The decimation of the Amazon due to increased logging, mining and road construction is causing vampire bats in Peru to feast more regularly on the blood of humans.

National Geographic has reported that as human population grows and local wildlife numbers decrease because of development throughout the region, vampire bats have no where else to turn but human blood. As a result, outbreaks of rabies are increasing, and it’s killing people in places where its occurrence has previously been rare.

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Environmental Protest or YouTube Stunt?

In New South Wales, Australia on 29th June, wood-chipping company, Eden says that an anti-logging protest was staged on its premises, for reasons that weren’t worthwhile.

Environmental protestors chained themselves to a conveyor belt, protesting that environmental legislation neglected the needs of local wildlife but a spokesman for the plant said ‘… It didn’t affect us in any way and we just left them there until they decided that they felt like going home and they did. These days it’s as much about the show as it is about the reasons, so I guess the show must go on and sometimes the reasons are worthwhile and sometimes they are not.’

If it was worth having, we wouldn’t be getting it, says Judge

In a mordant comment on where polluting substances end up, County Municipal Court Judge Julie Monnin expressed concerns about a plan to sequester carbon dioxide 3,000 feet under Greenville Ohio. She fears the likely decline in property values and pointed out that the plant could lead to people need, and failing to get, man-made earthquake insurance. In her own words, ‘Folks, if it were a good thing, Greenville wouldn’t be getting it.’

The carbon dioxide comes from a nearby ethanol plant and will be injected underground, but before this can happen, large trucks would need to travel local roads, creating seismic shockwaves to test the ground, but these tests have been postponed for fear they would damage local agricultural drainage systems.

Guilty of unlawful protest, campaigners believe they did nothing illegal

In the UK today, 22 environmental protestors have been found guilty of unlawful protest. In June 2008 they boarded a train carrying coal into Drax Coal-Fired Power Station in Yorkshire, after two of their number posed as railway staff to flag it down, allowing others to mount the train and prevent it moving for 16 hours.  During their protest they poured coal on the tracks to stop the train moving.  The campaigners claimed in court that they had not done anything illegal because they were trying to prevent climate change, but the judge—who has said they will not face a custodial sentence—decided that their actions, and the £30,000 clean up operation that followed the protest, were illegal.

Drax power station courtesy of leedsyorkshire at flickr under a creative commons licence

Until recently, climate scientists thought that trees, and the biodiversity they support, could withstand a temperature rise lower than 3C. New findings, announced at last month’s Copenhagen “Congress” to discuss climate issues, estimate that a 3C temperature rise will result in a 75% loss of forests. The report’s sponsoring organization, the UK Meteorological Office’s climate change research division, has said that a 4C temperature rise - consistent with current human activities - will cause 85% of trees to disappear.

Under even the most conservative climate change scenario - a 1C temperature jump - will kill off one third of Amazonian forests, which alone contain one tenth of total carbon stored in land ecosystems.

Scientists now estimate that the chance of staying below a 2C temperature rise are only 50%, even if drastic cuts in emissions take place over the next ten years. Already, a .75C temperature rise above pre-industrial has been locked-in, with another .6C expected, based solely upon current levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

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It’s a situation that’s difficult to monitor, and even more difficult to assess – in some places it’s the income produced by illegal logging that is causing the movement of animals which are then shot, either in deliberate poaching activity or as a result of their predation of villages. In other places the trees that are cut down are worthless – they are removed simply to force the animals to vacate the area so that they will be easier targets for poachers who have ready markets for tiger-skins and organs and for ivory.

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Around $10,000-worth of timber was confiscated from a lumber company after their illegal activities were exposed on their very own reality TV show on the History Channel.

Before we get into the details, let this sink in for a second: there’s a reality TV show that documents people competing to cut down trees. We’ve all seen some horrible television, but how on earth is this considered entertainment? Apparently 2 million people think so.

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Despite vocal opposition from the public and conservation groups ForestEthics and Sierra Forest Legacy, California will soon move 40 Pacific fishers from a healthy habitat along the North Coast to land owned by logging company Sierra Pacific Industries along the Southern Cascades.

The California Department of Fish and Game’s stated intention is to rebuild colonies of the small mammals that have long vanished, but conservationists argue that the likelihood of success is slim. Sierra Pacific Industries is notorious for their harsh, pesticide-laden logging practices, so some worry the animal will not thrive on their land.

