has made the forests an overgrown tinderbox. “We really need to start educating about the role of fire in forests and the reality is Smoky the Bear’s message was wrong,” Van Manen said. “I’ve always understood that fire belongs here and I’ve always understood that things were way out of whack,” he said. Forest Service officials have re-seeded 85 percent of the area, and are treating it for noxious weeds. They have been collecting pine cones from the area, and hope to plant ponderosa pine seedlings by the spring of 2009. “In our lifetime, we won’t see those trees come back in the way they were,” Crespin said. Officials won’t plant the trees as dense as they were, and Van Manen said that nobody should want the forest to go back to the way it was, with 200 to 300 trees an acre when it should have about 40.
“Nature just comes back. It’s the way nature is,” said hiker Larry Arns, of Pueblo. “This isn’t the first fire that’s come through here. The trees came back and they will again.” Van Manen plans to continue leading occasional tours of the burn scar, and he noted, with irony, one continuing benefit of Mason Gulch: “In a way, now this is safe from a catastrophic fire," he said http://www.gazette.com/articles/fire_24810___article.html/forest_trees.html

6) Gov. Bill Ritter peered out the window of a small turboprop plane Wednesday at huge swaths of red-needled, beetle-infested forest and hundreds of new homes encroaching deeper into the woods. "What you see are just massive areas where the landscape of this state will change dramatically," Ritter said after stepping off the plane at Centennial Airport. "The forest will be reshaped." The governor surveyed some of the 660,000 acres of trees killed by bark- burrowing beetles on a flyover from Evergreen to Breckenridge with state and federal forestry officials. They're concerned about how the acres of dead lodgepole pine will affect tourism and how they will battle raging fires fueled by dry needles and wood stacked on the forest floor - especially as more people build homes in the wilderness. "This is spooky for firefighters," said Rick Cables, regional forester for the U.S. Forest Service. "When you get into a forest that's dead, the hair kind of stands up on the back of their necks." Colorado has had 460 wildfires so far this year. Last year, 4,700 fires burned 250,000 acres and caused $1.3 million in damage. Owners of homes close to the woods, particularly in beetle-ravaged Granby, are frightened, Cables said. Private landowners share the responsibility of saving their homes in a wildfire and should remove fuel on their property and make sure roads are accessible, officials said. Crews are working to remove some of the forest-floor kindling in areas close to communities and watersheds, but they cannot - and should not - clean up whole forests, said State Forester Jeff Jahnke. http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_6353233

Minnesota:

7) A Minnesota Pollution Control Agency water quality report on the lower Littlefork River watershed suggests logging practices from 80 years ago could be the cause of the river’s polluted water today. Jesse Anderson, a research scientist with the MPCA, said historical logging practices changed the landscape and the river’s water quantity. “We based our conclusion on scientific water quantity data collected in the watershed by the U.S. Geological Survey from the early 1900s to the present,” Anderson said. “Logging allowed more water to flow off the land into the river, especially during spring snow melt. As a result, the riverbanks eroded, water clarity decreased and now a portion of the river does not meet state water quality standards. The river has yet to recover from these impacts.” The initial logging of the forest within the watershed was one of the causes of the Littlefork River’s pollution problems today, said Nolan Baratono, of the MPCA. The forest along the river absorbs a large amount of water, but releases very little. The logging significantly increased the flow of water off the land, he explained. Logging previously used streams for log drives, which also altered the streams and river, Baratono said. MPCA staff started a long-term data collection process in 2004 to better understand the river’s current water quality conditions. An interagency work group of local, county, state, tribal and Canadian water researchers are studying the river to determine the pollutants’ cause. The group is expected to conduct more detailed monitoring during the next few years. A 21-mile segment of the river between the town of Littlefork and the Rainy River was added to the state’s impaired waters list for excessive turbidity, or lack of clarity, in 2006. The MPCA is required by the federal Clean Water Act to assess all waters in the state to determine whether they meet state water quality standards. Once water bodies are added to the list, a 2- to 4-year research and public input process begins. MPCA scientists expect to begin developing a pollutant-reduction plan in 2011, Baratono said, adding that if funding becomes available, it could be moved up to 2009. http://www.ifallsdailyjournal.com/node/3942

North Carolina:

8) Forest Service (FS) research has provided the first estimates on the impact the loss of eastern hemlock will have on the water dynamics of the southern Appalachian mountains. In the June 2007 issue of Ecological Applications, researchers Chelcy Ford and Jim Vose from the FS Southern Research Station (SRS) Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory present findings on eastern hemlock rates of transpiration (the amount of soil water taken up by trees) from a 2-year study in western North Carolina. Eastern hemlock, a keystone species in the streamside forests in the southern Appalachian region, is already experiencing widespread decline and mortality and may be decimated by the hemlock woolly adelgid (a tiny nonnative insect) within the next 10 years. As a native evergreen capable of maintaining year-round transpiration rates, eastern hemlock plays an important role in the ecology and hydrology of mountain ecosystems. Hemlocks provide critical habitat for birds and other animals; their shade helps maintain the cool water temperatures required by trout and other aquatic organisms in mountain streams. "No other native evergreen in the southern Appalachians will likely fill the ecohydrological role of eastern hemlock if widespread mortality occurs," says Ford, ecologist with the Otto, NC unit where Vose is project leader. "With the loss of this species, we predict changes to streamflow, streamside forest structure, and soil moisture that will have to be addressed by land managers. We found quite substantial transpiration rates for individual hemlocks, with large trees transpiring as much as 49 gallons of water a day." says Ford. The study showed that eastern hemlock plays two distinct ecohydrological roles in the southern Appalachian region: one as an evergreen tree with relatively stable water use throughout the year; the other as a streamside tree with high rates of water use in the spring. If hemlock is lost, there is probably no other native tree species that can fill these roles. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070709111435.htm


