007OEC's This-week-in-Trees
This Week's 21 news items comes from Forests in: BC, WA, CA, Montana,
Louisiana, Northeast US, Australia, Palestine, New Zealand, India,
and the Philippines British Columbia:
1) Staring at Extinction: Mountain Caribou in British Columbia
documents approved logging of more than 54,000 hectares of old-growth
forest caribou habitat in BC. Mountain caribou are completely
dependent on large tracts of intact old-growth forest in southeast BC
and parts of three US states for their survival. The BC, Canadian,
and US governments consider mountain caribou to be in danger of
extinction. The number of mountain caribou has fallen from 2,400 in
1997 to 1,670 today.
http://www.ecosystem.org/enews/32.html
2) Yesterday's guilty plea by the B.C. Ministry of Forests to charges
of damaging fish habitat represents only one violation among
potentially hundreds in an out-of-control industry, says the David
Suzuki Foundation. "This prosecution should be the first of many by
Fisheries and Oceans Canada," says Bill Wareham, acting director of
marine conservation with the David Suzuki Foundation. "Destructive
logging and disregard for fish habitat continues to be the norm
throughout B.C., and DFO must continue to hold the province
accountable." David Suzuki Foundation's third Coastal Status Report,
at www.canadianrainforests.org
3) What a difference a blockade can make. For two months in the
spring, Haida and non-Haida alike blocked roads and halted major
logging on Haida Gwaii. The Island Spirit Uprising, as it was called,
pushed the provincial government to begin high level negotiations
with the Haida leadership. The official agreement is still in the
works, but when it all shakes down, say Haida leaders, islanders will
see a significant drop in the annual allowable cut and the way
resources are managed. The bear hunt will be halted and there will be
a move toward eco-forestry. Large areas of importance to the Haida
including monumental cedar stands and archaelogical sites will now be
protected. Just about anyone will tell you that logging on the
islands will never look the same. Some have a smile on their face
when they say it and others a frown. But in the Haida vision of the
future, there will also be a new focus on island economic stability,
something people have been dreaming of for a long time. These men can
describe gargantuan Sitka Spruce they felled and dragged out to the
sea only to be barged south. They witnessed the cutting of the
old-growth along major river valleys on the island - the Yakoun and
the Copper. They also feel most fiercely the slogan found on signs
still posted at the blockade sites, "Enough is enough."
http://www.thetyee.ca/News/2005/06/21/RevolutionHaida/
Washington:
4) Lake Chelan Valley could escape the fire season this year because
so much forest land around the lake has burned over the past 10 years
that there isn't enough fuel left for another catastrophic wildfire
season. "I don't think we'll be set up for another 30,000-acre or
larger fire for the next 15 to 20 years," said Marsh Haskins, fire
manager for the Lake Chelan Ranger District. "The areas around most
of the campgrounds have been pretty well cleaned out by fire in
recent years," he said. "We may have some short-lived grass fires,
but nothing too large." At least 150,000 acres around the lake have
burned since 1994, when 135,000 acres was charred by the Tyee Fire.
Areas burned by the Deep Harbor Fire last summer, plus parts of the
2001 Rex Creek Fire and the 2002 Deer Point Fire were burned so
severely that it could be decades before they can sustain another big
fire.In the meantime, the Forest Service will continue to use a
combination of logging and prescribed burns to reduce the risk in
other areas, Haskins said
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Summer%20and%20Smoke
Oregon:
5) In reviewing the ten-year progress of the Northwest Forest Plan,
federal officials say it has worked to increase the raw number of
older trees by about 600,000 acres. But environmentalists say these
older trees are not like the ancient ones that used to be common in
the Northwest producing the best fish and wildlife habitat. On the
other hand, the timber industry points out that the Plan has fallen
far short of its promised lumber output. Regional Forest Service
spokesman Rex Holloway says as it now stands those logging goals are
almost impossible to meet because of budget cuts that affect timber
sale
planning.http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/opb/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=786837
6) The much-anticipated proposal for protecting the Ashland watershed
from a catastrophic fire was released by the U.S. Forest Service over
the weekend. The two actionable alternatives would thin trees on
approximately 8,150 acres of old-growth forest inside the watershed,
said Linda Duffy, District Ranger for the Ashland Ranger District.
