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  • Ancient Forests Absorb 20% of Human's Carbon -- Logging and Other Industrial Destruction of Old Forests Must Stop Now

    - The myth that primary and old growth forests should be "sustainably" managed is dealt a mortal deathblow. Members and funders of RAN, FSC and others greenwashing ancient forest logging called upon to withdraw support in protest

    (Seattle, WA) -- Ecological Internet welcomes the emerging science published today in "Nature" indicating tropical trees in undisturbed forest are absorbing nearly a fifth of the CO2 released by burning fossil fuels[1]. This is in addition to the long-term carbon sequestered within old trees' wood and soils. This is the most recent of several major scientific studies indicating the need to fully protect all remaining primary and old growth forests as a keystone response to global climate, biodiversity and water crises.

    "This is huge -- not only do ancient rainforests reliably store massive amounts of carbon, as we have known for sometime, but they continue to remove enormous amounts of carbon every day they remain standing and are non- degraded. The study partially solves the mystery of where human carbon pollution has been going, and in so doing supports the need for avoided deforestation payments," said Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet's President.

    It was found that remaining tropical forests remove a massive 4.8 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions from the atmosphere each year. This includes a previously unknown carbon sink in Africa, which mops up 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 a year. Over the past 40 years, each hectare of intact African forest was found to have annually trapped an extra 0.6 tonnes of carbon. This builds upon last year's studies that found old-growth forests are "carbon sinks" and continually absorb carbon dioxide, and that their first time logging releases 40 percent of their carbon[2].

    "We are receiving a free subsidy from nature," says Dr. Simon Lewis, a Royal Society research fellow at the University of Leeds, and the lead author of the paper. "Tropical forest trees are absorbing about 18% of the CO2 added to the atmosphere each year from burning fossil fuels, substantially buffering the rate of climate change."

    Dr. Lee White, co-author on the study, said "to get an idea of the value of the sink, the removal of nearly 5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by intact tropical forests, based on realistic prices for a tonne of carbon, should be valued at around £13 billion ($USD 18.7 billlion) per year. This is a compelling argument for conserving tropical forests."

    ### MORE ###

    The findings critically demolish claims by groups as diverse as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), World Bank, Rainforest Action Network (RAN), Greenpeace and WWF that "well-managed, responsible and low-impact" logging in the world's dwindling ancient forests can ever have environmental benefits. Over the past two years, each has been the target of Ecological Internet's campaign to end old growth forest logging, which is "certified" by FSC as being "green".

    Late last year RAN agreed to review their long-time support for first time industrial logging of ancient forests[3]. When Lafcadio Cortesi, RAN's new rainforest campaigner, was asked to comment upon the Nature report, he replied it is a "bit of a stretch and certainly premature to link... the nature paper findings with RAN and the FSC." He refused to answer the question "how does logging 500 year old ancient trees protect rainforests and the climate," continuing two years of RAN stonewalling on the most basic of questions regarding their support for FSC ancient forest logging.

    EI President, Dr. Glen Barry, said "the science has never been clearer: global ecological sustainability depends critically upon protecting and restoring old forests. How much longer can RAN and the world dither? Our demand of RAN remains the same: either use your membership to get FSC to eliminate their sourcing of certified timbers from ancient forests, or resign immediately from FSC in protest. Sadly, our campaign resumes after failure by RAN to keep their earlier promises."

    "We call upon RAN members to resign, and their funders to stop their support, in protest of America's leading rainforest group supporting -- against a growing body of ecological science -- first time industrial destruction of primeval forests. EI will be taking further protest action at a place and time of our choosing."

    ### ENDS ###

    [1] Nature, "Increasing carbon storage in intact African tropical forests", February 19, 2009, Vol 457.

    Study press release: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090218135031...

    [2] Old-growth forests as global carbon sinks. Nature 455, 213-215 (September 11, 2008).

    Green Carbon: The role of natural forests in carbon storage. ANU E Press (July 2008).

    [3] "Ancient Forest Victory, as Rainforest Action Network Yields, Commits to Review FSC Support", http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2008/10/release_an...

     DISCUSS RELEASE: http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2009/02/release_an...

    Ecological Internet provides the world's largest and most used climate and environment portals at http://www.climateark.org/ and http://www.ecoearth.info/ . To subscribe visit: http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/subscribe/

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    Monday, March 30, 2009 , Posted by

  • Carbon reduction tested in Brazil's Amazon forest

    In the Juma forest reserve deep in Brazil's Amazon, conservationists will receive money from a Brazilian bank and a global hotel chain to protect trees and combat global warming.

    The project is seen as a test case watched by other potential donors, mostly in rich countries, who want to help preserve tropical forests as a way to reduce their carbon footprints but have doubts about accountability and measuring success.

    The Washington, D.C., area-based Marriott hotel chain agreed yesterday to donate $2 million over four years to the Foundation for a Sustainable Amazon, which runs the project. The money is to compensate for the carbon emissions of its guests worldwide and will help the foundation protect 34 forest reserves totalling 16.4 million hectares, which it already manages.

    "The Amazon plays a huge role in combating global warming," Arne Sorenson, executive vice-president of Marriott, was quoted as saying by the foundation.

    Hotel guests will also be asked to donate $1 to the project, the foundation said.

    Brazil's Bradesco bank and the Amazonas state government each donated $9.4 million to the foundation, which was created in December.

