Olympic National Forest Begins Ramping Up Timber Sale Volume, Proposes to Log Mount Walker and Surrounding Area

The Forest Service proposed on March 22, 2005 to initiate a huge timber sale on Mount Walker, Mount Turner, and Rocky Brook Valley in the Northeast section of the Olympic National Forest. Known as the Jackson Thin, this sale would encompass up to 3,200 acres. The sale would additionally entail up to 9 miles of new logging road construction – much of it on Mount Walker, a popular destination for hikers, sightseers, and their families. How we wish this was merely an April Fools’ joke, but it’s serious as a bad case of stomach flu.

The Forest Service claims the project would thin the forest in such a way that would “accelerate” the development of old-growth characteristics. But this is like cutting a long-distance runner’s arms off in a foolhardy attempt to reduce her wind resistance. Much of the forest targeted for thinning, including that found on Mounts Walker and Turner, has been growing without interference since a late-19th century fire. It now sports big trees and irreplaceable wildlife habitat, and is within only a few decades of becoming genuine old growth all on its own – without any help from Forest Service bureaucrats. If chainsaws and bulldozers are allowed in these native forests, their maturation and beauty will be set back dramatically.

This is the beginning of the Olympic National Forest’s desire, discussed publicly several times over the past year, to increase the timber volume level three times over what has been allowed in the Northwest Forest Plan. The long, dark shadow of George W. Bush is being cast on Olympic National Forest.

We can’t allow this to happen. The Jackson Thin is still in its early stages of planning, so it’s critical that interested folks weigh in and contribute their opinions now. The Forest Service must hear from a broad spectrum of people that their plans are completely unacceptable.

We all know that Olympic National Forest is one of the crown jewels of the Great Northwest, so it’s high time the Forest Service started managing it that way.

Talking points when communicating with the Forest Service:

· Olympic National Forest already has over 2,000 miles of decaying logging roads. No more logging roads should be built, even if the Forest Service’s public relations machine falsely calls them “temporary” roads. Enough is enough!

· The Forest Service should stay out of century-old forest stands, like those found on Mount Walker and Mount Turner. These forests are maturing and diversifying naturally, and will only be wrecked by cutting out thousands of their trees and slicing them up with new logging roads.

Thank you! Direct your comments, no later than April 21, to:

Yewah Lau
Olympic National Forest
1835 Black Lake Blvd. SW, Suite A
Olympia, WA 98512
(360) 956-2402
comments-pacificnorthwest-olympic-hoodcanal@fs.fed.us

To see a copy of the Forest Service’s scoping letter on Jackson Thin,
click below.

http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/olympic/projects-nu/jackson-thinning/jackson-scoping-letter2.pdf


Informant: Deane

Another environmental watchdog in China bares its fangs as Singapore-based logging giant APP is hit with charges of unlawful tree clearing. A student protest in China has also targetted supermarkets stocking APP products

http://www.ethicalcorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=3614

The State Forestry Administration has taken official action against the company and its operations in the south-western province of Yunnan.

"The investigation is not finished yet, but we have indeed spotted illegal logging in an APP project after initial investigation. We believe that both APP and local governments are responsible for the violation," Wang Zhuxiong, a senior SFA official told the official newsagency Xinhua.

The news comes in the wake of a damning report by Greenpeace on the company’s tree felling practices in Yunnan, which was released last November. The environmental group claims that APP sequestered a 1.8 million acre plot in, intensively clear-felled it and replaced it with plantation crops.

Greenpeace says this is an example of APP’s “international record of illegal logging” and is evidence that it is “repeating its traditional practice of clearing natural forest for plantations in Yunnan.

Despite the fact that the company signed an understanding with provincial authorities, Greenpeace claims that there is no felling permit and that APP’s operations violate China’s Forestry Law.

APP was quoted in a Xinhua article as saying the company only targeted wasteland.

Similarly, the company’s relationship with environmental group WWF in Indonesia eventually dissolved on the basis of similar disagreements over what is “degraded” forest and thus open for logging, and what is wilderness and thus off-limits.

An APP spokesperson in China contacted by Ethical Corporation referred us to an earlier statement which outlined the company’s environmental approach.

The statement argues that the company has been pushing for a “forest-pulp-paper integration” scheme which, they argue “ensures that we have full control over the entire paper-making process – from the planting of trees for sustainable raw materials to the use of eco-friendly technology for processing pulp and paper.”

The statement also says the company has invested in a range of technologies to reduce environmental impacts.

“We share the same objective as those who are concerned for the environment – to protect our habitat, the earth. At the same time, we recognise that the only way to protect our natural resources and benefit the community is through a sustainable economic model,” it says.

No direct reference is made to the pending legal action.

Environmental shift

The case highlights a shift in environmental consciousness in China.

At a general level, it is evidence that the government appears prepared to allow environmental NGOs some leeway to target both foreign and local companies, as well as local government officials.

The enormous increase in numbers of conservation groups in the country looks to have been encouraged by Beijing authorities who perhaps see these groups as acting as the sharp edge of environmental reforms, which many in the government are keen to pursue.

In this way, green groups in China may be emerging as de facto environmental regulators, highlighting problems and spotting trouble areas, whilst not sapping government resources.

At a more specific level, the case may be the first example of a foreign company being taken to court on environmental grounds, says Xinhua. While no action has yet been served on the company, commentators are watching closely as it may become a foundation for company-government relations in regard to environmental sustainability.

If charged and convicted, APP operatives face harsh punishment. Under Chinese law, illegal deforestation carries a maximum seven year jail term.

At this stage, environmental officials are certainly talking up the case. "No violator will escape punishment when the investigation is finished," said Wang, deputy director of the Forest Resources Management Department under the SFA, at a national conference on cracking down on deforestation activities in Beijing.

