Weekly Newsletter | | Other topics

News articles on Logging

---

Mongabay.com news articles on logging in blog format. Updated regularly.

Papua New Guinea's forests under threat from corruption, illegal logging
(3/8/2006) Illegal logging is destroying large areas of rainforest in Papua New Guinea according to a report released last week by Forest Trends, a leading international forestry organization.


Amazon to be logged sustainably says Brazil
(3/6/2006) Last week Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced a plan to allow sustainable logging across 3 percent of the Amazon rain forest. The law is aimed at undermining destructive illegal logging activities while generating revenue for forest management and protection, and income for rural Brazilians in the region who often must rely on subsistence agriculture or employment on ranches and plantations under sometimes slave-like conditions.


Congo Pygmies Losing Fight for Their Forests
(3/6/2006) Pygmy chief Mbomba Bokenu says he may soon let loggers cut his people's forests, and all he expects in return are soap and a few bags of salt.


Logging may increase the risk of forest fire
(1/5/2006) Logging increases the risk of fire according to a new assessment in the aftermath of a large fire in Oregon. The study also found that undisturbed areas may be at lower fire risk.


Scent-tagging wood could cut illegal timber smuggling
(1/5/2006) In the future illegally harvested timber could be tracked by their scent according to researchers at Oregon State University.


Tropical deforestation rates continue to climb
(1/4/2006) Tropical deforestation rates continue to climb according to figures released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).


Malaysia's deforestation rate increasing rapidly - 86% jump since 1990s
(12/28/2005) Malaysia's deforestation rate is accelerating faster than any other tropical country in the world according to data from the United Nations.


Dangerous times on Brazil's Amazon frontier
(12/22/2005) Amazon land activist Deurival Santiago has the look of a hunted man. Activists like Santiago often protect peasant settlers in jungle areas where the government still has little control. That puts them in conflict with large-scale loggers, ranchers and land speculators pushing into an area of Para state known as the Terra do Meio, or Middle Land. It's the main battleground in the fight to slow destruction of the world's largest rain forest.


Tsunami relief risks rainforest destruction
(12/19/2005) Today WWF warned that donor countries must include sustainably sourced building materials in their long-term aid packages to avoid a second ecological disaster stemming from deforestation. According to WWF, Indonesia's Aceh province will require at least 860,000 cubic meters of sawn timber for the construction of 200,000 homes over the next five years. The conservation organization says that only a small fraction of this additional demand can be met locally without resorting to illegal logging that would be damaging to Sumatra's biologically important rain forests.


Australia warns neighbors to stop illegal rainforest logging
(12/19/2005) Australia warned its neighbors to crack down on illegal logging in their rainforests or face trade restrictions according to an article in The Australian.


Congo's forests get some relief from World Bank grant
(12/15/2005) Last week the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) received a $90-million grant from the World Bank to support the central African country's transition from instability and civil war. The grant addresses key areas in DRC's forestry sector and alleviates some of the concerns expressed by environmentalists shortly before the resolution was passed.


Congo rainforest - 600,000 sq km slated for logging
(12/5/2005) The World Bank will meet Thursday to decide whether it will fund large-scale logging in the Democratic Republic of Congo's rainforests. The country, home to the second largest rainforest in the world after Brazil, is emerging from years of civil strife which resulted in the deaths of some 3.8 million people from violence and disease.


70 years after logging, forests don't hold as much carbon as original forests
(12/5/2005) New research out of Ohio State University suggests that following logging, temperate forests take long periods of time to recover their carbon storing capacity. The scientists examined forests of of the upper Great Lakes region, which were 90% logged at the turn of the century, and found that they store only half the carbon the original forests contained. Poor forest management is blamed for the shortfall.


Governments making progress in fight against illegal logging says FAO
(12/3/2005) Governments are becoming increasingly innovative in devising ways to control illegal logging claims new research released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International Tropical Timber Organization.


Britain is largest importer of illegal timber in EU says WWF
(11/21/2005) Britain is the biggest importer of illegally-logged timber in Europe, responsible for the destruction of 1.4 million acres of forest a year according to a new report by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).


