Forest devastation

[sevko]

Hi,
Forest has been a source of raw material indispensable to the economic development of human race.
Forest has been providing us with energy, shelter and food during the all years of our existence.
Even now in modern age we still have pieces of forest in our life, almost everybody has some piece of forest (wood) in his everyday life.
Because of that forests are diminished to size that is not nearly a shadow of what they use to be.

Read full article on:
Project - forest Forest devastation






Please visit:
Project - forest Mission


It is our goal to wake awareness of problems to population and give people means to act in few single steps.

People do not like problems, they strive to forget them (if you don't think about it maybe it will disappear).

Because of that please send this email to your friends and ask them to do the same.

With time news will spread and awareness will grow and with awareness the will to act will be stronger.

Best regards.

[kaieteur]

The destruction of the forests for financial gain, often for some far a field share holders in a company is a crime against the earth. Dumb, short sighted and needs our help to stop it.
I understand that one poor chap, may be tempted to cut down a few trees around him, to earn some money for his family in the short term.
If we buy products originating in deforested areas we are contributing to this destruction. E.G Garden furniture, palm oil products, or food that has it in, soya products and its production.
Helping Rainforest Concern - Welcome to Rainforest Concern
may help.
Being strict with our purchasing power is most effective.

[Karl]

Madagascar: Despite Odds, Country Saves More Trees

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks – 22 April 2008

(Read Full Article: allAfrica.com: Madagascar: Despite Odds, Country Saves More Trees (Page 1 of 1))

Despite a demand for more agricultural land, poverty-stricken Madagascar has managed to reduce deforestation by almost half, environment groups say. Malagasy people cut down the forests to cultivate land, their main source income. The enormous forests on the world's fourth largest island are home to some of the planet's rarest species, including lemurs, chameleons and baobab trees, but deforestation has put great pressure on its diverse environment.

Conservation International (CI), a US-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), which works to preserve biodiversity globally, said that by 2005, Madagascar had managed to reduce the deforestation rate to 0.5 percent per year from almost double that figure in the 1990s. Statistics for the past three years were not yet available, but the figures were likely to show further reductions, CI said. In 2003, President Marc Ravalomanana's government announced an ambitious national effort to protect Madagascar's remaining biodiversity while simultaneously reducing poverty and promoting rural development. The plan was to increase the country's protected habitats from 1.7 to 6 million hectares, or from 3 percent to 10 percent of the Indian Ocean island's surface area.

"The government and we have put much effort into raising the awareness of environmental protection among the people here. The main thing is to show the population that it would also help them to stop cutting down their forests," the CI's Andriviamdolantsoa Rasolo Hery told IRIN. "Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world, which makes the government's commitment to biodiversity even more remarkable," Alison Cameron, co-lead researcher of a project that put together a conservation map for Madagascar, told a Western newspaper.

Faralal Rasafi, of The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), said: "We use simple words: No forest - no rain - no forest - erosions. This way we are introducing the term, 'climate change'. We start with easy language and then we talk about more complicated issues." WWF, which runs several projects in Madagascar, uses these arguments to convince local people to stop cutting down their forests.

The United Nations estimates that across the world around 13 million hectares of forest are cleared every year. Tropical deforestation contributes to 20 percent of global carbon emissions, and experts say slowing the rate of forest destruction is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to fight climate change.

Climate change is already affecting the people of Madagascar, which is hit almost every year by deadly cyclones, more than those in many other countries in the world. Scientists say warming seas, linked to climate change, are likely to increase the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones in the coming decades, and some suspect this is already happening.

The destruction of forests is also endangering the country's unique biodiversity, which could reduce income from ecotourism, environment groups warn. Madagascar broke away from the rest of Africa around 160 million years ago, leaving its flora and fauna to evolve separately from the African continent. Due to its isolation it has developed an enormous variety of endemic species: of more than 200,000 known species found on Madagascar, about 150,000 exist nowhere else.

[Karl]

Illegal Logging Gives EU Massive Eco-Headache

(Read Full Article: Illegal Logging Gives EU Massive Eco-Headache | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 17.04.2008)

With tropical rainforests continuing to disappear at an alarming rate, the EU is partially to blame for importing illegally felled timber. So what is Brussels planning to do? On Monday, April 14, Greenpeace organized a demonstration outside the Brazilian embassy in Berlin to protest over-exploitation of tropical rainforests. According to a recent Greenpeace study, five hectares (12.4 acres) of forest are destroyed in Brazil per minute, with every hectare of forest burnt down releasing between 500 and 1100 tones of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Today, one fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions can be traced back to the destruction of the rainforests. According to the World Wildlife Fund, areas the size of 30 football pitches are disappearing every minute. The problem of illegal logging is particularly acute in Indonesia, allegedly the world's third largest producer of greenhouse gases. Once hailed as one of the best solutions to saving the planet from greenhouse gases and global warming, rising demand for palm oil has resulted in local companies burning woods and peat lands to make way for palm oil plantations which supply European markets.

