In New Zealand, the Christchurch city council chopped down six trees smack bang in the middle of the city today. What makes it astonishing, is that today is both World Environment Day and Arbor Day!
The council has admitted that this was a “terrible coincidence”. The trees were being removed to make way for a controversial service lane.
Given the theme for his year’s World Environment Day (”Kick the habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy!”), this is even more of a “terrible coincidence”. Forest destruction is one of the worst causes of greenhouse gas.
And, the fact that New Zealand was also observing Arbor Day makes it almost laughable. The whole purpose of Arbor Day is to encourage individuals and groups to plant and care for trees!
And, as if that’s not enough, New Zealand was also the official host of this year’s World Environment Day…
One Christchurch resident said:
As a city that is known as the Garden City, we have that image to uphold. This makes a mockery of `let’s be aware of the environment and let’s walk or cycle to work
I imagine there will be a few red faces in the Christchurch City Council today!
Prince Charles has today launched the official website for his Rainforest Project. As I mentioned earlier, today is World Environment Day, so it’s a perfect day for launching a website aimed at saving the rainforests.
The main aim of the project, which launched on October 25 last year, is to make the rainforests “more valuable alive than dead”. Today, in many developing countries, rainforests are worth more dead than alive. This is mainly due to demand from developed countries for beef, palm oil, and soya.
When launching the Rainforest Project at a WWF dinner in October last year, Prince Charles said that rainforest destruction is responsible for around 20 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases, second only to the energy sector. Further to this, both the Stern review and the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change report believe tackling deforestation may be one of the quickest and most cost effective means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the short term.
Prince Charles also said the following about the deforestation issue:
It seems to me that the central issue in this whole debate is how we put a true value on standing rainforests to the world community – we simply have to find ways of putting a price on them which makes them more valuable alive than dead.
Elaborating on this, Prince Charles says the project’s objective is:
To find innovative ways of paying the countries that are the custodians of the tropical rainforests an appropriate price for the eco-system services they provide and so out-compete the drivers of deforestation.
In today’s money driven society, this makes a lot of sense. After all, if countries are paid more for their eco-systems services than they are for the drivers of deforestation, then they will no longer allow their own rainforests to be destroyed. Furthermore, not only will they see value in keeping their existing rainforests, they will also see value in increasing the size of their rainforests - after all, more rainforest means more money.
How Will The Project Achieve Its Objective?
The project is engaging with rainforest nations, governments, businesses and non-governmental organizations to find the solutions to deforestation.
The project is also backed by 13 major global companies: Shell, Rio Tinto Zinc, McDonald’s, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Sun Media, Sky, Deutsche Bank, Man Group, KPMG, Barclays Bank, Finsbury and the European Climate Exchange.
Furthermore, the project is being advised by experts including: Lord Stern; Steve Howard, Chief Executive of the Climate Group; Kevin Conrad, the Executive Director of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations; Andrew Mitchell of the Global Canopy Programme; Kristalina Georgieva, Vice President of the World Bank; Reijo Kempinnen, head of the European Commission Representation in the UK; and Barry Gardiner MP.
New satellite images have shown that Papua New Guinea’s rainforests are being destroyed much faster than previously thought.
Until now, Papua New Guinea was thought to have a very low rate of deforestation and degradation. These satellite images prove otherwise.
Papua New Guinea has the world’s third largest tropical rainforest. At the current rate of deforestation, 83 percent of accessible forests, and 53 percent of the country’s total forests, will be destroyed by 2021.
Most of the rainforest destruction is occurring due to commercial logging, agriculture and burning. Most of the logging is done by Malaysian logging firms. Typically, these timber companies pay landowners very little. According to Mongabay, these large companies pay landowners about $4-12 per cubic meter for logs, but sell the same logs for up to $160 per cubic meter.
The rainforest is not only being cleared for logging by the multinational timber firms though. It is also being done to make way for an increasing population. Papua New Guinea has one of the fastest rates of population growth in the world. This increase in population requires more land for subsistence farming.
In my view the Papuan government have gone from green heroes to eco zeros. One of the major causes of climate change is rainforest destruction and Papua New Guinea is under assault from corporations who want to clear cut its forests. This corporate onslaught is aided by a government that just a few weeks ago we all thought was green.
In response to the recent satellite photos, PNG’s Forest Minister, Belden Namah says:
We try to come up with policies to manage our forests, but we have interference by the industry and what I am saying is that as a government we should take a bold stand
He continues:
Industry may be a player in contributing to the economy of this country but I am more worried about generations tomorrow, about the clean air we can generate revenue and I think with the policy of carbon sequestration… is the way to go.
Satellite images: University of Papua New Guinea file photo.
In Canada, a group of residents have saved a rainforest from destruction by purchasing it for almost 1 million dollars.
The Saltspring Island residents spent 5 months fundraising so that they could save the eight-hectare Creekside Rainforest from being sold on the open market. This would almost certainly have led to the rainforest being destroyed and the land being used for development.
Approximately 1,000 individuals pitched in for the rainforest, which will now be handed over to the Land Conservancy of B.C. so that it can be protected forever. Among the individuals were residents (including school children) and non-residents of the island.
Despite being told it would be impossible to save the rainforest, the residents succeeded. Here’s what the conservancy’s executive-director, Bill Turner said about the campaign:
Working through the highs and lows of a fundraising campaign can be stressful, but it all disappears when you see the smiling faces of residents, especially the children, after a property is saved.
A recent study has found that non-native trees can cause harm to rainforests.
The study, which covered more than 220,000 hectares of rainforest in Hawaii, found that there were large amounts of non-native trees causing problems to the rainforest.
The Hawaiian rainforest usually consists of mainly ohia trees (Metrosideros polymorpha), but non-native trees such as tropical ash (Fraxinus uhdei) and the Canary Island fire tree (Morella faya) are beginning to take over in some parts.
In particular, the study found that the non-native trees had a denser canopy, which results in less light reaching to the lower levels of the forest. This results in native understory plants, such as tree ferns, being suppressed.
Also, non-native trees can change the soil fertility, which often results in better growing conditions for invaders.
Gregory Asner, who led the research team said
Invasive tree species often show biochemical, physiological and structural properties that are different from native species. We can use these ‘fingerprints’ combined with the 3-D images to see how the invasives are changing the forest.
New satellite images have shown that Papua New Guinea’s rainforests are being destroyed much faster than previously thought.