News The European Confederation of Woodworking Industries, CEI-Bois, is pleased to invite you to the official presentation of the Memorandum of the Woodworking Industries to the European Institutions, which will be held at the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday, 2nd February 2005, followed by a cocktail.
News PARIS –France plays host Monday to a five-day international conference on biodiversity, but stands criticised itself for failing to live up to its self-proclaimed standards on promoting conservation, according to many environmental experts. "France is both a country extremely rich in biodiversity and the fourth economic power in the world. It has a prime responsibility," said Sebastien Moncorps, French director of the World Union for Nature. Thanks to its overseas territories France possesses some 10 percent of the world's coral reefs, 20 percent of its atolls and -- in French Guyana -- a vast area of tropical rain-forest.
News Photo by György Csóka Hungarian opposition party , FIDESZ, criticized the first 100 days of the new Hungarian goverment, saying that conservation came out as a big loser while Romanian mining companies and the gypsy moth were winners.
News Photo by Ray K. Saunders Washington, D.C. A stately white oak in Virginia, a massive bristlecone pine in Nevada and a towering Coast-Douglas fir are among the new stars on a biennial list of the nation’s largest trees. Today, AMERICAN FORESTS, the nation’s oldest conservation group, unveiled the 2004-2005 National Register of Big Trees. AMERICAN FORESTS created the Register in 1940 as a way to champion forest conservation by recognizing the outstanding specimens of the nation’s native and naturalized trees.
News By Christopher Doering, WASHINGTON The cost of using forests to remove greenhouse gases from the air could be about the same as cutting pollution with fuel switching or energy efficiency improvements, according to a new report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. The Pew study estimated it would cost between $25 and $75 per ton to remove 300 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year through sequestration projects using vast expanses of forest land. Trees can absorb and store carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to global warming. If the cost to remove carbon was between $30 and $90 a ton, that would be roughly the same as other emission reduction measures used to trim energy consumption in buildings, automobiles and appliances, the report said.
News NAIROBI Kenyan authorities said Wednesday they had shot and killed an off-duty wildlife ranger on a game reserve in central Kenya and had launched an investigation into his alleged involvement in a poaching gang. The unidentified ranger was accompanying a group of apparent poachers at the Lewa ranch based in Solio near the town of Nyeri on Tuesday when he was killed in a gunbattle with Kenya Wildlife Service and police officers, the KWS said.
News The number of forest management associations in Finland has decreased to 155. As a consequence of mergers decided upon in 2004 the total number of forest management associations was reduced by three at year's end. The purpose of the mergers is to improve the services supplied by forest management associations to forest owners and to permit more efficient safeguarding of their interests.
News By Andrew Quinn, JAKARTA Indonesia will replant huge swathes of mangrove forest along its vulnerable coastline to help provide a buffer against possible future tsunamis, the forestry minister said. Environmental experts say Southeast Asia's mangroves -- many of which have been ripped out to make room for shrimp and fish farms -- could have helped slow the Dec. 26 tsunami by providing a barrier between the killer waves and land.
News Rosia Montana , Romania The Alba-Iulia Court of Appeal has suspended the discharge certificate for the so-called Carnic/Cirnic Massif. The decision was taken following a request calling for an urgent decision by ‘Alburnus Maior'* . Gabriel Resources (TSX: GBU), a junior Canadian mining company, intends to realize Europe's largest open-cast mining development in Rosia Montana entailing, amongst other, the involuntary resettlement of over 2000 people as well as the destruction of unique archaeological and natural sites. Over 1000 archaeologists and expert institutions have protested against the destruction of Rosia Montana 's unique archaeological heritage. Whilst according to Gabriel Resources the Carnic Massif is set to become the so-called Cirnic open pit, French archaeologists researching the massif since 2000 unearthed unique pre-Roman and Roman mine galleries in a remarkable state of preservation.
News Population boom: 500,000 to 25 million in a decade ALBANY, N.Y. - Forty years ago, Charlie Scheer rarely saw a deer near his 625-acre nursery on the eastern end of Long Island. Today, he regularly sees five or six just crossing the road when he drives to his local deli in the morning. For Scheer, 63, president of the Long Island Farm Bureau, the animals are more akin to vermin than furry woodland creatures. Across the country, the rising white-tailed deer population is wreaking havoc on farms, changing the ecology of forests and causing ever more motor vehicle accidents and fatalities.
