tagged w/ Illegal Logging
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The Brazilian Senate voted 59-7 Tuesday to approve new environmental legislation that would loosen restrictions on deforestation in the Amazon and give amnesty to those who illegally cleared land before July 2008.
At least 70 amendments were tacked onto the bill and must still be voted on. But sponsors of the legislation swore to knock down anything that changes the text's main points, and they have the support to make good on the threat.
The bill now goes back to the lower house, which already passed one version of the measure.
President Dilma Rousseff must also sign any legislation approved by the Congress. She pledged during her campaign for the presidency last year to veto any portion of an environmental bill that provides amnesty for those who illegally cleared land in the past. She now faces a tough political battle dealing with a strong agriculture lobby.
Brazil is the world's second-largest agricultural producer behind the U.S., and farmers say Brazil could easily be first if it weren't for the legal hurdles imposed by environmental legislation.
"This is the first time we're ending the monopoly, that we're ending the environmental dictatorship, where half a dozen (non-governmental organizations) controlled the Environmental Ministry," said Sen. Katia Abreu, who is also president of Brazil's National Agriculture and Livestock Federation.
But Marcio Astrini, a spokesman for Greenpeace's Amazon campaign, said the measure would "reduce the area required for conservation, and actually allow new deforestation."
"It's based on the concept that the forest gets in the way, on the argument that developed countries cut their forests, so we need to do the same. That thinking is centuries old now," he said.
The Senate vote comes a day after Brazil's government reported its lowest recorded annual level of Amazon deforestation. From August 2010 through July 2011, about 2,410 square miles (6,240 square kilometers) were destroyed, according to the National Institute for Space Research.
The government credited stepped-up enforcement against illegal cutting for the success. But some environmentalists warn it was likely due less to the government's crackdown and more to the global economic downturn, as demand lessened for products linked to deforestation, such as soy, timber and beef.
Environmentalists and agricultural interests have both pushed for a refurbishing of Brazil's current environmental law, initially passed in 1965 and toughened in the 1990s.
The law requires landowners to keep a certain percentage of their land forested, an amount that varies between 20 percent in some areas to 80 percent for states within the Amazon.
Farmers have long argued the current law's gradual tightening pushed them out of compliance and hobbled production. Staying on top of the law proved expensive, farmers say, and the government has offered no incentives to comply.
Environmental advocates agreed with the need for a new, updated law, but say the code as approved by the Senate sends a message that deforestation will be forgiven, and encourages further flouting of the law by illegal loggers and land grabbers. They argue the bill as it stands would lead to cutting down virgin forests, erosion of hillsides and riverbeds, and extensive, irreversible environmental damage to the rain forest, an area the size of the U.S. west of the Mississippi River that absorbs the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
About 20 percent of the Brazilian rain forest already has been cut down. Burning and rotting trees account for 75 percent of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions.
The base text approved by the Senate would reduce the preservation requirement to 50 percent in states where 65 percent of the land is already included in indigenous reservations or conservation units. Just one state, Amapa, falls under that category. Two others, Amazonia and Roraima, are close to reaching it.
The new law would also allow agriculture and cattle grazing closer to environmentally fragile areas: riversides, the tops and flanks of hills, and the land around springs. Currently, hillsides can't be cleared to prevent erosion, and a minimum of 98 feet (30 meters) must be kept forested around rivers.
The new code allows logging on slopes of up to 45 degrees, and reduces the preservation area around rivers by half.
It also redefines riverbeds as areas covered by water most of the year, instead of during peak flow times, shrinking the amount of protected area around them. In vast, flat forests like the Amazon, the water level of a river can rise 32 feet (10 meters) during the wet season. Each year, flooding covers 154,441 square miles (400,000 square kilometers) in the Amazon, said Maria Tereza Piedade, head of the ecology, monitoring and sustainable use group within the National Institute for Amazon Research.
This new definition would open vast untouched tracts of forest to deforestation, she said.
More at the linkThe Brazilian Senate voted 59-7 Tuesday to approve new environmental legislation that... more
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More than half of the timber now shipped globally is destined for China. But unscrupulous Chinese companies are importing huge amounts of illegally harvested wood, prompting conservation groups to step up boycotts against rapacious timber interests.
by william laurance
In Chinese folklore, a dragon symbolizes strength. It is an apt icon for a nation whose rise as an economic superpower has been nothing short of meteoric.
While China’s stunning economic advances have come at significant environmental cost, the boom has been a plus in a few realms. The country is investing avidly in green technologies, such as solar energy and high-tech car batteries. It has also undertaken an ambitious national reforestation program, while cracking down on illegal forest clearing and logging inside its borders. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, forest cover in China, including large areas of timber plantations, increased from 157 million hectares in 1990 to 197 million hectares in 2005.
Counter-intuitively, the expansion of Chinese forests has occurred at the same time the country has been developing an immense export industry for In its fervor to secure timber, China is increasingly seen as a predator on the world’s forests.wood and paper products. China is now the “wood workshop for the world,” according to Forest Trends, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, consuming more than 400 million cubic meters of timber annually to feed both its burgeoning exports and growing domestic demands. Production of paper products has also grown dramatically in China, doubling from 2002 to 2007.
