FORESTS ALERT: World Bank Subsidies Threaten World's Second Largest Rainforest

ACTION ALERT UPDATE
World Bank Subsidies Threaten World's Second Largest Rainforest

By Forests.org
August 25, 2004

TAKE ACTION - just updated!!

World Bank, WWF and others are wrong on old-growth logging

http://forests.org/action/africa/

In March, 2004 the Rainforest Foundation revealed that the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) seek to increase logging by sixty times in the world's second largest intact rainforest found mostly in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). According to World Bank documents, they intend to "create a favorable climate for industrial logging" by subsidizing the development of comprehensive new forestry laws in the Congo, as well as the 'zoning' of the country's entire forest area.

At $0.06 per hectare per year, the Bank-approved leasing of DRC's rainforests to loggers surely warrants scrutiny to determine whether this represents the true global value of those forests. Joseph Bobia, spokesperson for the Congolese development organization CENADEP, fears that as a result of industrial logging "much of the country [will be] turned into a vast logging concession."

Hundreds of environment, development, and human rights groups in the Congo, and thousands of international supporters including Forests.org's network, have called on the World Bank to stop these plans. What had been a surreptitious effort to access cheap timber in the absence of governmental authority has become a major international issue. The World Bank's President has gotten involved, and there are indications the project may be cancelled. The World Bank continues to subsidize first time industrial development of old-growth and other endangered forests in the DRC and around the world - seriously damaging the local and global environments.

Please demand the World Bank and FAO immediately halt plans for the expansion of industrial logging in the Democratic Republic of Congo and remaining ancient forests around the World.

Let them know the World Bank should be working with the Congolese government to help dismantle the country's corrupt and inefficient logging industry, rather than expanding it, and developing alternatives that will bring direct benefits to, and strengthens the rights of, the 35 million people living in and around the forest and depending on it for their survival.

TAKE ACTION - http://forests.org/action/africa/

P.S. The World Bank and WWF work as an alliance promoting "environmentally sensitive" first time logging of ancient old-growth forests worldwide. Please take the time to respond to the second alert (where you will be forwarded after sending the first), confronting WWF's complicity in final loss of the world's ancient forests. Demand to know where is the evidence old-growth forest can be sustainably managed?


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

Oak disease spreads via human hikers and other stories

Human hikers and mountain bikers are spreading a disease threatening California forests. The fungus that causes sudden oak death, Phytophthora ramorum, has killed thousands of oak trees around the state and afflicted other native plants such as rhododendrons and bay laurel with a leaf disease...

http://www.enn.com/news/2004-08-25/s_26486.asp

Preserving The Amazon Rainforest...
Step One: Defeat Fatalism

http://www.infobrazil.com/Conteudo/Front_Page/Twenty_Questions/Conteudo.asp?ID_Noticias=844&ID_Area=2&ID_Grupo=10


Informant: Deane T. Rimerman

#108 WILD NORTHWEST, August 20, 2004

A Message from Northwest Ecosystem Alliance

Keeping the Northwest Wild

Protect Our Nation's Roadless Wildlands

Tell the Bush administration to reinstate the Roadless Area Conservation Rule

The Bush administration is seeking public comments on a new proposal that would abandon the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which currently protects 58.5 million acres of wild national forest land across America, and replace it with an unwieldy state petition process. The draft rule dictates state governors to submit proposals that either continue roadless area protections, or allow roadless lands to be opened to logging and other development. The federal government would then consider each state petition and decide whether to protect or log in roadless areas.

This is an unnecessary and cumbersome change that will move the country backwards and promote development in the nation's last wild areas.

Comments are due on September 14, 2004. Use our quick email action system to request, once again, that the Forest Service keep the Roadless Area Conservation Rule intact to protect the wild forests of Washington and Oregon, and across America. Go to:

http://www.ecosystem.org/action/index.html?MessageTemplateID=2.

Or fax or mail your comments to:
Content Analysis Team
Attn: Roadless State Petitions
USDA Forest Service
P.O. Box 221090
Salt Lake City, UT 84122
Fax: (801) 517-1014
Email: statepetitionroadless@fs.fed.us

Party for forests: Throw a house party
Make your letter earn compound interest: Throw a house party to generate letters with friends and family; it's easy and powerful. This is what democracy looks like! Contact Hudson Dodd today, or for online help visit http://www.ecosystem.org/OG/og_houseparty.html.

For background, go to http://www.ourforests.org/press/pr04-07-12.html
The proposed rule is available at

http://www.roadless.fs.fed.us/documents/id_07/2004_07_12_state_petition_proposed_rule.html.

Thank you for persevering, and speaking out for our wild national forests!