News Norway's top environmental official insists that wolves will continue to be protected in the country, but now another one may be hunted down. A female wolf suspected of attacking and killing around 100 dogs has raised the hackles of those living the eastern portions of Akershus and ?stfold counties. She was once a member of the so-called ?rjang-Kongsvinger pack, but lately she's been roaming on her own.
Forestschools With George Vanderbilt's permission, the Biltmore Forest School (BFS) was formed and opened in 1898 under Dr. Schenck's supervision. BFS students initially were sons of wealthy lumber and timber barons. However, within 15 years the school would graduate over 400 forestry students who introduced scientific forestry methods throughout North America.
2005, February 11-16. In February 'Protect the Future' (Hungary) is organising two international conferences (Feb. 11-13 : Public Services, Globalisation and Sustainability; Feb. 13-16 : Seattle To Brussels Network Conference) in which we would like to ensure there is a significant participation from organisations from Central and Eastern Europe concerned about; - the privitisation of Public Services, GATS and/or the EU's 'Bolkenstein Directive', - agricultural 'reform' in the guise of inequitable and unsustainable EU and global agricultural trade agreements - GMOs - sweatshop production - international trade injustices perpetrated through the WTO - Fair Trade and other consumer issues such as eco-labelling, access to information, product boycotts, etc.
News By Peter Dobbie Galle - Question: When does education become welfare? Answer: When you are 10 years old and have lost almost everything you possess to an act of nature you cannot possibly comprehend. I met Thirindra at the Sudarma school on the day of class registration - two weeks and one day since the tsunami hit. He was one of 628 pupils who had turned up for the most mundane of educational necessities, apparently showing that, despite his youth, he was here, he was alive and ready to return to normal. This tall young boy, with his quiet disposition and his bag of cooked rice and sweet-corn, displayed nothing more than curiosity in the noise and the rubble: What was that white van with Unicef plastered down one side doing in his school playground?
News The hurricane that hit Scandinavia on 8th January was equally disastrous for forests in Denmark as for those in Southern Sweden. The hurricane felled 2 million cubic meters of timber, which represents a little more than total annual felling in Denmark. The damage occurred in Northern Jutland. The great majority of fallen timber is coniferous wood. Most of the fallen forest will presumably be replanted with deciduous trees, in particular with oak.
News By Raymond Colitt in Sao Paulo New evidence that the rapid expansion of Brazil's export-fuelled agriculture sector is contributing to the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is emerging from a study being finalised by a group of leading environmental organisations. However there are indications that the government may have indeed become more aware of the problem after years of denying such links. Soyabean farming, the leading crop, has expanded by more than 50 per cent since 2001 and earned Brazil more than $10bn (€7.5bn, ?5.3bn) in foreign exchange last year. While soyabean farmers do not usually clear forest themselves, the authors of the report say, they fuel deforestation by driving cattle and rice farmers deeper into the forest. “Soyabean farming induces deforestation, it drives the agricultural frontier,” said Roberto Smeraldi, co-ordinator of the study conducted by the Brazilian Forum of 19 environmental organisations, including the WWF, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.
News Forestry Commission Scotland is hoping to encourage support for community woodland projects in the Stranraer area after success in helping to attract ?39,500 for a community park in East Ayrshire. The money for the Ayrshire project at Bellsbank Woodland was awarded out of the Fresh Futures programme which aims to improve the quality of life in Scottish communities. From the cash boost, a community roundhouse and bird-hide, made from timber donated by the Commission, is to be built, as well as a small network of new woodland paths. Foresters in Galloway are hopeful that the success of the Ayrshire project could have positive spin-offs closer to home. Dunragit wood, six miles east of Stranraer, has real potential for a community led initiative. The wood is already being used by locals so any improvements would benefit the community.
News Tallin The storm that raged across northern Europe at the weekend felled vast tracts of timber in the Baltic state of Estonia, creating a glut of wood on the market that some fear will bring down prices but others say is a blessing in disguise for this important export product. At least one million cubic metres of wood came down during the storm, according to preliminary estimates by the Estonian state forest management centre. "More than 20 percent of the planned cutting of state forest for this year has already been made -- by the storms," Ulvar Kaubi, marketing manager of the forest management centre, told AFP. "This means we have to fully review our cutting and sales plans for the year."
