It is gravely unethical and ecologically devastating to expand production of biofuels by allowing land to be stolen from local Afro-Colombian communities; and at the expense of Colombia's ancient primary rainforests, food security, water resources and regional climate

TAKE ACTION! Plantation expansion for agrofuels remains a major threat to the lives, livelihoods and the environment of Afro-Colombian and other peasant communities in Chocó, Colombia. This is one of the world's most biodiverse regions, with large areas of rainforest now facing destruction. The Chocó rainforests [search] are home to 7,000 to 8,000 species, including 2,000 endemic plant species and 100 endemic bird species. Even before the current palm oil and agrofuel expansion, 66% had been destroyed. Communities and rainforests are under threat from palm oil and sugar cane expansion for agrofuels in other parts of Colombia, too, for example around Tumaco, near the border with Ecuador, in Santander and in Magdalena. If agrofuels -- growing food for fuel -- continue to expand in Colombia, food prices are bound to rise and the nation's food security erode as is happening around the world. Please ask the government to stop and reverse those policies and to protect Colombia's communities and rich environment from further destruction for agrofuels. TAKE ACTION!

Over 110 global environmental groups have came out against chimerical coal industry plans to bury carbon emissions [ark]. This coincides with Greenpeace's release of a new report entitled "False Hope" which correctly concludes that false promises of carbon capture and storage (CCS) [search] prolong the agony of coal dependence. CCS is revealed to be an untested myth that threatens to lock us into antiquated coal energy [search] and an obliterated atmosphere. CCS will not be ready in time (or maybe ever), wastes climate resources, is risky and undermines more rigorous approaches focused upon renewable energy.

It is pleasing to see Greenpeace join other biocentric groups in understanding ending the use of coal is essential to save the climate. Yet as with ancient forests, the question of "clean coal" splits the environmental movement. What is so mystifying is why generally rigorous environmental groups like Greenpeace -- along with so many other groups including Rainforest Action Network -- are so visionary on coal while continuing to insist that logging of ancient forests, equally antiquated and damaging to not only the climate but also biodiversity, can be certified as being environmentally acceptable. The economic dislocation caused by ending ancient forest logging [search] would be much less than ending use of coal. Centuries of both over-burning and over-cutting are the fundamental underpinnings of contemporary ecological decline.

It is easy to rail against "illegal" logging [search], when in fact typical "legal" commercial logging is far more extensive and destructive in total to the world's biodiversity [search], climate [search], water [search] and biosphere [search]. Both liquidate life giving natural habitats, and more people are realizing they are mostly ecologically indistinguishable [ark]. Ancient primary forests industrially harvested for the first time are in fact destroyed -- in terms of being a fully intact ecological system with a unique, unimpaired evolutionary trajectory -- regardless if society considers it legal or illegal. Natural and planted secondary forest ecosystems managed industrially as tree farms become further ecologically diminished with each successive harvest including continued toxification, soil diminishment, species and genetic loss, reduced carbon and water holding potential, and so many other symptoms of ongoing biological homogenization.

Humanity's relationship with all forests must be transformed if we are to stop the hemorrhaging of lost species and halt transformation of the atmosphere. Industrial forestry [search] is incompatible with sustaining the full range of natural forest values [search] -- from species to genes, from soil microbes to local microclimates, from a forest stand to the Earth system and everything in between. Solving the biodiversity [search], climate [search] and water [search] crises requires a new forest protection paradigm that optimizes ecosystem, biodiversity and climate values while ecologically sustainably harvesting the annual growth increment (minus ecological restoration of natural capital to account in the future for past damage).

As it is prone to do when the donors come a-calling, the Papua New Guinea (PNG) government "has admitted its forestry sector is riddled with corruption" [ark] . This occurred during aid talks with the Australian government, and reflects political posturing to access donor funds on the basis of their rainforest's carbon holding potential. PNG contains the third largest expanse of tropical rainforests [search], though much diminished through years of heavy industrial mismangement.

Sadly there seems to be little acceptance by those pushing avoided deforestation [search] payments that to be effective, this will require an end to industrial logging of primary forests. Astonishingly, while Australia provided donor funds to PNG this week to protect its forests for carbon benefits, Australia continues to log their own primary forests [action]! To pay carbon monies for rainforest protection without ending barbaric first time logging of ancient forests would be meaningless in terms of both biodiversity and climate protection.

