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FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY

Plants Make the Planet Habitable, End Commercial Old-Growth Logging

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Portal

http://forests.org/links/ -- Forest Conservation Links

08/13/01

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org

** Plants Make the Planet Habitable **

Plants, organized into communities and arrayed across landscapes,

make the Planet habitable. This is particularly true of relatively

undisturbed, large, natural forest expanses. A recent study in

_Science_ reiterates this point, attributing current climate and

animal diversity to colonization of land by plants - which they

conclude may have occurred earlier than previously thought. Human

induced, widespread destruction and diminishment of natural

vegetation, threatens to significantly impair operation of the

Earth's ecological systems. The global ecological fabric has been,

and continues to be, so ripped asunder that it is an open question

whether global plant distribution and condition is adequate to

continue maintaining atmospheric integrity, cycling water,

maintaining soils and producing useful products. The World's

remaining wildlands are critically important to their indigenous

populations; and to global, regional and local ecological

sustainability.

Only in large, intact ecosystems can the natural biological,

ecological and evolutionary functions of plant communities continue

undiminished. Less than a quarter of the World's pre-agricultural

forest extent has not been diminished or lost, and most of what

remains is threatened. The Earth has likely already lost too much

natural vegetation for the Planet's ecological functions and current

conditions to be sustained in the long-term - barring major

ecological restoration. Historically, natural plant assemblages

provided the life-giving context for human societies. In many eco-

regions (and soon to be most) natural plant communities are

surrounded by human constructs, and are so fragmented that they are

hard pressed to maintain themselves and their ecological functions.

The era of commercial development of large, old-growth ecosystems

that are relatively untrammeled by the activities of modern humankind

must come to an end, and the era of landscape level protection,

management and restoration commenced. Given the perilous state of

the Earth's vegetation, and global requirements for ecological

sustainability, it is essential that most remaining forests be

protected as global ecological reserves. Maintaining most remaining

natural vegetation in an intact state, and using this as stock to

restore and regenerate degraded landscapes, is a Planetary

imperative. Given the level of threat posed to human security and

indeed survival by decline of biological systems, this will require

massive funding primarily by the overdeveloped nations, to compensate

affected governments and human communities, and assist in the

transformation to ecological sustainability.

** End Commercial Old-Growth Logging **

An important component of sustaining global vegetation will be

fostering benign management of regenerating forests. Forests.org

wholeheartedly supports forest certification as one means to do so.

However, remaining old-growth forests are so valuable ecologically -

in terms of their species and genes; as a blueprint for future

restoration; and for their local, regional and global ecosystem

outputs - that certified commercial logging of the Earth's few

remaining large regional forest wildlands is inappropriate.

Commercial scale logging inevitably significantly diminishes forests

when they are intensively logged for the first time. Certified

logging permanently alters forests ecologically, including the

composition and relative quantities of plants. In terms of forest

conservation benefits, certification is not a replacement for

extensive protection of most of the World's remaining forest

wildlands.

Extensive commercial logging of the World's remaining old growth

forests is unworthy of certification as being "green". Doing so

gives a false assurance of environmental acceptability to consumers,

while legitimizing commercial logging of the World's remaining forest

wildernesses by multi-national companies. Given the extremely high

conservation value of all remaining old-growth forests, the

assumption should be that in every case they are to be strictly

protected; with certified management being the carefully prescribed

exception.

As the certification scheme that claims high levels of environmental

rigorousness, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has a special

responsibility to not allow certification of commercial logging of

old-growth forests. FSC's principles that enunciate the conditions

under which old-growth can be logged are woefully inadequate. In

most cases they ultimately permit industrial scale logging and

require only 10% conservation set-asides. To demonstrate the merit

of their "green" seal of environmental acceptability, FSC's

principles must be revised to ensure that certification of old-growth

forests only occurs at scales and using methods that ensure upscale

ecological forest sustainability.

Certified harvest of any portion of the World's remaining old-growth

forest wildlands is only appropriate if 1) carried out by local

peoples to meet their local needs, 2) such harvest is composed

entirely of small and medium scale local production that strives for

ecological sustainability, 3) and management occurs within the

context of much larger strictly protected areas.

Forests.org strongly endorses forest certification in secondary

forests, and certification of appropriately scaled "eco-forestry" by

local peoples in primary forests. There is nothing "green" about

commercial logging of old-growth forests. Forests.org's Old-Growth

Campaign, which will be intensified in the coming months, holds the

following basic premises:

1) Most remaining old-growth forests, and traditional levels of local

use, must be strictly and permanently protected.

2) Only small and medium scaled, locally controlled logging of old

growth, under an "eco-forestry" management plan that strives for

ecological sustainability, is environmentally acceptable and worthy

of certification as "green".

3) Landscapes and regions, not forest stands, are sustainably

managed; thus locally controlled eco-forestry management must be

accompanied by establishment of large, adjacent strictly protected

areas.

4) Until such time as forest certifiers direct their activities

primarily to regenerating secondary forests, and limit certification

of old-growth forests to the above situations, their "green" claims

to environmental sensitivity are not only meaningless, they threaten

the World's remaining large forest wildernesses, and are not worthy

of the support of forest ecologists, conservationists and concerned

consumers. There is nothing "green" about commercial scaled old-

growth logging, regardless of management practices employed.