Canada:

8) Clear-cut logging claims more than two million acres annually, an area equivalent to 4,000 football fields each day. In some areas, the boreal forest is being clear-cut at rates similar to those in tropical rainforests. Logging activities were estimated to have resulted in the loss of 45,000 bird nests in 2001 in Ontario alone. Oil and gas development also destroys extensive boreal bird habitat. Production in Alberta's booming tar sands, the largest proven oil reserve outside Saudi Arabia, is forecast to disturb an area the size of Florida with open pit mines, pipelines, and well pads. Massive tailings ponds are so toxic that the oil industry must scare birds and other wildlife away with cannons. The boreal forest is more than 1.5 billion acres in size, but less than 10 percent of it is protected. An innovative vision for this crucial ecoregion called the Boreal Conservation Framework, has drawn support from an unusual array of groups including leading resource companies from timber, paper, and oil and gas; conservation groups from all political spectrums; and First Nations. By placing "Conservation First" we can still identify and protect large, functioning ecosystems critical to migratory birds and preserve a vital climate change buffer. Even if you never have the chance to visit the boreal forest, you are touched by it. Each spring our backyard birds should serve as a reminder of the importance of the boreal forest. We can support our winged friends and our global environment by urging the Canadian government and all the provincial and territorial governments in Canada to adopt the Boreal Conservation Framework. http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=610378&catname=Ed
itorial&classif=

UK:

9) “Hundreds of people go to these woods for walks. These trees were 150 years old and someone just came along and chopped them down.” Furious residents are today demanding straight answers after the owners of woods in Kesgrave felled up to 25 protected trees apparently without getting permission. Many of the town's residents, who regularly walk through the pretty woodland next to Dobbs Lane, were shocked after discovering that vast amounts of scrubland and trees had been cleared. The area, known locally as Dobbs Woods, is believed to be situated on ancient burial grounds and whole of the woodland is under a tree preservation order. Suffolk Coastal District Council is now investigating the “serious incident” following the breach. However the landowners insist that the council told them they did not need permission as it is claimed it had been granted by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. A spokesman for SCDC said: “A tree preservation order was issued on the woodland last September but the only communication we had received from the landowners was that they needed to clear some of the scrubland around the Anglo Saxon burial grounds. http://www.eveningstar.co.uk/content/eveningstar/news/story.aspx?brand=ESTOnline&category=News&
tBrand=ESTOnline&tCategory=News&itemid=IPED13%20Jul%202007%2014%3A02%3A58%3A927

Georgia:

10) The establishment of Mtirala National Park is a great achievement for nature conservation in Adjara. It has been a long time coming. I first proposed this idea to WWF in 1993, and they were very supportive from the start. A lot of local people then contributed to the project over the years, such as the scientists from Batumi Botanical Garden and Batumi State University who developed the first plans in the mid-90s, with support from the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ). It is great to see all these efforts finally achieve their goal. At the same time it is obvious that there is still a lot to do to really make this park work. There have been several new national parks in Georgia over the last couple of years, and there are more to come. What makes Mtirala National Park so special? The Adjaran coast and hinterland are an exceptional area, even for Caucasian standards. It is one of two regions in the Caucasus which was spared from glaciation throughout the Pleistocene, and it therefore acted as a refuge for many plant species that went extinct elsewhere during the ice ages. These species have persisted in the Mtirala area until today: There are 1,900 wild plants, of which 177 are trees. 14 of the plant species of the area are found nowhere else in the world, and 180 are found only in the Caucasus. In addition, the exceptional steepness of the Adjaran mountains has acted as a natural barrier against human encroachment, even withstanding Adjara’s high population density. The mild climate and abundance of rainfall have created special conditions and contributed to the high productivity of the area, which allows many tree species to reach much greater size than in other regions. Similarly, many evergreens that are usually growing as shrubs form proper trees along the Adjaran coast. If the Caucasus as a whole is a biodiversity hotspot, then this is where it reaches boiling point. Obviously, this also means that there is a lot of biodiversity at stake there, and therefore a particular need for protection. Well, yes. This is why it is called “Mtirala”, or “Crying Mountain”. Annual precipitation reaches 3,800 mm, about ten times that of southeastern England, and still almost twice as much as in the Norwegian city of Bergen, which is officially regarded as the rainiest city in Europe. http://www.messenger.com.ge/issues/1399_july_13_2007/env_1399.html

Ghana:

11) When there was a public outcry against the government decision to grant mining license to Chirano Goldmine to prospect for gold in the Tanosro forestry reserve in the Babiani-Ahweaso-Bekwai District in the Western Region, officialdom brushed it aside and went ahead to grant the license to the mining company. The effect of the decision has now dawned on the people living in the area and environmentalists who have started protesting against the fast depletion of the forest reserve and the concomitant effect on the environment and generation yet unborn in the area and the country as a whole. Information reaching The Chronicle indicates that the mining company had cleared large track of land in the forest reserve and dug four huge pits where it is currently operating. Large waste dumps have also been created in the reserve. Apart from these, several roads have also been constructed in the reserve after knocking down the trees. Villages in the area are also said to be suffering from dust pollution due to heavy trucks plying the roads in the area. A source that spoke to this reporter said the alacrity in which the mining company was destroying the reserve leaves much to be desired. According to the source, it would take hundreds of years before the forest reserve could be brought back into its original state looking at the expensive damage that had been caused to it. The source further told this reporter that though people in the area were not happy with the massive destruction to the forest reserve that reportedly stretches from the area to the Brong-Ahafo Region they could not do anything since the decision to mine was taking by the government. "Forest plays a major role in human survival on this earth so why should we allow such destruction in name of searching for gold", the source asked. http://allafrica.com/stories/200707110771.html

Uganda:

12) Uganda’s National Forestry Authority has warned of looming destruction of forest reserves in northern Uganda if environmental degradation is not halted. The authority on Wednesday accused internally displaced persons of uncontrollably using forest resources for firewood and building materials Jimmy Ouma, the manager of Aswa Forest Range, said that many internally displaced persons’ camps are situated either inside forest reserves or at their borders. An estimated 1.6 million people were forced out of their homes into camps by the guerrilla war between the rebels of the Lord\’s Resistance Army and the government. The internally displaced persons were forced to use any available resources around the camps to supplement the aid given to them by international humanitarian organizations. Ouma also said that Uganda army soldiers protecting the internally displaced persons’ camps have not spared the forest resources. The forests most affected by the degradation are Pajimu, Gweri, Bobi, Opit, Wiceri, Kyeyo, Olwal, Opaka, Opok and Alito. Ouma said the forests have been subjected to uncontrolled cultivation, waste disposal, stone mining, brick making and firewood collection. He said attempts to evict the internally displaced persons from the forests have faced stiff resistance. http://www.afriquenligne.fr/news/daily_news/uganda_forests_threatened_by_uncontrolled_use_200707
112289/

13) The Mabira Forest Reserve, on the north shore of Lake Victoria, is home to 300 bird species as well as rare primates, and plays a vital role in the country’s eco-system, storing carbon and regulating rainfall. The Mehta sugar corporation wants the reserve carved up so they can expand sugar cane plantations for biofuel production. Yoweri Museveni, the Ugandan President, is attempting to push through legislation that would strip the forest of its protected status. This would flout a deal signed with the World Bank in 2001 under which the government received £180m to construct a hydroelectric dam on the Nile in return for guaranteeing the forest’s protection. Mr Museveni said last week that handing the forest over for cane cultivation would create jobs and enable the sugar industry to compete in the region. He told a local newspaper that his government would not “be deterred by people who don’t see where the future of Africa lies”. However, opposition MPs led by Beatrice Anywar have pointed out that the plan makes no economic sense. Sugar yields in Uganda are among the lowest in Africa, while the destruction will hurt the tourism industry, which is among the country’s biggest foreign currency earners, and destroy the best source of food and income for the people of the Buganda Kingdom, which surrounds the reserve. “Mabira is a biodiversity heaven and conserving it is a much better option than growing sugar cane,” said Achilles Byaruhanga, executive director of Nature Uganda. “If a quarter of Mabira is chopped down, the effect on the forest will be far reaching, reducing the range of species, causing encroachment, erosion and siltation. There will be less water in our rivers, less rain, less carbon stored and fewer tourists.” http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article2750876.ece

Congo:

14) Deep in the Congolese jungle is a band of apes that, according to local legend, kill lions, catch fish and even howl at the moon. Local hunters speak of massive creatures that seem to be some sort of hybrid between a chimp and a gorilla. Their location at the centre of one of the bloodiest conflicts on the planet, the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has meant that the mystery apes have been little studied by western scientists. The most detailed and recent data comes from Cleve Hicks, at the University of Amsterdam, who has spent 18 months in the field watching the Bili apes - named after a local town - since 2004. His team's most striking find came after one of his trackers heard chimps calling for several days from the same spot. When he investigated he came across a chimp feasting on the carcass of a leopard. Mr Hicks cannot be sure the animal was killed by the chimp, but the find lends credence to the apes' lion-eating reputation. "What we have found is this completely new chimpanzee culture," said Mr Hicks. "We were told of this sort of fabled land out west by one of our trackers who goes out there to fish," said Mr Hicks whose project is supported by the Wasmoeth Wildlife Foundation. "I call it the magic forest. It is a very special place." Getting there means a gruelling 40km (25-mile) trek through the jungle, from the nearest road, not to mention navigating croc-infested rivers. But when he arrived he found apes without their normal fear of humans. Chimps near the road flee immediately at the sight of people because they know the consequences of a hunter's rifle, but these animals were happy to approach him. Mr Hicks reports that he found a unique chimp culture. For example, unlike their cousins in other parts of Africa the chimps regularly bed down for the night in nests on the ground. Around a fifth of the nests he found were there rather than in the trees. "How can they get away with sleeping on the ground when there are lions, leopards, golden cats around as well as other dangerous animals like elephants and buffalo?" said Mr Hicks. "I don't like to paint them as being more aggressive, but maybe they prey on some of these predators and the predators kind of leave them alone." He is keen to point out though that they don't howl at the moon. http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=79926