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Due to its many benefits, bamboo has been touted as an environmental miracle crop. It’s a significant carbon sink, it grows fast, is more termite-resistant than timber, and can be used for everything from food to clothing material to scaffolding for building construction.

But are environmentalists being bamboozled? Despite its benefits, increased bamboo production could raise a lot of concerns too.

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“Leave No Trace” has always been an honored credo of the Boy Scouts of America. The trumpeted tenet is supposed to refer to ethical guidelines which preach having a minimal impact on land, nature and wildlife. But according to a recent investigation, the Boy Scouts have been caught logging over 34,000 acres of pristine forest over the last 20 years, including 60 clearcuts and 35 salvage harvests. They’ve literally left no trace– of the forests.

Furthermore, the survey showed that most of the acreage was logged to turn a backdoor profit, and there’s evidence of corruption. A number of Scout councils submitted inaccurate and misleading logging plans, and allegedly disregarded rules and regulations which were in place to protect wildlife and the watershed. Some of the deals even involve cozy relationships with private companies and state regulators.

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On Saturday, three people were killed and several injured after a massive landslide in Sarawak, Malaysia. According to one group, the slide could have been prevented if loggers had left the rainforest in the area alone.

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The United Nations plans to introduce a new market-based emissions trading scheme which would allow developed nations to buy credits from countries having vast stretches of rain forests. The UN hopes that the new scheme would help reduce deforestation and restore the depleting resource of rain forests.

Called the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, REDD, the emission permits would be traded in a way similar to the Certified Emission Reduction permits. The REDD permits would help raise funds for restoring the fast depleting rain forests in the African, South American and South East Asian countries and in return the developed nations would be able to achieve the set emissions reduction goals. The UN plans to include this scheme in the next climate treaty which would follow the Kyoto Protocol.

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If all goes as planned, conservation groups such as the Sierra Club will be buying 3,000 acres of land that was previously set for a clearcut. The parcels, located in Washington’s Skykomish Valley, include ecologically sensitive old growth forests and provide the scenic view that the neighboring areas are known for having.

Charlies Raines of the Sierra Club, who is spearheading the project, insists that the trees in these parcels are “not even high-value” for logging companies. On top of being valuable for the environment, they might bring in more money as trees than they would as lumber and paper.

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CEQA requires greenhouse gas emissions resulting from a project to be quantified, as well as, THPs must identify ways to avoid or mitigate the emissions. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the conservation group calling for the greenhouse gas requirements of CEQA to be followed:

Requests to clear-cut thousands of acres of California’s forests are currently before the state Department of Forestry . For example, the Swamped Timber Harvest Plan would alone clear-cut 424 acres. None of the requests address carbon emissions, however, as required by CEQA. This is an especially serious problem given that the published science shows that clear-cutting can remove more carbon from the forest than any other disturbance, including fire.

EcoWorldly’s interview with Rolf Skar, Greenpeace’s Senior Forest Campaigner

EW: What are your initial impressions after the meeting between Presidents Obama and Lula da Silva?

RS: I think in terms of positive there was a god personal rapport and a general commitment to improve relations. Not that they were terrible under the Bush administration, but it was clear that there was a mutual respect and mutual interests that the two countries want to pursue. So I think that was positive. I think there was also a commitment to try and address the global economic crisis, which is affecting both countries. I know Lulu was talking about how Brazil’s economy is still robust, but of course there are plenty of challenges there two, so I think those are two positives.

EW: What’s your position on biofuels? Are you pro, con or is there a good middle ground that can be worked out?

RS: There can be. The problem right now is that many biofuels are a bit of a distraction from other technologies and other mechanisms which clearly produce better climate results for less investment, so I understand how Brazil is busy to reduce import tariffs on Brazilian ethanol. I don’t think those tariffs will be removed overnight, if they are at all; and I think biofuels, for example we saw a push for biofuel based on palm oil coming out of Southeast Asia, and then when we crunched the numbers, we found that that kind of biodiesel would result in as much as 15 to 30 times the greenhouse gas emissions because of the way it’s produced.

So lots of times, biofuels are seen as a quick fix–as an easy way to switch fuels–and unfortunately easy doesn’t always mean possible or effective. Certainly the ethanol that’s being produced in the US right now in terms of an energy investment and solving a greenhouse gas emissions problem, it’s definitely not the cure-all that  some proponents want to make it out to be.

EW: What can be done to make Brazilian ethanol more environmentally friendly?