She said neither alternative has called for either a limit on the
size of trees that could be removed or a specific amount of lumber to
be removed for the plan. "We don't know what the board-feet
component," she said. "It's not a concern at this point. Our concern
is in trying to create a more fire-resilient ecosystem." Duffy has
asked for and received "stewardship authority" for this project,
which means all profits incurred from the logging will be allowed to
stay in this ranger district, rather than being applied to the
national treasury as is otherwise congressionally mandated. Some
still believe both alternatives would be too heavy-handed for the
old-growth forest ecosystem found within the watershed. Local
activist Eric Navickas said stand thinning increases the potential
for wildfires and does not serve the greater goals of Ashland's
forested areas. "The Forest Service is exploiting the fear of fire to
propose a massive logging project and still have community support,"
he said.
http://www.dailytidings.com/2005/0620/062005n1.shtml
7) Portland: "To present, in a compelling and entertaining way, the
latest thinking in forest science and sustainability." The Center
will celebrate the grand reopening with a variety of events scheduled
for the whole weekend. The Center traces its roots to the 1905 Lewis
and Clark Centennial Exposition where the "World's Largest Log Cabin"
was the most popular attraction. After the fair closed, the building
was donated to the city and remained a tourist attraction until 1964
when it burned to the ground. Exhibits like Be a Wildlife
Detective, Forces of Nature, Working in the Forest, Plant it Right
Here, and Amazing Wood will guide visitors to learn about the
diversity, management challenges and undeniable benefits of forests
and trees. Shortly thereafter, civic leaders gathered and the modern
World Forestry Center was born. This is the first interior renovation
of the museum since it opened in 1971. The World Forestry Center is a
non profit educational institution dedicated to educating and
informing people about the world's forests and trees, and their
relationship to all life, in order to promote a balanced and
sustainable future. The Center owns and operates the Discovery Museum
in Portland's Washington Park, Magness Memorial Tree farm a
demonstration forest located near Wilsonville, Oregon, and the World
Forest Institute, the international forestry division of the Center.
http://www.medfordnews.com/articles/index.cfm?artOID=303899&cp=10996
8) A coalition of conservation groups, led by the Center for
Biological Diversity, filed notice of their intent to take the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to court over its failure to respond
to a petition to protect the Siskiyou Mountains and Scott Bar
Salamanders as endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.
The Scott Bar Salamander was discovered to be a unique species in
May. "The Siskiyou and newly discovered Scott Bar Salamanders need
the safety-net provided by the Endangered Species Act to survive,"
states Noah Greenwald. "The Endangered Species Act provides a system
of checks and balances that helps us make sure that reckless
development doesn't harm fish and wildlife," noted Doug Hieken,
Forest Policy Analyst with the Oregon Natural Resources Council. "We
need those checks and balances to make sure that the forests these
salamanders need aren't cut down." Under the Bush Administration, FWS
has only protected 32 species-the fewest number protected by any
administration since the Act was passed.
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/PRESS/salamander6-23-05.html
California:
9) A new UCDavis study details for the first time the nesting needs
of northern flying squirrels in the Sierra Nevada, supplying
important information for managers of old-growth forests there. One
particularly important discovery suggests that the 30-yard to
100-yard creekside buffer typically recommended for logged areas may
be too small. In the study, a team of UC Davis scientists monitored
27 northern flying squirrels over the course of three nesting
seasons. They found that squirrels nested most often in big fir trees
- ones that were significantly larger than any others nearby - that
were within 100 to 150 yards of year-round creeks. The northern
flying squirrel (Glaucomys sabrinus) is one of only two mammals in
North America that glide on furry "wings" stretched between their
forelimbs and hindlimbs. (The other glider is the southern flying
squirrel; the only mammals that truly fly are bats.)
