Deane’s posterous

How our lives were like long ago...

Australia: Surprised logging the last Native Forest in NSW is unsustainable?

A report by the NSW Auditor General, Peter Achterstraat, has found that logging practices in northern NSW native forests are unsustainable and unprofitable. “The native forests managed by Forests NSW on the North Coast are being cut faster than they are growing back. This will eventually result in a reduction in the available timber,” Mr Achterstraat said.

Please value the writer & producer of these words by paying a visit to: http://www.echonews.com/index.php?page=News%20Article&article=26399&issue=405



Read about all forest issues in Australia: http://forestpolicyresearch.org/category/oceania-tree-news/australia/

The report also revealed that native forest operations in NSW ran at a loss of more than $14 million in the 2007-08 financial year. “I can only see this loss increasing as Forests NSW continues to look for new sources of hardwood timber and the costs of harvest and haulage increase,” he said. The timber industry’s peak body, the NSW Forest Products Association, responded by saying that if the costs of environmental management and compliance were stripped, then the industry would be in a healthy state. Susie Russell from the North East Forest Alliance said the report validates what the Alliance has been saying for many years. “The logging industry in north-east NSW has no long-term future. Forests NSW has failed to check its estimated timber supplies against actual volumes obtained, or to update its estimates based on areas that have already been logged as required by various Forest Agreements…



“It is now abundantly clear that our forests are not in the ‘safe hands’ we are told, nor are they  managed for the long-term benefit of the people of NSW. They should be managed as carbon sinks, biodiversity stores and water reservoirs. Mining them for timber is no longer acceptable,” Ms Russell said.

A full copy of the Auditor General’s report is available online at http://www.audit.nsw.gov.au

Please value the writer & producer of these words by paying a visit to: http://www.echonews.com/index.php?page=News%20Article&article=26399&issue=405  

RIP: New York's tree defender Hildegard "shotgun-totin' granny" von Waldenburg

EAST NASSAU - She was a spunky woman everyone loved, even if they once stood at the business end of her shotgun. The spry German immigrant, who with her husband, Fritz, lived off the land and the many animals they keep on their small farm, quickly ascended to folk hero status. She appeared on the Court TV network and made guest appearances on several radio talk shows from Boston to Seattle. Newspapers in Dusseldorf, Germany, carried the tale of the "Weffen Oma" ("Weapons Grandma". She turned down a guest spot on the "Late Show with David Letterman."

Please value the writer & producer of these words by paying a visit to: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=797207


For all New York Tree News: http://forestpolicyresearch.org/category/north-american-tree-news/new-york/

Hildegard "shotgun-totin' granny" von Waldenburg, who received worldwide attention after her 1999 arrest for using a shotgun to run off a five-man town road crew cutting trees by her rural farmhouse, died Sunday. She was 89. When asked about the sales of her book, she said she received enough to pay medical and electric bills. "You see, German people are very frugal so they are just cutting it out of the newspapers for free," she said the time. "She was a fascinating woman with an indomitable spirit," said Terry Kindlon who was her attorney during the criminal case. "It was a privilege to know her." Kindlon said her case struck a cord with the common man. "At the end of our days we worry about our significance in the face of gigantic government," Kindlon said. "She stood up to them in her youth and as a grandmother."



At the age of 79, von Waldenburg was arrested by State Police at her Cold Water Tavern home on a menacing charge after brandishing a old rusted 20-gauge shotgun to chase off a Nassau town roadwork crew trying to cut down her hickory and oak trees. She kept the gun by her door to keep foxes away from her chickens and ducks. At the time, she said, she did not think she had any other options. "They were rugged men with big muscles. I'm a little German woman. They'd do nothing but laugh," she said in Times Union story about the incident. Joe Meizinger was the road boss of the stunned crew staring down the barrel of the gun that day. "It was one of those things that reminds you you never know whats going to happen," Meizinger, now retired, said. "That's too bad that she died. I never held any bad feelings at all for her. She just loved her trees. Thats all."



Scott Gallerie became highway superintendent just after the incident. "She was a character, no doubt," said Gallerie, who now works for Rensselaer County and got to know von Waldenburg. She even invited the crew over for tea. "She was truly a good lady just doing what she thought was right" he said. "She eventually let us trim some of her trees after we showed her what we were going to do first. I remember she said no one ever explained it to me like that before.'" Gallerie said the crew was more upset about the ribbing they got around the garage in the months after the incident. The criminal case was eventually dropped and even though the gun was not loaded it was a shot heard around the world.