But the rise of the Chinese dragon has a darker side. As much as half of the timber and much of the paper pulp consumed by China is imported, primarily from tropical nations or nearby Siberia. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with this — China has every right to grow economically and seek the kind of prosperity that industrial nations have long enjoyed. However, in its fervor to secure timber, minerals, and other natural resources, China is increasingly seen as a predator on the world’s forests.
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China is now overwhelmingly the biggest global consumer of tropical timber, importing around 40 to 45 million cubic meters of timber annually. Today, more than half of all timber being shipped anywhere in the world is destined for China. Many nations in the Asia-Pacific region and Africa export the lion’s share of their timber to China.
China faces three criticisms by those worried about the health and biodiversity of the world’s forests. First, the country and its hundreds of wood-products corporations and middlemen have been remarkably aggressive in pursuing timber supplies globally, while generally being little concerned with social equity or environmental sustainability. For instance, China has helped fund and promote an array of ambitious new road or rail projects that are opening up remote forested regions in the Amazon, Congo Basin, and Asia-Pacific to exploitation. Such frontier roads can unleash a Pandora’s Box of activities — including illegal colonization, hunting, mining, and land speculation — that are often highly destructive to forests.
China is also a major consumer of wood pulp, which is helping to drive large-scale deforestation in places like Sumatra and Borneo. During a recent visit to Sumatra, I witnessed the felling of large expanses of native rainforests, which are being chopped up and fed into the world’s largest wood-pulp plant, located nearby, and replaced by monocultures of exotic acacia trees.
Second, China, in its relentless pursuit of timber, almost exclusively seeks raw logs. Raw logs are the least economically beneficial way for developing nations to exploit their timber resources, as they provide only limited royalties and little employment, workforce training, and industrial development. As a result, most of the profits from logging are realized by foreign timber-cutters, shippers, and wood-products manufacturers. A cubic meter of the valuable timber merbau (Intsia bijuga), for instance, yields only around $11 to local communities in Indonesian Papua but around $240 when delivered as raw logs to wood-products manufacturers in China, who profit further by converting it into prized wood flooring.
Finally, China has done little to combat the scourge of illegal logging, which is an enormous problem in many developing nations. A 2011 report on illegal logging by Interpol and the World Bank concluded that, among 15 of the major timber-producing countries in the tropics, two-thirds had half or more of their timber harvested illegally. Globally, economic losses and tax and royalty evasion from illegal logging are thought to cost around $15 billion annually — a large economic burden for developing nations. Forest ecosystems suffer serious impacts as well, because illegal loggers frequently ignore environmental controls on cutting operations.
According to a 2010 analysis by Chatham House, a respected UK think tank, illegal logging is slowly declining globally but this is despite, rather than because of, China’s influence. The report concluded that, from 2000 to 2008, China imported 16 to 24 million cubic meters of illegal timber each One report said that China imports 16 to 24 million cubic meters of illegal timber each year.year. This is an incredible figure — twice the total amount imported annually by leading industrial nations.
More at the linkMore than half of the timber now shipped globally is destined for China. But... more
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Raimundo Francisco Belmiro dos Santos, a defender of the Amazon jungle, has requested urgent protection from the authorities in Brazil after reporting that a number of hired gunmen are looking for him, because landowners in the northern state of Pará have offered a 50,000 dollar contract for his death.
Belmiro dos Santos is a 46-year-old "seringueiro" or rubber tapper who fears for his life and the lives of his family, after receiving numerous threats for his activism against the destruction of the Amazon jungle.
"My life is really complicated today, because they have put a price on my head, and say that I will be killed before the end of the year," the activist told IPS in an anguished voice by telephone from the Riozinho do Anfrísio reserve, where he lives.
It takes several days to reach the reserve by river from the nearest city, Altamira, which is 800 km from Belém, the capital of the state of Pará.
"I am fighting to defend life, the jungle, nature, and I can't live without protection anymore," Belmiro dos Santos, who is a married father of nine, told IPS.
In response to his cry for help, the prosecutor's service for the state of Pará instructed the police to launch an investigation, sources at the prosecutor's office told IPS.
According to an official statement, prosecutor Cláudio Terre do Amaral ordered the police to ask the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) to provide "all documents and information relating to the matter" and for the authorities to provide Belmiro dos Santos with assistance.
The latest threat came on Aug. 7, when an anonymous caller told the activist by telephone: "They are going to the reserve to kill you. If I was you, I wouldn't go back."
But dos Santos says he will continue to return to his home.
Over the last week he has held several meetings with members of the ICMBio, the government agency responsible for managing and enforcing environmental laws in protected areas.
The activist's fears are grounded in a long history of violence in Pará. In May, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espírito Santo, a husband and wife team of activists who spent years fighting illegal deforestation in the rainforest, were gunned down after receiving numerous death threats.
Pará is the Brazilian state with the largest number of murders involving conflicts over land. The Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), which has documented rural violence in Brazil since the 1980s, has counted hundreds of such killings.
The highest-profile cases included the 2005 murder of 73-year-old U.S.-born Catholic nun and activist Dorothy Stang at the hands of killers hired by local landowners. For four decades she had been active on behalf of the poor in the state of Pará, in Brazil's eastern Amazon jungle region.
Another case that had international repercussions was the April 1996 "massacre of Eldorado de Carajás", in which 19 rural protesters were killed when the police opened fire on a crowd of peasant farmers who were holding a peaceful demonstration on a road in southern Pará.