In March, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas announced that the Commission will be proposing new measures to tackle illegal logging this May, amid fears that the current EU legislation is not effective enough. A Friends of the Earth report recently alleged that illegally logged timber was used in a number of EU-funded construction projects, while the Commission has admitted that 1000 square meters of illegally imported timber from Indonesia was even used in the renovation of its headquarters in Brussels.

Commissioner Dimas has now agreed that the illegal timber issue is "very important because it contributes to deforestation, which is detrimental for both climate change and biodiversity" -- issues which the EU executive is "determined to fight." He said the EU executive had concluded voluntary agreements with Malaysia, Indonesia, Cameroon and Ghana, adding that discussions were underway to conclude similar accords with other countries.

[rc white]

Indonesians I know tell me that the American and European concern over their rain forests is just because they see maintaining them as an easy fix for offsetting carbon dioxide emissions.
Indonesia is an archipelago of thousands of islands that supports an estimated 220 million people, the main problem they have is overpopulation.
Experience from other countries has shown that population can only be curtailed by increasing the general prosperity of a population and educating its women, and the only way they have of increasing general prosperity is by using otherwise unused rain forest for cash crops.
The various mooted and in situ deals aimed at saving the rain forest leave the Indonesians no better off than they are now, and the population continues to rise and things like illegal logging and fishing are the only way available to feed and house this growing population.
In the west we might well feel a warm glow at the thought of primeval rain forest and its charismatic fauna, to the people who live with and in it it is the only thing they have that might be used to get themselves a better life, and if Americans and Europeans are not prepared to pay for their warm glow then the people who own it will use it for something that does pay, and I for one cannot blame them for it.

[kaieteur]

This seems a positive action for deforestation we can all make.
-- United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - BillionTree Campaign Site --
I signed up and am doing as much planting as possible.

[Karl]

by Alan Clendenning - May. 27, 2008 12:00 AM

ALONG THE XINGU RIVER, Brazil - Indians fish from canoes along the curves of this Amazon tributary and tend manioc crops near the site of a proposed dam that has been talked about for decades but which now is pushing forward under Brazil's multibillion-dollar construction spree. The Belo Monte Dam will swallow thick rain forest and harm rare fish, as well as the livelihoods and homes of roughly 15,000 people who live in this remote area of northeastern Para state, critics say. Flush with cash from its roaring economy, Brazil is spending $296 billion in the next two years alone on huge hydroelectric dams, transcontinental roads and other infrastructure to expand industry, boost exports, create jobs and help speed the emergence of Latin America's largest country as a world economic power.

But, at a time when the world is focused on climate change and Amazon rain-forest destruction, Brazil's boom means paving, flooding and stringing power lines through thousands of miles of pristine jungle. Edivaldo Juruna, a subsistence farmer and fisherman who lives in a ramshackle wooden house on a sandbar, worries when he hears the dam will flood 170 square miles of Amazon basin and turn a 90-mile stretch of the river into stagnant puddles. "Everyone's talking about the jobs that will come and that there will be energy for Brazil. But no one's talking about the bad side," said Juruna, an Indian whose last name is the same as his tribe.

Tensions are climbing. About 1,000 Indians gathered in nearby Altamira last week to fight the proposed $6.7 billion dam, planned as the world's third-largest power producer. Indians and environmentalists thought they had beaten the dam in 1989, when a similar protest drew rocker Sting and international condemnation. But now, Brazil has the money for such projects without needing outside help, and the dam is scheduled to go out to bid next year. The country's boom-and-bust cycles are long gone. It paid off its foreign debt last year and this month was declared a safe place for foreign investors to park money, with a debt upgrade from the Standard & Poor's ratings agency.

Critics say the pro-development forces in President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government have taken control, the reason cited for Amazon preservationist Marina Silva's resignation as Brazil's environment minister last week. The Brazilian leader already is battling a spike in rain-forest destruction and has sent federal police and environmental workers to crack down on illegal logging. He argues that the megaprojects are needed to create jobs in desperately poor regions and to share the country's new wealth. Half of all Brazilians get by on $500 a month or less. The government's coordinator for Amazon policy defended the plan, saying that despite the environmental concerns, "we must remember that water-based energy is the cleanest form of energy."

