China Logging Russian Forests To Death

China's hunger for wood is said to be driving the destruction of one of the last great untouched regions on earth. China is being accused of causing damage to wildlife and forests in neighbouring Russia. BBC News Video

Workers processing the Russian owned sawmills are Chinese. The trees are being cut illegally, and the wood cut will be sold to America & Europe to fund the growing Millionaires in China and Russia. Illegal logger companies who are successfully cutting down the forests in Russia, are said to be run by China.

Technically, the forests being destroyed are 'protected'. But the great force of the Chinese Dragon seems to have easily overcome the Russian bear. All the illegally cut timber is driven over the border to China, where exports link the growing wealth of China to the ineffective markets of Europe and American allowing this crime against the Earth to continue unchallenged.

Battling Siberia's devastating illegal logging trade - Wagons brimming with logs accumulate in the Siberian railway station of Dalnerechensk, more than 8,000km (4,971 miles) east of Moscow. They are waiting to cross the nearby Chinese border...

"There's pressure on forests in north-western Russia, touching Scandinavia, but the main problem is in far-eastern Siberia where the mafia is particularly violent," Mr Bismarck told me. "We went to a dozen Chinese wood-processing companies across the border and most told us that they export all over Europe.

Russian forest inspectors I spoke to said there was little they could do against such well-funded and organised gangs. Their situation is made worse by the firing of thousands of their colleagues when the then president, now prime minister, Vladimir Putin scrapped the Forest Service in 2001.

Climate deal must acknowledge Russia's forests: Putin ... (AFP) – Nov 2, 2009 - MOSCOW — A global warming pact to be agreed next month in Copenhagen must take into account the carbon dioxide absorption potential of Russia's sprawling forests, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Monday.

Ooops! Someone in Moscow should inform Prime Minister Putin that his directive to reduce the capacity of the Russian Forestry is allowing China to invade Siberia, take over and chop down the forests - essentially destroying Siberia's future, Russia's future and all our futures... There is no carbon dioxide absorption potential in a cut down forest '- )

It amazes me... the Russians apparently have the capacity to detect incoming missiles... they can pick up Unidentified Flying Objects... They can detect aircraft intrusions into their territory... and yet they cannot detect the steady Chinese invasion of the Siberian forests.

I don't know? Maybe the Chinese can blanket the area with a super-conductive cloaking device that numbs the Russian defence and allows an endless speedy shipping of Russian Siberian forest into China, who have themselves frozen the destruction of their own forests due to fears of ecological degradation... Destroy the forests and you ultimately destroy the people. That is what the Romans did to conquer and colonize the lands of the Celts and the Gauls across Europe.

The Romans cut down and destroyed vast areas of woodland and primeval forests growing across the vast continent of Celtic Europe. ... Map showing the lands of the Celts and the Romans

In Pliny’s time Italy was almost completely stripped of its forest cover. For this reason the Romans had to import most of the timber form all parts of the Empire and metallurgic industries, which depended heavily on charcoal, moved out of Italy. The centres of mining and metal smelting became the most deforested areas of the Roman Empire. Pliny must have realised that human industry and activities put forests at risk of destruction. In a world where trees were a scarce resource it is not surprising that Pliny wrote with awe about the massive forests in Germany: "In the northern region is the fast expanse of the Hercynian Oak Forest, untouched by the ages and coeval with the world, which surpasses all marvels by its almost immortal destiny." Environmental History -*- Celtic Europe

THE BEGINNINGS OF AWARENESS
Clairvoyant thinking in ancient Greece and Rome
Plato, Critias, III.

"There were large forests in the mountains whose traces are still visible today. If, in these mountains, some only nourish bees, not so long ago trees were cut for large construction needs [...]. The soil provided infinite foraging possibilities for livestock and also collected Zeus' annual rainwater, which did not run over bare soil into the sea as it does today. Since the earth was still thick and received water which it stored in impermeable clay, it let water it had absorbed in the heights run down into the valleys, providing abundant springs and large rivers everywhere."
Cicero, 2nd Philipics.

"The destroyers of the forest are the worst enemies of public welfare."
Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XXXI, 30.

"When the forest that contains and disperses storms is destroyed on the hills, disastrous torrents are certain to build up." Europe & The Forest

Is it possible China sabotaged the Copenhagen Climate Deal, not because of Carbon Emissions and Co2, but because of their world economic land degradation policies, such as illegally logging the Siberian and other essential forests around the world to feed the Industrial engines of a rapidly growing economy?

Palm Oil - Destroying Ancient Forests

Why is oil palm replacing tropical rainforests?
Why are biofuels fueling deforestation?

In a word, economics, though deeper analysis of a proposal in Indonesia suggests that oil palm development might be a cover for something more lucrative—logging.

Recently much has been made about the conversion of Asia's biodiverse rainforests for oil-palm cultivation. Environmental organizations have warned that by eating foods that use palm oil as an ingredient, Western consumers are directly fueling the destruction of orangutan habitat and sensitive ecosystems.

So, why is it that oil-palm plantations now cover millions of hectares across Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand? Why has oil palm become the world's number one fruit crop, trouncing its nearest competitor, the humble banana?

The answer lies in the crop's unparalleled productivity. Simply put, oil palm is the most productive oil seed in the world. A single hectare of oil palm may yield 5,000 kilograms of crude oil, or nearly 6,000 liters of crude according to data from JourneytoForever. For comparison, soybeans and corn—crops often heralded as top biofuel sources—generate only 446 and 172 liters per hectare, respectively.

Beyond biofuel, the crop is used for a myriad of purposes from an ingredient in food products to engine lubricants to a base for cosmetics. Palm oil is becoming an increasingly important agricultural product for tropical countries around the world, especially as crude oil prices top $70 a barrel. For example, in Indonesia, currently the world's second largest producer of palm oil, oil-palm plantations covered 5.3 million hectares of the country in 2004, according to a report by Friends of the Earth-Netherlands.

These plantations generated 11.4 million metric tons of crude palm oil with an export value of US$4.43 billion and brought in $42.4 million (officially) to the Indonesian treasury. Since then, the value of palm oil has only climbed. The price of palm oil currently stands at more than $400 per metric ton [by 2007 prices were more than twice this figure], translating to about $54 per barrel—quite cost competive to petroleum.

Beyond the loss of forest ecosystems, the production of palm oil, as currently practiced, can be quite damaging to the environment. In 2001 Malaysia's production of 7 million tons of crude palm oil generated 9.9 million tons of solid oil wastes, palm fiber, and shells, and 10 million tons of palm oil mill effluent, a polluted mix of crushed shells, water, and fat residues that has been shown to have a negative impact on aquatic ecosystems.

For palm oil or something else?
On paper, given the vast area of tropical forest in the region and the relatively high value of palm oil, the plan may seem like a viable option from an economic standpoint. However, closer analysis of the suitability of the land for oil-palm cultivation has green groups questioning the stated purpose of the plan, suggesting that there may be other intentions.

Surveys of the region commissioned by WWF found that much of the land is poorly suited for oil palm. Mountainous terrain combined with inappropriate altitude and climate for oil palm means that only 10 percent at most can be considered adequate for cultivation and lends credibility to claims by environmental groups that the entire plan may be a cover for a massive logging scheme to harvest the area's rich timber resources.

Greenomics, an Indonesian forestry non-governmental organization, has calculated the timber value in the border region at $26 billion. Logging the area set aside for oil-palm plantations would net substantial amounts of revenue for logging firms and considerable tax income for the Indonesian government. Further, since the oil palm project calls for extensive road construction, the infrastructure would be in place to deliver valuable—albeit previously inaccessible—timber to market. Read More...