Environmentalist Marcelo Salazar told IPS that there are many people in the region who dedicate their lives to the tireless struggle to defend the Amazon jungle, and many are murdered "without anyone ever hearing about it."
Defending their land
The threats against Belmiro dos Santos began in 2004, shortly after the government of Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011) declared the creation of the Riozinho do Anfrísio Extractive Reserve, a 736,000-hectare area located in the region of Terra do Meio between the Xingú River and its tributary, the Iriri River, in the southwest portion of the state of Pará.
Extractive reserves are areas in Brazil dedicated to the regulated use of natural resources in such a way that ecological balance is not affected. The idea emerged in the Amazon jungle on the initiative of Chico Mendes, the leader of the "seringueiros" and defender of the environment whose 1988 murder shocked the world.
Belmiro dos Santos was rewarded the government's Human Rights Award in 2004. When the first threats arrived that year, he and his uncle Herculano Porto de Oliveira were flown out of the jungle by helicopter for their own protection and taken to the capital, Brasilia, on the orders of then minister of the environment Marina Silva.
The former minister has now promised, in messages on her Twitter account, to ask the Special Secretariat of Human Rights of the government of left-wing President Dilma Rousseff to provide protection once again.
The destruction of the jungle by landholders, ranchers and loggers has run up against resistance from the Riozinho do Anfrísio Extractive Reserve association, and the name of Belmiro dos Santos, the association's leader, is now circulating among paid killers.
"I have always lived in the jungle," the activist said. "They wanted to buy my small plot of land to get me to leave, but I told them no. I'm not scared of what might happen to me, but I am afraid for the lives of my family, of my children, who live in the reserve," he said, adding that there are some 10 armed men looking for him in the area.
Belmiro dos Santos, who was born and raised in Riozinho, says his grandfather came to the area from the northeast state of Ceará during the rubber boom in the first half of the 20th century.
But when Brazil lost its global market dominance in natural latex, the local population started to shrink, to the current 60 families (around 500 people) who have no basic public services, labour protections or social entitlements, and who are exposed to the predatory activities of the "grileiros" – "land-grabbers" who invade and seize public property or private land belonging to others, using forged documents or, simply, intimidation and violence.
This practice of taking illegal possession of the land to sell it to large landowners or agribusiness interests, known as "grilagem", is carried out on a large scale in the Amazon rainforest, where the "grileiros" are the main culprits of deforestation.
More at the linkRaimundo Francisco Belmiro dos Santos, a defender of the Amazon jungle, has requested... more
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Agent Orange is one of the most devastating weapons of modern warfare, a chemical which killed or injured an estimated 400,000 people during the Vietnam War -- and now it's being used against the Amazon rainforest. According to officials, ranchers in Brazil have begun spraying the highly toxic herbicide over patches of forest as a covert method to illegally clear foliage, more difficult to detect that chainsaws and tractors. In recent weeks, an aerial survey detected some 440 acres of rainforest that had been sprayed with the compound -- poisoning thousands of trees and an untold number of animals, potentially for generations.
Officials from Brazil's environmental agency IBAMA were first tipped to the illegal clearing by satellite images of the forest in Amazonia; a helicopter flyover in the region later revealed thousands of trees left ash-colored and defoliated by toxic chemicals. IBAMA says that Agent Orange was likely dispersed by aircraft by a yet unidentified rancher to clear the land for pasture because it is more difficult to detect than traditional operations that require chainsaws and tractors.
Last week, in another part of the Amazon, an investigation conducted by the agency uncovered approximately four tons of the highly toxic herbal pesticides hidden in the forest awaiting dispension. If released, the chemicals could have potentially decimated some 7,500 acres of rainforest, killing all the wildlife that resides there and contaminating groundwater. In this case, the individual responsible was identified and now faces fines nearing $1.3 million.
According to a report from Folha de São Paulo, the last time such chemicals were recorded in use by deforesters was in 1999, but officials say dispensing the devastating herbicide may become more common as officials crack down on the most flagrant types of environmental crime.
"They [deforesters] have changed their strategy because, in a short time, more areas of forest can be destroyed with herbicides. Thus, they don't need to mobilize tree-cutting teams and can therefore bypass the supervision of IBAMA," says Jerfferson Lobato of IBAMA.
While Agent Orange was originally designed to clear forest coverage in combat situations, its use became a subject of controversy due to its impact on humans and wildlife. During the Vietnam War, the United States military dispersed 12 million gallons of herbicide, impacting the health of some 3 million, mostly peasant, Vietnamese citizens, and causing birth defects in around 500 thousand children. Additionally, the chemical's effect on the environment have been profound and lasting.
More at the linkAgent Orange is one of the most devastating weapons of modern warfare, a chemical... more
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A prominent anti-logging activist was murdered along with his wife in Brazil on Tuesday, just hours before the country's Chamber of Deputies overwhelmingly voted to let farmers destroy more of the Amazon.
The 410-63 vote defangs the 75-year-old Código Florestal (Forest Code), which has long required that farmers who own a piece of the Amazon preserve 80% of the land they own and farm only on the remainder. The new bill exempts small-scale farmers from the Forest Code and opens environmentally sensitive patches of land – such as hilltops, slopes, and watersides – to cultivation. It also grants amnesty to small-scale farmers who violated the law before July, 2008.
