If you want to help save Old Growth Redwood and Douglas Fir forests, in Freshwater, on Gypsy Mountain, and in the Mattole, and you can't be out in the woods, for any number of reasons, you can still help the campaign by donating just $10 a month. With just 100
people participating, all of our basic financial needs would be met.

Most people in this country pay several monthly bills...rent, water,electricity, phones, etc. If even 50 people, nationwide, could remember to drop $10 in the mail, or through the donation button below, to North Coast Earth First!, with just one of those monthly bills, it would help out immensely in the efforts to save these ancient trees.

It's a simple, low-impact way to make a huge difference, enabling us to cover our basic month-to-month expenses without having to constantly fundraise, and by lessening the impact on the local community, who continuously give to keep these trees standing. Oftentimes the people in the trees are the only things keeping these ancient wonders alive.

Getting other people in your community to participate in this easy plan is another way you can help. Out of the millions of people in this country, finding 100 or so who would be willing to regularly help should be easy. If each person could get 2 or 3 more people to participate, the numbers would quickly multiply, so that the needed gear and supplies can be obtained, to keep the resistance strong.

You can also send donations to:

North Coast Earth First!
P.O. Box 219
Bayside, CA 95524

And, if you're concerned about directly supporting direct action, you can also make a tax-deductible donation to our media office and collective, at the following link:

https://www.treesfoundation.org/cgi-priv/Donations.pl

Just scroll down to "North Coast Earth First! (NCEF!)", and click on "Continue>"

Please help if you can...as summertime comes around, we hope for the campaign to grow, so we really need your help to really make it all happen effectively.

Thank you.

In solidarity,
Shunka Wakan
NCEF! activist and organizer

Arguing that protecting forests is good for business, major manufacturers of outdoor gear, including footwear giant Nike, are urging the Bush administration not to open roadless areas of national forests to logging.

http://www.enn.com/news/2004-05-13/s_23856.asp

May 12, 2004

The Tongass and Chugach National Forests contain some of the largest remaining stands of roadless ancient temperate rainforest in the U.S. They hug the coast of southeast Alaska, providing habitat for numerous wildlife species—river otters, grizzly bears, bald eagles, mountain goats, wolves, salmon, and more. Vital local industries, including commercial fishing and tourism, depend upon the health of the Tongass and Chugach. [1]

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule, enacted in January 2001, protects areas like these from commercial logging. It also protects against oil and gas drilling, as well as extensive off-road vehicle use. [2] In May 2001, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman expressed support for the Roadless Rule, calling it "the right thing to do." [3]

But when the state of Alaska filed a lawsuit in 2001 the Bush administration chose not defend the rule. [4] Instead, last June it proposed exempting the Tongass from the Roadless Rule's protection.

During the 45-day public comment period, about a quarter of a million citizens sent in comments. Laurie Cooper, manager of the Alaska Rainforest Campaign, told BushGreenwatch that "99 percent of these were in favor of keeping protections on both the Tongass and the Chugach. The public is very much in support of protecting our last wild forests."

Nonetheless, last December the Bush Administration announced the exemption of the Tongass from the Roadless Rule. [5] According to Cooper, the indefinite, supposedly temporary, exemption of the Tongass opens up 9.3 million acres of ancient forest for road development and timber sales. If extended to the 5 million eligible acres of the Chugach, a quarter of the land originally covered by the Roadless Rule will be unprotected.

Cooper sees no economic justification for this level of logging. "Despite what the Forest Service or the Bush administration would like to portray, the decline of the timber industry is not due to the protection of these wild roadless areas," she says. "There was a series of pulp mill closures, as well as an increase in supply from other regions of the world that made it uneconomical to log in the Tongass."

Logging in the Tongass actually costs American taxpayers millions of dollars. According to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, "A recent analysis by the Southeastern Alaska Conservation Council estimates that U.S. taxpayers spent $170,000 for every direct timber job created by logging in the Tongass National Forest in 2002--an amount equal to more than four times the average U.S. household income ($42,409) for the same year." The timber program could lose up to $30 million a year through non-competitive and under-valued timber sales. Plus, there is a $900 million backlog of deferred maintenance and capitol improvements to existing Tongass roads. [6]

"For 2001, spending on the planning process, as well as road construction, cost $36 million," says Cooper. "And in return, receipts were $1.2 million. It’s a federal subsidy to keep the timber industry operating in the Tongass."

The Bush administration wants to make the Tongass and Chugach exemptions permanent. It may use them to gut the Roadless Rule, which also protects some 44 million acres of forest in the lower 48 states. The administration is said to be preparing an extensive revision of the rule to give governors options to apply for exemptions in their states. [7]

As Cooper noted, Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey was previously a top lobbyist for the timber industry.


TAKE ACTION
Tell Congress to protect the roadless areas of the Tongass National Forest , and end taxpayer-subsidized logging, with Alaska Rainforest Campaign’s free fax form.