RS: There need to be better efficiencies. Certainly when you’re producing biofuels and then shipping them around the planet, you reduce some of the efficiencies that are potentially built in to those kinds of fuels. And I think that the big consuming nations–I know Brazil uses a lot of it domestically–but the countries in Europe and the US are developing renewable fuel standards that the set really robust, scientifically sound benchmarks and sideboards on the kinds of fuels that can be purchased. There need to be true life cycle analyses showing that there are true environmental and climate benefits. And there need to be basic sideboards. For example, we shouldn’t be sacrificing in tact or ancient forests to produce biofuels which have small or minimum climate benefits; we don’t want to sacrifice biodiversity for small gains on the climate side.

EW: Greenpeace has talked about a $16 billion annual fund from the US to support the rain forest. What’s that number about?

RS: The number is based on a global Greenpeace assessment of contributions that are needed for from [rich] nations to developing countries. And the $16 billion is roughly what we think the US should contribute on an annual basis to a global fund to tropical forests worldwide. So $16 billion is a number that we suggest the US should invest annually to really produce enormous climate benefits around the world– not just in the Amazon, but also in SE Asia and the Congo basin. The debate around how to do this is basically framed around whether people want market based offsets in which green carbon credits are traded with black smokestack carbon, or whether you want some sort of fund based project, or something in the middle.

Greenpeace is proposing a hybrid fund based approach where we make sure that there’s sizable, predictable investment that countries can bank on into the future as they do their long term planning that can be available soon so we can take immediate action and that is adaptable to the different realities on the ground in different rain forest nations. So, Brazil has a relatively highly sophisticated infrastructure for measuring both deforestation and other important benchmarks that are needed to prove emissions reductions. Nations in the Congo Basin are completely without those capacities. The fund would allow us to invest in those nations and allow them to protect their forests alongside of Brazil.

We think that Brazil’s a particularly important player in this debate because not only do they have the largest chunk of remaining rain forest in the world, but Lula’s administration has come out very clearly and said on the Eve of the talks in Poland this past December that they want their forests protected for the climate, they want the economic benefits for that, but in no way do they want market based credits or offsets coming from their rain forest land. So they’re very clearly made that statement. It was a bit of a bombshell for lots of folks, because of course they hold the majority of the world’s rain forests at least in terms of the nation by nation split and I know that they’ve been talking to other smaller rain forest nations about the benefits of a fund based approach as opposed to a market based approach.

In terms of coming back to the Obama and Lula visit, it was a bit of a missed opportunity for Obma because his administration has not yet come down on one side or the other of this issue, and they haven’t found a middle ground either. They haven’t really articulated a position. This would be a great opportunity for Obama to at least  hear out Lula on why Brazil has taken this position and then consider ways in which the two countries can work together. I think personally, it’s clear to me that both two men are the most important in the world on the deforestation issue.

EW: Brazil has just discovered 80 billion barrels of oil and there’s some talk of using that as a bargaining chip to lift the US import tariff on Brazilian cane ethanol. As a conservationist, does the discovery of oil make your job easier or more difficult?

RS: I think it makes it more difficult in some ways, of course. I mean, oil always tends to complicate political equations, and so I’m not sure it makes it any easier. I know that in Brazil it’s a source of national pride because for many years, they were told that they didn’t have oil reserves. They had everything else in the world, in terms of forests, water and mining resources, but not oil. And now they finally have that too, so it’s a bit of pride. As a conservationist, of course, I don’t want to see oil influence their national policy, so if we can minimize that as much as possible.

EW: How do you think the meeting between Presidents Obama and Lula da Silva will affect US relations with other South American countries?

RS: I think it will actually help. I’m not an expert on foreign relations, but I think Lula is seen a bit left of center from US perspective, but not as left as Chavez, and I think that if he can serve as a bit of a bridge–if he can be an ambassador to other nations in Central and South America–I think that’s a good thing.

I think, again, just to bring it back to the forest issues for just a minute and reduced emissions and deforestation, I think that Lula’s in a unique position to serve as an ambassador to a lot of other nations in Central and South America and even in other parts of the world, like the Congo Basin and SE Asia to show some strong leadership. And with commitments from the US on some funding, or you know with an olive branch from the US extended on this issue, they could use the necessary momentum. If you’ve got the largest potential donor nation in the world and then the largest rain forest nation in the world showing leadership on this issue, I think a lot of other nations would come along.