The bill has not yet passed to the Senate, and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has vowed to veto it if the amnesty provision remains, but that hasn’t stopped farmers from preemptively chopping and burning forested portions of their property, leading to a sixfold surge in deforestation, with the greatest increase coming in Mato Grosso.
Death of an Activist
Also on Tuesday, anti-logging activist José Claudio Ribeiro "Ze Claudio" da Silva was gunned down along with his wife, Maria do Espírito Santo da Silva, in rural Para inside the Praialta-Piranheira, a nature reserve where they had spent the last two decades as rubber-tappers.
Environmental Fallout
First passed in 1934 and strengthened intermittently thereafter, the Forest Code is considered one of the world’s most progressive forest policies. Supporters of the Forest Code say it has played a major role in the rapid deceleration of deforestation rates in the Amazon over the last decade.
Before surging this past year, deforestation rates had fallen dramatically in Brazil. From a ten-year high of 2.7 million hectares in 2004, the rate dropped to 0.70 million hectares by 2009.
In a letter in the July 16, 2010, issue of Science, six Brazilian scientists wrote that the new rules “will benefit sectors that depend on expanding frontiers by clear-cutting forests and savannas and will reduce mandatory restoration of native vegetation illegally cleared since 1965.”
The scientists warn that CO2 emissions “may increase substantially”, and as many as 100,000 species might be put at risk of extinction if the proposal becomes law. “Under the new Forest Act,” the scientists said, “Brazil risks suffering its worst environmental setback in half a century, with critical and irreversible consequences beyond its borders.”
cont.A prominent anti-logging activist was murdered along with his wife in Brazil on... more
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Deep in the Chiquitana tropical dry forest in southeast Bolivia, Noine Picanerai stands on a dirt road that cuts through lush woods. The 50,000-acre plot looks like a protected reserve. But, notes Picanerai, a woodsman in his 70s, "My people live off selling these trees." Indeed, despite the forest's pristine appearance, it's a logging concession run by an indigenous Ayoreo community. The project, along with dozens of similar forest management programs across the Amazon region north of Bolivia, are making sustainable logging a reality instead of an oxymoron. "We aren't like the other guys," Picanerai says with a toothless grin. "We make sure the forest stays standing."
Each year more than 30 million acres (12 million hectares) of the world's natural forest are cut to satisfy global demand for wood and paper products. That deforestation, which reduces the planet's carbon dioxide-absorbing foliage, causes at least a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions today. South American forest management projects — logging that assures tree regeneration — are quietly growing into key conservation strategies in the fight against climate change. "These programs are about making the standing forest worth something to governments and communities," says Meg Symington, managing director for the Amazon for the World Wildlife Fund-USA, which supports sustainable forestry.
Bolivia, specifically its indigenous communities and their NGO advocates, has been a pioneer of this effort, and communities in Brazil, Peru and the Guyanas have jumped on board as well. The Chiquitana venture, established in 2001 in the town of Zapoco by the Ayoreos and an NGO called APCOB, with government approval and monitoring, was Bolivia's first indigenous-run forestry business. Its goal is to help save the dry forest — which is South America's second-largest eco-system behind the Amazon rain forest, but whose trees are being felled at a faster rate than others on the continent — while giving the rural poor a shot at a living wage.
Each year for 20 years, the Zapoco cooperative has license to log 2,500 acres (1,000 hectares) filled with rosewood, tigerwood, caviuna and other exotic tree species for export to the U.S. and Europe. (On average about 6,000 trees are felled each year.) A tree census plots out the logging before it begins, and only mature trunks of a certain diameter are marked for chopping, while younger trees are left to grow and the healthiest of the lot are spared so their seeds can spread. "That one wasn't cut because it's got a parrot's nest," says Pedro Charupas, another Zapoco resident, motioning to a fully mature ironwood.
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Such efforts are still the exception: billions of dollars worth of illegally harvested wood is estimated to enter the U.S. every year, despite 2008 legislation meant to thwart it. But as nations like the U.S. increase efforts to buy legally sourced wood, countries like Bolivia benefit due to projects like Zapoco's. Half of Bolivia's surface area, about 1.3 million acres (500,000 hectares) is forest, home to rare wood species whose value will grow as rain and dry forests alike disappear in other parts of the world. Picanerai says Zapoco often hosts visits from other indigenous communities eager to establish cooperatives. And that's why, says the elder, he's confident the seeds of sustainable logging will keep spreading.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2071694,00.html#ixzz1MjWaaHBfDeep in the Chiquitana tropical dry forest in southeast Bolivia, Noine Picanerai... more
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Last week the European Union’s Parliament passed new legislation that will halt the entrance of illegal wood into European nations. This is a major victory for forests and wildlife around the world.Last week the European Union’s Parliament passed new legislation that will halt... more
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Authorities have long alleged that De Moura, now 39, plotted Stang's murder because she blocked him and other ranchers from taking over land that had been set aside for the poor for sustainable development. Stang also is said to have denounced De Moura for illegal deforestation of his land.
De Moura's initial conviction in 2007 was reversed in a second trial in 2008, after convicted gunman Rayfran das Neves Sales recanted his testimony. The acquittal raised an international outcry among critics, who said it exemplified the immunity enjoyed by wealthy Brazilian landowners and loggers. Supreme Court Justice Celso de Mello also said that justice had "fallen short of its responsibility."
The acquittal was overturned last year on a technicality, and a third trial was ordered.