http://www.dailydemocrat.com/news/ci_2810828
10) More timber should be pulled from the Stanislaus National Forest,
and maybe some of its neighboring forests, a critical new study
commissioned by Congress concludes. The study will spur more
ambitious harvest plans for the Sierra Nevada woods, top Forest
Service officials vow. Last year, about 12 million board-feet of
timber was sold from the Stanislaus; this year, 15 million board-feet
is scheduled for sale. Mariposa Republican George Radanovich would
like to see 40 million board-feet sold. By Sept. 30, Forest Service
officials say, the Stanislaus should complete an explicit, five-year
timber plan - and timber industry representatives, officials say,
should be part of the planning process.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/environment/story/13097280p-13942180c.html
11) The Stanislaus National Forest has announced plans to log and
thin more than 4,800 acres flanking Highway 108 next year. Quinn said
4,840 of 12,000 acres in the project area will be thinned around Cold
Springs, Peter Pam, Long Barn, Oddfellows, Merrill Spring, Sierra
Village, Mi-Wuk Village, Sugar Pine, Confidence and Ponderosa Hills.
Unless the project is stalled by appeals, about 10 million board-feet
of timber is set to be logged and sold to local mills in Standard and
Chinese Camp. About 16,000 board-feet are typically needed to
construct a 2,000 square-foot home. Some of the trees to be logged
are large-diameter trees in parts of the forest where the California
spotted owl lives. But John Buckley, director of the Twain
Harte-based Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center, said he
knows of no environmental group appealing the project. "We rarely if
ever appeal any Forest Service timber sale projects," Buckley said.
"It doesn't mean we always agree with them, but we are looking for
compromise, we recognize the lumber mills need the wood and we
support thinning."
http://www.uniondemocrat.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=17656
12) Whenever Pacific Lumber Co. planned to dispatch helicopters to
log its nearby redwood groves, the company would phone Christine
Rising at her vine-draped bungalow above the Eel River. After finding
someone to care for her horses, dogs, cats and pot-bellied pig,
Rising, 51, would pack her clothes and head down the dirt road toward
a Eureka hotel about an hour's drive away. Then for days or weeks,
she could escape the beat of helicopter blades that she says wreak
havoc with her surgically repaired left ear, causing nausea,
dizziness and even blackouts. For Pacific Lumber, paying Rising's
hotel bills for a few years was a cost of doing business - a
relatively inexpensive goodwill gesture by a company that could ill
afford more enemies or more obstacles to harvesting its valuable
Humboldt County timberlands. But early last year, Rising says, she
had to start fending for herself. Although Pacific Lumber says it
will help her out with her medical expenses, it has stopped paying to
relocate her. For Rising, who lives on an $850-a-month government
disability payment, the development was a heartless move by one of
California's most powerful natural resource companies. But it also
was one more sign that a company that has been a pillar of
California's north coast economy for nearly a century and a half is
in trouble.
http://www.circleoflife.org/blog/inthenews_archives/000105.htm
Montana:
13) The crowd came from the four directions to gather beneath the
green trees of Bonner Park and memorialize the passing of a
mountain-man legend, Packer Bob Sterner. Bob took one last ride as
his ashes were led in on horseback, tucked onto a saddle and beneath
his cowboy hat. Only sounds of nature could be heard as the lead
rider, Mark Alber, paused in front of the 100-person crowd. Tears
fell as he rode away. Then, a 21-gun salute thundered, followed by a
100-shot salute as the crowd hoisted a shot each skyward for their
fallen friend. Though Bob lived a full life, as a sailor taken P.O.W.
in the Korean War, and as a Rocky Mountain packer, his trail was cut
short in a fit of violence that shocked the Missoula community.
Beaten into a coma in the hallway of his apartment building. Bob was
known best for his years behind the reigns of mule and horse pack
strings in the wilds of central Idaho and western Montana, and spent
his final years in Missoula. From his stool at Charlie's Packer
served as one of the last links to a day when trails outnumbered
roads. The legend of Packer Bob is not in danger of leaving this
earth anytime soon. He'll be remembered as a tough and capable man
when it came to getting a job done. Tender when it came to kids, and
a friend willing to help someone in a fix. He was a throwback to
another era. Packer was an irreplaceable elder statesman of the
Lochsa Country. A scholar of the woods, and a professor in their
ways. Happy trails, Packer.
http://lowbagger.org/packerbob.html
14) Two environmental groups are pursuing an emergency court order to
stop all timber salvage work on the Flathead National Forest to
protect grizzly bear populations. But the Forest Service counters
that the groups have failed to show how the timber harvests would
cause "irreparable harm" to bears. Keith Hammer of the Swan View
Coalition filed for a temporary restraining order last week with U.S.