Done properly tree planting [search] is a hope filled expression of love for nature. But making a hole in the ground and dropping in the seedling is only the beginning. Nearly all planted trees require years of care including watering, weeding and even fencing to become established. Ill-conceived mass tree planting efforts are failing in Nigeria and worldwide [ark] because of failure to plan for this aftercare and other issues like using the wrong species in the wrong place. This is but one misunderstanding regarding tree planting and the environment.

Trees help remove carbon and help restore terrestrial ecosystems, but planted trees are generally not forests. Plantations of only one, often exotic, tree species are crops and not forests. Forests include diverse native tree species with associated understory plants, wildlife and soil microcobes. A natural forest provides ecological processes that are generally absent in tree farms including cycling of water and carbon, while creating soil and habitats.

It has been a good week for the ecologically necessary concept of paying for rainforest protection [search] on the basis of biodiversity and climate benefits. Hundreds of indigenous leaders gathered in Brazil to build a consensus for wealthier countries compensating developing countries for conserving Amazon's tropical rainforests [ark]. There it was correctly noted "the challenge is to pay the native peoples, not the governments" for rainforest protection.

A new study found that "global carbon markets [search] could generate billions of dollars [ark] each year for developing countries that tackle tropical deforestation [search]". And the Brazilian government unveiled a scheme to pay the residents of the Amazon for the ecosystem services [ark] their bioregion provides. The program seeks to reward small-scale community development while providing a disincentive to large-scale destructive activities such as logging, soya production and cattle ranching.

Large-scale solutions to climate change [search] such as biofuel plantations, hydropower and even forest protection are threatening indigenous peoples [ark]. Sadly, a new UN report finds that frequently these large-scale climate policies threaten indigenous peoples [search] least responsible for, and most at risk from, global heating. Even as traditional societies flee rising seas, their lands are being dispossessed and other conflicts arising from ill-conceived climate mitigation projects. Too often efforts to protect rainforests try to eliminate rather than incorporate continued traditional indigenous rainforest uses [search]. Climate policies that stress industrial responses, seek to maintain unsustainable developed world lifestyles, and cause further harm to the world's most vulnerable are unjust, inequitable and unsustainable and must not be tolerated.

PRESS RELEASE
RAN indicates industrial first time logging of centuries old trees in primeval forests the best that can be expected, censors further discussion on their web site, and faces renewed global call for members to cancel until withdraws from FSC

April 1, 2008
By Ecological Internet, Inc.
Dr. Glen Barry, +1 920 776 1075, glenbarry@ecointernet.org

After six months of evasions and personal recriminations, Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has officially answered the question "how does Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified logging of primary and old-growth forests 'protect endangered forests'"? RAN has been the target of protest by thousands of forest conservationists from eighty countries concerned with how RAN's support for FSC legitimizes continued loss of ancient forests, their biodiversity and the climate. This is their answer:

"Simply, FSC certification isn?t the ultimate protection for endangered forests, but it is a vastly superior alternative to standard industrial logging. In forests that would otherwise be logged without third party oversight, FSC promotes practices that preserve ecosystem functions (like habitat and water quality) and safeguards the most ecologically valuable areas." -- RAN statement, 4/1/08.

Guyana is to enter into the world's first serious effort to pay for the ecosystem services provided by rainforests [ark | more\ark]. Such an approach is long overdue, and while the specifics have not yet been released, it appears the payments are for broad ecosystem services [search] provided by a million acres of Guyanese rainforest rather than just their carbon storage (which is good). It remains to be seen whether industrial logging [search] will be allowed in the protected area -- if so, the constant ecological diminishment resulting from selective logging will greatly reduce the value of the deal.

Mongabay reports that the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is coming under increasingly harsh criticism [ark]. Ecological Internet (EI) and many others believe FSC is imploding as claims of environmental and social benefits of certified ancient forest logging [search] and industrial monoculture plantations [search] are exposed as myths. FSC's future (if it is to have one) depends upon changing its guidelines to end support for both business as usual old-growth logging and large-scale monoculture plantations.

If unwilling to end their involvement in ancient forest logging, FSC and supporters must be protested until they are shutdown [alert]. Global ecological sustainability depends critically upon strictly protecting all remaining relatively natural ecosystems, particularly primary forests. All ancient forests are of high conservation value. There is no alternative to continued logging of centuries old trees found in primary forests. The era of ancient forest logging must end if global ecological collapse is to be averted.