12 years 5 months ago
BY Michelle Kovacevic, CIFOR
(CIFOR - June 26, 2012) - Forests have been largely ignored or ambiguously mentioned in the Rio+20 outcome document, yet again postponing progress on integrating forests into sustainable development objectives, said CIFOR scientists at the conclusion of the Rio+20 summit last week.
“If you look at this document as providing some sort of guidepost for making decisions or taking actions in the future, the positions that are taken do not actually provide any specificity,” said Peter Cronkleton, Senior Scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research’s Peru...
12 years 6 months ago
In the south-eastern part of Poland GDF SUEZ is going to replace of a coal-fired boiler at the Polaniec S.A. power plant by a new biomass fluidized bed boiler with a capacity of 480 megawatt.
The planned 180 MWe biomass power station is going to be the largest biomass power plant of the world.
Just for your records: the guys there are planning to destroy biomass in the amount of approximately 300 MW. As for any biomass power plant only 40% of the biomass chipped into the boiler will transform to electric energy.
60% of the biomass fired in the boiler will be for the nuts. This calculates to...
12 years 8 months ago
About 10,000 tons of radioactive wood pellets were imported by the Penal Court of Aosta in June, 18 of 2009. The radioactive wood pellets involved in this important Justice’s cause in Aosta came from sites of more than 29 Italian provinces. The radioactive wood pellets showed 300 becquerels per kg of inert material (the limit is 1000), while in ashes the radioactivity resulted about 40,000 becquerels. The ashes produced after combustion of these wood pellets showed the presence of 137Cs and the value of radioactivity was tremendously and extremely higher than the acceptable one. The mega-...
12 years 8 months ago
March, 2012: Once again a reputable organization comes up with a delusive and misleading statement. Apparently it seems to be a real brainteaser to understand the difference between illegal logging and deforestation. Just like the EU, World Bank came up with a text in which illegal logging and deforestation are used synonymously.
World Bank Report "Justice for Forests: Improving Criminal Justice Efforts to Combat Illegal Logging report", Page 37:
"Finally, countries should also concentrate on mobilizing the public to become involved in the fight against illegal logging. True success in...
12 years 8 months ago
One can read at various news messages (ONLINE International News Network, Pakistan Today) about the signing of a MoU between the Government of Pakistan and UK based Company Merlins Wood.
All of you might have read and heard about the first and most prominent rule for any REDD+ agreements: they should be based on FREE, PRIOR & INFORMED CONSENT.
Seems there went something wrong in Pakistan as we have been contacted by some forest owner representatives who complained on the referring REDD+ agreement. Please find here their statement:
EXTREME “MISS USE OF POWERS”, GUZARA FORESTS PLEDGED FOR...
12 years 9 months ago
One couldn't believe these figures:
"The link between deforestation and climate change is well known and estimated to cause between 25-30 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions - and excessive demand for wood is one of the main causes of forest destruction ."
As the reader of this message you might be shocked or just heavily irritated because you might be aware of figures of ~ 15-18 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions coming from deforestation.
But relax!
The line above is taken from a recent article posted at "The Ecologist" - headlining "Stop the biomass blackout: say no to the...
12 years 12 months ago
Funding for carbon trading projects halted
The Citizen, Tanzania
Funding for a carbon trading system known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) has been suspended until further negotiations between poor countries and powerful industrial nations.
“The postponement of REDD at the COP 17 Durban Conference was due to the fact that there was no consensus about the approach of disbursing funds to developing countries from developed countries.While most of members from developed nations proposed to channel funds through the private sector, many representatives of...
13 years 4 months ago
German/Deutsch
Editors Note: Scott Poynton at Huffington Post argues our story to be "too spooky" and doesn't think NGOs are competing for money. Nevertheless he thinks competition of NGO's will increase in the future...
Actually it was only a matter of time, because the sign stood for a long time to storm. In terms of tropical deforestation, sustainable forest management (SFM) and REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation) there is a big mistrust between environmental NGOs and social NGOs (read further here…).
Of course, environmental NGOs are and have always...
13 years 4 months ago
WWF seems to have some demand for explanation in regard of it's operations in tropical countries.
Interested in our analyses of this issue? Read on here...
There was a broadcasting of the a german state television (ARD)
regarding WWF's role in ecotourism and conservation activities back
in June 2011
The ARD statement continued:
The original press release of 05/11/2011's stated that the ARD team on Borneo (Indonesia) found "not a single organ-utan conservation project of the WWF", will NOT maintained any more. The same applies to the formulation...
13 years 5 months ago
In an official side event to the UNFCCC 34th session of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) some interesting presentations had been given by the speakers.
Lini Wollenberg came up with some very interesting facts:
Deforstation varies regionally
© Lini Wollenberg
9 billion people by 2050—require 70 to 100% increase in food
But only about additional 10% of current arable, non protected land will be available (445 Mha) (Lambin2011)
Integrated action across REDD+ and...