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After drawing international acclaim, Indonesia's moratorium on forest clearing has proved hard to implement, as special interests whittle down the area protected under the agreement, environmental groups say.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is likely to veto some controversial aspects of a forest bill passed by the Congress last month as pressure mounts against the text days before the country hosts a large UN conference on sustainable development.

The bill, a revision of Brazil's Forest Code, grants partial amnesty to landowners who had illegally cleared some of their forests until as recently as 2008, relaxing the legal requirements for reforestation of these areas.

Large-scale crop plantations are expanding at a rapid pace across southeast Asia, with multinational firms often benefiting the most at the expense of local communities and the environment, two U.N. rights experts warned on Wednesday.

Demand for agrofuels, such as those derived from sugar cane and palm oil, has boomed thanks in part to the United States, Europe and other rich economies seeking alternative ways to fuel their cars and homes in order to reduce their carbon emissions.

Green and rights organisations on Wednesday demanded adequate allocation in the upcoming national budget keeping climate change adaptation activities in consideration.
The organisations working on climate change made the demand at a press conference at the National Press Club to press home their 11-point charter of demands.

Small, busy and overcrowded, England might seem the last place in the world to have room for one of the planet's largest inhabited areas of unspoiled, natural darkness when night falls.

But if plans by Kielder Forest and the adjacent Northumberland national park are realised, the country will be home to an official "dark sky preserve" equalled only by two lonely areas in Quebec and Texas.

Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Information Officer Heather Pridham spoke on Kirkland Lake‘s CJKL radio station moments ago to provide an update on the fire (KL-8) that is 3km from town.

The fire is roughly 10km long, and narrow.  The fire has not moved or gained in size, and is laying dormant at 2757 ha.

Kirkland Lake residents are still urged to keep an evacuation kit ready, including 3 days of clothes and supplies (food & water).

About 300 people in the fire area are still evacuated.  Sprinklers are being used to protect cottages and structures near the fire.

An emergency order is still in place to keep people out of the fire area.

Yesterday

Yesterday there were no open flames in the fire area.  75-100 ground crew members searched the fire for hotspots. When they were found, one of 5 helicopters were called in to attack the fire with buckets from the air.  No waterbomber runs were required yesterday.

Crews also worked yesterday with heavy equipment to break apart slash piles inside the fire zone. This caused significant smoke as helicopters help extinguish the slash piles.

Today

Infrared scanning was performed from the air this morning to identify the hot spots to be attacked by ground crews today.

It is windy today, with gusts.  The relative humidity is low.  These conditions have the potential to stir up the fire today.  Pridham said they have crews on ground, and aircraft in the air to monitor the fire today.

Northeastern Ontario

Northeastern Ontario’s forest fire hazard is classified as extreme.  A restricted fire zone is in place.

Source: CJKL

Latest Kirkland Lake fire update (KL-8). Fire has not grown. is a post from: ForestTalk.com

JAIPUR: A division bench of Rajasthan high court has observed that the mining mafia is at its peak in the state and there is no effort to check them. The court made this remark while hearing a PIL filed by a Bharatpur-based advocate.

The petitioner, Battu Singh, has moved the court alleging that four politically powerful persons have been doing illegal mining in forest area in Bayan tehsil of Bharatpur. The case is being heard by Chief Justice Arun Kumar Mishra and Justice N K Jain (senior).

Bid to prevent captive mine owners from selling byproducts; make them add value to ore. The Centre has moved to clear any ambiguity that could be misused by captive mine owners to sell iron ore fines in the open market. The move comes after the Jharkhand High Court in February stayed the State from banning exports, but relaxed it later to allow a one-time domestic sale of iron ore fines from the captive mines of Usha Martin and Steel Authority of India (SAIL).

Hawaii Electric Light is to buy Hu Honua Bioenergy. Hu Honua is converting the old Hilo Coast Power Co. facility at the Pepeekeo Sugar Mill into an electric generation facility that will be powered by locally grown biomass such as eucalyptus. Source: Pacific Business News

US Congressman Glenn Thompson sent a bipartisan letter to US Green Building Council (USGBC) urging changes to the treatment of forest products under the Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) 2012 rating system. Source: North Central PA

Malaysia’s government plans to allocate RM3 billion to expand the country's forest plantation by up to 375,000ha by 2020 to ensure a sustainable and guaranteed supply of raw materials for wood related industries. Source: The Star Online

A father and son from Hobart are using timber that has been salvaged from a leaky wooden pipeline to build boats. The wood is King Billy Pine, a timber considered even more rare than Huon Pine. Source: ABC News

Jack Norton, president of the International Research Group (IRG) on Wood Protection, spoke at the Wood Preservation 2012 conference on the outcomes of the recent International Research Group meeting in Malaysia held in early May. Source: Timberbiz

At the Wood Preservation 2012 conference in Melbourne Andrew Harvey, Senior Economist HIA presented his economic opinions for the industry – though he was quick to point out that an economist’s opinions are always nebulous. Source: Timberbiz

The 2-day Wood Preservation 2012 conference run by the Forest Industries Engineering Association (FIEA), which is being held in Melbourne and was held recently in Rotorua, New Zealand, is bringing together the industry and covering more than just processes and technologies. Source: Timberbiz

Global investment in biomass power generation will total $104 billion in 2021 according to Pike Research. This is just one aspect that will be discussed at the Bioenergy Finance Forum to be run in September this year. Sources: Ecoseed, Pike Research

Between 2001–2011, the evaluation of men’s and women’s participation in community forestry initiatives and the commercialising of forest products and market access dominated gender-focused forestry research.

 

Community forestry studies were mostly conducted in South Asia, while market access studies predominated in Africa. Most community forestry studies took place in India and Nepal, likely due to a long pattern of devolution reforms in forest management in the region. Market access studies were motivated by the focus on poverty reduction in the 1990s. Integrating gender into forest research is constrained by the broad perception that forestry is a male-dominated profession, lack of clarity among researchers about gender and a lack of technical skills, interest and/or awareness of gender. Women’s involvement is not a foregone conclusion.

 

On the one hand, some women have little interest in forest management; on the other, casual attempts to include women can simply add to their labour burden. Further research is needed on the nature and quality of governance arrangements; the dynamics and division of labour between men and women in mixed forest user-groups; how to transform incentives and attitudes of forestry officials; replicating ‘critical mass’ studies in settings other than Nepal and India; the implications of global processes; and interventions and trends on women’s relative participation in decision making and benefits capture.

 

Please click here to download.

Over the past two years, the FAO and RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests have brought together regional experts to reflect on the outcomes of the 15th and 16th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The resulting booklets Forests and Climate Change After Copenhagen: An Asia-Pacific Perspective and Forests and Climate Change After Cancun: An Asia-Pacific Perspective were distributed widely and very well received.

Main Topic: 

• Climate Change

thesaurus: 

• Forests
• Climate Change
• COP 17 (Durban Summit)
• Asia
• India
• REDD
• Climate Agreements
• Carbon Market
• LULUCF
• Measurable, Reportable and Verifiable (MRV)
• Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
• Climate Adaptation

Publisher : 

• RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests

Place of Publication: 

• Bangkok

Attachment(s):  FCC after Durban.pdfMark Content Private(Internal): Email Alert: 28Publication Date: 01/04/2012