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Blow to Australia?s Tasmanian Timber Industry

The Japanese company Mitsubishi Paper Mills has announced it will stop using woodchips from old-growth forests. Their new policy is to buy only woodchips "sourced from plantations or second growth forests of environmentally benign, and reclaimed wood." Mitsubishi is a major customer of Tasmanian woodchip exporter Gunns ? and the new wood-chip buying policy would rule out sourcing woodchips from old growth Tasmanian forests. Shockingly, until now most old growth timber from large-scale clearfelling in Tasmania has been converted to woodchips, largely for export to Japan.

The word is out ? chopping up old growth forests to make throw away consumer products is barbaric, inhumane and ecocidal. The Tasmanian timber industry is worried ? and they should be. There is nothing the timber barons in Tasmania and elsewhere can do regarding the emerging global sensibility that old-growth forests should not be chopped up to make paper. I expect that market pressures will lead other Japanese timber mills, including Oji and Nippon, to follow suit shortly. This is a clear signal to Gunns to shift to more sustainable forest practices in secondary and mixed plantation forests as the way of the future. It also sends an unmistakable message that World Heritage-class Tasmanian forests should not be fodder for woodchips.

Forests.org?s network has been active in this struggle for over a decade and contributed significantly to this victory. Recently we had followed Greenpeace?s lead in targeting Mitsubishi with protest emails. And our recent alert notifying Australia?s Prime Minister Howard that his half-hearted protection of some Tasmanian forests would not quell the movement to stop old-growth logging now seems down right prescient.

The gauntlet has been thrown down, somewhat surprisingly by Mitsubishi of Japan?s example: all international companies that consume forest products must adopt a no old-growth forests use policy. Society and the market no longer find old-growth forest products to be acceptable ? their continued use is antiquated. Those that continue to do so will feel the pain of market rejection.

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The British government is to pay English woodland owners to replace tree plantations of foreign conifers with traditional tree varieties. The government seeks to reverse the steep decline in England's ancient and native woods by providing incentives to restore native woodlands. They are to be commended for realizing that all tree species are not of equal value, and that tree plantations do not a forest make. This sort of government program is right in line with recommendations I made in my recent personal Earth Meander writing - Dawning of the Age of Ecological Restoration. There I highlighted the importance for global ecological sustainability of getting on with restoring plant communities and ecosystems across fragmented landscapes, even as we fight to conserve natural ecosystems that remain.

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In a welcome move, Brazil has introduced laws against developing products from native species without sharing the benefits with local communities and governments. If enforced (a big if), the law could potentially lead to greater community development on the basis of biodiversity conservation. It is important that in implementing the law, collection of biological samples for scientific purposes, which increases knowledge and benefits all, is not impeded in any way; and differentiated from biopiracy, which is stealing.

Brazil gets tough on 'biopirates'

Brazil has introduced a law to regulate the development of commercial products from its native species. Those who use indigenous resources without permission or without sharing the benefits with the state or local communities could face a fine of up to US$20 million. The money obtained by penalising such 'biopiracy' will be used to fund conservation science in Brazil.

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The Bush White House is again dictating science based upon ideology, this time altering a scientific analysis of the environmental impact of cattle grazing on public lands. Never has a modern presidency acted so cavelierly towards scientific knowledge, and with such potential for disasterous impacts. The ecological damage caused by cattle grazing upon range and forest lands is well known. Do the Bush people think this can just be ignored? This is the second example in two weeks of the Bush administration policy-makers rewriting science - the other being downgrading the risk of climate change through strategic edits of supposedly unbiased science by an oil industry stooge. Science needs to stand on its own, particularly matters of global ecological sustainability which will effect us all. This criminal contempt for what science has to tell us in this regard must end.

Administration excised scientists' warnings in grazing report

The Bush administration altered critical portions of a scientific analysis of the environmental impact of cattle grazing on public lands before announcing relaxed grazing limits on those lands, according to scientists involved in the study.

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The Amazon, the Earth's mightiest life-giving rainforest, is being bulldozed to grow soybeans. What sort of species destroys 60 million year old ecosystems upon which they depend for habitat - air, water, soil and weather - for short term economic benefits for the few? What will humans do when the biosphere is no longer able to maintain the narrow band of conditions conducive for human life? When will indigenous peoples that understand we are of the land stop being abused and instead be embraced?

What is to be done? Not buy soybeans? Boycott Brazil? Peaceful protest? Armed revolution? Or live life as we are while we can?

This I know. There is one Earth. Natural ecosystems are a requirement for, and the basis of, human societies and economies. Human numbers are too high, and their combined impact has fractured these ecosystems. Gaia, the global ecosystem in whole, is being slain by you and me. If one looks carefully, increasingly signs of collapsing ecosystems are evident in lands, tides, winds and waters; whose natural services can never be engineered.

There is still hope, but time is short. The human family will stop and reverse land, water, ocean and climate degradation, or civilization will die an ignoble and miserable death. It is a requirement for human survival that no more ancient rainforests are lost or diminished.

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Russia's massive boreal forests are ablaze as a result of fragmentation caused by illegal logging and climate change caused mostly by affluent over-consumption elsewhere. Russia's forests are the largest contiguous forest wilderness in the World, with vast almost pristine areas. This massive collection of plants and animals together provide a major global ecosystem engine, without which the Earth's life support systems may not work.

Together loss of terrestrial habitats and soaring greenhouse gas emissions threaten to make the Planet uninhabitable by advanced human societies and for most wildlife and plants as well. Simply the Earth's ecosystems, which are a requirement for our existence, are being torn apart. It is critical that humanity designate terrestrial land areas, adequate to maintain planetary global functions, as being free from industrial development. And of course we simply must immediately drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The sooner humanity adopts these goals as paramount, the better our prospects as a species for survival, and the better the quality of living will be for those that remain. Failure on either count dooms humanity to an apocalyptic end ? failure on both hastens our demise.

If forest loss and climate change received half the funding and attention as the one time 911 disaster ? which killed thousands - the threat to billions of the Earth's peoples could be drastically reduced. It is time for the human family to set our priorities and take some risks ? implementing bold policies truly adequate to save the Earth.

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The world's rainforests are being lost because of human greed and deeply embedded corruption. In each of the Earth's remaining large and intact rainforest regions, it is dreadfully evident who is benefitting from illegal logging. What has been lacking is the political will to confront these rainforest liquidating spivs. Sadly, I am unable to think of a manner they are likely to ultimately be confronted and stopped, short of violence directed at them by rainforest defenders. Perhaps the time has come for armed resistance against these Earth destroying vandals? It seems most everything else has failed, and the problem of biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse from rainforest loss continues to accelerate.

Graft Driving Amazon Deforestation - Campaigners

The arrests of two top environmental officials in Brazil's Mato Grosso state in a rare police crackdown have shown that corruption in high places is feeding the destruction of the Amazon rain forest, environmentalists say. More than 90 people were arrested in the sweep launched by Federal authorities on Thursday. Nearly half were from the government's environment protection agency Ibama, including its chief for Mato Grosso.

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Following recent shocking news that Amazon deforestation had accelerated, the Brazilian government is showing a new political willingness to arrest illegal loggers. This show of resolve deserves to be applauded. When 80% of Amazonian logging is estimated to be illegal, and the act of clearing thousands of hectares of rainforests illegally is a bit hard to hide, one would expect that given political will -- illegal logging could be greatly reduced.

Dozens held over Amazon destruction

Brazil mounted its biggest swoop against environmental criminals this week as 85 people, including 48 officials, were arrested and accused of allowing the illegal extraction of enough Amazon timber to fill 66,000 giant logging trucks.

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