Nigeria has worst deforestation rate, FAO revises figures
(11/17/2005) Nigeria has the world's highest deforestation rate of primary forests according to revised deforestation figures from the the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.


Global deforestation rates fall, but area the size of Panama still disppears each year
(11/14/2005) Net deforestation rates have fallen, but some 13 million hectares of the world's forests are still lost each year according to a new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.


Logging threatens Mayan ruin, forest in Guatemala
(11/13/2005) In the tropical forests of Guatemala, poor rural farmers and loggers are battling environmentalists, archaeologists, and Mel Gibson over the establishment of a 525,000-acre Mayan national park.


Forests of Michoacan, Mexico disappearing
(11/7/2005) 90% of the tropical forest in Lazaro Cardenas, Aquila y Coahuayana -- municipalities in the state of Michoacan, Mexico -- has been destroyed according to an article in Cambio de Michoacan. Cattle ranching, mining, and the harvesting of precious wood are blamed as the principle causes behind the forest loss.


Logging can have low impact on Amazon rainforest says FAO
(11/5/2005) The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has issued a response to a study that found selective logging in the Amazon is highly destructive. The research, conducted by scientists from the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University, was published in Science last month. FAO argues that selective logging is not necessarily destructive and can be done with low impact on the remaining forests, if the proper techniques are applied.


Illegal timber from Honduras reaching the United States
(11/4/2005) U.S. companies are unknowingly importing illegal Honduran wood, contributing to deforestation, corruption and poverty in the Latin American country, according to a yearlong undercover investigation by the Center for International Policy and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).


Logging impact worse than thought in the Amazon
(11/1/2005) Research released earlier this month in Science found that Brazil's Amazon rain forest is being degraded twice as fast as deforestation figures suggest. Selective logging, where only one or two valuable tree species are harvested from an area, is driving the forest degradation. The findings have important implications for "sustainable harvesting" schemes that have been promoted as ecologically-sound alternatives to traditional harvesting techniques.


Hunting ban threatens Congo forest dwellers
(10/31/2005) A blanket ban on hunting in the Republic of Congo has made life even more difficult for the Baka community, an indigenous hunter-gatherer group living in the rain forests near the timber-concession areas in the north of the country.


China fuels illegal logging in Burma
(10/31/2005) A new report, launched today by Global Witness at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Bangkok , "A Choice for China -- Ending the destruction of Burma's northern frontier forests" , details shocking new evidence of the massive illicit plunder of Burma's forests by Chinese logging companies. Much of the logging takes place in forests that form part of an area said to be "very possibly the most bio-diverse, rich, temperate area on earth."


Timber traffickers arrested in Brazil
(10/31/2005) Brazilian federal police on Wednesday arrested at least 43 people accused of forging and selling permits for the transport of tens of millions of dollars (Euros) worth of illegally cut lumber, authorities said.


Congo's Kabila calls for rainforest protection
(10/30/2005) The world's second largest rainforest stands a greater chance of being protected after Congo's president finally backed a largely ignored ban on new logging, conservation group Greenpeace said on Friday.


Deforestation does not cause flooding says new study
(10/12/2005) Deforestation and logging do not increase the risk of major floods according to a new report from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Center for International forestry Research (CIFOR). The study, citing evidence showing that the frequency and extent of major floods has not changed over the last century despite significant reductions in forest cover, challenges the conventional belief that forest loss causes floods. Instead, FAO and CIFOR say that deforestation does have a role in small floods and topsoil erosion. Further, the report accuses Asian governments of using deforestation as an excuse to deflect criticism over their poor handling of human settlement in areas unsuitable for habitation.


Bush administration sued over forest decision
(10/7/2005) A coalition of 20 environmental groups sued the Bush administration Thursday to block road construction, logging and industrial development on more than 90,000 square miles of the nation's last untouched forests.


95% of mahogany from Peru is illegally logged says scientist
(10/6/2005) 95 percent of the mahogany that leaves the rainforests of Peru is logged illegally according to a scientist at the Research Institute of the Peruvian Amazon.