15) The men folk have been hailed as the best dads in the world - Aka pygmy fathers have their infant within arm's reach almost 50 percent of the time. Aka pygmies have lived undisturbed in the Central African Republic for thousands of years but now, their very existence is being threatened by the de-forestation of their land. Now they are being forced to move, but to a place where they're not wanted. In the sweltering heat of central Africa, the forest is disappearing, and taking its people with it. Its bounty has sustained life for centuries, but logging is changing that. The Aka pygmies are indigenous to the forest. But today they are forgotten, blighted by malaria, eye infections, even leprosy. Children's stomachs are swollen because of worms and they live on the edge of society. We visit their group of huts and a new settlement has been carved into the forest. It's not hard to work out why they're discriminated against. The village chief complains they're treated a bit like slave labour. He said: "The people of the village use us to work in the fields. They don't give us the pay the owe us. So we can't go to the market to get what we need." But logging means their lives could get still worse. A report last month said a third of this region's forest is marked for logging, and only a tenth protected. Wood is yet another resource being fought over in Africa. The unique culture of the Aka pygmies under threat as industry cuts into their habitat. The United Nations think there are 60,000 of them in this region, four times the tally the government give. http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/africa/pygmies+existence+under+threat/595167

Cameroon:

16) Earlier this year, we reported on the 'anomalous' circumstances surrounding the certification of Wijma, a company logging in the rainforests of Cameroon. Wijma's certifier, Bureau Veritas was 'suspended' because of Wijma's certificate, though the certificate itself was allowed to remain in place. Now we learn that, in a complete reversal, Burea Veritas has been 're-accredited' to FSC, but Wijma has mysteriously disappeared off the list of currently certified companies. For the diligent, Bureau Veritas's public summary report of their last surveillance mission of Wijma reveals that the suspension was due to the company's non-compliance with no fewer than five Major Corrective Action requests. However, as with all previous certificate 'suspensions', no information about this 'suspension' is to be found on the FSC's website, in its newsletter, or in any other public document. As FSC-Watch has also reported before, the FSC Secretariat's total secrecy about 'suspended' or cancelled certificates is a potential source of confusion and uncertainty. On one or two previous occasions, where FSC has been forced to 'suspend' a certificate under particularly controversial circumstances, the Secretariat has issued a 'statement', but these have generally not been widely circulated, not even to FSC's members. Along with Wijma's forest management certificates, numerous Chain of Custody certificates have probably also had to be 'suspended', as these would have depended on Wijma's FSC-certified timber. These will be added to the existing list of more than 2,000 'suspended' CoC and forest management certificates - and once again, people genuinely wishing to specify FSC-certified timber are left in the dark about exactly what is, and what is not, FSC certified. http://www.fsc-watch.org/archives/2007/07/11/The_amazing__disappearing__FSC_certificates___

Ivory Coast:

17) Sogbéné Soro claims to be able to treat a variety of ailments: leprosy, diarrhea and ringworm to name a few. But, this traditional healer is finding it increasingly difficult to ply his trade. "I am faced with a shortage of certain plant species that have medicinal properties," he told IPS. Communities and loggers have destroyed the forests near Soro's northern village where, some 15 years ago, he was able to gather the roots, leaves, bark and herbs that he makes use of. Now Soro is forced to travel much greater distances, either by motorbike or by car, to find the tools of his trade. In addition, the encroachment on forests has caused wild animals -- which healers also make use of -- to become more elusive. "Today we are faced, in the village of Koyadougou in north-western Cote d’Ivoire, with the scattering of certain animal species, of which certain parts have healing qualities," explains Inza Fofana, a traditional healer and hunter. "The meat and the fat of the lion, for example, help to treat fractures and ease joint pain and rheumatism. The sperm of the elephant treats impotence; the horn of the rhinoceros treats asthma." http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38463

Mexico:

18) President Felipe Calderon came to this town in the central state of Mexico to plant the first of a total of 250 million trees included in an environmental plan aimed at removing Mexico from a U.N. list of nations with the worst rates of deforestation. He said the army will cooperate in the task of planting trees and that close to 7 million people, including members of farm cooperatives, day laborers and private owners of forest areas, will be paid by the government to protect and conserve the woodlands. The president also expressed solidarity with the family of Aldo Zamora, an anti-logging activist from Ocuilan who was recently killed. Critics of the federal project, such as Greenpeace, said that the planting of 250 million trees will only serve to reforest 250,000 hectares, not 400,000 as Calderon has said. For its part, the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry said that the state-run National Forest Commission acknowledges that only 50 percent of the trees planted will survive, meaning that only 125,000 hectares will be reforested, or a fourth of the total lost each year. They therefore recommend that the government focus its efforts on promoting sustainable forest management among local communities by providing them with financial support. Other organizations, such as the National Peasant Confederation, criticized the government for not doing enough to prevent illegal logging. According to official figures, between 5 and 7 million cubic meters (175-250 million cubic feet) of illegal logging is carried out each year in Mexico, comparable to the legal production of just over 7 million cubic meters. Authorities have so far confined their enforcement efforts to occasional raids, showing little appetite for investigations to uncover who is bankrolling and directing the illegal logging activity. The urgent need for reforestation became evident last week when a landslide buried a bus in the central city of Puebla and killed 32 people, a tragedy that authorities themselves have blamed on intense logging operations in the area, which softens the soil and increases the likelihood of such natural disasters. http://noticias.notiemail.com/noticia.asp?nt=11200442&cty=200