"The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it willavail us little to solve all others." --President Theodore Roosevelt, October 4, 1907

"We must fulfill our promise to the next generation...and leave behind a worldas blessed and beautiful as the one our parents left us."--President George W. Bush, May 20, 2003

Erin Moore
Communications Coordinator
Northwest Ecosystem Alliance
1208 Bay St., Ste. 201
Bellingham, WA 98225
360.671.9950 ext. 24

Keep the Northwest wild. For further information, please visit http://www.ecosystem.org

Naturzerstörung in Südostasien: Unkontrollierter Holzhandel gefährdet tropische Sumpf-Wälder

19.08.04

Der unkontrollierte Handel mit dem in Asien, Europa und Nordamerika beliebten Tropenholz Ramin bedroht die letzten Sumpf-Wälder in Südostasien. In Indonesien zerstört illegaler Raubbau den Lebensraum der vom Aussterben bedrohten Orang Utans. Laut einer Studie, die der WWF am Donnerstag vorstellt, klafft eine große Lücke zwischen den gemeldeten Ausfuhrmengen der wichtigsten Raminexporteure Indonesien, Malaysia und Singapur und den Importzahlen der Empfängerstaaten...

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:

http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php4?Nr=9126

In the midst of sprawling tree farms on their ancestral lands, the Mapuche Indians are fighting the Chilean government to reclaim land they say was given away through false land titles to international timber companies who have damaged the environment and threatened the Mapuche way of life.

"We are a people who have been defrauded, who have exhausted every legal means of attaining redress, and we have the right to recover what was stolen from us, even if that means incorporating violence within our struggle," Jose Huenchunao, a Mapuche leader, told the New York Times.

The Chilean government, rather than negotiate, has arrested 18 Mapuche Indians on charges stemming from a Pinochet era anti-terrorism law. They will face trial soon.

"From the moment the Chilean state annexed Mapuche territory, and used violence to do so, the rule of law has never existed south of the Bío Bío [river]," Aucán Huilcamín, a leader of the Council of All Lands, told the New York Times. "The state refuses to recognize that we are a people with rights that were in force even before Chile existed as a nation and which remain in force today."

Sources:
"Mapuche Indians in Chile Struggle to Take Back Forests", New York Times (web), August 11, 2004.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/11/international/americas/11chile.html

FIGHTING UNTIL THE END IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Protesters trying to save the Ludlow tuart forest, near Busselton in south-west Western Australia, have threatened to chain themselves to their tree-top platforms if police try to remove them. The protesters are asking for some of the conservationists to be allowed to remain in their tree-top. Yesterday, residents of the Tuart Rescue Camp were given 24 hours to move - an impossible task given the size of the camp. The deadline for the protesters to leave site passed without incident earlier today. Dozens of police, including a mounted section, are on stand-by and say force will be used as a last resort if talks fail. A spokeswoman from the Forest Products Commission says they are to start harvesting pine trees in the area tomorrow.

The Wilderness Society's Keith Wood says the group will fight until the bitter end. "What we're really looking for is an up swell of community support," he said. "The more people that get involved, the more passionate people get, the more we can do."

Agriculture Minister Kim Chance recently approved titanium mining company Cable Sands' Tuart Preservation Plan.

Friends of the Tuart Forest spokesperson Martin Pritchard says "The plan confirms our fears there are unacceptable risks involved with the logging of 1200 tuart trees. The cutting down of the huge old tuarts will have a devastating effect on the native animals, with many expected not to survive the felling of the trees. Cable Sands intends to mine within 4m of the mature trees and 10m of the senescent trees. We question whether these trees will survive soil disturbance close to intruding on their root systems."

Camp occupant Brian Green said recently that each individual at the camp had their own idea as to what they were willing to do to slow down Cable Sands as much as possible "Some are prepared to be arrested while others go one step further, putting their bodies on the line to hinder progress," said Green. "Often it gets very technical and people take different levels of risk but damage to machinery or violence will not be supported by the group as a whole." Green said that different methods to hinder tree clearing ranged from locking on to trees at the base or staying in the trees to more intricate measures which could often become dangerous. Green said 'Dragons' were commonly used to hinder progress and included devices used to secure protesters to a certain spot. One method is to immerse an arm or leg into a buried concrete structure which, once set, requires a jack hammer to free the protester," he said. The ingenuity comes when a protester who is secured is also linked by a rope to others in a tree structure which will fall if the sole protestor is moved."

Tuarts are endemic to Western Australia (WA) and specifically the Swan Coastal Plain, occurring from Jurien Bay to Busselton. The extent of tuarts falls into six distinct tuart ecosystems, of which four are considered rare due to their limited range and size. One of these rare tuart ecosystems is the Ludlow Tall Tuart Forest: what makes this ecosystem particularly special is that tuart trees grow taller then anywhere else in the state.

The Ludlow Tuart Forest is the only remaining Tall Tuart Forest in the world and is therefore one of the rarest ecosystems left on earth. 1955 hectares are left in the South West of Western Australia and Cable Sands have put forward a proposal to mine 147 hectares right in the middle of it. The reason - titanium. It is not surprising that the proposal has attracted opposition from a variety of groups and community members.

The area is habitat for a number of rare and endangered and vulnerable species including the endangered Carnaby's Black Cockatoo, the Chuditch, Brush-tailed Phascogale, Western Ring-tailed Possum, Brush Wallaby and contains 1739 Tuart trees and their associated eco-systems.