Bird sanctuary in Malaysia damaged by illegal logging and forest clearing
(9/26/2005) According to the New Straits Times, loggers are illegally clearing the protected forest of Gunung Panti to plant oil palm.


Illegal loggers to be imprisoned in Malaysia, possibly executed in Indonesia
(8/30/2005) Illegal loggers will now face mandatory jail time in Malaysia under new laws expected to be implemented sometime early next year. Existing enforcement efforts, which rely on fines but are poorly enforced, have largely failed to curb illegal wood harvesting in the country's tropical rainforests.


Brazil to crackdown on illegal logging says Environment Minister
(8/9/2005) According to a report from Bloomberg, Brazil will increase the monitoring of logging in the Amazon rainforest and raise fines for those caught illegally clearing trees.


Brazilian environment chief arrested on illegal forest-clearing charges
(6/3/2005) Blairo Maggi, governor of Brazil's Mato Grosso state and the world's largest soybean farmer, froze logging-permit approvals and fired his environment chief, one of dozens arrested yesterday on illegal forest-clearing charges.


Second "uncontacted" tribe in Amazon rain forest threatened by loggers
(5/27/2005) A Brazilian Indian tribe armed with bows and arrows and unseen for years has been spotted in a remote Amazon region where clashes with illegal loggers are threatening its existence.


Why sustainably-managed eco-friendly wood is more expensive for consumers
(5/19/2005) Eco-friendly wood is all the rage these days. Companies from Ikea to Home Depot require their suppliers of tropical wood to be certified by various organizations like the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which aim to ensure wood is harvested in a sustainable and responsible manner. Typically, sustainablly managed wood products are more costly for consumers. Why is this wood more expensive?


Should environmentalists fear logging or learn to understand its impact?
(5/18/2005) Environmentalists usually oppose logging, associating it with deforestation and biodiversity loss. A new report, Life after logging: reconciling wildlife conservation and production forestry in Indonesian Borneo, from CIFOR suggests that in reality, many logging operations have a lesser impact than than generally believed by conservationists. Further, since more forests in Borneo -- the area of study -- are allocated for logging than for protected areas it is imperative that we have a better understanding of how biological diversity and ecological services can be maintained in such areas and how they can be integrated with protected areas into "multi-functional conservation landscapes." Conservationists, loggers, and policy-makers alike need to recognize that logged-over forests have conservation value and work to ensure that these areas are indeed used for this purpose especially when other options for biodiversity conservation are not available.


Rebuilding tsunami-ravaged Indonesia without further deforestation
(5/12/2005) American Forest & Paper Association joins World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International in seeking donated timber for Indonesia.


In Madagascar, Woodworking Zafimaniry remember lost forests
(5/12/2005) In the rolling hills of the southeastern highlands of Madagascar there lives a group of people known as the Zafimaniry, or the "the people of the forest." The Zafimaniry are renowned sculptors of wood and traditionally, virtually every member of the community was involved in some aspect of woodworking and cabinetmaking. However, these are not good times for many Zafimaniry. Severe deforestation for slash-and-burn cultivation ("tavy") has left their surroundings nearly completely devoid of trees. Once encircled by vigorous forests, some Zafimaniry villages are more than a day's trek from the nearest natural wood source. As a result, over the past decade, the Zafimaniry have increasingly looked toward tourism as an answer to their the economic plight. The unmoderated flow of tourists into these remote and delicate communities has denigrated their culture and left some Zafimaniry further entrenched in poverty.


Wood Smuggling Link between Indonesia and China
(5/8/2005) Rampant smuggling of illegal timber from Indonesia to China is a billion dollar trade threatening the last remaining intact tropical forests in the Asia-Pacific region, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Telapak revealed at a press conference today in Jakarta.