Dozens of activists, friends and colleagues of Stang camped out and prayed near the courthouse in the steamy Amazon River port city of Belem.
"The defendant, who showed a violent personality, was also wicked and cowardly in ordering the destruction of an elderly woman who helplessly had no chance to escape the attack of her executioner," Judge Raimundo Moises Flexa said after the verdict was read in the courtroom.
De Moura's attorneys told jurors their client was the victim of "an American conspiracy" and that God would punish them if they returned a guilty verdict. De Moura did not testify.
Two gunmen and a middleman have been convicted in Stang's murder and are serving lengthy prison sentences. De Moura's partner, Regivaldo Galvao, will be tried this month for allegedly helping plan the crime.
A native of Dayton, Ohio, Stang worked in Brazil for almost 40 years, becoming a naturalized citizen and helping set up schools, medical clinics and churches for landless peasants. She is one of an estimated 700 environmentalists and rights workers who have been killed in the Amazon basin in the last decade.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/13/world/la-fg-brazil-stang14-2010apr14Authorities have long alleged that De Moura, now 39, plotted Stang's murder... more
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Few creatures in the wild captivate man as do gorillas. For those lucky enough to have seen them, it would be hard to imagine Africa's Congo without these gentle giants. However we may have no choice. By the mid-2020s, a new UN and Interpol report says gorillas may disappear from the forests of the Congo Basin.
"We had done a report back in 2002 which was already fairly grim in terms of the predictions in terms of the extinction," says Amy Fraenkel, regional director of the U-N Environnmental Program.
"But that is unfortunately very much trumped by the recent findings, which are that between - I'd say less than 10-15 years out from now, we could see extinction in large ranges of the species."
Fraenkel notes the report links the threat to gorillas to militias, and the continued fighting in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"The biggest cause is an increase in illegal logging and harvesting of minerals in the area which in many cases are being used to directly finance militias, as you know it's a very war-torn area."
She adds that "illegal activity" also includes killing gorillas for bushmeat to feed the loggers and militia.
But the gorillas also face perhaps a more dangerous foe than man. A deadly disease that has wiped out entire populations of gorillas.
"If I were to rank them in what is now the most immediate threat, Ebola would be number one," says Allard Blom, with the World Wildlife Fund's Congo Basin Program.
"It's very devastating to both gorillas and humans and gets transmitted between the species. So that is actually at the moment really wiping out a lot of gorillas in their areas where they are most protected. The biggest populations get hit by this virus. Basically, it's almost a 100% mortality rates in gorilla."
The UNEP Interpol report contains several recommendations to counter the threat to gorillas. One key element, says Amy Fraenkel, is to stem the economic benefit of the illegal trade, inside and outside of Africa.
"And that is something we've been working on in many different aspects of environmental crime. In this case, it's training law enforcement officials and park rangers - and deploying and giving them the resources. It's truly a war and they need to be well equipped."
Allard Blom of the WWF agrees with report's recommendation. He adds that it is important to work with logging companies to help stem the illegal bushmeat trade -- and on that front, he says there is some good news.
"There is now over five million hectares of forest that is certified...and I can tell you from personal experience, 10-15 years ago, most logging companies were extremely hostile to conservation organizations. We were seen as the enemy and that has dramatically changed.
The UNEP - Interpol report was presented at a recent meeting of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species.
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/environment/Gorillas-on-the-Brink-90203897.htmlFew creatures in the wild captivate man as do gorillas. For those lucky enough to have... more
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PHOTO: The consumption of a silver-backed gorilla. (National Geographic)
Though most of our species in the more developed countries won’t even care about this, I feel compelled to report this tragedy of environmental disaster wrought by our lesser fortunate brethren in Africa specifically between the countries of Congo, Uganda, and Rwanda, all sites of genocides and the abuse of human rights in modern history.
There are multiple factors negatively affecting the population of African gorillas living in the Congo Basin. Of course, humans are one of them. Due to the violent militants and rebels ethnically cleansing their areas, it has forced thousands of refugees towards the wild, mainly the Congo Basin. Refugee camps are in wild demand of any food especially the meat of an ape. Insurgents and militias further harm gorillas by aggressively encroaching into the wild to extract precious – and illegal – minerals along with much needed lumber cutting down trees and ruining habitats for gorillas.
To top it all off, the epidemic of Ebola, a deadly virus for both humans and apes, especially apes, which became known to the public due to the strange infections of monkeys in the U.S being is accelerating the rate of mortality for these gorillas. This virus that originates from the Ebola River near Congo spreads through things such as spit, or soil rarely through human contact. Consequently, gorillas with their habits and movement patterns fell victim to an Ebola epidemic in the late 1900’s worsening their immune system and killing thousands of these gorillas.
Think environment activists have time? Think again. Within the next decade, the gorillas in the Greater Congo Basin will completely disappear as activities such as mining and poaching continue to rapidly increase as demands for the end-products also increase. Ninety percent of both infected gorillas and the natural habitats will decrease in the same timeframe of roughly ten to fifteen years according to the United Nations Environment Program, a surprise for those who had thought gorillas in the Congo Basin would lose the same amount of their habitat by the year 2030.
A nightmare for environment activists, the lack of gorillas in the region of Central Africa will have significant impacts on the levels of their community, ecosystem and ultimately the biosphere leading to other environmental casualties as well.
