Tag Archives: forests

by | February 17, 2013 · 6:09 pm

Protest Continued Tasmanian Old-Growth Logging in Proposed World Heritage Area

By Ecological Internet, February 17, 2013

with Observer Tree, Still Wild Still Threatened

TAKE ACTION to protect Australia’s priceless temperate rainforests

An important new report from Still Wild Still Threatened finds the Australian government has made pledges to protect Tasmania’s priceless temperate rainforests, yet industrial clearcut logging of old-growth continues in what is to be a World Heritage Area.

Important forest wildernesses covering some 170,000 hectares and including Butlers Gorge; and the Florentine, Weld and Styx valleys, have been nominated to be added to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and could finally be given protection after decades of protests.

Alarmingly, however, industrial scale clear felling is still continuing within those forests, with timbers being sold as “eco ply” by the Malaysian timber mafia. From the top of the “Observer Tree” in the middle of this ancient forest, conservationist Miranda Gibson is calling for your help to protect these globally significant forests. Miranda’s action is part of long running grassroots campaigns to protect Tasmania’s forests for more than 20 years.

Demand the Australian government honor their international obligations and protect these World Heritage nominated old-growth temperate rainforests from industrial destruction.

TAKE ACTION!

READ THE REPORT

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by | January 4, 2013 · 2:30 pm

Center for Biological Diversity files appeal over Tahoe/Truckee biomass project

By Margaret Moran, 2 January, 2012. Source: Sierra Sun

Processed wood chips like these are one example of biomass.
Processed wood chips like these are one example of biomass.

Processed wood chips like these are one example of biomass.


TRUCKEE, Calif. — A national environmental nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting nearly extinct species is appealing the latest approval in the proposed two-megawatt Cabin Creek Biomass Energy Facility process, officials confirmed Wednesday.

The Center for Biological Diversity submitted the appeal after the Placer County Planning Commission adopted a conditional use permit and certified the project’s final Environmental Impact Report on Dec. 20, said Brett Storey, Placer County project manager for the biomass facility, on Wednesday.The appeal, sent out Dec. 27, questions the analysis of the EIR regarding potential greenhouse gas emission amounts and the facility’s potential ripple effect on area forests and forest management, said Kevin Bundy, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, on Wednesday.

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by | December 14, 2012 · 1:38 pm

Doha, Forests and the Production Tax Credit: On Track to Burn, Baby, Burn

, Co-director, Biofuelwatch, 12/13/2012.  Source: Huffington Post

Last Saturday, the annual UN Climate Talks, held in Doha, concluded, once more without any meaningful achievements. The U.S. government was amongst those that ensured that there would be no new climate treaty until at least 2020 and that they would thus not be bound by any restrictions on carbon emissions. A major focus of the negotiations was on forests, specifically on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in developing countries (REDD+). Those talks also stalled as rich countries scaled back financial commitments which they had already made while trying to force Southern countries to divert vast sums of funds towards creating a new carbon market in forests. This would in future allow for example the U.S. or EU to class lower deforestation rates or even new monoculture tree plantations in the global South as Northern emissions reductions.

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Filed under Biodiversity, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, Doha/COP-18, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, Forests and Climate Change, Pollution

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by | · 11:00 am

REDD at COP18, Doha: At a crossroads or stuck in neoliberalism’s dead end?

By Chris Lang, 14th December 2012.  Source: REDD-Monitor

REDD at COP18, Doha: At a crossroads or stuck in neoliberalism's dead end?

REDD negotiations came to a grinding halt at the end of the first week of COP18 in Doha when Brazil and Norway disagreed over the verification of emission reductions from forests.

There were two tracks of negotiations on REDD in Doha: the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA).

The following items were on the agenda in Doha – explained in more detail here:

  • SBSTA: Reference levels; MRV and forest monitoring systems; Safeguards information systems; and Drivers of deforestation and forest degradation.
  • LCA: Finance and REDD.

The dispute over verification took place in the SBSTA negotiations. The Final SBSTA Text (FCCC/SBSTA/2012/L.31) consists of “Draft conclusions proposed by the Chair” – no decisions were made in Doha. The discussions will continue at the next SBSTA meeting, that will take place in June 2013 in Bonn. However, no decision on the SBSTA agenda items will be taken until COP19 at the end of 2013.

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by | December 12, 2012 · 1:30 pm

Top US biomass plant largely idle; Austin Energy cuts purchases

By Eileen O’Grady, 6 Dec 2012. Source: CNBC

HOUSTON – The largest U.S. biomass plant, a 100-megawatt facility that a Southern Co unit recently opened in east Texas, sits idle most days, unable to compete with cheaper natural gas-fired power plants.

The $500 million plant burns non-commercial wood and wood waste and began commercial operations in mid-July with much fanfare. Now some local vendors who serve the plant say they are losing money.

“I’m very concerned that the plant is not running,” said Jerry Don Williamson, Precinct 1 Commissioner in Nacogdoches County.

Output from Southern Power’s Nacogdoches Generating Facility, 145 miles (228 km) northeast of Houston, is sold to Austin Energy, a municipal utility serving the state capital, but Austin Energy only buys the power when it is economical, a spokesman said.

“It’s dispatched based on market economics,” said Austin Energy spokesman Ed Clark. “So it has not been running in recent time. Natural gas prices are very low and it’s not uncommon for a number of plants not to run.”

