VICTORY!
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FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY
World's Forests Saved - Commercially Logging Primary
Forests the Answer!
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.
http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Portal
http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation
May 7, 2002
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org
Victory is at hand!
The World's forests have been saved!
And it was so
simple - logging ancient old-growth forests in fact saves
them! There is
no need to emphasize limiting forest product consumption,
strictly
protecting most primary forest landscapes, or
transitioning forest
management from corporations to communities. The World's remaining
primary forests can be industrially logged and doing so
protects them.
Bullshit. First
time logging of ancient primary forests irreparably and
permanently damages ecosystems and species. Trees and even a regenerating
natural forest may remain, outright deforestation or
conversion to a tree
farm may be delayed, but once the World's few remaining
ancient forest
wilderness are logged they will never be the same. Logging changes
forever the composition, structure and function of
primary forests. First
time commercial logging of primary forests - which
current certification
schemes endorse, encourage and expand - will facilitate
the final
elimination from the Earth of large, wild and relatively
natural forests.
The World's ecological and evolutionary potential will be
forever
diminished unless most of the World's large primary
forests are strictly
protected, any management of primary forests is limited
to small and
medium scaled eco-forestry by indigenous and local
communities, and
commercial scale certification relegated to regenerating
and planted
forests.
The World's last vestiges of wild nature, along with
Planetary
sustainability, is threatened by the certified forestry
juggernaut and its
heavily marketed false sense of having addressed the
forest crisis.
Corporate environmental conglomerates are rolling over to
the timber
industry. Survival
and equitable prosperity depends upon stemming and
reversing the tide of biological loss and diminishment,
not acquiescing to
the forces of global ecocide. All ancient forests must be protected,
restored and/or benignly managed by indigenous
peoples. It is time to end
all commercial scale logging in all primary forests. Certification of
industrially harvested primary forests is utterly without
merit, repugnant
and dangerous - the environmental equivalent of green
snake oil. Do not
buy it.
g.b.
P.S. I am back.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Forest
forum unites age-old rivals
Source: Copyright
2002 CNN
Date: May 6, 2002
Byline: Gary
Strieker
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Behind the hardy-door exhibits
and finished-
furniture displays at last month's Forest Leadership
Forum, there was an
even firmer purpose -- uniting environmentalists and
industrialists to
save the world's forests.
Wood products companies and conservation groups are
age-old rivals: one
fighting to prevent deforesting and preserve ecosystems,
the other aiming
to maximize profits in part by minimizing restrictions.
While many significant differences remain, the three-day
conference in
Atlanta could signal a major turning point for both sides
of the forestry
debate.
"What we're seeing today is a coming together of
organizations that
probably were not on speaking terms with one another five
years ago, maybe
even a year ago," said V. Alaric Sample of the
Pinchot Institute for
Conservation.
More than a thousand people from 44 nations attended the
April 25-27
conference, sponsored by such strange bedfellows as
Greenpeace,
International Paper, the World Wildlife Fund and Home
Depot.
Event organizers called it the first time
environmentalists and retailers
of wood products have come together for constructive
talks about
responsibly harvesting, selling and growing wood
products.
The time has come for such a dialogue, said Bruce Cabarle
of the World
Wildlife Fund.
"We need to have allies, and those who have often
been cast in the role of
villains -- rightly or wrongly so -- needed to be part of
the solution,"
Cabarle said.
Landscape has changed?
Some in the wood products industry also feel the
landscape has changed,
both literally and politically. They insist they have
increasingly tried
to be friendlier to the environment, and say befriending
environmentalists
is a logical next step.
"Forestry today is significantly more
environmentally oriented and with
greater stewardship than it was even 10 years ago,"
said George O'Brien of
International Paper.
Still, not everybody agreed on everything; not by any
means.
The most heated debate revolved around certification --
namely, selecting
and labeling wood products to verify they came from
well-managed forests.
Many environmentalists support the FSC system, under
which wood is
categorized by the Forest Stewardship Council. The lumber
industry,
meanwhile, is pushing its own, less stringent system,
claiming FSC
certification is too costly to businesses and ultimately
consumers.
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