District Judge Donald Molloy. Hammer's request is related to a
lawsuit he filed in May with another group, Friends of the Wild Swan.
If granted, the order would shut down most of the Flathead National
Forest's active timber program, with direct ramifications for western
Montana lumber mills, loggers and log haulers. The lawsuit filed
April 29 mainly challenges the Flathead Forest's road management
plans associated with the post-fire projects. Hammer contests the
legality of "site-specific" forest plan amendments that allow
deviations from road density standards required by the Flathead's
long-range forest plan.
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2005/06/23/news/news01.txt
Louisiana:
15) The Senate bill raises to $1.2 billion their share of a project
to preserve land in coastal Louisiana. This would be the first
installment of a grand plan to restore the Mississippi Delta. Experts
put the total cost at a minimum of $15 billion. But then Vitter
slipped in a last-minute provision that would endanger hundreds of
thousands of forested wetland acres in Louisiana alone. It would ease
the way for timber companies to cut down majestic cypress trees -
part of the very ecosystem taxpayers are being asked to save - and
turn them into cheap garden mulch. The Mississippi Delta happens to
be one of America's great natural wonders, right up there with the
Grand Canyon, the Everglades and Chesapeake Bay. It Strange but true,
the Louisiana state Senate has just passed a resolution backing the
Vitter provision. It calls on Congress to tell the Army Corps to stop
picking on its forestry industry, which engages in "sustainable
forestry practices." The resolution flabbergasts John Day, professor
of oceanography and coastal sciences at Louisiana State University.
The cypress forests have endured, he explains, only because these
trees are willing to stand in water. But their seedlings need fairly
dry conditions to survive. The forest has sunk to the point where the
cypresses cannot regenerate. Cut down the trees, some 100 years old,
and the forest is gone.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002342280_harrop21.html
Northeast US:
16) A multistate task force renewed calls Tuesday for Congress and
the northeastern states to preserve the 26-million-acre forest that
stretches from New York to Maine. The panel's report says that
conservation efforts during the past decade have helped, but that the
Northern Forest is under increasing development pressure because of
rising land values and competitive pressures on the forest-products
industry. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York must work
together to sustain the rural economies that rely on the forest, and
must work with the federal government to conserve forestlands that
face development pressures, the report says. ŠThe new report focuses
more on the forest region's economy and on how to sustain paper mills
and forest-product businesses that are struggling in the face of i
ncreasing international competition. It recommends a new regional
effort to assess the northern forest economy and develop strategies
to sustain it.
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=8052
Australia:
17) Local residents and greens activists orchestrated a group walk
into Wandella State forest on Saturday June 18. A 4WD parked in the
center of the road was intended to block walkers, but after a brief
discussion with the campaigners the driver and passenger of the
vehicle left the scene returning to the logging site and the group
continued towards the machinery and felled logs within the state
forest. The walk attended by 30 people was part of an organized
protest intended to peacefully express local solidarity and
opposition to logging operations. Of crucial concern to the
campaigners is the destruction of flora and fauna, violation of
aboriginal heritage and siltation of water ways due to soil
degradation, in particular Paddy's creek which campaigners say will
contribute to the siltation of Wandella creek and all tributaries
which form the catchment for the Tuross River, a major water system
at the southern end of the Eurobodalla Shire.
http://narooma.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&category=general%20news&story_id=403072&y=2005&m=6
Palestine:
18) In the West Bank city of Hebron, an armed gang of settlers from
the illegal Israeli settlement "Kiryat Arbaa" seized three
Palestinian shops and uprooted a number of trees near the holy
Ibrahimi mosque. The raids were being carried out watched and under
the protection of Israeli soldiers. Israeli settlers uprooted a
number of forest trees in a public park near the Ibrahimi mosque, in
an attempt to level the park's lands and expropriate them. The
settlers' attacks in the occupied Palestinian territories came
concurrent with the visit of US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice,
and amidst claims made by the Israeli government that Palestinians
were stepping up attacks against Israeli targets.
http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_new/english/details.asp?name=5526
New Zealand:
19) "At the moment they (the Government) are going to be in deficit
by around $500 million dollars. Most of their credits are coming from
the carbon sinks in the forests. If they hadn't started out in this
manner of stealing from New Zealander's- if they hadn't done that by
the time the first accounting period ends in 2012 we would have
doubled the Kyoto Forest Estate in New Zealand." Kyoto Forestry
Association Spokesman Roger Dickie, told Scoop. "Until they return
the credits to the rightful owners no-one is going to plant trees.