SOURCES:
[1] "The Land and Its People," Alaska Rainforest Campaign.
http://www.akrain.org/rainforest/info/landpeople.asp
[2] "The Rule of the Roadless," Grist Magazine, Jan. 5, 2001.
http://www.gristmagazine.com/daily/daily010501.stm
[3] "An Anniversary Marked By Controversy,", Alaska Rainforest Campaign.
http://www.akrain.org/action/default.asp
[4] "Tongass National Forest Exempted from Roadless Rule By Bush Administration," The Wilderness Society.
http://www.wilderness.org/WhereWeWork/Alaska/WR108-TongassExemption.cfm
[5] Ibid.
[6] "Tongass Roadless Exemption Threatens Taxpayers," Taxpayers for Common Sense.
http://www.taxpayer.net/forest/01_15_TongassBriefing.pdf
[7] The Wilderness Society, op. cit.


http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000116.php

Der Yasuni-Nationalpark in Ecuador ist durch eine Ölstraße gefährdet. Rettet den Regenwald beteiligt sich an den internationalen Protesten.
Bitte helfen auch Sie und schicken Sie eine Protestmail unter http://www.regenwald.org

Es gibt auch Lichtblicke: Der ehemalige Umweltminister Emil Salim aus Indonesien hat einen Bericht über die schädlichen Folgen der
Ölförderung für die Weltbank erarbeitet. Nun müssen nur noch die
Konsequenzen daraus gezogen werden. Mehr Infos dazu und eine Aktion unter http://www.regenwald.org

Bitte leiten Sie diese Nachricht an möglichst viele Freunde und
Bekannte weiter! Mit bestem Dank für Ihre Hilfe und Ihr Engagement

Reinhard Behrend

Rettet den Regenwald e. V. Friedhofsweg 28 22337 Hamburg Tel. 040 - 4103804 info@regenwald.ORG http://www.regenwald.ORG

Nach Greenpeace-Recherchen stammt das Sperrholz für die Renovierung des Gebäudes des EU-Wirtschafts- und Sozialausschusses von Firmen, die illegal eingeschlagenes Holz aus den letzten Urwäldern Indonesiens verkaufen. Die Umweltschützer lieferten umweltfreundliches FSC-zertifiziertes Sperrholz ins Gebäude, das die EU statt des Raubbauholzes verwenden soll. Auf einem Transparent steht: "EU: Stop illegal Timber Imports". Greenpeace fordert die EU-Umweltminister auf, bei ihrem Treffen diese Woche im irischen Waterford die gesetzliche Grundlage für ein Importverbot von illegal gefälltem Holz zu schaffen.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:
http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php4?Nr=8423

Much Amazon destruction occurs due to logging to create farms

Environmental groups are calling for urgent action to slow deforestation in Brazil's Amazon jungle.

About 9,170 square miles (23,750 sq km) of forest were lost in 2003, just up from 8,983 square miles (23,266 sq km) in 2002, the Brazilian government says.

The scale is not as high as in the mid-1990s, but it confirms the world's largest forest is disappearing rapidly.

Rising exports of beef and soya in Brazil are said to encourage farmers to clear the forest for farms.

Scientists fear the clearances could affect the global climate as well as threatening thousands of unique plant and animal species.

"I am worried - the figures are too high," said Rosa Lemos de Sa of conservation group WWF Brazil.

"The tendency is for it to stay high unless drastic measures are taken, and I don't see the government doing anything drastic."

Brazil's environment minister said the growth rate of deforestation had been halted.

"The big challenge is that 23,000 (sq km) is still a very worrying number," said Marina da Silva.

Criticism

Last month, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva unveiled plans to halt the destruction amid criticism his government failed to act.

He promised satellite monitoring and joint action by ministries after a 28 % jump in deforestation between 2001 and 2002 pushed the level toward the record rate seen in 1995.

On Wednesday, the government announced it had overestimated its 2001-2 figure of 10,190 square miles (25,500 sq km) and revised it to 8,983 square miles (23,260 sq km).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3609887.stm


Informant: NHNE

Source: Copyright&nbsp2004, Toronto Star
Date: April&nbsp3,&nbsp2004

It's hard to imagine an environmental apocalypse in Ontario — destruction so complete that nothing remains but a desert. Yet, it happened in what was one of the grandest white pine forests in the Ottawa Valley.

The area became known as the Bourget Desert, named after the town of Bourget at its central edge, just 50 kilometres east of today's downtown Ottawa.

By the 1920s, sand dunes and dust storms were all that was left of a primeval forest after little more than 100 years of logging and farming.

Logging throughout the Ottawa Valley was unrelenting, its scale perhaps best understood by the size of one sawmill operating in the early 1800s at Hawkesbury on the Ottawa River. The mill had 101 vertical saws and 44 circular saws, all powered by 72 water wheels.