Causes of Ancient Deforestation

"Wood was one of the most sought-after commodities in the Ancient World, for everything from firewood to silver-mining."

As we approach 2011 - 2012 - 2013, there is a growing chaos in the world that appears to be unstoppable. Populations, in an over populated world, are increasing dramatically. This is really because women are not respected on this planet. Free women to educate themselves and the population figures would drop dramatically.

On the earth today there are increasing sea levels, increasing demand for the earth's resources, increasing inflation, a rapid increase in global populations and an increase in poverty. To counterbalance this (as all things in cosmos are balanced in duality), there is a decrease in ice-flows, a decrease in mountain glaciers, a decrease in availible resources. All things are balanced, even when this seems not to be the case.

Human beings (the manifesting souls) have been through these kinds of crisis again and again. We have experienced the fall of Rome, the fall of Greece, the fall of Egypt, the fall of Atlantis and the fall of Mars. Only, most people have forgotten this fact. The current global drama appears to be new, just one of those things, an event of spontaneous uprising. Really this is not so new.

Perhaps a few people realise that they have observed (lived through) these kinds of situations before. So, what is the point of this? An intelligent species (such as crows, eagles, antelope, tigers, dolphins and whales) would draw on the genetic memory to create solutions (adapting to change). Add to this the soul awareness connection and maybe people can create the future without reliving the past.

The Role of Deforestation in the Fall of Rome
From the time that Octavian became Caesar Augustus in 27 BC, the Roman Empire dominated the Mediterranean world for about 500 years. The Emperors had absolute control over the lives of as many as 70 million people - from Hadrian's Wall in Britain to the Euphrates River in what is now Iraq.

The Roman legions were the largest and most powerful military the world had ever known, and peace and prosperity reigned without interruption for centuries at a time. The famous historian Edward Gibbon describes this as the best time to be alive in the entire history of the world. Yet in 476 AD the last emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was removed from power at the whim of the barbarian general Odovacer. What events led the most powerful empire in the world to its dramatic collapse?

The question of the fall of the Roman Empire has been debated for 1500 years, but new evidence suggests that the wealth and prosperity of Rome may have been the cause of its own downfall. According to a new theory, environmental damage, and particularly deforestation, to meet the needs of the luxurious elite caused a whole host of problems eventually weakening the Empire to the point that it could no longer stand.

Here are a few of the most prominent and important causes of deforestation: Building With Wood

The Fall of the Roman Empire
So, what was the end result of this all? In essence, at the same time as neighbouring barbarian tribes became more powerful and organised, Rome became a starving parasite which had sucked its land dry. Population began to decrease, and with a worthless coinage and empty treasury there was no way to pay the army. Eventually, in 376 AD, there was no longer any way to keep the barbarians out, and the borders were overrun by a series of invasions. 476 is the year usually given as the official fall of Rome - but it was nothing but an empty shell for many decades before that, a victim of its own rapacious hunger and unwillingness to develop sustainable systems. As the great Roman orator Cicero said in a speech which no one apparently heeded:

serit arbores quae alteri seculo prosint
'He plants trees so that another age may profit'.

Progress Can Kill

Speaking about the desperate health situation of his people, Davi argues that the only way to save the rainforest is to save the Indians, by recognising their land rights ‘Progress can kill’ details for the first time how separation from their lands leads to the physical and mental breakdown of tribal peoples:

‘You napëpë (whites) talk about what you call ‘development’ and tell us to become the same as you. But we know that this brings only disease and death. Now you want to buy pieces of rainforest, or to plant biofuels. These are useless.

‘The forest cannot be bought; it is our life and we have always protected it. Without the forest, there is only sickness, and without us, it is dead land. The time has come for you to start listening to us. Give us back our lands and our health before it’s too late for us and too late for you.’ Survival International

Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, shaman speaks of the coming of the white people, and the dream of origins:

Discovering the white people
A long time ago, my grandparents, who lived on the headwaters of the Toototobi River, sometimes visited other Yanomami established in the lowlands along the Aracá River. It was there that they met white people for the first time. During those visits our old ones got their first machetes. They told me that many times, when I was a child.

But it was a lot later, when we lived at Marakana, closer to the mouth of the Toototobi River, that the white people first visited our home. At the time our old ones were still all alive and we were many, I remember. I was a boy, but was beginning to become conscious of things. It was there that I started to grow up and discovered the white people. I had never seen them, I knew nothing about them. When I saw them I cried, I was so afraid.

The adults had already met them a few times, but I hadn’t! I thought they were cannibal spirits that were going to devour us. I thought that they were very ugly, whitish and hairy. They were so different they terrified me. Besides, I couldn’t understand a single one of their entangled words. It sounded like they spoke a ghost’s language.

The old ones used to say that they stole children, that they had already captured some and taken them when they went up the Mapulaú River, in the past. That’s also why I was so scared: I was sure that they were going to take me away too. My grandparents had already told that story many times.

When those strangers would come into our house my mother would hide me under a large basket in the back of our house. Then she’d say, ‘Don’t be afraid! Don’t say a word!’, and I stayed there, trembling under my basket, saying nothing. I remember it, but I must have been very small at the time or I wouldn’t have fit under that basket! My mother would hide me because she too was afraid that the white people would take me with them, like they had stolen those children the first time.

Later I really began to grow up and to think straight, but I continued to ask myself, ‘What are the white people doing here? Why do they open paths in our forest?’ The older ones would answer, ‘No doubt they come to visit our land in order to live here with us later!’ They understood nothing of the white people’s language; that’s why they let them enter their lands in such a friendly way. Had they understood their words, I think they would have expelled them.

Those white people fooled them with their presents. They gave them axes, machetes, knives, clothes. In order to make their distrust sleep they would say, ‘We, the white people, will never leave you deprived of things, we will give you many of our products and you will become our friends!’ But, shortly thereafter, almost all of our relatives died in an epidemic, then in another one. Later, a lot of other Yanomami again died when the highway entered the forest and many more when the garimpeiros (gold prospectors) arrived with their malaria. But this time I had already become an adult and I thought straight; I really knew what the white people wanted when they entered our land.

In the land of the white people
When I saw Europe, the white people’s land, I was distressed. Some cities are beautiful, but the noise never stops. They run around in them with cars, on the streets and even with trains underground. There’s a lot of noise and people all over. One’s mind becomes dark and entangled, one can no longer think straight. That’s why the thoughts of the white people are full of dizziness and they don’t understand our words. All they say is, ‘We are very happy to roll and fly! Let’s continue! Let’s look for oil, gold, iron!’ The thought of those white is obstructed, that’s why they mistreat the land, stripping it everywhere, and they dig it even under their houses. They don’t think that one day it will end up collapsing.

We, we want the forest to be kept as it is, always. We want to live in it with good health, and we want the xapïripë [shamanic] spirits, the game and the fish to continue to live in it. We plant only the plants that feed us, we want no factories, no holes in the ground, nor dirty rivers. We want the forest to remain quiet, the sky to remain clear, the evening darkness to really fall and for the stars to be seen.

