Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by 77 percent from 2004 to 2011, but carbon emissions did not drop as steeply because of complex processes revealed during on-the-ground studies, scientists say.
While analysis of satellite images showed the three-
A new study says that well-managed selective logging may be the only realistic solution to conserving tropical forests in the face of a rapacious global demand for timber resources.
In an analysis of more than 100 studies, researchers at the University of Florida found that while even
Another Bad Week, Or a Really Good One? Good news grows as slow as a tree, but bad news spills as fast as a broken oil main. That seems to be the lesson from this week as BP, the U.S. government and an armada of ships and volunteers tried but mostly failed to contain the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Though BP had some success at slowing the spigot, oil is pooling in the wetlands of the Mississippi Delta and resides at unmeasured quantities in the deeps. There it has joined the Loop Current with a probable next stop in Florida.
Meanwhile, 1,500 miles north, an equally momentous event drew little attention: an agreement to curtail or end logging on 72 million acres of Canada’s boreal forest, an area roughly the size of France. An unlikely consortium of logging companies and Greenpeace agreed to halt the chainsaws altogether for three years in an area as big as Montana, and to develop a sustainable-forestry program for the remainder. The accord might be the forerunner to permanent protection for an area that encompasses two-thirds of Canada’s logging concessions.
Rampant illegal logging in Indonesia is undermining the sustainability and strength of the forest products industry in Indonesia and the United States and thwarting efforts to preserve forests to slow global warming, according to a new report.
The report by the BlueGreen Alliance and several U.S. environmental and labor organizations said that 40 to 55 percent of Indonesia’s timber is harvested illegally, often from protected areas.
Widespread illegal logging in Indonesia and elsewhere has depressed timber prices worldwide, costing the logging, wood, paper and cabinetry industries more than $1 billion in the U.S. alone, the report said.