Tag Archives: deforestation

Tony Abbott’s ‘captain’s call’ over Tasmanian forest humilated Australia, say Greens

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“Prime minister Tony Abbott made a “captain’s call” over Tasmanian forestry policy which globally humiliated Australia, the Greens and a conservation group claim.

“The Wilderness Society (TWS) says Freedom of Information documents reveal Abbott pushed forward with election commitments in the sector despite departmental caution.

One pledge included delisting 74,000 hectares of Tasmanian wilderness world heritage area, an application swiftly rejected by the United Nations’ world heritage committee in June last year.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Biodiversity Thresholds for Amazonian Deforestation

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In privately-owned forests of Brazil, leaving even just 50% forest cover makes a huge difference for biodiversity: http://t.co/Fz310jXUQJ

(photo:  Examiner.com)

Source: onlinelibrary.wiley.com

GR:  Recent surveys of Brazilian rainforest indicate the loss is greater than thought before. This study says that most of the remaining forest is in private hands. And though laws require owners to preserve a large percentage of their forests, they tend to cut it instead.

China’s rosewood craving cuts deep into Madagascar rainforests

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“Prized timber is being felled illegally at increasing rate despite Cites ban and environmental outcryAnother day draws to its end in Antanandavehely, a peaceful village on the eastern slopes of the Masoala peninsula, the largest nature conservation…” (Source: www.theguardian.com).

GR:  Prosperous people in all countries are contributing to plant and animal extinctions.  International businesses, legal and illegal, are responsible for the marketing and delivery that produce profits for the wealthy minority. In all countries, the poor majority cuts the trees, picks the grapes, catches the fish, punches the cows, and loads the trucks.

Santander: Financing Extinction

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“Diggers are tearing up Indonesia’s rainforest – home to endangered tigers, orangutans and sun bears – and Santander is bankrolling the paper company that’s leading this destruction.

“The greatest threat to Indonesia’s rainforests is a pulp and paper company named APRIL. It is chopping down tens of thousands of hectares of forest and feeding rainforest trees into its pulp mill to make cheap paper and packaging” (Source: www.greenpeace.org.uk).

World’s Forests at the Mercy of Commodity Supply Chains

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OXFORD, UK, February 11, 2015 (ENS) – Only a small minority of the power brokers controlling the global commodity supply chains that drive the world’s tropical deforestation are able to meet demand without destroying forests, finds the first ranking of these powerful players.

“Over the last decade, commodity production driven by global demand for food, feed and fuel products has been responsible for over 50 percent of deforestation and 60 percent of forest degradation in tropical and subropical regions,” according to Global Canopy Programme, the UK charity that issued the ranking” (Source: ens-newswire.com).

GR:  This is an excellent story on an important topic.

Conservationists v chainsaws: the RSPB’s battle to save an Indonesian rainforest

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Colm O’Molloy, Guardian:  “In 2007 an RSPB-led group bought up a series of logged-out Indonesian forests to bring them back from the brink.

“Over time, Harapan aims to become the leading centre of knowledge on how to bring damaged forest ecosystems back to health. Tropical rainforests develop over thousands of years. It is not yet known how long it takes to fully restore a damaged rainforest to health, or if it is possible at all.

“There is little doubt that the forests that make up Harapan would have been completely destroyed by now was it not for the efforts of the RSPB and its partners to protect and restore them.

“Despite ongoing losses to encroachment, Harapan still has a relatively large percentage of forest cover within its boundaries. Much of the surrounding forests have been completely decimated and replaced by palm plantations.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

Forests Precede Us, Deserts Follow

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This article discusses how deforesting the Amazon Basin and other regions could lead to the fall of modern civilization.

xraymike79's avatarCollapse of Industrial Civilization

Yasuni_National_Park_Aerial_Tiputini

As Goes the Amazon, So Goes the World

Thought to be up to 100 million years old and home to more species than any other ecosystem on Earth, the Amazon rainforest is a magical place, but your average soft-bellied city dweller of industrial civilization would last no more than a week there, likely succumbing to yellow fever, malaria, flesh-eating parasites, venomous snakes, and an endless array of creepy-crawlies. Nearly one-third of the planet’s biodiversity is found in the Amazon, including ancient indigenous tribes, hundreds of animal species, 16,000 tree species, 2.5 million species of insects, and new discoveries happening all the time. With a treasure trove of medicinal plants, many of which have yet to be discovered, the Amazon is known to many as the world’s largest pharmacy. 70% of all drugs introduced in the U.S. in the last few decades were derived from nature, and 70% of…

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Sao Paulo’s Reservoirs are Drying Out When they Should Be Filling Up

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“It’s the rainy season for Brazil. But, thus far, adequate rains have not come. A persistent high pressure system has lingered over Brazil. A blocking high of the kind that has now become so common with global temperatures spiking to more than +0.8 C above 1880s averages — thickening heat domes and granting these powerful weather systems an ever greater inertia. A set of circumstances that has set off a plethora of very severe droughts ranging the globe since the early 2000s”  Source: robertscribbler.wordpress.com.

GR:  The drought is impacting the great Amazon rainforest as well.  Coupled with deforestation by logging and grazing interests, the drought will have a massive influence on climate.

Amazon deforestation obliterates soil biodiversity, with wider ecological implications

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Deforestation in the Amazon leads to a substantial loss in microbial biodiversity potentially reducing the ecological resilience of affected areas, report researchers writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source: news.mongabay.com

GR:  Soil microorganisms are essential for ecosystem stability and productivity.  They are subject to damage from deforestation, grazing, fire, and of course construction.  Recovery requires protection from further damage.