The white people’s lands are polluted, they are covered by a smoke- epidemic that has extended very high to the sky’s bosom. This smoke is coming towards us but has not reached us yet, because the celestial spirit Hutukarari still repels it incessantly. Above our forest the sky is still clear, because the white people haven’t been coming close to us for that long. But later, when I’m dead, maybe this smoke will grow big to the point of extending darkness over the earth and turning off the sun. The white people never think of these things that the shamans know, that’s why they are not afraid. Their thought is filled with forgetfulness.

Dreams of the origins
The xapiripë [shamanic] spirits have danced for the shamans since the earliest time and continue to do so now. They look like human beings but are as minuscule as particles of shining dust. In order to see them one has to inhale the powder of the yãkõanahi tree many, many times.

The xapiripë dance together on great mirrors that come down from the sky. They are never grey like the humans. They are always magnificent: their bodies are painted with urucum [annatto paint] and lined with black drawings, their heads are covered with white feathers of king vulture, their beaded arm straps are full of parrot, cujubim [a type of bird] and red macaw feathers, their waists are wrapped with toucan tails.

Thousands of them come to dance together, waving leaves of young palms, emitting cries of joy and singing ceaselessly. Their path looks like spider’s thread sparkling like moonlight and their feather ornaments move slowly at the pace of their steps. It’s a joy to see how beautiful they are!

The spirits are so numerous because they are the images of the forest animals. Everything in the forest has an utupë image: those who walk on the ground, those who climb in the trees, those who have wings, those who live in the water. It is those images that the shamans call and make come down to become xapiripë spirits.

Those images are the true centre, the true interior of the forest beings. Common people cannot see them, only the shamans. But they are not images of the animals we know today. They are the images of these animals’ fathers, they are our ancestors’ images. In the First Time, when the forest was still young, our ancestors were humans with the names of animals and ended up becoming prey. It is them whom we kill with arrows and eat today. But their images have not disappeared and it is they who dance for us as xapiripë spirits.

White people draw their words because their thoughts are filled with forgetfulness. We have kept the words of our ancestors within us for a long time and we continue to pass them on to our children. The children who know nothing about the spirits hear the chants of the shamans and then want to see the spirits in their turn. This is how, even though they are very old, the words of the xapiripë always become new again. It is they who increase our thoughts. It is they who make us see and know far away things, the things of the old ones. It is our study, which teaches us how to dream. Survival-international.org

EarthStar Chronicles

Now and then there are humans born who can see wood elves. When humans can see wood elves, they can also see the trees. In each forest on earth there are trees. The humans who can see wood elves realised that within the trees grow teacher trees.

There was a time in earth's history when the orcs were cuting down the trees. The orcs were cutting down the wise teacher trees, but as humans generally could not see wood elves, trees nor teacher trees - it did not seem to matter that the orcs were cutting down the trees in the forests. If you don't see the trees, you wont notice when they are gone...

One day a human who could see the wood elves, noticed that the orcs were cutting down the wise teacher trees. The human went to the wood elves and asked them why the orcs go out of their way to cut down the key teacher trees who hold together the forests? Obviously, at this rate the orcs would soon have no more trees to cut down. They seemed to need the wood of the trees to fire the decline in man... "The old world will burn in the fires of industry. Forests will fall. A new order will rise.." Saruman - Lord of The Rings

The wood elves told the humans that the elves taught the trees and the trees taught the humans. One day, when the humans waken up, they will remember [and they will go seek out the wise trees......] Humans once talked with trees and they will do so again. The trees taught humans to look and to understand the stars. Today the humans look at the stars and do not see the trees. They have forgotten the ancient knowledge. The trees came from the stars.

During storms, the wise trees drop a branch or two for the rune maker. The wood elves told the human that the runes taught man about the structure behind the stars. The trees taught humans to observe the heavens and the branches of the trees taught man about the force that moves behind the stars. Mankind has forgotten this knowledge. When man remembers the wisdom of the runes he can return to the stars. The orcs are not cutting down the trees in the forests, they are cutting down mankind's return to the stars.

One day humans will remember the wisdom of the stars and they will turn to look for the trees who showed them this wisdom. The forests fuel the seeded journey of mankind in ways that man has yet to understand. The wise trees are the navigator trees, and the orcs are cutting apart the shared journey of humankind. When you cut down the forests and trees you cut down the shared journey of mankind.

The - future - humans who see the wood elves are looking for the trees.
The - present - trees are looking for the humans.
- Zen-Su

Selling Public Forests For Private Interests

Future generations are being sold out by the German state to subsidise private mis-management of Germany's natural resources.

Choking on Spruce in Germany
By Gerald Traufetter

Half a year ago, the storm Kyrill toppled more than 40 million trees in Germany, most of them in planned spruce forests. But now, instead of environmentally appropriate replanting, foresters are returning to monocultures.

Tree farmer Georg Feldmann-Schütte's business is still booming. His mobile phone rings practically every minute. "Drive to the track where you loaded up yesterday," he shouts into the phone, barking his orders in a rapid staccato. "That was a truck driver," he explains, apologizing for the interruption. "We have to get the timber out of the forest as quickly as possible."

"Forest" is perhaps not quite the right word. For the past six months since the storm, entire hillsides here have been covered with a jumble of fallen trees. "It looks like a giant sat down here," Feldmann-Schütte jokes.

Speed is of the essence for Feldmann-Schütte's operation. The longer the lumber lies around, the more likely it is to get infested by bark beetles. Besides, the color of the wood darkens over time, and furniture makers aren't interested in dark wood. "Then we'll only be able to sell it as cheap firewood," Feldmann-Schütte explains.

The Frenzy Will Soon End
The high winds of the storm known as "Kyrill" (more...) mowed down at least 65 of his 100 hectares (247 acres) of forest. Feldmann-Schütte, a native of Schmallenberg in Germany's central Sauerland region, comforts himself with the knowledge that he was lucky not to have lost everything. He now has to sell at least 2,000 cubic meters of solid wood to sawmills.

But the frenzy will soon end, and once everything has been cleared away and seedlings are in the ground along his hillsides, life will return to its normal, quiet pace for Feldmann-Schütte. "Then I can sit back and watch the trees grow for the next 25 years," he says.

Kyrill, which swept across Germany on Jan. 18, was one of the most powerful storms to hit the country in decades. It knocked over even more trees in Germany than another major winter storm, Lothar, did at Christmas 1999. Kyrill left tree farmers, many in the mountainous Sauerland region, wondering what to do with at least 41 million fallen trees.

That was half a year ago, and now it has become clear that the damage left in Kyrill's wake hasn't made foresters and tree farmers any smarter. In many places they are planting fast-growing plantations of conifers once again. Feldmann-Schütte is no exception. "I can't afford any experiments," he says, apologetically.

Ironically, it was precisely spruce trees that suffered the most damage from the storm's high winds. For decades, environmentally savvy foresters have been preaching the same mantra: "If you want to destroy the forest, plant spruce, spruce and more spruce." Kyrill proved them right. Sixty-five percent of all toppled trees were spruce.

Farmer's Bread and Butter
Environmentalists hate the trees almost as much as the forestry industry loves them. The spruce grows quickly, becoming tall and as straight. Partly because the spruce is the ideal tree for producing long boards, it is considered the tree farmer's bread and butter.

On the other hand, the spruce has shallow roots, making it vulnerable to storms. "The dry weather of the last three years has also weakened them," says Peter Wohlleben, a forest ranger from Hümmel, a village of 500 inhabitants in Germany's western Eifel Mountains region. Wohlleben embodies the type of forest ranger who has switched to environmentally sound forest management.