Unlike the cases of whales, tigers, and others being terribly cut down by humans in the animal kingdom, the decreasing population of gorillas in Central Africa (already around the number of seven hundred gorillas, a gloomy statistic when compared to the previous population in the 20th century) is even harder to prevent. You can’t exactly hunt down militants in politically unstable areas in Africa, and you can’t exactly hand out vaccination to a line of gorillas to prevent their deaths in the Ebola outbreaks.
The rangers at these wildlife sites are nearly helpless as well due to the lack of outside support for Interpol’s Environmental Crime Program and such other programs. More than 180 rangers have already been killed by those who illegally garner resources at the expense of the species of gorillas.
There simply is no room for optimism only reality.
http://inewp.com/?p=1862PHOTO: The consumption of a silver-backed gorilla. (National Geographic)
Though... more
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UNEP/GRID-Arendal - Publications - Last Stand of the Gorilla
Gorillas, the largest of the great apes, are under renewed threat across the Congo Basin from Nigeria to the Albertine Rift: poaching for bushmeat, loss of habitat due to agricultural expansion, degradation of habitat from logging, mining and charcoal production are amongst these threats, in addition to natural epidemics such as ebola and the new risk of diseases passed from humans to gorillas.
Alarmingly, parts of the region are experiencing intensifed exploitation and logging of its forest, in some cases even within protected areas. In the DRC, many of these activities are controlled by militias illegally extracting natural resources such as gold, tin and coltan as well as producing charcoal for local communities, urban areas, camps for people displaced by fghting and sometimes even to communities across the border. These militias are located, motivated, armed and fnanced directly by this illegal extraction of minerals, timber and charcoal.
A network of intermediaries including multinational companies or their subsidiaries, neighboring countries and corrupt offcials, are involved in the transportation and procurement of resources which stem from areas controlled by militia, or for which no legal exploitation permission exists.
Recommendations
1. Strengthen MONUC by expanding its mandate to secure full control of border crossings, by any means necessary, with regard to the export of illegally exploited natural resources, that are fnancing the confict, in full collaboration with and assisting the national customs authority to intervene and halt trans-national environmental crime, in close coordination with appropriate national and international bodies.
2. Enhance support for close coordination and trans-boundary collaboration among parks in DRC, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, including coordination with MONUC, the Lusaka Agreement Task Force and relevant law enforcement agencies.
3. Mobilize resources for trans-boundary collaboration and coordination, including all aspects of transnational environmental crime and investigation from source to end-user outside the region – including investigations of complicit companies in recipient countries, especially but not limited to the EU, USA, People’s Republlic of China and the rest of Asia – in order to monitor the origin and halt the purchase of illegally exploited and smuggled minerals and timber from the Congo Basin.
4. Mobilize funding for judicial training and cross-boundary training of judicial staff in national and transnational environmental crime in gorilla range states to assist in bringing successful prosecutions.
5. Strengthen long term training programmes in law enforcement for park rangers and wildlife managers across the region including those working outside of parks, for example in community reserves, with particular reference to anti-poaching, monitoring, scene of crime investigation and intelligence gathering.
6. Promote the essential role that local, national and international law enforcement and anti-corruption plays in ensuring the success of rainforest protection and climate mitigation efforts under REDD+ and source specifc fnance for these measures through UNEP, UNODC, LATF and INTERPOL.
7. Establish a fund for supporting trans-boundary investigation and collaboration on trans-national environmental crime.
8. Strengthen the collaboration of UNEP, UN offce for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), UN Department of Peace Keeping Operations (DPKO), CITES, World Customs Organization (WCO) and INTERPOL on trans-national environmental crime – including illegal trade in valuable natural resources such as minerals, wood products and wildlife – by, for example, secondment of experienced offcers to help investigate cases and bring about prosecutions.
9. Support the need for strengthened funding for gorilla research and survey data. The report, compiling some of the most recent data and information from a variety of sources, clearly highlights the lack of accurate survey data in parts of the regions within the 10 gorilla range states.
VIDEO: Satinder Bindra interviews Christian Nelleman
http://www.grida.no/publications/rr/gorilla/UNEP/GRID-Arendal - Publications - Last Stand of the Gorilla
Gorillas, the largest... more
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Gorillas in central Africa are in danger from illegal logging, mining and from hunters who are killing great apes for meat, said a joint report from the United Nations and Interpol released Wednesday.
A previous report in 2002 estimated that only 10 percent of gorillas would remain by 2030. The author of the 2002 report and of the newly released one said that estimate now appears too optimistic.
"We fear now that the gorillas may become extinct from most parts of their range in perhaps 15 years," U.N. Environmental Program's Christian Nellemann said.
One of the dangers gorillas now face is a large increase in logging for timber that is mostly destined for Asia, particularly China, said Nellemann, also editor-in-chief of the newly released report "The Last Stand of The Gorilla."
Militant factions have also taken over gorilla land, making the protection of gorillas extremely difficult, he said. Increasing human populations and the deadly ebola virus are also killing gorillas.
Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP, said that logging and mining camps hire poachers to supply refugees and markets with the meat of wild animals, including gorillas.
The report calls for greater scrutiny of European and Asian companies using subsidiaries to extract timber and minerals from central Africa.
"This is tragedy for the great apes and one also for countless other species being impacted by this intensifying and all too often illegal trade," Steiner said in a statement. "In short it is environmental crime and theft by the few and the powerful at the expense of the poor and the vulnerable."