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Filed under Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, Forests and Climate Change, Pollution, The Greed Economy and the Future of Forests

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by | December 5, 2012 · 1:30 pm

Making Contact Radio: Saving or Selling the Planet? REDD, Climate Change and Indigenous Lands | National Radio Project

Note: This episode of Making Contact is based upon the Global Justice Ecology Project DVD “A Darker Shade of Green: REDD Alert and the Future of Forests,” produced earlier this year.

To order a copy of the DVD, which includes two bonus features, email: info@globaljusticeecology.org

To listen to the Making Contact episode, click the link below:

making contact

Saving or Selling the Planet? REDD, Climate Change and Indigenous Lands | National Radio Project.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Carbon Trading, Chiapas, Climate Change, Commodification of Life, Commons, Earth Audio podcasts / MP3s, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, Forests and Climate Change, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Illegal logging, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, REDD, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, The Greed Economy and the Future of Forests

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by | December 1, 2012 · 12:00 pm

Investors must stop land grabbing, say civil society groups

LONDON (UK), November 30, 2012 – Major farmland investors such as banks and pension funds must stop facilitating land grabs, say civil society groups [1] on the eve of a global farmland investment conference in London on 3-5 December. [2]

Banks and pension funds are increasingly engaging in large-scale acquisitions of land with extremely damaging consequences for local populations. The London conference will bring together funds with more than USD3 trillion in assets to explore opportunities for investments in Africa, Latin America and Russia.

The civil society groups are warning that pension funds and banks attending the conference, for instance Deutsche Bank, must ensure they do not fund risky investments that threaten the livelihoods and food sovereignty of countless local communities.
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by | November 16, 2012 · 6:55 pm

Amazon tribe scraps carbon credit deal with Irish firm

By Marcelo Teixeira, 06 Nov 2012.  Source: www.pointcarbon.com

SAO PAULO – An indigenous community in the Brazilian Amazon state of Para has cancelled a controversial deal that would have allowed an Irish company to sell carbon credits from a project to preserve its forests, said the group’s leader and a local prosecutor on Tuesday.

The Munduruku tribe had sealed an agreement with Celestial Green Ventures earlier this year, guaranteeing it $4 mln per year over 30 years for supplying the Irish company the right to generate carbon credits on 2.3 million hectares of rainforest.

“We are going to cancel the deal. Many in the tribe didn’t want it, so to avoid problems we decided to stop it,” said Candido Waru, who heads a local association representing the Munduruku people.

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by | · 11:32 am

Corruption and REDD at the international level

By Chris Lang, 15th November 2012. Source: REDD-Monitor

Corruption and REDD at the international level

Earlier this week, Transparency International Indonesia launched the organisation’s new report, “Keeping REDD+ Clean”, at their office in Jakarta. I was invited to give a presentation and this post is based on the presentation.

TI asked me to talk about developing a monitoring instrument to address the risks of corruption in REDD. I requested changing the title to “Corruption and REDD at the international level”. I did so for two reasons. First because I have no experience of setting up monitoring instruments for corruption in Indonesia or anywhere else and second, because it made more sense for me, as the only international speaker, to speak about international corruption and REDD. I also felt that this might help towards filling a gap in Transparency International’s “Keeping REDD+ clean” report, which states that,

The manual’s scope does not extend to corruption risks at the international level. Rather it is deliberately focused on processes that occur in country, to facilitate the participation of national and local groups in informing national policy, planning and project implementation.

But if national policy involves carbon trading, then it is essential to look at the risks of corruption internationally.

The presentation is in four parts. The first part gives a very brief introduction to corruption in the forest sector in Indonesia, a look at how the media reports on corruption in Indonesia and in the UK, and some thoughts about the history of aid to the forest sector. The second and third parts look at the stories that are most often reported about corruption, REDD and carbon trading internationally: from carbon cowboys to billions of euros worth of fraud in the EU Emissions Trading System. The fourth part is the most important part, taken from a 2009 paper written by Larry Lohmann of the UK-based Corner House: “Regulation as Corruption in the Carbon Offset Markets: Cowboys and Choirboys United”. Lohmann argues that the problems of carbon offset markets are not “carbon cowboys” or “bad apples” but the architecture of the markets themselves:

To continue to claim that carbon offset markets can be regulated is to legitimise continued corruption and to undermine popular struggles against it, as well as to harm the causes of climate action and climate justice.

To read the entire piece, go to REDD-Monitor

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by | October 2, 2012 · 5:00 pm

Action Alert: End campaign of intimidation and destruction of forests in Kalimantan, Indonesia

LONDON–The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is calling for supporters world-wide to demand an end to the intimidation of an indigenous community in East Kalimantan and the destruction of its customary forests by plantation firms.

Two companies are clearing forests and farmland belonging to the Dayak Benuaq of Muara Tae, in Indonesian Borneo, while the community is being intimidated by armed police.

Bulldozers are now just metres away from a camp set up by the community to protect what remains of their forests.

Faith Doherty, EIA Forests Campaign Leader, said: “This is fundamentally a human rights abuse that has to stop now. Our friends in Muara Tae are being brutally oppressed, with state backing and in legally questionable circumstances.

“We must send a message to these companies that people across the world know what’s happening and that it will not be tolerated. The Dayak Benuaq can’t be left to face this form of oppression alone.”

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