Kyrill also raged across the 1,300 hectares Wohlleben managers as forest ranger. "But the high percentage of deciduous trees limited our damage," he says happily. Beech trees are predominant in his forest, but maples and rowan trees have also sowed themselves without much effort on Wohlleben's part. All of these species shed their leaves in the winter, when the most powerful storms typically rage. "It's the most natural form of storm protection," Wohlleben explains.

In his view Kyrill, despite the widespread destruction it caused, created the opportunity for a new beginning, and the introduction of a more natural -- and sustainable -- approach to forest management. It could allow an attractive forest to develop and replace the spruce forest. Why, Wohlleben asks, shouldn't this disaster herald the end of monocultures, in which the range of species is as narrow as in a cornfield?

'Forestry Is Like Piloting a Tanker'
More important, a shift in forestry methods could help prepare German forests for global warming. Climate researchers' forecasts for the year 2100 seem a long way off for many people, but not for tree farmers. "A tree I plant today will be harvested at the end of the century," says Wohlleben, who believes that now is the time to draw the right conclusions from climate models. "Forestry is like piloting a tanker. We too take a long time to stop or change course."

All climate researchers agree on one point: Spruce trees will not be able to survive Germany's climate for much longer as it gets warmer and dryer. The Bavarian Forest Institute (LWF) recently concluded that, as temperatures rise, Germany will no longer be in the climate zone in which the spruce can survive. It's a different story altogether with the beech tree, which is native to Germany and will repopulate the areas left empty as spruce trees die out.

Or at least they will if they are allowed to. But Wohlleben and his fellow activists at the Working Group for Natural Forest Management (ANW) have noted with great concern a return to the days of monoculture. "What we believed had disappeared decades ago is returning, slowly but surely," he says. Because the spruce is susceptible to natural disasters, profit-oriented tree farmers have increasingly been using the Douglas fir, a conifer from the western United States, and the American coastal pine. Both trees are considered relatively heat- and storm-resistant.

But as foreign species they carry ecological risks. Because Douglas firs are not native to Germany's forests, the local flora and fauna, especially microscopic organisms, do not establish habitats in the new environment. "The forest deteriorates into a species-poor desert," says Wohlleben. Only the bark beetle has become accustomed to the Douglas fir so far, and is already infesting it with gusto.

Ecologically Crazy
But the trees can also import new pests from abroad. German gardeners are currently experiencing this phenomenon with their Colorado pines as they notice the sticky trails of the bark louse, a native of North America, on the trunks.

But tree farmers are undeterred by these risks. Hans Graf von der Goltz, the national chairman of the ANW, fears the return of monocultures where Kyrill has knocked down entire forests. "They'll grow Douglas fir or spruce in monoculture and harvest everything after 60 years," says Goltz, a senior forestry official from Schmallenberg. "And if a storm takes care of harvesting the trees, the plantation owners certainly won't mind."

Environmental activists are especially outraged that the state has even gone back to subsidizing this far-from-sustainable practice. According to the guidelines for reforestation following Kyrill that the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation, Agriculture and Consumer Protection of the state of North Rhine Westphalia will announce this month, the state will pay a subsidy of 40 euro cents per seedling, even in forests which are 50 percent conifers. "And this despite the fact that in the past conifers were no longer supported," complains Bernd Dierdorf, the head of the forestry office in the north central city of Minden.

The subsidy program, at a cost of more than €100 million, is being financed partly from the sale of state-owned forest land. In a memo dated May 8 of this year, the ministry asked its forestry management offices to identify suitable parcels of land. According to internal sources, 26,000 hectares (64,220 acres) of forest have already been registered with the ministry. This is a scandal for Dierdorf. "They want to give away the family silver to promote forestry which is ecologically crazy," he says. Spiegel.de

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

The Coming Storm

At some point in the future the people in Germany are going to have to take the forests out of private hands and move these vitally important ecological resources away from petty euro-minded short term private interests. The reason behind these future moves will be ecologically sound resource management of the environment to ensure sustainable practices for future generations.

At the moment the groups sitting in control of the public lands in Germany are selling the valuable forestry resources, and are selling out the resources of the German people. In the not too distant future all this will change. Many diverging factors will come together to stimulate that change. People will no longer tolerate the private ownership and the disasterous mis-management of the natural forest lungs of Germany. The people will have no choice, if they continue to accept this abuse of the ecological resources they will lose all of it. I don't see that happening. Losing those resources is not a future people in Germany want their grandchildren to inherit.

The private owners plant the wrong trees, the increasingly powerful storms destroy the tree plantations and the state sell off public land to subsidise the private planting of more (waiting to be blown down) mono-culture tree plantations. Does anyone smell a bad smell here? It stinks down to the last rotten core, and rather than cry over this sell-out people will simply have to reverse this (at some point).

It is possible that, at some point, more severe storms will further damage the privately owned mono-culture plantations and all the money paid by the public purse to subsidise the previous disasters will be lost. Why are the resources of the many being paid to subsidise the few? The pay-out is not even viable nor sustainable. Meanwhile, the natural forests are being cut down at an ever increasing rate because the demand is for Oak, Beech and Pine... You don't have to be Einstein to figure out what is happening here!

The doomsday clock is ticking, and only people with a sense of integrity will be able to turn events around to avoid a future disatser that does not have to be. We are destroying our own future. It is also possible that a complete change in climate, in the human climate, will one day hold these people accountable for their criminal actions. I don't see them getting away with it in the future. What is happening today is a total mis-management of public resources. To save the forests the climate change will have to effect the minds of humans living on the planet at this time.

One Last Chance To Change

Before the tipping point is reached the people in Germany (and in Europe) will receive a number of natural warnings. If nothing is done to safeguard what is left of the ecological sound forest resources, then the future devastation will run out of control and little can be done to stop it. The tipping point will be similar to the sinking of the Titanic, once the hull is breached and the ship sinks - it sinks - and that is what people will experience.

People still have alternatives, they do not have to allow the state to sell out the future of their children, the future can be changed before the hull is breached. The changes will probably arise out of a great sadness and an urgency to preserve what is left of the German forests. To do this the current practices of mis-management and the paying of public funds to support non-sustainable short sighted practices will have to stop. The public will not have to 'buy back' the lands, they have already paid hundreds of millions to the forest farms, only to see them fail and fall back into debt. This will eventually lead to judicial challenges as people waken up to the real disaster and public betrayal.

In the coming years, as events unfold, people will have to decide to accept business as usual or to move to protect what is left of their environment. The warnings from nature will be a 'wake up call' to protect what is left of the sustainable environment or allow the present system to run amok and sell out the future for a few Euro. Which future do you want for yourselves and your grandchildren? It is for you to decide.

Climate change? That is a very simplistic description of what is about to happen on this planet. The short-sighted euro greed mis-management of essential resources will not hold out against the dramatic changes in climate we are all about to see. These unnatural mono-plantations will not only be suceptible to disease, but they will not be able to hold out against the coming storm. The correction will have to be a universal one, or how much longer do you think you can continue to sell off public land to pay out more 'subsidies' for incompetance and non-sustainable private plantations?

Spruce Monocultures in the Czech Republic

Future Tree Trouble
A Compilation of Testimonies on the Negative Impact of Large-scale Monoculture Tree Plantations prepared for the sixth Conference of the Parties of the Framework Convention on Climate Change by Friends of the Earth International in cooperation with the World Rainforest Movement and FERN.

