News from the world of forests

Forest Service Marks 100 Years Amid Debate (U.S. National - AP/ForestPress)

By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON The U.S. Forest Service is marking its 100th anniversary amid debate over whether it is living up to the mission President Theodore Roosevelt gave it in 1905: to "perpetuate the forest as a permanent resource of the nation." In contrast to the revelry expected for a Jan. 3-6 centennial celebration, some say the Forest Service is so tied up in litigation that it no longer has the sharp focus provided by legendary forester Gifford Pinchot, its first director.

2005. January 2.

UN to assess damage to coral reefs, forests (Boston Globe Staff /ForestPress)

By Beth Daley, The United Nations yesterday set aside $1 million to assess environmental damage caused by this week's devastating tsunami, as reports of destroyed coral reefs and uprooted mangrove forests began trickling in. While attention is clearly focused on the rising human toll of the tragedy, some dive operators and marine biologists are reporting that from Sri Lanka to Thailand corals are suffocating under layers of mud, heaps of rotten fish, are clogging beachfronts, and rare turtle nesting sites have been washed out to sea.

2005. January 2.

A new era in battling pollution (International Herald Tribune)

By Katrin Bennhold EU companies coming under Kyoto limits For Peter Koster, the beginning of 2005 merits more than one glass of Champagne. As millions of fellow Europeans celebrate just another New Year's Eve, the chief executive and founder of the European Climate Exchange will quietly drink to what he calls the dawn of a "new era for European business." Starting on the first day of 2005, 12,000 industrial installations across the European Union will find that the days of pumping unlimited amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere are over, as EU-wide regulations spawned by the Kyoto Climate Protocol come into effect. In February, Koster's exchange, which is the world's largest, and its first mandatory, greenhouse-gas trading market, will go live, formalizing a system aimed at fighting global warming.

2005. January 1.

New sub-species of tiger found (BBC News)

A new genetic study of the tiger family has uncovered a previously unknown sub-species of the big cats, researchers report in the journal Plos Biology. Evidence suggested previous attempts to classify tigers may have been flawed. So the team sampled DNA from 130 tigers from eastern Russia, China, India and countries in south-east Asia. The new sub-species, Panthera tigris jacksoni, is named after tiger campaigner Peter Jackson and comes from splitting one sub-species into two.

2004. December 31.

Paper plant to harness wood power (BBC News)

A new power station is to be built in Markinch A traditional paper mill in Fife is to use a new "green" method of generating power using wood. Tullis Russell confirmed plans to build a ?73m combined heat and power station at its Markinch base. The plant will replace an existing coal and gas fired power station, which has been in daily operation for 60 years. The company said the new station would be completely fuelled by wood and wood-crops planted and grown specifically for use as a fuel source.

2004. December 31.

Education

BASIC LEVEL

BASIC LEVEL ROOTS TREE STRUCTURE I Trees are large land plants that build up a perennial stem or trunk which grows upright more or less undivided, apart from smaller side branches for a long period of years. Trees have an immense number of cells.They vary in size, shape and substance according to the function they have to perform. Cells are grouped together to form tissues which again form part of a larger organ, such as a leaf. A typical plant has two principal groups of organs, the root and the shoot. Although some kinds of trees develop a single, undivided root, most forest trees have a much-branched root system. Many send down one vertical tap root and at the same time grow out side roots in all directions. On their surface they bear fine root hairs which absorb water and mineral nutrients from the soil. >Vocabulary structure szerkezet, felépítés perennial állandó; évelő stem szár;hajtás;törzs trunk (fa)törzs divide feloszt;elkülönül branch ág, ágazat immence rengeteg, óriási, nagy cell sejt upright függőleges, egyenesen álló tissue szövet substance anyag;állomány principal fő, legfontosabb leaf (pl. leaves) levél;lomblevél organ szerv root gyökér shoot hajtás; sarj forest erdő

2004. December 30.

Education

Dear Visitors,

Welcome to the pages below where under the headline BASIC LEVEL or Roots you can find a kind of guided vocabulary embeded into short English texts. We expect here young and teenage students, interested in the world of nature, especially forests and non-student readers open to the topic. The compilation was arranged in a way that as early as in the beginning phase of their language studies learners could manage with English topics meeting their interests and in their further studies could understand lectures in English, might read scientific articles and reviews on their special lines. We would like to get closer to the latter goals in the EXAM-PREPARATORY part or the Trunk, with assorted topics -still avoiding narrow lines-which might as well help learners prepare for special English language exams in forestry, wood sciences or nature and environment protection. We would be most happy if a lot of readers were browsing SCIENCE or the Crown. Here abstracts or summaries of scientific papers, Ph.Ds, as well as whole lectures and conference papers are welcome in English. Dear Experts, Specialist and Teachers of English, Our intention here is to propagate special English, in order to hel

2004. December 30.

Annual Observations by FVM (Ministry for Agriculture&Rural Development,Hungary)on 2004 (ForestPress)

Forestry outline: An agrarian energy program will be completed -coordination with IM (Ministry of Justice)- environmental aspects concerned with forestries. Dr Imre Németh, Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, gave his assessment on the year of 2004 and forecast agricultural policy for 2005. In his introduction he said that 2004 has brought about more changes than in previous years, for instance offices integrating agrarian policy were established. It has been the period of adaptation and learning. Budgetary debates opened the year, due to the amount of limited financial support (Hungary received half of the money provided to countries joining the EU earlier). This fact is an indicator of the performance of the Hungarian agriculture.