David Higgins, manager of the Interpol Environmental Crime Program, said that gorillas are a victim of the contempt shown by organized crime groups toward national and international laws aimed at defending wildlife.
The report, however, contained some good news as well. An unpublished survey of one area of eastern Congo in the center of the conflict zone discovered 750 previously unknown critically endangered eastern lowland gorillas.
"What we are worried about is that these gorillas are disappearing faster than we can actually mobilize resources to save them," said Nellemann, who called for increased resources for UNEP and Interpol to protect great apes.
The report also found that the number of mountain gorillas in the Virungas, a transboundary national park, has risen 12 percent since 2007 as a result of strengthened law enforcement.
There are four distinct types of gorilla. Three are listed as critically endangered and one is listed as endangered.
Help save the gorillas!
International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP)
http://www.igcp.org/Gorillas in central Africa are in danger from illegal logging, mining and from hunters... more
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Understanding local human cultures is key to preserving gorillas, elephants and other wildlife in African parks and reserves, according to new research from Purdue University.
"Conservation efforts and the management of protected areas are often designed with the best intentions, but sometimes supporting scientific data is missing or incorrect assumptions are made about a local culture or even the outsiders or trade that plays a role in the area," said Melissa Remis, a professor of anthropology who studies gorillas.
"Conservation isn't just about protecting wildlife, you also need to consider the human dimension such as how local hunting technologies or even migration can change how land is used."
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Researchers found that selective logging opens light gaps in the forest that result in new herbaceous vegetation growth. This food source helps sustain the local antelope, which are called duikers. These antelope, whose populations are declining, are the primary food source for most people in the area, and some local residents have been hunting gorillas as a substitute as for duiker. A stable duiker population would help take the hunting pressure off the protected species, Remis said.
Remis and Rebecca Hardin, an associate professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources have studied the cultures and the animals, specifically elephants and gorillas, in this area since the 1990s.
In addition to regular animal censuses, the researchers interviewed park guards, tourists, local residents and others. Findings from this research, which includes data up to 2005, appeared in last month's Conservation Biology. The research team also is evaluating additional data from 2005 to 2008.
These recent animal censuses show that the local gorilla and elephant populations are declining even in the heart of the protected area.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100113172140.htmUnderstanding local human cultures is key to preserving gorillas, elephants and other... more
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Avatar, the new Cameron's film mirrors our times and environmental crisis more than ever.
This is happening right now in the Amazon forest. It has always happened but may be, just may be something is changing, something is different.
Not only people's environmental consciousness has grown powerful but action is taking place as we speak and we can only fully support them.
They are not the only one to be threatened, the whole world is at risk, we lose the Amazon, we lose the Earth.
The indigenous people have gotten together to fight against the illegal logging and a system that doesn't protect them.
It gets worse. The leaders of these groups are being imprisoned and are being labelled "criminals".
Two excerpts from:
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-01-12-battle-brazil-rainforest/
"The Jaurú logging company attempted to bribe the community members to let wood pass down the river. When their offer was rejected, the company hired gunmen to accompany their barges to market. In the early morning of Jan. 3, five log-laden barges set forth, accompanied by 40 armed men. When they reached the encampment, they opened fire on the sleeping, unarmed protestors. Two people were shot. The victims were rushed to the hospital; they survived."
"The demonstration at Renascer was in part inspired by action taken a month earlier and 100 miles to the west, in an area called Gleba Nova Olinda at the source of the Arapiuns River. On Nov. 12, people from over 40 indigenous and traditional communities—frustrated after more than a decade of failed negotiations with the state for territorial rights, and increasingly suffering threats and attacks against their leaders—closed the Arapiuns River to logging traffic and sequestered two barges full of timber. The protestors camped on the river’s edge for a month as they waited, to no avail, for state and federal governments to arrive and address the problem. Finally, they set fire to the 2,000 cubic meters of wood on the barges. The fires blazed on for three days."
Avatar, the fight against the corporate domination, greed and ignorance.
They control us.
When somebody steps out of the sheeple gets labelled as a criminal or terrorist immediately. There is no need for police intervention to stop this individual(s), they made it so that we police each other.
Step out of the fiction world, this is REALITY!
Join Organic:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/Avatar, the new Cameron's film mirrors our times and environmental crisis more... more
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXVBb87wnkQ
Armed bands are decimating rain-forest reserves in northeastern Madagascar, killing lemurs and intimidating conservation workers, despite widespread condemnation by international environmental groups.
Several local sources report large-scale logging of valuable hardwoods in Mananara-Nord Biosphere Reserve, Masoala National Park, and Makira.
"The terrestrial part of Mananara biosphere has been devastated," a Malagasy source told mongabay.com. "[Villagers] have been threatened with beheading if they continue to embarrass the bolabolists [illegal timber-cutters]. The message came from the timber barons of Antalaha.
Several hundreds of cutters are now in the Biosphere of Mananara carrying official forms with all necessary signatures."
The timber mafia is also threatening and intimidating park authorities. According to National Radio Maroantsetra a park ranger from ANGAP (Madagascar's protected areas agency) had both of his feet broken by representatives of timber barons of Mananara.