The Sumava Mountains Case Study
This case study examines the pitfalls of a forestry which relies on monoculture plantations, and in doing so offers a warning about the ecologically devastating effects that joint implementation and other flexible mechanisms in the Kyoto Protocol could have on forests in the Czech Republic and elsewhere unless monoculture plantations are strictly prohibited.

The history of spruce monocultures in the Czech Republic reaches back to the second half of the eighteenth century. Since that time, Czech forests have been devastated by over-exploitation. The replacement of wood (until then the main source of energy, including for heating) by coal allowed for a reduction in wood harvesting, essentially saving Czech lands from complete deforestation. Around the same time, the science of forestry was born, with its goal of assuring an adequate supply of wood in future years.

The first foresters quickly discovered that some species of trees (spruce, fir, pine) have better production features than others and started to selectively replant forested areas - especially with spruce and pine, since the shade-loving fir does not grow well in deforested areas. The foresters thus replaced other species with mostly spruce trees, and with pines in the lower elevations. They later harvested the wood; this clearcutting and planting method was the preferred "forest" management strategy.

Both the monocultures and the clearcuts had disastrous impacts on the health of forest ecosystems in the Czech republic. What remained of natural original forest gradually decreased in area and became confinedmostly to inaccessible areas free of forest roads. The peak of this clearcut-and-monoculture management style was reached in the 1970s.

Spruce Plantations and their Impacts
High mountain spruce forests are the only example of natural spruce forest in the Czech Republic (natural spruce growth at low elevations is very rare). Mountain spruce growth can be found in harsh climatic conditions at elevations higher than 1000 meters above sea level and in cold mountain valleys where the only other species that can survive are mountain-ash, birch, sycamore and maple.

Spruce monocultures have replaced not only natural mountain spruce forests but also fir-beech forests of middle elevations and oak forests of lower elevations. This means that foresters are growing spruce under conditions which are not suitable for it (out of its ecological optimum).

If the expected global climate change occurs, spruce vegetation might migrate to the higher elevations and natural spruce growth would remain only at the top of the few highest peaks in the Czech mountains. In such a case we can also expect a mass degradation of spruce monocultures at lower elevations where the spruce will be completely out of its ecological habitat. With this is mind it is incomprehensible that 50 per cent of forests at these lower elevations are still reforested with spruce.

The inner structure of forests is significantly changed by the growth of spruce monocultures. The forest structure in a monoculture contains an artificially high stand density, trees all of the same age and species, and results in closure of the tree canopy. The vertical diversity is minimized (lower younger and higher older trees and various bushes are missing) and herbs are ruthlessly suppressed due to the increased shade (mostly in the younger growths).

The reduction in species and genetic diversity is even more radical owing to the monotony of structure and decrease in sunlight. The methods used to extract wood during clearcuts further damage many species of plants, animals and micro-organisms, which are killed directly or indirectly by loss of habitat.

Because all the wood is removed, the forests forego the period of decomposition which is an irreplaceable source of biodiversity. Clearcuts completely change the character of the vegetation, as the clearings (paseka) are soon covered by light-loving species like the red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa), great willow herb (Chamerion angustifolium) and grove ragwort (Senecio ovatus). In the last decade an invasive bush reed grass (Calamagrostis epigejos) has dangerously expanded within the spruce monocultures (in the mountain areas it is complimented by hairy reed grass - Calamagrostis villosa) and it represses the majority of native forest species. The expansion of the range of spruce monocultures has caused a radical decline in most forest herbs, which under ordinary circumstances form a green ground cover in leafy and mixed forests.

Forest hydrology is also disrupted by such changes, as is the water system in the countryside at large. Interception and absorption of precipitation are reduced. World Rainforest Movement


Knowing all this, why are public resources being sold in Germany to pay for the present and future private incompetance of a disaster waiting to happen. Who will pick up the ecological and financial price tag in the future? These mono-culture plantations are a white collar crime. The plantations damage the natural ecological balance, damage natural species habitat and create the spread of non-native mono-culture-disease. Public resources are paying for this? It is insane.

In 2067 - Who Wants Spruce Trees?

"They'll grow Douglas fir or spruce in monoculture and harvest everything after 60 years."

The short-sightedness of this move to cultivate quick sell spruce and fir mono-plantations across Germany is really hard to believe. Between 2007 and the 'harvesting date' in 2067 a lot will have changed. I doubt that the world will still be relying on wood resources in the year 2067.

Hemp will soon become a leading alternative to wood, and for good reason: the planet just does not have the resources to keep feeding the growing demand for trees. At some point people will be forced to change to Hemp products as well as utilising new innovations to move mankind away from relying on forests to fire the continued development of human society.

Not only that! People, in the future, will think and act differently than they do today. Priorities will have changed, and business as usual will not be an option. The primitive logging practices will most probably be as extinct as the dinosaurs, and new more ecologially sound practices will be developed. The way we live and consume resources today is both unpractical and wasteful. This current insanity cannot continue.

The only reason Hemp is not used today to replace paper and wood products, is because the political and commercial setup is configured to ensure business as usual for the forestry and timber trade etc etc. However, growing Hemp is the way of the future, and the people will look back on this period as a dark and corrupt age in human history. Right now we are living in that darkness.

In 2067, who wants Spruce trees?
Duh?!!

From German Oak Trees To Chinese Chopsticks

Chinese Dragon Devours Germany's Forests
Anjana Shrivastava, Writer and Journalist

Germans are afraid of a new kind of Faustian bargain, in which the nation will be tempted by the devil to sell off its forests, thereby selling its very soul down the river as well. In this drama, Germany plays the troubled hero with Europe's largest reserves of the valuable commodity of wood. The role of the devil is played by the ecologically reckless Chinese dragon, hungry to devour all the world's forests.

"From Oak Trees to Chopsticks", is a headline found in the Westfälische Allgemeine Zeitung. The paper tries to measure the potential threat posed by the growing Chinese demand for wood; so far, there are only rumours of imminent Chinese purchases of stretches of the German woods.

The Chinese haven't even touched one tree, but Germany has already set off alarms. Will the good old German forest be sold off? This would involve a sale of souls, if we believe Christoph Rullmann, Director of the Society for the Protection of the German Forest. According to him, very few countries have such an intimate relationship to their woodlands, which he calls "the soul of the Germans."

Wildfire of rumours
The wildfire of rumours began when a North German real estate agent, Matthias Manthey, began to advertise nationally that Chinese investors were highly interested in buying up pieces of the German forest. If he was unspecific on the details, he claimed that his Chinese clients were buying German forests "as the devil may care." Germany's union of forest workers picked up on his story and appealed to the nation to put an end to the sell out before it really got underway.

Private forest owners like Count Carl-Eduard von Bismarck began to issue denials like this one: "A sale of the Saxonian Forest (Schleswig Holstein) to the Chinese was never and is not currently planned." More denials came from state governments like that of Schleswig Holstein, which has been looking to sell off some of its forest lands. Manthey claims that the sales to the Chinese are being made through middle men and stooges. The head of the forest workers' union workers, Bernhard Dierdorf affirmed to the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung "No forest owner would allow himself to be caught making such a sale, because in Germany the forest is so highly emotionally charged."

Forest is seen as the ancestral home of the nation
Why does selling a piece of forest border on treason? Because it was from the depths of the woods that the Germanic tribes dealt the Roman Empire its first signal defeat in Northern Europe at the Battle of the Teutoburger Forest in the year 9 A.D. In many nations the woods have been considered the home of lowly robbers mainly; in England the greenwood was the home of liberty in the form of Robin Hood and his band of merry men. But in Germany, the forest was seen as the ancestral home of the entire nation.