The announcement comes as a mass student protest in China stage a Day of Action in six cities to call on the company to cease their “destructive logging practices”, according to a statement.

The students will be boycotting APP products and will be asking companies to follow. Protestors took up positions in front of supermarket shelves featuring APP products in Beijing, Hefei, Nanning, Lanzhou, Harbin and Chengdu. Passing shoppers were told of the company’s forestry operations in Yunnan and elsewhere.

However, many environmentalists are approaching the possibility that China may be tidying up its timber industry with some caution.

While such cases as this may indicate a strengthening of legislation, many are concerned that the country’s industry is simply exporting the problems elsewhere by buying in lumber from countries such as Russia or Indonesia, where environmental standards are limited and from where illegal wood smuggling is common.

Write to James Rose at James.Rose@ethicalcorp.com


Informant: Deane

http://jacksonville.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2004/05/31/story2.html

--------

360 million Chinese without safe drinking water, chronic urban shortages

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/138972/1/.html


Informant: Deborah Barrie

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/std/Weekend/GD02Jp17.html


Informant: Andy Robinson

Late last year, over 4,000 RAN supporters backed the Haida Nation in its legal battle against Weyerhaeuser over the future of the islands of Haida Gwaii, B.C.

This week, after over 18 months of negotiations and a string of broken promises from Weyerhaeuser, the controversy has reached a boiling point. Hundreds of Island residents have begun "Islands Spirit Rising"-- effectively shutting down all logging by Weyerhaeuser on the islands to demand a say in the future of their home. They are asking for our support.

Click below to lean more, to sound off or to get involved in the Islands Spirit Rising. http://action.ran.org/ctt.asp?u=2844473&l=85038

The message is clear "enough is enough". According to a statement issued by the Islands Spirit Rising, " Weyerhaeuser has shown no respect for the land, the culture, or the people who have worked for them. Weyerhaeuser has also shown no respect for its own word. In commitments made to the [Council of the Haida Nation], the communities and the people who work for them, five of the six commitments [made to the Haida by Weyerhaeuser] have been violated. Now the company is poised to sell its interests and in its final hours is attempting to strip all that it can from this land."

Tell Weyerhaeuser CEO Steve Rogel that enough is enough at the link below:
http://action.ran.org/ctt.asp?u=2844473&l=85038

HOWA,

--The RAN Old Growth Team

Urgent - Calls Needed to Stop Biscuit Roadless Logging

Roadless logging in the Siskiyou Wild Rivers Area of Southwestern Oregon is becoming even more imminent. The Siskiyou National Forest may auction the Mike's Gulch timber sale, located within the South Kalmiopsis Roadless Area, within weeks.

The Mike's Gulch timber sale is the first roadless sale to be unleashed in the Biscuit Logging Project. It will virtually clearcut 335 contiguous acres of roadless forest in the South Kalmiopsis Roadless Area located near the spectacular Kalmiopsis Wilderness. This area also contains old growth forest reserves that are supposed to be protected from logging for sensitive species.

The 2002 Biscuit Fire in the Siskiyou Wild Rivers Area in Southern Oregon was a natural event that affected the untrammeled, biologically rich Siskiyou Wild Rivers landscape that centers around the 179,000-acre Kalmiopsis Wilderness in the southwestern corner of Oregon. The roadless wildlands around the Kalmiopsis Wilderness include the South and North Kalmiopsis Inventoried Roadless Areas. At 104,620 acres and 88,852 acres, they are the first and third largest unprotected roadless forests in Oregon. This large roadless landscape is the watershed for three National Wild & Scenic Rivers and five candidate Wild & Scenic Rivers, containing some of the most valuable wild salmon & steelhead habitat from the Olympics to Baja.

Calls are needed TODAY to Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski, urging him to take action to protect roadless Siskiyou forests.

Call Governor Kulongoski at (503) 378-4582, and tell him that you care about the Siskiyou Wild Rivers Area, that this is a special place of national significance, and urge him to publicly oppose the logging of roadless forests in the Siskiyou and demand that the Forest Service NOT auction roadless logging sales like the Mike's Gulch timber sale.

For a factsheet from the Siskiyou Project on roadless area threats in the Siskiyou Wild Rivers Area, go to:
http://www.siskiyou.org/swrc/timbersales/Mikes_Gulch_roadless_area.cfm>http://www.siskiyou.org/swrc/timbersales/Mikes_Gulch_roadless_area.cfm

For photos of the North and South Kalmiopsis Roadless Areas, Mike's Gulch timber sale area, and photos of recent logging, go to:
http://www.americanlands.org/activistResources.php?subsection=Photo%20Library&cat=1102008134>http://www.americanlands.org/activistResources.php?subsection=Photo%20Library&cat=1102008134

For more details go to:

http://www.siskiyou.org
http://www.kswild.org
http://www.o2collective.org


American Lands Alliance http://americanlands.org

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050330.whaida0330/BNStory/National/


Informant: Deane

http://counterpunch.com/white03232005.html


Informant: radtimes

In den nächsten Tagen entscheidet die Weltbank über den Nam Theun 2 Damm in Laos. Durch den Stausee würden 450 Quadratkilometer Regenwald überflutet und 100.000 Menschen in ihrer Existenz bedroht.

Bitte protestieren Sie sofort bei dem deutschen Exekutivdirektor der Weltbank Herrn Dr. Eckhard Deutscher.

Sie können Ihren Protest online versenden und mehr Infos finden unter http://www.regenwald.org/mailaktion/aktion.php?show=40

Bitte leiten Sie diese Email an möglichst viele Freunde und Bekannte weiter.

Vielen Dank für Ihre Unterstützung und herzliche Grüße

Ihr Reinhard Behrend
Vorsitzender Rettet den Regenwald e. V.