News Joint story from TPA and TIMA - The many positive economic and social benefits associated with the investment in timber plantations. Contrary to the accusations of rural decline and depopulation levelled at the Australian plantation sector, there are many positive economic and social benefits associated with the investment in timber plantations.
News In Jämtland County, a sparely populated and densely wooded are in central Sweden, more than 60% of all heat and power is derived from renewable sources. The county’s aim is to become a 100% non-fossil fuel region by 2015. This ambitious target can be reached this thanks to immense natural resources, notably woods and forests covering 99% of the Jämtland’s territory and being an extraordinary source of biomass.
News By Brad Knickerbocker A report rejects US policy of logging after fires in national forests, arguing a hands-off approach yields better results. ASHLAND, ORE. – The 2005 wildfire season was declared officially over here the other day. Rain and snow in the mountains have dampened the timber, and the sound of firefighting helicopters and trucks has been replaced by the rifle fire of deer and elk hunters.
On 7 December, Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs will present a biomass action plan that aims at doubling the use of biomass energy for transport, electricity and heating by 2010 and quadrupling it by 2030.
News By VIVIAN SEQUERA BRASILIA, Brazil – The Amazon rain forest lost 7,300 square miles _ an area more than half the size of Maryland _ but deforestation slowed by nearly a third this year, Brazilian officials said Monday. The rain forest lost 7,300 square miles between July 2004 and August 2005, down from 10,500 square miles in the same period the year before, Environment Minister Marina Silva said. Silva credited increased law enforcement and stringent environmental regulation.
San Francisco – A study by the Carnegie Institution and U.S. government scientists says planting trees to absorb carbon dioxide may worsen global warming. The research from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was to be presented Wednesday during the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco.
When oil runs out, forests may provide petrol for our cars. Nordic researchers are close to a breakthrough in the technology of producing petrol from wood. Bio-fuels, i.e. petrol and diesel oil produced from biological, renewable raw materials, are expected to be the most important future fuels. Researchers are working intensively on the problem how to extract ethanol from wood.
News Once hunted, poisoned and misunderstood, the birds and their fate were discussed by ornithologists at Salonica meeting last month Aegypius monachus, the black vulture, survives in the Dadia Forest.
News Hobart Mercury (Australia) A PAPUA New Guinean proposal to combat climate change by paying countries to stop chopping down rainforest is gaining international momentum. PNG Prime Minister Michael Somare has been championing the idea, which was yesterday debated at the UN climate conference under way in Montreal.
News Story by By Alister Doyle MONTREAL - Windmills have far bigger than expected potential for generating electricity in the Third World, according to new UN wind maps of countries from China to Nicaragua. "Our studies show about 13 percent of the land area has potential for development," Tom Hamlin of the UN Environment Program told Reuters on the fringes of a UN climate conference.
News Mr Martin Ferguson AM, MP, Opposition Spokesperson for forestry, has outlined the Australian Labor Party's perspective on national forestry issues Speaking to a group of 150 key forest industry stakeholders yesterday in Canberra, Mr Martin Ferguson AM, MP, Opposition Spokesperson for forestry, outlined the Australian Labor Party's perspective on national forestry issues. Mr Ferguson said that Australia is fortunate to have some of the best foresters in the world working to maintain our forest assets in perpetuity.
News Not far from the putative home of Santa Claus in Lapland is Sodankyla, home to an old wooden church. ALEX VAN RENSBURG visited the church. The wind is cold and fresh; around me snow-covered mountains gaze down upon sparkling lakes. Waterfalls like silver strings of lace adorn the scene. Above all this, the sun shines majestically for 24 hours a day. It is summertime in Finnish Lapland.
News New York – Governments Becoming More Effective In Tackling Illegal Logging, UN Reports Facing lost revenues of some $5 billion annually as a result of illegal logging, governments are becoming increasingly innovative – and effective – in tackling the problem, according to a new United Nations report.
News Brussels, December 1, 2005: Today Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel ceremonially presented her Christmas tree accompanied by fresh home-made cookies in Directorate General Agriculture.
News VANCOUVER -- How much is a forest worth if it's simply left standing instead of being logged and sent to a mill? That question, in simple terms, is what researchers from the Pembina Institute set out to answer in a two-year study that calculated for the first time the "natural capital" contained in Canada's boreal forest ecosystem.
News Tryst Williams A WOODLAND charity now owns most of Wales' largest ancient forest, after raising more than ?1.5m in just five months. The Woodland Trust yesterday announced it had bought the first 444 acres of Wentwood Forest in Newport and Monmouthshire. And it says it hopes to exchange contracts on the remaining 426 acres by the end of 2005.
News The Faculty of Forestry at the Swedish University of Living Natural Resources (SLU) is starting up a new research programme concerning forest and health. Eight projects in different parts of the country have had green light.
News The secret forests of El Salvador – POLEX: CIFOR's Forest Policy Expert Along with Haiti and Malawi, El Salvador has long been portrayed as a place where over-population and poverty make farmers destroy the forests, resulting in barren treeless landscapes. One often hears that less than five percent of the country has any forest left.