Please value the writer & producer of these words by paying a visit to: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=797207

Oregon: Another $51 million to thin federal forests for better or worse

How do we really know if we hurt or harm a forest when we thin it? The lack of accountability in forestry in the past has been addressed a bit more on US federal lands in recent decades... But how can we be sure? As someone who loves to drive the back roads of National Forest lands, why do I so often see forests that were thinned so much that the soil dried up and most all of the remaining trees are dying off? Overall thinning forests does nothing more than mimic catastrophic events like wildfire, diease outbreaks, storm caused blowdown, erosion and landslides. The greater the extreme of mimicing, the less resilient the forest is to unavoidable future catrostophic events. Keep all this in mind as you read the article below. --Editor, Forest Policy Research

Read more about how Thinning Harms Forests:
http://forestpolicyresearch.org/tag/thinning-harms-forests/



Oregon will get $51 million in federal cash to put people to work in the woods in coming months to reduce fire hazards and improve forest conditions. The state will share $9 million more with Washington state for work on the Blue Mountains, in the eastern portion of the two states. Oregon received the largest share of $240 million in projects for 26 states announced today by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. California netted $31 million, and Washington state got $3 million. This is the second round of forest-related projects flowing to Oregon from more than $1 billion appropriated to the U.S. Forest Service.



Still more Oregon projects are expected in funding rounds soon. Details about the Oregon projects were scarce. The Forest Service regional office in Portland was barred from discussing the projects, referring questions to Vilsack's agency, which didn't return calls. An abbreviated list distributed by the White House to Oregon's congressional delegation did not say how many jobs the projects would create. The project list contained few specifics, listing $28 million going to "eight county hazardous fuels reduction" without identifying the counties. The list did show hazardous fuels projects of $1.5 million in Central Oregon, $1 million in Deschutes County and $1.3 million in Jackson and Josephine counties. -- Les Zaitz, leszaitz@news.oregonian.com

Please value the writer & producer of these words by paying a visit to: http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/05/feds_announce_more_money_for_o.html



Read more about how Thinning Harms Forests:
http://forestpolicyresearch.org/tag/thinning-harms-forests/

Australia: Recent Direct Action Action forest defense in Upper Florentine

For the most recent previous article about this campaign go here:
http://forestpolicyresearch.org/2009/05/02/australia-forest-defender-set-on-fire-by-cops/

60 Police have raided camp Florentine this morning to remove road blockades so that logging of the contentious area can begin. An Exclusion Zone has been declared by Forestry Tasmania, to prevent public access to the area. A Hobart man has already been arrested for being in the exclusion zone. More arrests are expected today. Three conservationists are positioned 50 m up tree platforms blocking the access road and log landing.

Please value the writer & producer of these words by paying a visit to: http://upperflorentine.blogspot.com


Two conservationists are chained to vehicles cemented into the road. Another is occupying a tunnel that has been dug under the road preventing access to the old growth logging area. “It’s disappointing to see, once again, Tasmania Police being the public escort for Gunns Ltd and Forestry Tasmania’s ruthless plans to log our remaining old growth forests into extinction. 80% of the forest that will be logged will go to Asia to make wrapping, toilet and writing paper. Is this how we want our iconic world heritage valued forests to be remembered?” said spokesperson Ed Hill. “The logging industry is facing massive cutbacks and a stagnant wood chip market. Ports are drowning under wood chip stockpiles, yet this government insists on continuing to decimate the pristine, carbon dense forests of the upper Florentine for woodchips.” Said Mr. Hill

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MP Daniel Hulme claims activists have put lives at risk by setting up booby traps. He said they were to blame for a trap in the Styx Valley, which Forestry Tasmania said could have seriously injured or killed a timber worker. A strand of fencing wire was strung between two trees in a forestry coupe last month, 30 metres above the ground so the wire could not be seen from the ground, Forestry Tasmania told police. A contractor discovered the trap after a tree limb was snapped by the wire as a tree fell to the ground, fortunately missing the faller. Such traps redirect the path of falling trees or limbs, meaning workers, believing they are standing in a safe spot, can be struck. The discovery followed a $1.2 million arson attack the week before on forestry equipment in the Lower Florentine valley. No charges have been laid over either incident. Mr Hulme is convinced anti-logging activists are to blame, saying "tying cables between trees as they did in the Styx" was one example of how they were putting lives at risk.