2004. December 30.

Aldo Leopold (1887-1948)

Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) was an avid angler and perhaps the leading environmentalist of the 20th century. Born in Burlington, Iowa, he earned his master of forestry degree from Yale University in 1909 and immediately entered the Forest Service in the southwestern United States. Leopold saw problems with the theories governing land and wildlife management, eventually leading him to the notion that land ought to be put aside for its recreational and aesthetic values alone. Written in 1933, Leopold's cornerstone book Game Management defined basic skills and techniques, creating a new science that combined forestry, agriculture, biology, zoology, ecology, and education. A Sand County Almanac, a collection of Leopold’s essays published posthumously in 1949, is considered by many one of the basic texts of the modern ecological ethic.

2004. December 29.

Wildlife and Game Management (forestry.about.com/ForestPress)

Aldo Leopold's Forestry Influence Game management's roots go back to the early 20th Century. Forestry and forest management provided the primeval soup, a birthing medium, for what is now the science of wildlife management. Aldo Leopold, a forester, and Jay "Ding" Darling probably furthered the cause of wildlife conservation more than anyone else. They were avid hunters but both influenced the protection of wildlife more than anyone in the United States.

2004. December 29.

More Risks for Forests (Washington Post)

THE BUSH administration's new rules on management of national forests are not a surprise. They generally track a set of draft regulations the Forest Service issued two years ago. They are, nonetheless, a disappointment. The furor over the draft had offered the administration a chance to ameliorate the grave problems with its proposal. Instead, just before Christmas, it has gone ahead with a rule that will weaken environmental protection of forests and their wildlife. The idea of streamlining the forest management planning process -- the purported goal of the regulation -- is reasonable. It takes up to seven years to produce the statutorily mandated 15-year management plans for the country's national forests -- an absurd period that guarantees that plans are out of date by the time they get finalized. But the administration's new rule does more than make the process more efficient. It also weakens the protections it should be ensuring. On its way out of office, the Clinton administration rewrote the rules to ensure that conservation lay at the core of forest management. The Bush administration has replaced those rules with new ones that place economic use of federal forests on a par

2004. December 29.

ITTO commits another US$10 million for tropical forests (itto.or/ForestPress)

YOKOHAMA, Projects to develop national-level principles, criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management in the Republic of Congo, undertake fire management and post-fire forest restoration in Ghana, and continue the development of a transboundary conservation area in the Emerald Triangle of Thailand, Cambodia and Laos were among those funded by the International Tropical Timber Council, which met here last week.

2004. December 29.

'Mangroves can act as shield against tsunami' (The Hindu/ForestPress)

By G. Venkataramani CHENNAI, "Tsunami is a rare phenomenon. Though we cannot prevent the occurrence of such natural calamities, we should certainly prepare ourselves to mitigate the impact of the natural fury on the population inhabiting the coastal ecosystems. Our anticipatory research work to preserve mangrove ecosystems as the first line of defence against devastating tidal waves on the eastern coastline has proved very relevant today.

2004. December 29.

Hardwood Lumber Market Observation (Hardwood Market Weekly)

December 28, 2004 Sales activity was slower than needed for a 'healthy' market. Red Oak sales were particularly difficult for many sellers; "as slow as I can remember," noted one contact. Heavy demand for green and KD Hard Maple was the most notable exception. More green lumber was available and a number of buyers slowed incoming shipments. With the exception of a few species, it was much harder to move green production. Mills held out hope that purchasers were just holding off until after the first of the year. Log supplies were mixed, but most contacts still felt that lumber production was too high for current demand.

2004. December 28.

Penguins escape huge earthquake (BBC News)

Macquarie penguins appear to have escaped the worst An earthquake on a remote Antarctic archipelago home to 850,000 King Penguins was the strongest on earth in four years, seismologists say. The quake hit 400km (250 miles) off the Macquarie Islands on Friday, measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale. Penguins appear to have escaped a major disaster as the quake occurred deep under the sea, far from inhabited land. There were no tsunamis, or large tidal waves, because the quake moved horizontally rather than vertically.

2004. December 27.

ARTIFICIAL CHRISTMAS TREES (CBC)

News Release – Canadian Food Inspection Agency CFIA ADVISES CONSUMERS AND RETAILERS OF RISK ASSOCIATED WITH SOME ARTIFICIAL CHRISTMAS TREES: Cascade Pre-lit Alpine, Six ft. Dakota Alpine OTTAWA, December 23, 2004 - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is advising consumers that artificial Christmas trees from Polytree Hong Kong Co. Ltd pose a risk of infestation to Canadian trees. The affected product was made with tree trunks which were improperly treated to kill the Brown Fir Longhorned Beetle.

2004. December 27.

New Forest Plan Would Lessen Restraints (White House - AP/ForestPress)

WASHINGTON - December 22, 2004. By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press Writer Managers of the nation's 155 national forests will have more leeway to approve logging and other commercial projects with less formal environmental review under a new Bush administration plan, The Associated Press has learned. The long-awaited plan will overhaul application of the landmark 1976 National Forest Management Act, which sets the basic rules for management of nation's 191 million acres of forests and grasslands and protects forest wildlife. Forest Service officials scheduled a Wednesday conference call to announce the changes, which will be published in the Federal Register next week. The Associated Press obtained highlights of the plan, which goes into effect following publication.

2004. December 23.

News

EU Divided on Plans to Curb Illegal Timber Trade (Reuters)

- EU members are divided over a European Commission plan to crack down on the lucrative illegal timber trade by making exporters prove their wood is not from endangered rainforests, officials said on Tuesday. EU farm ministers were discussing a voluntary timber certification system that might lead to a global agreement to clean up the $150 billion global forest product trade. A key part of 's battle against illegal logging is to stop laundered profits being diverted into organised crime. One way that the Commission, the EU's executive, wants to achieve this is to ensure imports are accompanied by paperwork showing the timber comes from approved forests.

2004. December 22.