Loggers are reportedly hunting lemurs and birds for immediate consumption as well as for sale in commercial markets in towns. The news comes just hours after Conservation International released troubling pictures showing piles of lemurs killed for the restaurant trade in northeastern Madagascar.
*The critically endangered lemurs are being poached have an approximate 'value' of $0.50 each... FIFTY-CENTS FOR EACH LEMUR SLAUGHTERED. http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0820-lemurs.html
THESE SMALLL & DEFENCELESS CREATURES ARE BEING 'SMOKED' & SOLD AS A "LUXURY" IN RESTURANTS.
http://ecoworldly.com/2009/08/21/endangered-lemurs-slaughtered-smoked-and-sold-to-restaurants/#more-3720
Besides hunting, threats include logging, gold mining, slash-and-burn agriculture and uncontrolled fires.
According to a recent press release, Dr. Russ Mittermeier, president of CI, said, “What is happening to the biodiversity of Madagascar is truly appalling, and the slaughter for these delightful, gentle, and unique animals is simply unacceptable.
This brutal slaughter is not for subsistence, but rather to serve what is certainly a “luxury” market in restaurants of larger towns in the region.” Mittermeier went on to say that an entire population could be destroyed within weeks!
The killing of these amazing creatures threatens their very existence. The lemurs are on the IUCN Red List http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/8199/0
http://www.wildmadagascar.org/wildlife/lemurs.html
The problems are worsening. "New people are arriving every day," said a source. "There are no gendarme [police] in the area."
"Things are very bad inside the Masoala, around Maroantsetra and Mananara. The rosewood cutters are more numerous than ever, the logging area is spreading toward the South.
Sources say the situation has improved in Marojejy National Park, where logging first broke out during the turmoil following the March coup. Widespread reporting of problems in Marojejy apparently persuaded the government to send police to patrol the area.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXVBb87wnkQ
Armed bands are decimating rain-forest... more
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A Brazilian federal prosecutor is leading an investigation into charges that illegal timber from the state of Pará is being laundered as "eco-certified" wood and exported to markets in the United States, Europe, and Asia, reports Sunday's edition of O Globo.
Prosecutor Bruno Valente Soares has found evidence to suggest that timber companies are doctoring paperwork and using other methods to disguise timber that is being illegally cut from reserves and indigenous lands. International buyers pay a premium for certified timber, which they can market as being more sustainable than other wood. The timber goes to furniture makers and construction companies abroad.
The scheme allegedly involves up to 3,000 companies across Pará's timber sector, writes Liana Mello.
In recent years Pará has emerged as a major timber supplier and producer of agricultural products. It has had the highest deforestation rate of any state in the Brazilian Amazon since 2006, account for 43 percent of total forest loss.A Brazilian federal prosecutor is leading an investigation into charges that illegal... more
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PHOTO: A mountain gorilla is having a snare removed. Illegal logging/deforestation has created access for illegal hunting and illegal wildlife-trade. The snares are used to catch "bushmeat" (anything that ends up in the trap).
Large numbers of endangered animals have been killed by armed groups at Africa's oldest national park in the Democratic Republic of Congo since the start of the year, park officials and environmental groups said Tuesday.
Chimpanzees, elephants, antelopes, birds and hippos have been slaughtered after Virunga National Park became the scene of intense fighting.
The park, on the frontier with Uganda, was made a world heritage site by the UN's cultural body UNESCO, and is home to endangered species such as the mountain gorilla.
"Four chimpanzees were killed last week in the central zone and 11 elephants since the start of the year," park director Emmanuel de Merode told AFP.
He added "a large number of game animals", including antelopes, had also been slaughtered.
Bantu Lukamba, from local environmental NGO Innovation, said: "At least 31 animals, including 11 migratory birds and three hippos were killed over 21 days."
They died between May 25 and June 16, he said.
Armed groups have overrun the park since violence flared up last year.
It became the theatre of intense fighting, mainly between government forces or their proxies and rebels of the National Congress for the Defence of the People.
"It is impossible to get control the situation in the park, given the huge number of armed men who exploit its resources," Merode said.
The park is also home to Lake Edward, which in 1980 was the world's most important hippopotamus sanctuary with 27,000 of the animals.
There are now less than 300, according to Merode.
Created in 1925, Virunga National Park is the oldest in Africa.PHOTO: A mountain gorilla is having a snare removed. Illegal logging/deforestation has... more
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KINIGI, Rwanda (AFP) — Rwanda "baptised" 18 rare baby mountain gorillas at what has become an annual event to highlight the plight of the endangered species.
The baby gorillas, however, were not physically present at the colourful ceremony at the edge of a national park where the primates live.
Eighteen masked people represented the gorillas at the event, which included songs and dances, attended by senior government officials including Prime Minister Bernard Makuza.
Tourism Minister Monique Nsanzabaganwa said government was expanding the the size of the volcanic park by 10 percent by the end of the year in a bid to promote the conservation of the gorillas.
"This campaign is to encourage gorilla conservation initiatives and to promote the local tourism industry," she said.
"Tourism remains one of Rwanda's key sectors," she added.
The ceremony was the fifth of its kind in Rwanda in as many years. A total of 103 gorillas have been baptised and officially received a name so far, according to AFP count.
The world's last mountain gorillas are concentrated in the mountains straddling the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.
They number around 700 in all, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).KINIGI, Rwanda (AFP) — Rwanda "baptised" 18 rare baby mountain... more
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