Foreign investors are eager to get in on the action. Last week, a consortium led by France's Suez utility company outbid another that included Spain's Banco Santander to build the $5.2 billion Jirau dam, the second of two on the Madeira River near Bolivia's border. Elsewhere in the Amazon, Brazil's Construtora Norberto Odebrecht SA is leading a consortium paving a dirt jungle highway to Peru so trucks can haul Brazilian Amazon goods across the Andes Mountains to the Pacific for shipment to Asian markets like China. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa wants to create another cross-continental export corridor between his nation and Brazil, using a land-river route he says could be an alternative to the Panama Canal.

The Belo Monte Dam is projected to produce 6.3 percent of Brazil's electricity by 2014. The government promises extensive studies to reduce adverse effects from the dam. Marcio Zimmerman, executive secretary of Brazil's Mines and Energy Ministry, called Belo Monte a matter of Brazilian energy security that will increase employment in the historically poor state. But critics warn the Amazon projects will bring waves of immigration into areas where the government has little oversight, allowing loggers, ranchers, farmers and other jungle entrepreneurs to cut down forest with little fear of retribution.

Source:
Brazil's building spree in Amazon draws criticism

Related:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/wo...9 &ei=5087%0A

Brazil's Lula: new minister no Amazon destroyer | Environment | Reuters

Video:
http://www.environmenthub.com/item-comments/103.aspx

[Corey]

Originally Posted by Karl

Illegal Logging Gives EU Massive Eco-Headache

(Read Full Article: Illegal Logging Gives EU Massive Eco-Headache | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 17.04.2008)

With tropical rainforests continuing to disappear at an alarming rate, the EU is partially to blame for importing illegally felled timber. So what is Brussels planning to do? On Monday, April 14, Greenpeace organized a demonstration outside the Brazilian embassy in Berlin to protest over-exploitation of tropical rainforests. According to a recent Greenpeace study, five hectares (12.4 acres) of forest are destroyed in Brazil per minute, with every hectare of forest burnt down releasing between 500 and 1100 tones of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Today, one fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions can be traced back to the destruction of the rainforests. According to the World Wildlife Fund, areas the size of 30 football pitches are disappearing every minute. The problem of illegal logging is particularly acute in Indonesia, allegedly the world's third largest producer of greenhouse gases. Once hailed as one of the best solutions to saving the planet from greenhouse gases and global warming, rising demand for palm oil has resulted in local companies burning woods and peat lands to make way for palm oil plantations which supply European markets.

In March, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas announced that the Commission will be proposing new measures to tackle illegal logging this May, amid fears that the current EU legislation is not effective enough. A Friends of the Earth report recently alleged that illegally logged timber was used in a number of EU-funded construction projects, while the Commission has admitted that 1000 square meters of illegally imported timber from Indonesia was even used in the renovation of its headquarters in Brussels.

Commissioner Dimas has now agreed that the illegal timber issue is "very important because it contributes to deforestation, which is detrimental for both climate change and biodiversity" -- issues which the EU executive is "determined to fight." He said the EU executive had concluded voluntary agreements with Malaysia, Indonesia, Cameroon and Ghana, adding that discussions were underway to conclude similar accords with other countries.

Only one solution for this Cut off the money. Meaning as consumers we have to make a choice. stop buying said cash crops or fuel by driving less and reusing old furniture and such to reduce overall consumption. Loss of money talks. Money, after all, Is the reason said destruction is happening and to stop the money you must cut consumption . There is no other alternative. No technology will undo damage already done, nor will it be available when we may still be able to turn it around.

I don't advocate for total ban on tech. I say be selective on what we use that are needed as Necessity and do away With what is conveniences (luxury).

I have personally given up most of it or compromised on the few luxuries I do have By going to library for books and movies. If I buy movies or games I try to get them Used which are waste from other people.

My 37in LCD was bought while I was niave and ignorant of the reality of the state our Earth is in. I bought the PS3, when I became conscientious, as a multi function device eliminating the material resources of at least 4 devices, Needed something to do to pass the idle time by for mental health.......

The max energy draw from PS3 is 380 watts, It does not actually use that much all the time. 380 is in surplus to keep the system stable so it doesn't crash from lack of electricity. After all electricity is all or nothing to work properly. I don't have the money to get a meter to measure the actual energy use.

Listening to MP3 music on PS3 does not use the same amount as running the @home function hooked to the internet while playing oblivion.