The feelings run very deep in the popular mind. A reader of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung sees these reports of a forest sell off as a "sell out of ourselves, our identity, and everything for which our ancestors have fought and suffered."

It is one thing when German forest owners sell their wood to China: one third of German wood exports goes to China, including oak in ever greater quantities. Germany, after all, is an export economy par excellence. But it is another thing when foreign investors, especially ones as "foreign" as the Chinese, buy the living woods and propose to manage them.

Various worries
The various worries which have been expressed are that the Chinese will not replant the trees they chop down, or that they will replant with them with a monoculture of fast-growing pine trees. Or that they will not take care of the hiking trails through the forest, or even that they will charge admission to Germans to enter their ancestral groves. That Chinese investors will theoretically be bound by the same laws as German forest owners today is not enough for many Germans, who have seen traditional regulations give way to the rules of the market in other areas of German life in recent years.

Sales of the forest is a matter of national (emotional) security, as if they could place the national soul at the disposal of strangers. The taz argues in this manner: "It is not only the forest workers who are deeply disturbed. This is about the spiritual ground of the German soul, bought up and slaughtered for cheap imports from abroad?"

Indeed the vast majority of what China buys up in wood gets sold back to the West as finished goods, as cheap imports. Thus, the guilt of selling the wood is more or less compounded by the guilt of buying it back later. In Goethe's "Faust" the devil promises to fulfill the desires of Faust in this world in exchange for Faust's soul in the afterlife. Is it really the Chinese who threaten the German woods, or is it developments in Germany itself? The Financial Times Deutschland tries to downplay the Chinese threat in: "Red Scare for the Green Wood".

German forest is unattractive for investors
"It is highly arguable whether German forests would really be interesting for investors given their ownership structure. About 46 % of the forests are privately owned, all the rest are owned by federal, state and local governments. The private forests are mainly small, under 30 hectares. Those are completely unattractive dimensions for investors, according to the associations of forest owners. And state and local governments will hardly be interested in selling to investors, given the public outcry which would surely ensue."

The threat to the forest is for the taz a central problem for modern Germany, "In all this chaos, the German forest endures peacefully, it could continue to do so for many hundreds of years. To simply cut it down for quick money, --well, a better image for the insanity of unbridled capitalism could hardly be found." And with that comes the other Faustian dimension in this story. Dr. Faustus spoke of his deep conflicts by claiming that he had two souls in his breast, one that clung to nature and one which strove to overcome it.

Germany today also has two souls, a capitalist one which still strives to compete as an exporter with the Chinese dragon, and an anti-capitalist one which resists the effects of globalization. The capitalist soul powers the modern industries of Baden Württemberg and Bavaria, The anti-capitalist one, as we have just seen at the protests at Heiligendamm, will take up its issue in the woods, in the very heart of the oldest of national myths. Stay tuned for more conflict. Debatte.welt.de

Saving The German Forests

During my first visit to Germany, some years ago, I was staying in the area of the Odenwald and on the first night I woke up out of a dream I never ever forgot. At the time, and for many years, I never really understood this dream fully; but now I understand it. In the dream I was above the earth and was being shown the destruction of the Odenwald by some spiritually advanced beings and perhaps the oversoul of the forest itself. In the dream this destruction was happening in my lifetime, and because I know how much the German people care for the remnant forests that are left today, I could not imagine that they would ever allow the remaining forests to be destroyed.

This dream showed me that deception would be behind the destruction of Germanys remaining forests, and especially the Odenwald. Since then I have carefully observed events to see if any of this could be true. In the dream I was shown that once the forests in Germany were destroyed that the destruction of the German people would follow. It all sounds highly unlikely, unless you understand that on a spiritual level (as well as on a practical level) the forests protect the spiritual and physical existence of the people. Obviously, what we do to the forests and trees we eventually do to ourselves.

The dream was not showing me that events were set in stone, it was warning that if certain events play themselves out, those events will lead to the destruction of the people in Germany (in the future). It was said to me that the fate of the German people is intertwined with the fate of their forests. The remaining forests are the soul of the German people. Who would sell their soul for pieces of nickle plated tin? Or, maybe centralised powers will sell the souls of the German people, as was shown to me in the dream.

Long before the current expansion of the European Union, and the mass migrations we are now seeing, I was shown tens of thousands of people pouring into Germany and all of them were demanding resources and housing. The dream was very graphic and so I saw the trees (the forests) being cut down to make way for the massive influx of immigrant populations, and this is now happening. For example, the smaller towns are being rapidly developed through large investments of capital (probably from the development fund of the EU). This year houses are going up everywhere. It is expansion and growth, and nothing to do with conserving resources and protecting 'green zones'. That which was once green is being cut down to make way for grey. The 'green zone' has been reduced to a spindley sick looking tree dug out of a tree nursery and planted amid the recently poured mass of concrete. The older trees are gone, nothing must stand in the way of EU expansion. One day soon people will deeply regret this mistake.

I was not only shown the destruction of the Odenwald, I was shown details of how the forests in Germany would be sold off. These were businessmen, hand in hand with developers and regional politicians. They were meeting (in secret) and forming public policy to meet the demends of business and development corporations, and the regional politicians (in the dream) were in the pockets of the developers. It was a sell-off and a sell-out of public lands and resources. At the time I could not see how this would ever be possible in Germany.

The dream was very clear about how the forests would be destroyed due to betrayal and deception. Also due to high level lies and manipulation. Areas of Germany I know were not being logged until a couple of years ago, when the whole process of destruction began. They come into Nature parks and public areas and each year they pull out more and more trees. It just does not stop. The forests are getting thinner and thinner and less able to withstand increasingly severe storms. People are being sold the public relations mantra of: 'forest management' and cutting to make the forests 'healthy and strong'. If you study what they are actually doing, they are cutting into the forests in ways that are damaging the forest environment.

The mature trees are protecting the younger trees, and in the future the older trees will take the brunt of the storms and protect the new forest underneath. This has always been the case. The forests grow in cycles. There are key locations where the elite houses stop on the edge of forest areas that cannot be developed (yet). If the forests are damaged by current logging practices, then those damaged areas will be devastated by the severe storms which will sweep Europe in the years ahead. That is when the developers will come in and make money out of those devastated areas. This is prime untouched real-estate waiting to be exploited. As long as the trees are standing and are protected from development the areas cannot be touched.

There is a beautiful natural area, which is supposed to be a 'Nature park', which is currently being logged and they have marked all the key mature trees that balance and protect that part of the forest. Once they take those trees down the area will be a skeleton of trees, and this is a location that takes a lot of force from the storms that sweep through the area. It is also potentially prime real-estate for developers. The damage has not yet been done, but we are getting close to the tipping point. Once that tipping point has been crossed, there is no turning back. Then the unheard cries of the trees will be the future unheard cries of the people.

The most important warning in the dream, is that the future destruction of the forests in Germany, to make way for expansion and development, would be planned in secret behind closed doors. The key factor was that the strong regulations protecting the natural areas in Germany were getting in the way of growth and development. In the worst possible scenario, the planners and the regional politicians will get away with it and the German forests will be destroyed, and that is a very dark future. I was shown that end result future, from which I woke up with tears filling my eyes. The last thing I heard as I woke was a voice, as though the forest itself was speaking. The voice said: "Destroy the Odenwald and all of Germany will share the same fate."

