Loved by laureate, Kenya forests are vanishing fast
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/27620/story.htm

Yesterday was a very important day for Tasmania's magnificent forests. Now we need to elect more Greens to act as a forest guarantee in the Parliament.

Thanks in part to sustained pressure from Greens supporters across the country, saving Tasmania's forests has been one of the major issues of this election campaign. Finally, it looks like the ALP is listening to the 85% of Australians calling for an end to old-growth logging in Tasmania.

Until yesterday, the Greens were the only party to release a plan to save Tasmania's old-growth forests whilst creating jobs. Our strategy provides for nearly 900 jobs and an end to old-growth logging.

Key points from the Greens' plan are:
- An end to the clearing of native forest for plantations on public and private land
- An immediate increase in the price of native forest chip logs to parity with plantation wood
- Setting aside suitable areas of public native forest to produce small volumes of high quality and specialty timbers in perpetuity
- Processing wood from existing plantations in Tasmania into a diverse range of products, and
- Developing tourism based on Tasmania's iconic forests and unique wildlife.

For the full story on the Greens' plan to save Tasmania's forests, visit:
http://www.greens.org.au/15103

Now Mark Latham has released a plan to impose a one-year moratorium on 240,000 hectares of Tasmania's high conservation value forests and institute a review process with a view to permanent protection.

For the Greens' response to Labor's plan, visit:
http://www.greens.org.au/04113

Last night Senator Bob Brown was interviewed on the Lateline program on ABC TV. He spoke extensively about this issue. For a transcript of the interview, visit:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2004/s1212910.htm

Any day, John Howard is expected to announce the Coalition's Tasmanian forests policy. Hopefully he will also announce a plan to protect high conservation value forests, so that the forests will be protected no matter who wins government.

Irrespective of what promises are made, we need to elect more Greens to the Parliament to make sure that those promises are kept. The best way of ensuring that promises become reality is to put more Greens in Parliament.

Regards,

Andrew Burke
National Campaign Coordinator
Australian Greens
5/10/04

http://home.ca.inter.net/~greenweb/BR_NS_Forestry.html


Informant: Robert J.N. Speirs

by Forests.org
September 29, 2004

TAKE ACTION
http://forests.org/action/indonesia/

Illegal logging of ramin, a giant tree that lives in the tropical rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia, is decimating Indonesia's rainforests and destroying the habitat of the highly endangered orangutan, threatening Asia's largest primate with extinction. While the orangutan (“person of the forest” in Malay) is a protected species, ramin, its habitat, is not. Even though some rainforest areas containing ramin are formally protected, they are subject to extensive illegal logging and overexploitation. Ramin is smuggled from Indonesia to Malaysia and then to manufacturers, eventually becoming baby cribs, as well as pool cues, venetian blinds and picture frames. In order to stop the tide of illegal logging, Indonesia has proposed to have ramin placed on Appendix II of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Fauna and Flora Species (CITES) this October. By placing ramin on Appendix II, Indonesia would be strengthening international efforts to stop the trade in illegal ramin products. It is critical that CITES members, including the U.S., which imports ramin wood products, vote in favor of this proposal. U.S. officials have not yet indicated whether they will support Indonesia's proposal. You can help them make up their minds at http://forests.org/action/indonesia/ .

Networked by Forests.org, Inc., gbarry@forests.org

Trittin kündigt Gesetz an: Verkaufs-Verbot für illegal geschlagenes Holz geplant

01.10.04

Bundesumweltminister Jürgen Trittin (Grüne) hat am Donnerstag ein Gesetz zum Urwaldschutz angekündigt. Es soll die Vermarktung und den Besitz von illegal geschlagenem Holz und daraus gefertigten Produkten verbieten. Das Naturerbe Urwald dürfe nicht verspielt werden. "Raubbau und illegaler Holzeinschlag müssen beendet werden", sagte Trittin im Bundestag in Berlin.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:

http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php4?Nr=9426

Brazilian Amazon Threatened by Myth of "Sustainable Forestry"
http://tinyurl.com/4gkjy

Der Wald ist so krank wie nie. Das hat der saarländische Umweltminister Stefan Mörsdorf festgestellt. Der Jahrhundertsommer 2003 zeigt jetzt im deutschen Wald erste Auswirkungen: 63 Prozent aller Waldbäume sind geschädigt, 9 Prozent mehr als 2003.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/fp/archiv/Akt-News/5373.php

Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.

September 24, 2004

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Glen Barry, Ph.D., Forests.org

I have seen the future and it is Haiti. The consequences of deforestation, poverty and inequity, combined with changing climate, are on display. The path to avoid such a future, and achieve local and global ecological sustainability, is clear. Unfortunately, it depends upon wisdom, ecological intuition and justice - not bombing - thus current leaders may be disadvantaged. Forests.org calls for a major international program to ecologically restore landscapes whose ecosystems have been destroyed and are no longer functioning. This will involve mixed plantings of trees suitable to meeting human needs; i.e. food, shelter and fuel. It will also require assembling new natural forests and grasslands composed of native species, planted along environmentally sensitive areas such as water sources and steep slopes. Man centered and nature centered forests must be intermingled and contiguous.

Further, there will be no respite for environmental refugees until the human population is stabilized and then reduced using non-coercive means. This will require generations of one child households as the global norm. And finally, the atrocious sums of money being poured into militarism by our "leaders" must be rechanneled towards meeting basic human needs. Ecological collapse is just as real in the shiny and bright cities of the North. Imagine Phoenix in summer with no water or electricity (not impossible). I hope that you can intuit that humans are utterly dependent upon the Earth - yet we are failing Gaia and all her life badly.

g.b.



Deadly Floods in Haiti Blamed on Deforestation, Poverty
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=85
Archived: http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=35207

Russia Prepares to Ratify Kyoto Protocol
LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-092304kyoto_lat,1,3808341.story?coll=la-home-world
Archived: http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=35193

Ecuador's Largest National Park Opened for Oil Development
Environment News Service
http://www.ens-newswire.com/login/index.asp?q=/ens/sep2004/2004-09-23-02.asp
Archived: http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=35199

Networked by Forests.org, Inc., gbarry@forests.org