In addition, there were the rafts the size of football fields, made of square-hewn timbers destined for export, driven downriver to Quebec city. Only pines more than one metre in diameter at the stump and more than 38 metres tall were used.

The region was particularly vulnerable because it soils were sandy and the topsoil thin. When farmers tried to cultivate the area after the trees were gone, they used up the topsoil.

Happily, the area has been reclaimed. Since 1928, more than 18 million trees have been planted, and today the Bourget Desert has become the Larose Forest. It covers 101 square kilometres.

Now for the next step: linking the forest to bogs near its east and west ends. They make up the heart of a conservation effort covering 2,300 square kilometres. That sounds big, but it's only about 80 per cent of the size of the amalgamated city of Ottawa.

The initiative is called the Bog To Bog Project.

To the west of the forest is Mer Bleue Bog, about 31 square kilometres in size and about 10 kilometres from downtown Ottawa. Already, the suburb of Orleans has reached the bog's edge.

To the east, about 15 kilometres from Hawkesbury, is Alfred Bog, covering about 42 square kilometres. Fifty years ago, it was more than twice as large, but peat mining and draining for farming reduced its size.

Bog To Bog is a co-operative effort of 10 bodies, including the City of Ottawa, Wildlife Habitat Canada, the United Counties of Prescott and Russell, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Eastern Ontario Model Forest and Ducks Unlimited.

Its co-ordinator is Pierre Boileau. He sees his job as persuading private landowners to protect their bush lots, and he has a simple goal: Make sure there's enough forest for birds. In order to thrive, he says, birds need 30 per cent forest cover. In the Bog To Bog area, forests cover only 23 per cent of the land.

Achille Drouin leans more to philosophy. He's a director of Eastern Ontario Model Forest.

"We should use only the surplus of nature," he says. Take more, as has been done in the Bog To Bog area, and nature starts to crumble.

With Ottawa's population expected to double in the next 40 years, there's little time to lose.

However, there's more to Bog To Bog than its immediate goals. There's the underlying message from the Bourget Desert: Nothing is inexhaustible.

I think of this as I watch Prime Minister Paul Martin dragging his feet on implementing the Kyoto accord. Climate change may be just as devastating as rapacious logging.

http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=30671

Originally posted at: http://tinyurl.com/32eq4


Informant: NHNE

Nach Angaben von PRO WILDLIFE ist der größte Waldbestand Afrikas in Gefahr. Die neue Übergangsregierung in der Demokratischen Republik Kongo (DRC) will mit Hilfe der Weltbank bis Oktober 2004 die gesamten Waldflächen des Landes in Nutzungskategorien einteilen. Dies wäre der Startschuss für einen massiven Holzeinschlag von geplanten sechs bis zehn Millionen Kubikmeter Tropenholz pro Jahr.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/fp/archiv/Akt-News/4521.php

Today, environmentalists want you to purchase costlier organic food that comes from organic farms .... But their goal is not to make you healthier. The environmentalists resist successful mass food production. Organic farming by definition takes considerably more
land and generates far less produce. Less produce means less food to go around means more starving peasants dead sooner.

Read more under:
http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/langr/langr2.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Saure Salze setzen die Poren und Spalte zu, über die die Bäume atmen.

Die Bäume erkranken und sterben durch einen blockierten Gasstoffwechsel.

Zudem sprengen die Salze beim Trocknen die Rinden auf und bieten dort einen idealen Lebensraum für Schädlinge, die die Rinde eines gesunden Baumes nicht durchdringen könnten. Im untersten Bereich der Stämme wachsen Moose auf, die den aufkriechenden Säuren folgen. Gelingt es dem Baum nicht, die aufgesprengte Rinde zu schließen und reißt die Rinde um einen Ast oder einen Stamm herum auf, bricht das Kapillarsystem der Rinde zusammen, das den Flüssigkeitstransport in die höher gelegenen Baumbereiche gewährleisten muß. Der Baum stirbt. Das massenhafte Sterben der Bäum hat es zu Zeiten von hohen CO²-Emmissionen in den 60er und 70er Jahren nicht gegeben. Erst seit der Einführung der umstrittenen Platinoxidationskatalyse der 3-Wege-Katlalysatoren und die ungehemmte Ausbreitung von mm-Wellen durch Richtfunk- und Sendeanlagen ist diese katastrophale Entwicklung für jedermann sichtbar.

Die nachfolgenden REM-Aufnahme wurden von Dieter Enger, Syke gemacht.

Reinigt man Baumstämme und Äste vorsichtig mit einem Hochdruckreinigungsgerät, können die Bäume wieder atmen. In der Folge dessen tragen sie auch wieder ein gesünderes Blattwerk. Aufgeplatzte Rinden schließen sich. Bild unten links: Der schwarze Teil zeigt ein vom Salz bereites Rindenstück. Daneben ein Salzkristall.

Nachricht von Gerd Ernst Zesar

Geben Sie diese Nachricht bitte weiter!