It is not just the Odenwald, it is all of Germany's forests. The trees are of more value to the people and the world alive and standing. The small short term gain that a few people make for themselves in cutting down the trees and selling them is the future destruction of the essential environment that is behind the climate that keeps Germany (and Europe) alive. The more damage done to the forests, the more danger there is of extreme climate shift in terms of drought, loss of water resources, loss of air quality and a severely damaged essential to life habitat. To then sell that land to foreign investors is cultural and environmental suicide. No one should own these lands, they are the inheritance of the people. The forests should be protected, not sold off and not cut down.

Killing Forests In Germany

Over the past couple of years I have observed, not only an increase in the logging of trees in the Nature parks in Germany, but a brutality to the logging that just about wipes out everything in the surrounding 'logging areas'. This year in particular I have noticed an increase in the dark, grubby little, pfennig grabbing destructive greed that is destroying our grandchildren's natural habitat. It all comes down to money, and that ownership of the local natural resources should never be in the hands of people who grub after money.

Where do the marvelous trees one sees each day in the woods and forests of Germany end up? Who are these faceless people selling and cutting the future natural resources of the unborn children? Where does the money go, how do they sell off the forests of the German people? Who comes in and cuts the wood? Who benefits as the older and younger trees are felled?

The marvelous pine and oak trees, the acacia and beech trees, the walnut and the fir trees one sees in the Nature parks are being quietly sold off year by year for what? Trees that would outlive the humans now selling them and cutting them down are being removed from the land, destroying an irreplacable, valuable, ecological asset. The trees do more ALIVE to protect against 'global warming', than they do chopped up into little pieces to provide you with 'Bio-fuel'.

This is what I suspect is happening, on top of the increasing demand for wood as the European monster spreads it consumer oriented growth at the cost of the local environment, quality of the water, quality of the air, of the soil and at the cost of our lives. People do not yet understand that what happens to the trees happens to us.

A little further down the road, when the sawdust hits the fan, all these people who have sold out on future generations will be hated and despised. By then it will be too late for everyone. The money grubbing euro-slaves will have detstroyed the ecological balance for everyone, and what do they care that you go down the toxic drain with them? The anger that is coming will overthrow governments, and will throw all these pseudo-grey-greens out of the community picture for good. Will it all be too late?

Who cuts the trees, and where do they go? Who sells the trees? Who takes account of how they destroy the ecology of areas? What do they care? Did someone say bio-fuel? There wont be a building standing when the truth of this scam hits the real economy. The rage people will feel may also probably be too late. Too late for the people, and too late for the trees.

This is only the beginning of a lot of people getting bio-rich. By the time the scandal brings those people and institutions to their knees, the wonderful forests will be sawdust and wood chippings. Your grandchildrens tears wont bring them back to life. We are reaching the tipping point. Really you don't want to know what beyond the tipping point is like, but I think that this is probably what the future will bring.

Look at the rising price of wheat, and the falling supplies, due to the increase in (bio-fuel) demand. Look at the falling trees (locally) and the increase in demand (locally). Will your favorite (recently cut down oak tree), that was in the forest long before you were born, be the wood-chippings in your tank? If you knew that this was the tree they turned into fuel for you to burn, would you care? What will you say to your grandchildren when they ask you about the long term sell out?

You should see the spindley new logging piles sitting (tagged) at the side of the road. They come into the forests now cutting through the months in size-variation waves. The logging is increasing. The ancient trees are disappearing rapidly and the future is disappearing with them.

Why spoil the fun? They are all so happy to be making money. Local community sellouts are the future sorrows of people who will hang their heads in shame, when the sell-out becomes a burn out. No one can yet imagine the tipping point, but when it is reached there is no turning back.

How is it that you are all being sold this lie about forests for bio-fuels, food for bio-fuels to save the planet? The trees save the planet when they are growing, and not when they are chopped down and dead, processed and burned. "In Germany, approximately 60 million solid measure of timber is felled each year..." Can Germany afford this? Maybe this year? Maybe next year? Does anybody care? They will one day!

"The Cambium forestry company cultivates a forest area of 32,500 acres located in Odenwald, a forest region in Southern Germany, close to Heidelberg." They are Germanies largest forest management company. If you saw the way they are logging through the local forests you would maybe wonder who is behind this increasing depletion of natural resources?

People will look back and ask how can a 'company' own the rights to destroy the natural resources of any part of the planet, the life blood of the local area? How can a few individuals and organisations control and benefit from resources that are essential to the ecology of the planet as well as the local environment? In the future, this wasteland approach to local resources does not exist. Before this happens, it seems that the scam will go on and the trees will fall. In the future they are trying to save the forests, not cut them down.

There are viable alternatives to cutting down trees, but the people benefitting from the exploitation of the forests do not want alternatives. Everyone else follows along with the way things are, until the sawdust hits the fan. You would have to watch it happening, year by year, to understand how people are being deceived and taken for a ride. The public image looks so clean, but the mess they have made of the local forests where I live are not a pretty sight and the demand is growing, while the trees are falling, and the real crisis is drawing ever near.

"This system is able to ensure a comprehensive documentation of all labour and transportation processes - from the forest, where the wood is harvested, to sawmills, where it is processed." Germany: Log Tracking System (LTS) Timberbuysell.com

Destroying Forests In Finnland
Paper Trade pdf

Old Forests Protect Environment

Old forests protect the planet, and humans need to start protecting the old forests.

GRANTS PASS Researchers have found soils in an old-growth forest in southern China are storing carbon at a rapid rate. If common to the soils of other old-growth forests, the finding could add combating global warming to the reasons for preserving them from logging, some scientists say.

Old forest sucks up greenhouse gas

By Jeff Barnard AP Environmental Writer
Friday, December 1, 2006 1:44 PM PST

The finding from soils in southern China goes against the generally accepted idea that old-growth forests are in balance, giving up as much carbon through decomposition as they take in from falling leaves and dying roots.

Why the soils act as a carbon sink remains unknown, but the study in today's edition of the journal Science gives a new way to think about how carbon works in old-growth forests, said Xuli Tang, a scientist with the South China Botanical Garden in Guangzhou, China, and co-author of the study.

“No country in the world has been trying to (preserve) old growth forest from carbon sink perspective because of the existence of the traditional paradigm,” although China is doing some large-scale forest restoration projects that could serve as significant carbon sinks, he said by e-mail.

Many scientists believe that an increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from burning oil and coal is causing rising temperatures around the globe that are changing the climate, melting polar ice caps, raising sea levels and contributing to a growing number of plant and animal species going extinct.

One strategy for combating global warming is finding ways to store carbon so it is not released into the atmosphere.

By virtue of their age, old-growth forest soils are generally believed to be in balance, with the amount of carbon added to the soil from falling leaves, branches and dying roots offset by an equal amount of carbon released by the microbes that eat the leaves, branches and roots.

The research was conducted in the Dinghushan Biosphere Reserve in the southern China province of Guangdong, which is covered with 400-year-old subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest.

Taking a total of 230 samples over 24 years from the top eight inches of soil, the researchers found organic carbon levels went from about 1.4 percent in 1979 to 2.35 percent in 2003, an increase of 68 percent.

John Aber, professor of environmental studies at the University of New Hampshire, who did not take part in the study, said he was skeptical of the results, because they go against the prevailing research and are based on a relatively small number of samples.

However, given the high rate of change found in the study, the increased carbon may be coming from some recent change in the environment, such as industrial pollution, he said.