Please value the writer & producer of these words by paying a visit to: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/activists-lay-booby-traps-in-forests-mp-20090504-arvy.html



Two people have been arrested and a third is hiding in a tunnel in the latest flare-up in the Upper Florentine Valley. At dawn this morning about two dozen police converged on Gordon River Rd. Forestry Tasmania plans to resume logging in the area. Officers arrested a 21-year-old woman from South Australia and a 24-year-old Hobart man. Three other protesters secured themselves in tree-sits and woman secured herself in a tunnel under a van concreted to the road. Rescue squad police are working to extract the woman and dismantle the tree-sits. About 20 protesters have been maintaining a vigil at a protest camp in the area since Forestry Tasmania built a road into a contentious old-growth coupe.

Please value the writer & producer of these words by paying a visit to: http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/05/04/70795_tasmania-news.html

Read about all forest issues in Australia here: http://forestpolicyresearch.org/category/oceania-tree-news/australia/

Interview: British Columbia Marmot specialist Andrew Bryant

Note: Photos are of Marmots from all over the world thanks to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmot

A while back I wrote a summary of what's wrong with the Marmot recovery effort in British Columbia and I listed 8 specific issues. Recently Marmot Biologist Andrew Bryant contacted me and replied to each and every issues (see below). In addition Andrew also promptly responded to 6 interview questions:

1) Question: 50 years from now what's the optimistic reality for Marmots?

Answer: My newborn grandchildren WILL get to see marmots in the wild (if they choose to look).  I wouldn't have spent 22 years on this if I didn't believe in the project.

2) Question: 50 years from now what's the most likely reality for Marmots?

Answer: Small (<1000), fragmented population, genetically healthy, but requiring ongoing management and monitoring



3) Question: Do you do other work to study / protect endangered ecosystem, such as Ancient Native Forests?

Answer: Yes.  Old-growth forest songbirds, burrowing owls, grizzlies, bats, spider monkeys, Rarotongan flycatchers. Curiously I agree with Ingmar about most forestry issues...I just disagree with misconceptions about marmots.

4) Question: What makes SARA ineffective in the  conservation of displaced, threatened, at risk, and endangered species?

Answer: Unlike the US system, there is no funding automatically associated with designation. Note that the Vancouver Island marmot was the FIRST species listed as endangered in Canada. In 1978.  Nothing much happened until MacMillan Bloedel offered a million bucks in 1997. Call it "guilt money" if you will, but I frankly don't care (I actually think they made a very sound business decision). In any event, that contribution kick-started the real on-the-ground recovery effort, and without it we would only be talking about marmots in the past tense.

5) Question: Have you involve yourself in the reform of SARA?

Answer: Yes and my involvement is ongoing. In particular, the whole notion of "critical habitat" was ill-conceived (by bureaucrats) and is scientifically indefensible and impossible for any practicing scientist to calculate. That's why it's omitted from most recovery strategies. Even for a species such as the Vancouver Island marmot, for which such voluminous geographic distribution data are available. The public just does not "get this" and assumes some perverse government conspiracy. My word! How would one even go about defining "critical habitat" for polar bears or orcas? In my humble opinion, the EARTH is the "critical habitat".



6) Question: You claim zero destruction of natural Marmot habitat,...

Answer: Yes. Logging did not destroy natural marmot habitat. At no time and no place.  However, and this is a big however, logging has profoundly altered many other things of great importance to marmot populations. Predators. Deer. Marmot density. Marmot dispersal. Forest regeneration in clearcuts formerly occupied by marmots. It's complicated. Again I encourage you to read the published science and would be more than happy to talk. There is too much published nonsense about marmots, so I applaud you for wanting to get the facts straight.

Hi Deane,

My thoughts on your various points. Let me know if you want copies of any of the cited science... I would be happy to provide any of these as PDF files (free).

1) Preventing species extinction is only possible if it's "affordable."