Brazil:

19) Brazil's surging ethanol production does not put the Amazon rainforest at risk and is not fueling higher food prices, claimed a U.S. energy official visiting Brazil. "There is a huge misconception internationally that in Brazil, we're cutting down the rain forest to (make) fuels, which is not true," Reuters quoted Dan Arvizu, director of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "Done responsibly (ethanol production) does not have to (compete) with food or impact the environment." Arvizu's comments follow similar remarks Monday by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Lula said that "European competitors were trying to undermine Brazil's biofuels production by raising environmental concerns," reported Reuters. Scientists say while rainforest is not directly cleared for sugar cane plantations, expanding production is pushing smallholder farmers into more marginal areas, including the cerrado grassland and rainforests of the Amazon basin. http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0713-ethanol.html

Chile:

20) Arriving in Concepción, the landscape abruptly changes. Located 500 km south of Santiago, the narrow valley between the Andean mountain range and the Pacific is planted with the fruit orchards that make Chile an important agricultural exporter. Then suddenly, a dense white cloud of smoke announces a paper mill, surrounded by immense, extensive green farmland. "My community has been severely repressed—every member of my family is imprisoned—my mother, father, brother, aunt, etc.," writes Calfunao, describing how his community's lands of have been "stolen" by the logging companies and the Public Works Ministry. The theft has been abetted by the courts, which do not respect "our common law or our legal customs." Calfunao stands accused of unlawful seizure for blocking a road, of causing public disorder, and the destruction of tires on a truck transporting logs from the Mapuche region. Any activity communities undertake to keep the logging companies from stealing their lands is included by the Chilean government under the "antiterrorist" legislation inherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. More than two million hectares [five million acres] of tree farms are concentrated in Regions V and X, traditional Mapuche lands. Pine comprises 75%, eucalyptus, 17%. To explain this concentration of ownership, as with anything else in today's highly privatized Chile, you must examine the 1970s and the Pinochet regime. Chile's timber industry is now in the hands of two large national business groups led by Anacleto Angelini and Eleodoro Matte. In the rest of the continent the industry is in the hands of large European or U.S. multinationals. In Chile, only 7.5% of timberland is owned by small landowners, while 66% belongs to large owners with at least a thousand planted hectares [2,500 acres]. The Angelini group alone has 765,000 hectares [1.9 million acres], and the Matte group's property exceeds half a million [1.25 million acres]. "The areas where this lucrative business developed," Cuenca continues, "have become the poorest in the country." For the Mapuche, timber expansion means their death as a people. Each year expanding timber production absorbs some additional 50,000 hectares [125,000 acres]. On top of feeling literally drowned by the tree plantations, the Mapuche are beginning to experience water shortages, changes in the flora and fauna, and the rapid disappearance of native woodland. A report by Chile's Central Bank confirms that in 25 years Chile will have no native forest left. http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4383

Guyana:

21) Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday criticized the Kyoto Protocol on climate change for failing to allow countries like his nation with pristine unharvested forests to earn carbon credits. "The Kyoto Protocol is limited in that sense, and it's short-sighted in that it encourages bad behaviour basically among countries; if you cut down trees and you plant them back you get money, if you preserve them, you don't get anything," Jagdeo told a forum on agro-energy. The Guyanese leader noted that Guyana would reap "miniscule" assistance under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol when the South American country begins large-scale production of ethanol and other types of agro-based energy. He said Guyana has decided to get into the production of bio-fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. But "assistance is miniscule through the Clean Development Mechanism as compared to the carbon credits we could get from standing forests," said Jagdeo, a Russian-trained economist. Carbon credits are the center of a system of credits that allows a company or country that reduces its carbon-dioxide emissions below a target level to sell the extra reduction as a credit to a company or country that has not met the target level. Under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, developed countries can take up a greenhouse gas reduction project in a developing country where the cost of greenhouse gas reduction projects is usually much lower. Guyana has already set aside 80,940 ha (200,000 acres) of land in the eastern part of the country for investors to plant special varieties of sugar cane to make ethanol. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070712182736.2zv65rro&show_article=1

Japan:

22) Tighter forest regulations and rising consumption of wood in the world are forcing Japan to depend less on timber imports and concentrate on sustainable harvesting its own forests -- a long awaited change, point out experts here. ''The old image of Japan as the big bad gobbler of the world's forests is now set to change. Ironically, it's the growing appetite for wood in other parts of the world that is spearheading this important retrenching," said Takahashi Fujiwara, spokesman for the Japan Wood Suppliers Organisation, that deals with the timber trade. Fujiwara explained that the heady pace in economic development in countries like China, India and Russia, has put timber exporting countries at an advantage and changed the picture for rich Japanese construction conglomerates. "Till a few years ago, the Japanese timber market was the world’s most lucrative. But as demand rises exporters have jacked up their prices, a situation that has poured cold water on Japan’s eagerness to maintain its imports," he told IPS. Statistics support this development. Wood products and logs from foreign sources now supply less than 80 percent of domestic market, with the domestic supply rising to around 21 percent from almost zero a decade ago "Japanese cypress and cedar wood products are now growing popular among construction companies, a sign that the demand for cheap timber from abroad could be slowing down," said Makoto Ozawa at the Forestry Agency. The latest blow to Japan was an announcement by Russia to raise its export tariff on logs from the current 60 percent to 80 percent in 2009 given the depletion of this natural resource. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38529

23) Hokkaido police are investigating employees of a lumber company and the president of a real estate firm on suspicion of violating the Natural Parks Law and Forest Law by illegally logging more than 100 hectares of a forest in the Akan National Park in Hokkaido. According to the police, trees in a mixed forest in Atosanobori, Teshikagacho, Hokkaido, were illegally logged in a 118-hectare area northeast of Lake Kussharo that is designated as a special zone to protect the landscape of the national park and where logging is banned. Of the area logged, 21.3 hectares were designated as windbreaks. In late October, an Environment Ministry conservation official found the forest had been illegally logged and ordered the loggers to stop felling trees. Officials from the ministry, the Hokkaido government and Hokkaido police inspected the scene and questioned those involved in the logging. Most of the logged area is privately owned, and 100 hectares of it belongs to a real estate company in Tokyo. In February, the real estate company filed a damage report with Teshikaga Police Station after being notified of the illegal logging by the Hokkaido government. According to the police, employees of a lumber company in Abashiri, Hokkaido, are believed to have logged the forest at the request of the president of a real estate company living in Kanagawa Prefecture. The lumber firm likely began logging in 2002, and sold the timber to house builders, police said. http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070715TDY02003.htm

Nepal:

24) The Forestry Minister has stopped the handover of community forests in the tarai saying he wants to stop the logging being carried out by poachers in cahoots with rural big shots and the bureaucracy. But the Federation of Forestry User Groups says this goes against the principle that communities should benefit from local forest conservation and have threatened to bring the country to a halt if this is implemented. Both may be right, but neither side is trying to resolve the issue by looking at the root of the problem. Nepal’s community forest success story is premised on participation and consensus, transparency, local-decision-making and management and ownership. That is why there are provisions for the marginalized to also benefit from the handover of community forests. The Forestry Master Plan of 1990 laid out these principles and they have been followed till now. Today, many of these principles are being violated. Forests are being handed over without consensus and participation to smuggler and poachers with local connivance. Local bureaucrats were never comfortable with decentralized decision-making on community forests. They were never converted from ‘technical experts’ to ‘social experts’ as envisaged in the Master Plan. Donor experts assigned to this sector are also not knowledgeable or committed as they used to be. They are more interested in the ‘inclusion’ mantra than on the crisis in the forest management system that is threatening to undermine past gains. Donor-funded NGOs are similarly only involved in patchwork damage control. The minister should not just pass an edict to stop handovers, but discuss the problems with the stakeholders first. http://www.forestrynepal.org/news/2394

Malaysia:

25) Recent reports of environmental degradation have cast a shadow over the viability of Malaysia's US$2 billion Bakun Dam project Environmental group Friends of the Earth recently revealed that between 1999 and 2002, three large tree-plantation projects covering more than 300,000 hectares within the dam's proposed catchment area were approved by the Sarawak state government. The government had indicated in 1996 that it would gazette a total catchment area of about 1.5 million hectares. About 200,000 hectares near Bakun are believed to be licensed for conversion to plantation and are under various stages of conversion. Asia Times Online has seen photographs of a plantation in the Seping area, which drains into the Belepeh, and thence into the Murum, the river that flows into the Balui River, along which the Bakun Dam is being constructed. One of the photographs reveals logged-over forest, in an area that was mainly primary forest 20 years ago, while the other shows hill-slopes that have been cleared of tree cover. As for logging, satellite pictures show the area upstream of the Balui and further inland to be criss-crossed by logging access roads. "Hell, the whole catchment is under logging," said the researcher, who estimated that up to half the catchment was badly degraded. "[That], of course, doesn't mean that every hectare is being logged, as some areas are too steep or too high." The potential for sediment at the dam's 70,000-hectare reservoir and its head is thus likely to be higher than initially estimated, he contended. "What assessments have been made as to what this will do to the hydrological regime and to the rate of siltation? What happened to promises of gazetting the catchment? http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IG10Ae01.html
26) KOTA KINABALU - The Forestry Department is investigating allegations of illegal logging at Kampong Lumiri in Keningau although a preliminary field report revealed 278 logs to be found in an area purportedly in the process of being gazetted into a kampong reserve. Its Director, Datuk Sam Manan said that evidence was also being sought to ascertain whether the said land measuring 121,60 hectares had already been gazetted. Several logging equipment, namely three bulldozers have been seized by the Forestry Department together with the 278 logs. In this respect, he said the department was gathering evidence to establish whether an offence under section 23 (2) (unauthorised felling in state land) or any other offences had been committed or otherwise. If the land had indeed been gazetted as Kampung Native Residential Reserve, then it is the responsibility of the 'trustees' to manage, utilise, protect it, as spelled out in the gazette. "Nevertheless, the Trustees have no right or authority to grant logging rights to anyone as the standing timber therein is State property and can only be disposed off in a manner approved by the State government," he said. http://www.brunei-online.com/bb/mon/jul9b2.htm