That could happen two different ways, he said. Increased nitrogen in the air could fertilize the forest, leading to more leaves falling to the ground and increasing carbon in the soil. An increase in toxins falling to the forest floor or increased acidity would slow down decomposition, leaving more carbon in the soil.

“This isn't business as usual for an old-growth forest,” said Aber. “If this can be found to be generally the case in old-growth forests everywhere, it could have huge implications.

“I think at this point it is an unusual result, and would have to be repeated and documented in other old-growth forests.”

Tang said that over the course of the study, the researchers observed a decrease in the amount of leaves and branches falling to the forest floor, a decrease in soil moisture and an increase in soil acidity.

Christopher Field, director of the Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, did not take part in the study, but has worked in the Dinghushan Biosphere Reserve. He said the study may have caught the forest soils during an upswing in carbon storage, which is unlikely to be sustained.

“I think that this doesn't really change anything about the way we think of old-growth forests,” he said. “I guess it's solid evidence for the emerging consensus that old-growth forests are quite dynamic, that they have high rates of growth, high rates of decomposition, and at any period the balance between those could result in a net carbon storage or a net carbon loss.” TheWorldLink

Losing The Amazon

The Independent - 20 may 2005

400,000 The number of landless peasants in Brazil.

750 The number of tree species in a 16 sq mile slice of Amazon forest. In the same area there are also 125 species of mammals, 400 species of birds and 100 species of reptiles.

4 billion The tonnage of wood the paper industry will be consuming annually by 2020 if it keeps up its current rate of production.

5,600 The acreage of rainforest destroyed to establish one pulpwood plant, which then consumes 2,000 tons of wood every day producing the electricity needed to run the factory.

22 The percentage of Brazil's population that lives below the poverty line.

10 million The number of unemployed Brazilians, out of a labour market of 89 million.

40-50 The estimated number of years that the rainforest will survive if deforestation continues at its current rate.

2.7 million Acres of rainforest are destroyed in Brazil every year.

33 The percentage of the world's remaining rainforests that are found in Brazil.

17.3 per cent of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed.

137 Plant and animal species become extinct every day as a result of rainforest depletion.

1 A single Amazonian tree harbours as many species of ants as the entire British Isles.

40 The percentage of its annual income Brazil spends repaying its loans.

20 million people call the Amazon basin home, including 400 indigenous groups.

70 per cent of all logged timber ends up as unusable fragments or sawdust.

50 per cent of all the world's forests have disappeared.

1 million tons of wood are needed to produce enough charcoal to power a single Brazilian steel mill.

100 million hectares of land, or 20 per cent of the entire Amazon region, is held illegally according to the Brazilian government.

The Amazon Rainforest 2005

The Rape Of The Rainforest...

It is stark. It is scarcely believable. But the ruthless obliteration of the Amazon rainforest continues at a headlong rate new figures reveal - and today we reveal the man who more than any other represents the forces making it happen.

He is Blairo Maggi, the millionaire farmer and uncompromising politician presiding over the Brazilian boom in soya bean production. He is known in Brazil as O Rei da Soja - the King of Soy.

Brazilian environmentalists are calling him something else - the King of Deforestation. For the soya boom, feeding a seemingly insatiable world market for soya beans as cattle feed, is now the main driver of rainforest destruction.

Figures show that last year the rate of forest clearance in the Amazon was the second highest on record as the soy boom completed its third year. An area of more than 10,000 square miles - nearly the size of Belgium - was cut down, with half the destruction in the state of Mato Grosso, where Mr Maggi, whose Maggi Group farming business is the world's biggest soya bean producer, also happens to be the state governor.

Mr Maggi sheds no tears over lost trees. In 2003, his first year as governor, the rate of deforestation in Mato Grosso more than doubled.

In an interview last year he said: "To me, a 40 per cent increase in deforestation doesn't mean anything at all, and I don't feel the slightest guilt over what we are doing here. We are talking about an area larger than Europe that has barely been touched, so there is nothing at all to get worried about."

Many people violently disagree. The survival of the Amazon forest, which sprawls over 4.1 million sq km (1.6 million sq miles) and covers more than half of Brazil's land area, may be the key to the survival of the planet. The jungle is sometimes called the world's "lung" because its trees produce much of the world's oxygen. It is thought nearly 20 per cent of it has already been destroyed by legal and illegal logging, and clearance for cattle ranching. But the soya boom has dramatically stepped up the pace of destruction.

It began on the back of the BSE crisis in Britain, when the feed given to cattle suddenly became a matter of intense public concern. Cattle feed producers around the world switched to soya as an untainted source.

The boom was intensified by the fact that Brazil - in contrast to the US and Argentina - did not go down the GM route in its agriculture, so when most European countries went GM-free, it was from Brazil that they sought their soya bean supplies. Europe now imports 65 per cent of its soya from Brazil. A further impetus to the boom is coming from China, whose emerging middle class wants to eat more and more meat - so the demand for animal feed is soaring.

The soya boom is bitterly criticised by environmentalists. "It is turning the rainforest into cattle feed. It is gross," said John Sauven, head of the rainforest campaign for Greenpeace UK.

It first showed up in the deforestation figures in 2003, when after falling or staying steady for eight years, the rate of destruction leapt by 40 per cent in a single year, from 18,170 sq km to 25,500 sq km.

Since then the rate has stayed at its new high level, with 24,597 sq km cut down the next year, and, as the figures released yesterday by the Brazilian environment ministry showed, from satellite photos and other data, no less than 26,130 sq km of rainforest was cut down in the 12 months to August 2004. This was a further leap of 6 per cent on the year before and caused immense dismay, not least because President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government adopted an action plan last year to protect the Amazon. The Environment Minister, Marina Silva, who is from the Amazon state of Acre, said the figure was high, but promised the country would "work to fight this in a structured way, with lasting and effective action, involving all sectors".

Greenpeace's Amazon co-ordinator Paulo Adario said the scale of the destruction was a tragedy, and showed that deforestation was "not a priority for the Lula government".

Mr Maggi, whose company grossed $600m last year, does not see the future as one of restricted soya plantings. He has called for a tripling of the amount of land planted with soybeans during the next decade in Mato Grosso, and his company announced last year that it intended to double the area it has in production.

How demand for soya drives the destruction

The production of soya beans is now a vital industry for Brazil. Agribusiness is the country's number one export earner, and soya is the principal commodity. The current government under President Lula actively promotes soya export as a means to earn foreign exchange for debt payments.

From the 1960s, the Brazilian government promoted soya cultivation so Brazil could become self sufficient in vegetable oils. Soya was increasingly planted on large-scale, fully mechanised farms in the south and the states on the Atlantic coast.

In the past, some agro-engineers believed soya would never threaten the rainforest, because of climatic limitations and soil conditions. Soya was thought to be "as adaptable to conditions of the tropical climate as a panda bear to the African savannah".

However, the development of new varieties has enabled the rapid expansion of soya plantations north, into the tropical states where the rainforest is situated.

Between 1995 and 2004, the area cultivated with soya increased by 77 per cent in the centre-west, with Mato Grosso becoming the single biggest producer. Now soya is rapidly advancing from all sides toward the heartland of the Amazon, fuelling massive deforestation.

Two companies dominate Brazil's soya business. Gruppo Maggi, owned by Blairo Maggi, Mato Grosso's governor, is considered to be the world's largest individual soya producer. The number one soy-exporter is the giant US grains business, Cargill. Michael McCarthy

Destruction Of The Amazon

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