Response: That statement is a no-brainer.  If one has no money, practical recovery work on the ground is impossible. Budget restrictions this year are apparently really hindering field monitoring efforts, as Crystal correctly reported in her interview.

2) Deforestation / causation of habitat destruction is not explained.

Response: The progressive pattern of logging/deforestation has been described here:  
http://rparticle.web-p.cisti.nrc.ca/rparticle/AbstractTemplateServlet?calyLang=eng&journal=cjz&volume=74&year=1996&issue=4&msno=z96-075 There has been zero destruction of natural marmot habitat (precisely because marmots do not live in forests), as is explained here: http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/recoveryplans/rcvry1.htm

3) Humans tracking technology is the only way to assure recovery?


Response: No it isn't. But radio-telemetry and systematic monitoring is the only way to find out if recovery efforts are working, or if not, WHY they're not working.  What would be the point of breeding and releasing marmots if you don't know what happens to them? See:http://rparticle.web-p.cisti.nrc.ca/rparticle/AbstractTemplateServlet?calyLang=eng&journal=cjz&volume=83&year=2005&issue=5&msno=z05-055

4) Long-term Inbreeding from a small remnant population is less valid than the first ever year of "successful" breeding in the wild Vancouver Island marmots are not highly inbred. 

Response: DNA evidence shows very high maintenance of existing variability. See here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/309l3888u1303n44/?p=ca087dfb883040088e6bb2359e7e8fd2&pi=24 By the way, 2008 was not the first year of successful breeding in the wild...it was the first year that offspring of captive-born-and-released marmots themselves reproduced in the wild.  In short, the original captive-born animals became grandparents (Aaltonen et al., Biological Conservation, in press).

5) Outrage related to Eagle / other predator control slaughters is not  worthy of mention. I was outraged as well by the eagle kills as these were undertaken independently by the BC government without discussion.  

Response: That was wrong (although the BC government does have legal authority over such things). However, there have been no further or broader "predator control slaughters".  This despite growing evidence that the primary cause of mortality is predation by golden eagles, cougars and wolves.  See here: http://rparticle.web-p.cisti.nrc.ca/rparticle/AbstractTemplateServlet?calyLang=eng&journal=cjz&volume=83&year=2005&issue=5&msno=z05-055

6) Motivation of funders of the program is not explained as a corrupted / flawed mitigation for Marmot habitat destruction



Response: Please help me out here:  What habitat destruction again?  Where?  When?  By what mechanism?  As to the motivation of funders, I like to think that the scientific evidence made for a compelling case for landowners to exercise some stewardship, for governments to govern, and for individual conservationists to put their money where there mouths were.

7) Signing a petition and making an almost extinguished species a Olympic Mascot will bring accountability / resolution to the problem.

Response: Going from ~70 animals in the wild in 1997 to over ~150 in the wild today makes them "almost extinguished"?  I'll be very surprised if we don't break 200 in 2009.  But, yes, I don't expect any conservation miracles to emerge from the Olympic/Mukmuk exercise.

8) Zero-accountability for what happens if the captive-breeding program fails because the destroyers now have an option to make excuses for not paying. I mean it doesn t really have to matter to them anymore because they already got the habitat destruction they wanted, right?  Your thoughts on this?

Response: What failing captive-breeding program are you referring to? The annual population growth rate (lambda = 1.31) is highly positive. See here: http://rparticle.web-p.cisti.nrc.ca/rparticle/AbstractTemplateServlet?calyLang=eng&journal=cjz&volume=83&year=2005&issue=5&msno=z05-056

Overall response: Referring to your point #1, if we hadn't had any money, I believe Vancouver Island marmots would already be extinct. You can ascribe motivations all you want.  However it is fact that MacMillan Bloedel Limited was the first "big player" to step up to the plate, and without that initial contribution it is likely that Marmota vancouverensis would now be extinct.

Andrew
------

Read about all forest issues in British Columbia: http://forestpolicyresearch.org/category/north-american-tree-news/british-columbia/

Your firewood ash is radioactive & wildfires are nuclear fallout!