The EPA (Environmental Protection Authority) has admitted that any attempt to rehabilitate the area may not result in the return of its present values such as tall Tuart trees growing to a great 500 year old age.

In their submissions to the EPA the Conservation Commission of WA, CALM, WA Institute of Foresters, Shire of Busselton, Cape Naturaliste Tourism Association, and the Conservation Council of WA have all opposed mining in the Ludlow Tall Tuart Forest.

Cable Sands claims they can restore this ecosystem (post mining) to "a condition better than currently exists." However there is no evidence in WA that Cable Sands is capable of restoring an ecosystem. What limited experience Cable Sands does have, has demonstrated that it is difficult to regrow tuarts on mined soils that are similar to those of the Ludlow Tall Tuart Forest. Further, the oldest tuart trees that Cable Sands have attempted to revegetate are only 15 years old and far from representing a Tall Tuart Forest.

In 1903 there were only 40500 ha of tuart forest ecosystems remaining in the South West of WA. The area was singled out for urgent conservation by the Royal Commission, after significant depletion of naturally occurring forest was cited (down some 89500 ha: from 130 000 ha in 1882 recorded in the first official survey of WA forests, to 40500 ha to 1903: a span of just 21 years) as a result of Tuarts' attractive timber properties as a hardwood.

Recommendations made to the WA Government in 1904 stated that: "All countries seem now to realize the importance of stopping the reckless waste of the past and making provision for the future…
The longer it is delayed, the more difficult the task."

Its 2004 guys. Sources: Ludlow Tuart Campaign, Busselton- Dunsborough Mail, Augusta Margaret River Mail, IMC/Perth, Australian Broadcasting Corporation.


Informant: reg

http://cablesands.com/
http://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/wa/tuarts_wa/
http://au.msnusers.com/SavetheLudlowTuartForest/mining.msnw?albumlist=2
http://perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action=newswire&parentview=4962

WWF Threatens Australian Old-Growth Forests

PRESS RELEASE
by Forests.org, Inc.
Monday, August 09, 2004


WWF Australia has released a policy document advocating the logging of vast areas of old-growth forest in Tasmania, Australia. The document, entitled "A Blueprint for the Forest Industry and Vegetation Management in Tasmania", has rightly outraged local conservation organizations working for the past 25 years to stop logging in Tasmania's old-growth forests.

A broad global consensus has emerged within the grassroots forest conservation community that industrial logging of old-growth, and other endangered forests, is no longer acceptable.

As Dr. Glen Barry of Forests.org explains, "ancient forests are required to maintain local as well as global ecological sustainability. Industrial development of Tasmanian and other endangered forests irrevocably diminishes them, whether management is certified or not. To protect the Earth and all her life, the world's remaining old-growth must be protected from commercial scale development."

WWF's support for industrial logging against the wishes of heavily invested local conservationists is the most recent instance of large environmental organizations obstructing grassroots efforts to end industrial logging of ancient old-growth and other endangered forests.

All too frequently corporate environmental organizations benefit financially from their endorsement of ancient forest logging as being supposedly environmentally friendly.

The Australia Institute recently reported that WWF Australia has received vast sums of money from the Australian Federal Government ($13.5 million between 1999 and 2003). It has also supported the majority of the Federal Government's environment policies - including commercial logging of Tasmania's ancient forests - while its name and statements have been used by the Government to promote its environmental credentials.

If adopted by Australia's government, WWF's proposals would undermine the twenty five years' campaign to protect Tasmania's old growth forests and biodiversity; continue undesirable and unpopular practices such as clearfelling of native forests; destroy wilderness areas of World Heritage value in western Tasmania; and exacerbate current divisions in Tasmania regarding the future of forests, the development of forest-consuming industrial complexes, and the proposed expansion of plantations.

Twenty-five years of grassroots campaigning have won great victories in the campaign to save what remains of Australia's precious old-growth forests. Public opinion is behind the movement and political parties are on the verge of making the leap to true conservation policies - based upon strict protection and an end to old-growth logging - for Tasmania’s precious ancient forests.

WWF's recently published 'blueprint' threatens to stall this progress. Forest.org supports Tasmanian conservation organizations in their demand that WWF remove the document from circulation and the debate, or else withdraw from the Tasmanian forest campaign altogether.

As Dr. Barry concludes, "greenwashing of old-growth forest destruction by corporate environmental apologists will not stand. The mega-environmental conglomerates will heed this message of lose their members."

A copy of WWF Australia's report is available on their website at http://www.wwf.org.au/

A copy of the Australia Insitute’s report is available at:
http:/www.tai.org.au/ (see 'What's New')

A copy of Tasmanian NGO's letter to WWF can be found at:
http://forests.org/docfeed/tasmania_wwf.doc

For more information including interviews contact:

Dr. Glen Barry
President
Forests.org, Inc.
http://forests.org/
gbarry@forests.org