27) Malaysia plans to put extremely rare Borneo rhinos together in a new wildlife park so that they can meet and mate. "What is happening now is that many of these rhinos are isolated in different forest reserves and they hardly meet," the Star newspaper on Sunday quoted Sabah's environment minister, Masidi Manjun, as saying. "We hope that by placing them together in a certain forest area, they will mate and multiply," he added. Experts met in Malaysia's eastern Sabah state on Borneo island this week to discuss ways to save the rhino, which is believed to be on the verge of extinction. Masidi said that worries about low sperm count and uterine tumors affecting rhinos might not be the real reasons for the animal's limited reproductive rates because such cases were only found in captive rhinos or those living in isolation in the wild. The wildlife department says there are between 30 and 50 rhinos left in the dense jungles of Sabah. Scientists consider the Borneo rhino to be a subspecies of the Sumatran rhino. http://www.forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=79524

Indonesia:

28) "Forest rangers, who are equipped with investigative skills and knowledge on forestry affairs, should be able to take stricter action against illegal loggers since they have the same authority as the police," Nanang Roffandi Ahmad, chairman of the Indonesian Forestry Association, said Friday during a discussion on illegal logging. "Moreover, with their knowledge of forestry matters, they will be able to determine the type of violations." Illegal logging has been a constant and acute problem in Indonesia in terms of both the environment and the law. In an effort to curb such activities, the government issued a 2005 presidential instruction on the control of logging activities and the distribution of logs. The regulation stipulates that forest rangers should cooperate with police to tackle illegal loggers. However, Nanang says responsibilities to be shared between the police and forest rangers were not clearly defined. "Police should take action only if the illegal logging activities violate the Criminal Code. But to some extent, illegal logging does not always violate the code ... sometimes it is more of an administrative violation," he explained. "If they are only administrative violations, it is the forest rangers that should take action against the perpetrators by imposing administrative sanctions, such as fines and by revoking their (logging) licenses," he said. "But if the activities are categorized as a violation of the Criminal Code, it is the police's responsibility to take legal action." To effectively combat illegal logging, Nanang said, the government needs to more clearly assign authority and responsibilities to the police and forest rangers so as to prevent an overlapping of duties. National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Sisno Adiwinoto said, however, that the police, not rangers, should constitute the front line in combating illegal logging activities. "The authority to enforce the law against illegal loggers is only granted to the police, while forest rangers can only help us in relation to the technical aspects of forestry affairs," he told The Jakarta Post. http://www.thejakartapost.com/misc/PrinterFriendly.asp

29) Greenpeace on Thursday challenged the Indonesian government to immediately declare a moratorium on the conversion and destruction of peat land forests to put a stop to the country`s annual cycle of forest fires, which has now become a global menace given its significant contributions to the problem of climate change. A team dispatched by Greenpeace to Riau recently witnessed forest fires flaring up yet again in the province despite frequent government pledges to stop the annual catastrophe from recurring, a press statement from Greenpeace said here on Thursday. Indonesia is currently the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases worldwide trailing only China and the US, and this is mainly due to deforestation, land conversion and forest fires. "The endless cycle of forest fires and forest destruction in Indonesia must now be seen as a global problem because our country contributes a lot to climate change. Beyond the frequent lip service and rhetoric coming from officials whenever these fires flare up, he government must take bolder measures to prevent the problem from taking place, starting with a moratorium on the destruction and conversion of peat land forest areas all over the country," said Hapsoro, Forest Campaigner of Greenpeace Southeast Asia. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has put Indonesia on the global spotlight when it said that about 50 percent of the world`s total mitigation potential could be achieved by reducing emissions from deforestation. Indonesia has the largest intact ancient forest in Asia, but these are being destroyed faster than anywhere else on the planet, Greenpeace said. http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=79759

30) Indonesia's tropical rain forests are disappearing 30 percent faster than previously estimated as illegal loggers raid national parks, threatening the long-term survival of orangutans, according to a recent U.N. report. Loggers are clearing an estimated 5.2 million acres of forest a year for timber worth $4 billion, said the U.N. Environment Program report, which was released at a meeting of the 171-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES. Earlier forecasts said Indonesia's lowland rain forests would be seriously degraded by 2032. But projections based on new satellite surveillance suggest that 98 percent of the forests will be destroyed by 2022, and many protected areas for orangutans will be gone by 2012, the report said. Only about 7,000 Sumatran orangutans and 50,000 Borneo orangutans remain in the wild. The number of Sumatran orangutans has fallen 91 percent in the past century, based on studies of the number of apes in today's forests, said Ian Redmond, of UNEP's Great Apes Survival Project, which carried out the study. "The populations are crashing dramatically," the project's Melanie Virtue said. Orangutans fleeing overlogged areas have ended up in "refugee camps" run by the UNEP project or in Indonesian rescue centers, which now hold about 1,000 orangutans. http://www.contracostatimes.com/nationandworld/ci_6339473?nclick_check=1