While cleaning ashes from his fireplace two years ago, Stewart A. Farber mused that if trees filter and store airborne pollutants, they might also harbor fallout from the nuclear weapons tests of the 1950s and 1060s. On a whim, he brought some of his fireplace ash to Yankee Atomic Electric Co.'s environmental lab in Bolton, Mass., where he manages environmental monitoring. Farber says he was amazed to discover that his sample showed the distinctive cesium and strontium "signatures" of nuclear fallout - and that the concentration of radioactivity "was easily 100 times greater than anything [our lab] had ever seen in an environmental sample."

Please value the writer & producer of these words: Science News - August 10, 1991



Since then, he has obtained wood-ash radioactivity assays from 16 other scientists across the nation. These 47 data sets, representing trees in 14 states, suggest that fallout in wood ash "is a major source of radioactivity released into the environment," Farber says. With the exception of some very low California readings, all measurements of ash with fallout-cesium exceeded - some by 100 times or more - the levels of radioactive cesium that may be released from nuclear plants (about 100 picocuries per kilogram of sludge).



Ash-cesium levels were especially high in the Northeast - probably because naturally high levels of nonradioactive cesium in the soil discourage trees from releasing fallout-derived cesium through their roots, he says. Industrial wood burning in the United States generates an estimated 900,000 tons of ash each year; residential and utility wood burning generates another 543,000 tons.



Already, many companies are recycling this unregulated ash in fertilizers. The irony, Farber says, is that federal regulations require releases from nuclear plants to be disposed of as radioactive wastes if they contain even 1 percent of the cesium and strontium levels detected in the ash samples from New England. If ash were subject to the same regulations, he says, its disposal would cost U.S. wood burners more than $30 billion annually.

Please value the writer & producer of these words: Science News - August 10, 1991

Poetry: After the Revolution...

In the not too distant future…

In cover of night nocturnal ones

Steal our every last scrap of barren ground

 

Always more tree seedlings everywhere…

And no sooner do we clear ground for our own warm sun

That they show up again!

 

An age old war of ax and leaf once almost won by us

Has taken a turn for the worse! And now no matter how hard we try

All our axes and all our saws keep disappearing

Reappearing as fresh young determined trees

 

Now an almost lost civilization is terrorized by sunsets

Because it’s when the treeplanter’s awaken from slumber

When we take cover, when we hide from their terrorisms,

From their destroying of our once profitable way of life?

 

The war we’d never thought we’d lose has buried

Our dreams in a grave of green… So many tree bombs they drop on us…

How many more tree bombs will they throw at us? 

 

Centuries of over-redundant unending saplings of truth

Digging in an defending their foxhole

For centuries successfully defending themselves from our

Now nearly lost and demoralized armies

 

And we once nearly conquered them all… Since then so many of our people

Have been lost to their treeplanting relentlessness. So much feeding them has been lost

To their determination to fight us… even though they themselves

Threaten their very own ability to breathe and grow leaves… Imagine!

 

Who really are these trees?

 

By DeaneTR

5/3/09

California: Bohemian Club's corruption & destruction gets more obvious every day

Read about all forest issues in California: http://forestpolicyresearch.org/category/north-american-tree-news/california/

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California: Industry written amendment eliminates state's endangered species protections

California is on the brink of allowing commercial interests to hamstring California's endangered species protections. A proposed amendment to the California Forest Practice Rules would eliminate the requirement for a state-employed biologist to oversee Timber Harvest Plans. Instead, the amended language would allow a "spotted owl expert" to assess the risks to spotted owls, but this "expert" need not be unbiased and could even work for the timber companies themselves!

Please value the writer & producer of these words by paying a visit to: http://thptracker.blogspot.com/2009/05/proposed-northern-spotted-owl-rule.html



To read about all tree issues in California go here: http://thptracker.blogspot.com/2009/05/proposed-northern-spotted-owl-rule.html

The proposed rule changes would also eliminate the requirement that the Department of Fish and Game review Timber Harvest Plans before they are approved. The claim that the proposed amendments are necessary due to fiscal restrictions and tight budgets sets a dangerous precedent for the future protection of imperiled species. California supports a large variety of ecosystems and numerous at-risk wildlife.



Allowing the California State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to eliminate the requirement for unbiased state-employed biologist oversight means none of these habitats or animals are safe from exploitation.

Please value the writer & producer of these words by paying a visit to: http://thptracker.blogspot.com/2009/05/proposed-northern-spotted-owl-rule.html