They reckon this year there will be virtually zero plantings,"
explained Mr Dickie. When pushed by Scoop as to what further actions
his group planned he replied conspiratorially, " I couldn't possibly
tell you." National Party environment spokesperson Nick Smith wasn't
convinced that a slow down in forest planting was behind the new
forecast showing New Zealand facing a large Kyoto carbon deficit.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0506/S00269.htm
20) New Zealand had been expected to have a surplus to sell, but if
the revised estimates are right it will be a buyer. Even at the
relatively low price of $15 a tonne of carbon dioxide, the figure the
Government used to set the initial level of the carbon tax due to
come into effect in 2007, the revisions mean taxpayers will be $1
billion worse off between 2008 and 2012."We have a reluctance for New
Zealand to withdraw from agreements that have been signed because it
is not good for our name internationally," said National's
environment spokesman, Nick Smith. "But we now have to weigh up
whether to withdraw, given the scale of this error." Julia Hoare, who
heads PricewaterhouseCoopers' climate change team, says without a
crystal ball it would be impossible to know the future international
price of carbon or the value of the New Zealand dollar. But even a
best-case scenario would result in payments of $375 million and it
could be as much as $2 billion. "If we take a $1.2 billion estimate
as the most likely, this would amount to a cost of around $900 for
each household."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10332159
India
21) "Jarawa turn hostile" screamed the headline from the local paper.
Indignantly, it reported how primitive tribesmen came out of the
jungle armed with bows, arrows and spears, raided a village in the
Middle Andaman island and looted tools, food, clothes, cash and
jewellery. It was the first such attack in seven years. An indication
that the Jarawa hunter-gatherers remain untamed primitives -- or a
cry for help from man's earliest ancestors, their forests and their
lifestyle, their existence under threat as never before? "It is usual
that poachers enter into Jarawa reserve areas to hunt wild animals,"
a tribal welfare officer blithely notes in an internal report on
April's attack, obtained by Reuters. Some of the poachers, he said,
had stolen honey buried by the Jarawa and destroyed the carved
containers used to store it. Honey is the only food the Jarawa store,
one of the most precious things they have. Enraged, they had
retaliated. The Jarawa are one of four ancient Negroid tribes barely
surviving on the Andamans. Last month, Indian scientists said DNA
evidence suggested they were direct descendents of man's earliest
ancestors, who migrated from Africa 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, only
to be stranded on the islands by rising seawater. Until just a few
years ago, the Jarawa lived in isolation, preserving a simple
lifestyle in their own Garden of Eden. Then the government built a
road through their forest.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=8857037&type=topNews
22) Negros Forest and Ecological Foundation Inc. (NFEFI) chair Gerry
Ledesma Wednesday called on politicians and private citizens to
support their fight against illegal logging and wildlife poaching on
Negros Island, one of the world's ecological hot spots. Ledesma, at a
press briefing that was part of the Provincial Environment Week
celebration, said nearly all forests in Negros have vanished in
recent years, due to illegal logging. He said the island has only 3
percent or 24,000 hectares of forest cover left. He said the figure
meant that only 8,000 hectares was left of the original
25,566-hectare forest cover at the Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park and only
16,000 hectares was left of the 80,454 hectares that originally was
the North Negros Forest Reserve."This is a crime against nature," he
said, as he called on all sectors to help reverse the appalling waste
of valuable and scarce natural resources. He said more funding is
needed to arrive at a "final forest line" and to provide viable
economic activities for communities in the buffer zones.
http://news.inq7.net/regions/index.php?index=1&story_id=41223
Peace!