Forests.org calls upon FSC and their competitors to embrace rigorous

conditions for harvesting old growth, in order to rightly earn their

claim that buying their products helps protect the World's forests.

Failure to do so will result in widespread campaigns to buy only old-

growth free and locally produced eco-forestry products, and boycott

all other forest timbers (rainforests in particular). If left

unchallenged on the point of certification of old-growth wildlands,

the certification movement may well legitimize the final loss of

large and contiguous natural forest regions from the face of the

Earth. Let this be a call to arms: commercial old-growth logging is

dead.

g.b.

P.S. As one can imagine, the environmental conglomerates are livid

that their strategy to increase certified commercial logging of

unlogged old-growth rainforests be questioned. Given how much many

large groups have invested in the scheme, I would expect the shrill

denunciations and rhetoric to continue without answering the

question: How can commercial logging of old-growth be defended as a

means to protect forests? In the interest of transparency, and in an

effort to progress the debate, Forests.org will be posting both

critical and supportive replies to http://forests.org/certification/

in a day or two, and from then on. This campaign has only just

begun. These concerns will be satisfactorily addressed or

certification will be permanently discredited as a greenwash ploy to

access and log the World's remaining old-growth forests.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: Did Plants Cool the Earth and Spark Explosion of Life?

Source: Copyright 2001 National Geographic

Date: August 10, 2001

Byline: Hillary Mayell for National Geographic News

Plants colonized Earth much earlier than previously believed, giving

a jump start to the huge proliferation of animal species that

occurred hundreds of million years ago, say scientists at

Pennsylvania State University.

Based on the fossil record, scientists have thought that land plants

and fungi evolved around 480 million years ago. The researchers at

Penn State propose much earlier dates based on molecular clock

analysis: 700 million years ago for land plants, and 1.3 billion

years ago for land fungi.

The earlier estimates suggest a radical new possibility that ties two

phenomena-cooling of the Earth's temperature, known as Snowball

Earth, and the accelerated pace of the evolution of animals, referred

to as the Cambrian Explosion-to the early emergence of plants.

"No one has considered connecting Snowball Earth and the Cambrian

Explosion to the emergence of terrestrial plant life because no one

considered that plant life existed until after these two

occurrences," said evolutionary biologist and co-author of the study

Blair Hedges.

"The earlier dates add a possibility for a biological explanation for

the changes that is radical compared to what is believed now," says

Hedges.

Explosion of Life

Snowball Earth describes periods of intense glaciations that took

place 700 to 580 million years ago.

"The oceans were frozen all the way to the Equator," said Hedges, "as

opposed to more modern times, when the ice sheets only go as far as

Canada or maybe northern Pennsylvania."

The Cambrian Period occurred 540 to 500 million years ago. Animal

life on the planet exploded during this period; most of the major

groups of animals first appear in the fossil record at this point in

time.

What happened to precipitate this sudden proliferation of species-an

evolutionary "Big Bang"-has been the focus of much study. There

hasn't been a widely accepted theory on what sparked the Cambrian

Explosion, said Hedges. Most proposed explanations, however, have

focused on geological events-perhaps tied to the breakup of the

ancient super continents or a reversal in Earth's magnetic polarity.

This study, published in the August 10 issue of Science, suggests a

biological, rather than geological mechanism.

Plants and the Atmosphere

Before plants drifted in from the sea, the Earth was a fairly barren

wasteland of rocks, sometimes buried in ice.

Hedges and his collaborators suggest that as plants colonized Earth,

they changed the climate, making it cooler by removing carbon dioxide

from the atmosphere.

"Lots of plants would remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and

increase the amount of oxygen," said Hedges. "It's the reverse of the

global warming we see today, when we're releasing more carbon dioxide

into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels."

At the same time, plants release more oxygen into the atmosphere.

"One widely entertained idea is that the Cambrian Explosion had

something to do with an increase in oxygen at the time," said Hedges.

The lack of oxygen would limit animal size because the larger an

animal is, the higher its requirement for oxygen.

"The plants conceivably boosted oxygen levels in the atmosphere high

enough for animals to develop skeletons, grow larger, and diversify,"

said Hedges.

The theory is bound to engender controversy; there is some question

as to whether there would be enough plants to have caused the changes

proposed by Hedges and company. But Hedges, whose area of expertise

is astrobiology-the study of the relationship between life and the

environment-is excited about the possibility.

"This study suggests that there's a lot more synergy between

biological evolution and the Earth's geologic history."

More Information

Early Plant Life

Plants have molecules called lignins, which contain carbon but do not

readily decompose.

After the plant dies, some of its carbon remains locked up in the

lignins and can become buried in the Earth through geologic

processes, eventually forming into coal, oil, and other fossil fuels.

Burial of these carbon atoms prevents them from being released back

into the atmosphere. Fewer carbon atoms in the atmosphere means a

cooling of the Earth's temperature.

The researchers also suggest that the pioneer lichen fungi, which

produce acids strong enough to dissolve rocks, also could have helped

to reduce carbon dioxide.

When washed away by rainwater, the calcium released from the lichen-

encrusted rocks eventually forms calcium carbonate limestone in the

ocean, preventing the carbon atoms from forming the greenhouse gas,

carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere.

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