New Zealand:

31) Large chunks of Crown forest land could be bought by Rangitikei iwi Ngati Apa if a $14 million Treaty of Waitangi settlement is finalised next year. "There are opportunities to begin restoring our tribal estate," said Te Runanga o Ngati Apa Society chairman Adrian Rurawhe yesterday at the signing of an agreement in principle to settle historical claims. "Ngati Apa is virtually landless, so it is of critical importance that we achieve the purchase of all the lands available to us through this process." The non-binding agreement signed at the Tini Waitara Marae near Turakina is a significant milestone on the way to finalising a deed of settlement, which negotiators hope to achieve next year. Yesterday's high-level agreement comes two years after Te Runanga o Ngati Apa Society and the Crown hammered out the terms of negotiation. Mr Rurawhe said it is the best possible redress package available to Ngati Apa within the Crown's claims settlement process. "There is an opportunity to use the settlement funds to buy up to 70 percent of Santoft Forest (land)," he said, while also mentioning other forestry land in the region. The settlement package allows for $13.2 million for the purchase of licensed Crown forest land. The trees would still be owned by private companies, but Ngati Apa could buy the land and accept a rental. http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4126800a8153.html

Australia:

32) Andrew Kemp, chairman of K&D and Ruralco and a former head of the Trust Bank, yesterday threw his support behind the pro-development movement being formed. His move coincided with concerns about the mill's impact on tourism being raised in the Legislative Council by independent Upper House member for Rosevears, Kerry Finch.
Along with the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr Kemp joins the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, the Tasmanian Forest Contractors Association, Timber Communities Australia and the CFMEU. The new organisation has called for an end to the "constant anti-development tactics of the Greens and extremist environmental groups that are damaging Tasmania's economy and future". It says the anti-development agenda is damaging Tasmania's forestry and business reputations. Mr Kemp said it was vital to denounce anti-green activists and for the wider community to get behind the pulp mill if future "economic misery" is to be… http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,22067016-5007221,00.html

Tropical forests:

32) The tropical rainforest food web is all about who eats who in the tropics. The web describes the chain of events every organism goes through to obtain nutrition, or energy, in order to survive. A food web is a network of food chains. There are some things we need to know about the food web. Each level of the chain is dependent on the adjoining levels. Autotrophs make their food from light or some form of chemical energy and are at the bottom of each food chain. These primary producers are eaten by herbivores (plant eating organisms) that are eaten by carnivores and omnivores. The secondary consumers may be eaten by tertiary consumers, who are carnivores. When any organism dies, tiny microbes (detrivores) take over and what we humans know as decay occurs. And the food web starts all over again. The rainforest is home to more plants and small insects than any other organism. And herbivores far outweigh carnivores and omnivores. We could provide pages of scientific facts about tropical rainforest food webs. Instead, we'll cut to the chase and tell you why all this is important. Its importance lies in the very critical concept of interdependence. Each organism in the food web depends upon all other organisms in the chain for basic survival. For example, if an insect becomes extinct, plants that it consumes will proliferate and equilibrium in the rainforest will be disturbed. In addition, members of the food web that rank above the insect in question will be affected because it will no longer be available for consumption. This disruption leads to further extinction of species and ultimately the entire food web is drastically changed if not completely obliterated. We humans need to work to avoid obliteration of any member of the tropical rainforest food web. The endangered species list keeps getting longer, not shorter. We should be concerned. http://www.bharatbhasha.com/education.php/63284


33) Poverty and corruption are linked to higher incidence of fire in tropical forest reserves, reports a new study published in the journal Ecological Applications. Poor, corrupt countries -- like Cambodia, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Sierra Leone -- have the least effective parks when measured in terms of the incidence of fire relative to surrounding "buffer" areas. The findings have significant implications for rainforest conservation efforts. The study, led by Dr. S. Joseph Wright of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama, calculated the "fire detection density", or the number of detected fires per square kilometer per year, inside 823 tropical forest reserves and contiguous buffer areas using data from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) between 2002 and 2004. The ratio was then used to "examine national-level variation in reserve effectiveness for 37 tropical countries that differ widely in extant forest capital, economic development, and human population density." Eight variables -- forested area per capita in 2000, the 1990s deforestation rate, per capita GDP, a human development index, population density in 2003, population growth rate from 1975 to 2003, a corruption perception index, and the background fire detection density calculated for the entire country -- were used to tease out relationships between poverty, corruption, and reserve effectiveness in terms of fire incidence. The researchers used frequency within parks as an indicator of park effectiveness "because the background level of fire in tropical moist forests is low, so the presence of fire often indicates that humans are engaged in timber extraction, clearing land for agriculture or other land-use conversion," according to STRI. Wright and colleagues conclude that tropical forest reserves tend to become more effective "as human well-being improves and corruption declines. Satellite data on fire frequency provides a measure of park effectiveness across countries," said Wright. "It is strikingly clear from our study that poverty and corruption limit the effectiveness of parks set up to protect tropical forests." http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0709-wright_fires.html