    Brazil is one of the world's largest carbon emitters because of the 1.2 million hectares of Amazon forest that are destroyed each year, mostly by illegal loggers, poor settlers, cattle ranchers and farmers.

    Burning and clearing forests to create pastures or farmland in tropical forests from Brazil to Indonesia accounts for roughly 20 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

    Several developing countries, including Brazil, are proposing that the United Nations Kyoto climate treaty be revised so that polluters can buy carbon credits for the protection of forests.

    "Our message to the world is that obstacles to include forests in the Kyoto Protocol can be overcome," said Virgilio Viana, head of the foundation.

    Some potential donors are concerned about transparency, accountability, and the difficulty of measuring carbon sequestration in tropical forest projects.

    But external audits and international certifications of the foundation should help allay such concerns, said Viana, a Harvard-educated former Amazonas state secretary of environment.

    In exchange for their donations, companies stand to gain good publicity.

    "Companies do this because they want to win over customers," said Viana.

    "The world is on fire and aware citizens want companies to do something about it," he added.

    The 590,000-hectare Juma forest reserve was certified by TUV SUD, a German testing and inspections group, as complying with the standards of the Climate Community and Biodiversity Alliance, a group of 20 leading companies and environmental groups.

    Juma claims to be the first certified Brazilian project to reduce greenhouse gases through forest preservation. Satellite images will be used to document its preservation, said Viana.

    The foundation hopes to capitalize further by selling carbon credits.

    But Amazonas state Gov. Eduardo Braga said the current financial turmoil showed how important it was for companies to invest directly in conservation efforts and not rely only on carbon markets.

    "The carbon of the Amazon cannot be treated like a security on financial markets," Braga said late on Thursday during a ceremony in Manaus to launch the Marriott partnership.


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    Monday, March 30, 2009 , Posted by the Victoria Times Colonist

  • Clean Air for a longer life

    Aaron Moscoe from TPS sent me this great article a few months ago.  He found it on the http://www.washingtonpost.com.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

     


    Study Links Cleaner Air to Longer Life

    By Juliet Eilperin
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Thursday, January 22, 2009; A15

     

    Reducing air pollution has extended average life expectancy by five months for urban residents in dozens of U.S. cities over the past two decades, researchers found.

    A team from Brigham Young and Harvard universities reached that conclusion based on data on changes in air quality and life expectancy between 1980 and 2000 in 51 cities, including Washington. After taking into account the life-extending effects of other factors, including changes in population, income, education, migration, demographics and smoking, they calculated that cleaner air had lengthened urban dwellers' life spans significantly -- the first time researchers have been able to document an effect of improved air quality on longevity.

    The researchers found that nationally, urban dwellers' life expectancy rose by an average of 2.72 years from 1980 to 2000, and five months of that increase was attributed to breathing cleaner air.

    People in and around the District benefited more than most because the region has enjoyed a greater reduction in airborne fine particulate matter, or soot, which is linked to heart and respiratory diseases, than many other metropolitan areas. Overall, D.C. area residents were living roughly three years longer in 2000 than in 1980, and more than seven months of that improvement was attributed to the drop in airborne soot.

    Between 1980 and 2000, levels of this type of pollution fell by more than 10 micrograms per cubic meter of air in the metropolitan region, the study found. It was only 15 years ago that other researchers discovered the link between airborne particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter (less than 4/100 the width of a human hair) and lung and heart disease.

    C. Arden Pope III, lead author of the study published in today's New England Journal of Medicine, called the increase in life expectancy due to better air quality "remarkable."

    "We are getting a return on our investment," said Pope, an epidemiologist and economics professor at Brigham Young University, adding that cutting air pollutants in major cities amounted to "a large, nationwide, natural experiment."

    Between 1980 and 2000, federal regulations on power plants, including the acid rain program, helped reduce smog ingredients such as sulfur dioxide significantly, while the installation of catalytic converters on vehicles cut nitrogen oxide pollution across the country.

    Every five years the government evaluates whether it should tighten the standards for fine particulates. In September 2006, the Environmental Protection Agency decided to keep the limit unchanged at 15 micrograms per cubic meter averaged over an entire year, but it tightened the maximum permissible in any one 24-hour period from 65 to 35 micrograms. Both the EPA's scientific advisory panel and independent researchers urged the agency to impose a more stringent annual standard.

    Janice Nolen, assistant vice president of policy and advocacy for the American Lung Association, said she hoped the new findings would spur policymakers to tighten federal soot standards the next time they issue new regulations, scheduled for 2011.

    "Air pollution shortens life, and when we reduce air pollution, it actually adds months to our life," she said. "While it's hard for people to see the connection, we can document it, and we know that the connection exists."

    Pope added that one of the encouraging aspects of the study, which was co-authored by Douglas Dockery and Majid Ezzati at the Harvard School of Public Health, is that further reductions in particulate matter continue to produce health benefits.

    "There is room to improve," Pope said, noting that even relatively clean cities can experience the benefits of cutting down more on airborne particulates. Furthermore, he said, "there's a lot of room to improve in Chinese cities, and Indian cities, and cities throughout the world."

     © 2009 The Washington Post Company

    Original Article can be found here:

     

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/21/AR2009012102805_pf.html

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    Monday, March 23, 2009 , Posted by Juliet Eilperin - Washington Post Staff Writer