EW: In an ideal world, what would you like to see happen at this point?

RS: I’d love to see Obama visit Brazil. It sounds like there may be plans in the works for that, and I’d love to see that trip serve as an opportunity for the deforestation issue and reduced emissions to really be treated substantively for the two leaders. I think it actually needs to be handled at the top. It’s an important enough issue. There’s lots of money at stake, but I think it needs to be treated at the executive level. I’d also like to see members of the Obama administration within the state dept. under Hillary Clinton’s leadership start a dialogue with their counterparts in Brazil on this issue and to start developing a set of positions and a way to move forward cooperatively on the reduced emissions and deforestation program. This is not work that can happen at Copenhagen in December. It’s not even work that can happen in October of this year. It needs to happen now. We’ve got a lot of ground to make up; over the last eight years there was a lot of wasted time.

Image credit: The White House Blog via Global Voices, under a Creative Commons license.

Conservation group ForestEthics has released their annual “Naughty or Nice” list of corporations regarding their treatment of our forests. These ten companies continue to fill your mailbox with junk at the expense of the trees.

The list, determined by four separate criteria, includes a “Checking Twice” category for companies in a gray area. JC Penny has decreased their direct mail use but still supports logging companies, so while they stay out the top 10 snail-mail-spammers, but still aren’t free of all charges.

Check out the rest of the list, along with 10 other companies who are being nice to the trees, below:

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Wayne Sawchuk recently found some atonement for decades of his life spent logging, partying and grizzly hunting. Funded mostly by private donors, Sawchuck played a major role in the conservation of the MuskwaKechika Management Area in Northern British Columbia.

Taking a month to cross, even with horses, the land has been touted as “the biggest well-kept secret in North America,” and “North America’s Serengeti.”  Teeming with grizzly, black bear, wolf, lynx, caribou, elk, moose, bison and stone sheep, it is the largest intact wildlife habitat in the entire Rocky Mountain chain and only slightly smaller than the state of Maine.

In the early 1990’s, the government of British Columbia came under pressure to make a final decision on how to manage the province’s resources.  Wayne Sawchuk, still a logger at the time, recognized the opportunity of a lifetime and teamed up with other key players to protect the tract of land.

Involved in the efforts were guide outfitters, recreational hunters, the oil and gas industry, snowmobilers, businesspeople, environmentalists, timber industries and government officials.  Sawchuk had a tremendous impact in the conservation efforts, as he led the media, government and scientists through the area on horseback so that they could get a first hand glimpse at what they were talking about.

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Indigenous rights groups and Indian tribes researchers in Brazil now believe the uprooting may be a recipe for renewed inter-tribal conflicts over the resource that may suck governments of both nations into a row over the other’s responsibility in the affair, Reuters reports.

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The force will oversee 373,000 sq km of Amazon rainforest and patrol rivers to combat illegal logging and the unauthorised clearing of forest. Peru’s Environment Minister Antonio Brack said that until now the issue, “a problem of organized crime, morality and oversight,” has not been adequately addressed due to a severely understaffed police force running to just 240 men.

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With a constant need to look out for the planets ecosystems, it is always saddening to see that some governments simply are not. So when I saw the news that, over the past 12 months, deforestation in the Amazon rain forest had jumped 69%, I was literally shocked.

According to the National Institute for Space Research, or INPE, which monitors destruction of the Amazon, since August 2007 a total of 8,147 square kilometers (3,145 square miles) was destroyed within the Amazon. This is the first such increase in 3 years, and saw a 69% jump over the 4,820 square kilometers (1,861 square miles) felled in the previous 12 months.

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These fires started naturally and are probably the kind of fires that occurred naturally before massive fire suppression efforts began in the west a hundred years ago. After a nice Memorial day soaking, the foliage here was pretty green when the lightning struck.  These fires have been smoldering and cleaning up the forest, except where they are threatening homes. Klamath-Siskiyou Wild explains it best:

Fire has been an integral component to the function of biodiversity for millennia. Fires burn in a diversity of patterns and intensities, and are influenced by numerous factors such as fuels, temperature, terrain and moisture. Many of these fires are close to communities and firefighters are doing their best to protect lives and property. Once the smoke has cleared, we may find that many of these fires in back country forests were ecologically beneficial as fire clears out understory vegetation, burns a natural mosaic pattern and leaves behind a healthier forest.

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