Hardwood flooring linked to illegal timber smuggling ring, says group
(5/8/2005) Environmentalists today revealed how hardwood flooring sold across the U.S. is linked to the world's largest illegal timber smuggling operation. Following two years of undercover investigations, The Environmental Investigation Agency, a non-profit group, has exposed how a leading distributor of hardwood flooring, Goodfellow Inc., is selling flooring made from logs illegally felled in Papua province of Indonesia.


'Human footprint' to increase with repeal of roadless rule
(5/5/2005) The Bush administration's repeal a Clinton-era federal rule that banned road construction, logging and other development in some 58.5 million acres of roadless public land will likely increase the 'human footprint' on pristine wildlands in the United States.


Illegal loggers make a fortune; American forestry companies attempt to fight back
(5/5/2005) A new report published by Seneca Creek Associates and Wood Resources Institute, says that illegal logging hurts legitimate timber operators by driving down market prices for wood and tarnishing the industry's reputation through shady dealings with corrupt regimes. While maximizing their harvest without regard for regulations or the long-term impact of their activities, these illicit operators reduce their costs through the use of well-placed bribes to avoid taxes and royalties.


For What It's Worth: Ecological Services and Conservation
(5/4/2005) For a long time, preserving natural spaces was considered to be a favor to the environment without a true, measurable benefit to businesses, industrial production and productivity. In recent years however, scientists are increasingly producing substantial evidence to support the notion that the natural environment supplies a diverse range of renewable economic benefits beyond timber and fish. These benefits are termed “ecological services” and provide such valuable functions as water treatment, pollination and sediment capture, simply by remaining intact.


Farmers and landless poor battle over the Amazon
(4/22/2005) Land battles in Brazil's countryside reached the highest level in at least 20 years in 2004 as activists clashed with farmers and loggers advancing on savanna and Amazon rain forest, a nongovernmental group said Tuesday.


Timber hungry China moves into Africa
(4/20/2005) With its projected growth rates, China will soon surpass the United States in wood consumption. This voracious appetite for timber is threatening tropical forests around the globe but nowhere is this more apparent than in Africa where China is increasingly focusing its development efforts and adding fuel to a booming trade in illegally harvested timber.


Kalimantan at the Crossroads: Dipterocarp Forests and the Future of Indonesian Borneo
(4/17/2005) Kalimantan at the Crossroads: Dipterocarp Forests and the Future of Indonesian Borneo


Madagascar to takes action against illegal logging
(4/5/2005) Madagascar to takes action against illegal logging


Sustainable Logging in Rainforests - Timber certifation, trade restrictions
(3/1/2005) Although as much as 80 percent of tropical timber is consumed internally by producing nations, consumption of tropical timber by the U.S. and other industrial countries plays a significant role in tropical deforestation. The U.S., with less than 5 percent of the world's population, consumes 17 percent of the world's output of timber and is the third largest importer of tropical timber, shelling out more than $800 million annually for 1-1.5 million cubic meters. The best actions to reduce the damage caused by logging activities are to impose strict restrictions, even banning, imports of certain tropical hardwoods; developing more sustainable means of extracting rainforest timber; certifying timber with regards to its origins and whether it was sustainably harvested; and beginning to use alternatives to tropical wood products..


Impact of Deforestation - Loss of Renewable Resources, Wildlife Conflict
(3/1/2005) Deforestation can rob a country of potential renewable revenues while replacing valuable productive lands with virtually useless scrub and grassland. Tropical forests provide important renewable resources that can significantly contribute to national economic growth on a continuing basis..


Sustainable Logging in the Rainforest - Overview
(3/1/2005) In most tropical countries forests are government-owned and ownership by parties other than the state is often prohibited. Timber is often harvested under concession agreements awarded to private logging firms who, without securimg legal rights to the land, are reluctant to make investments in forest management. Thus it is no surprise that a recent study found that less than 0.1 percent of tropical forests are sustainably managed and less than 1 percent of the area used for logging is under any form of management. Nevertheless, tropical countries see timber as a major source of revenue and continue to grant huge concessions at below their market rates. Forestry is important to the world economy, contributing 2 percent to world GDP (4 percent of GDP in developing countries) and making up 3% of international trade; it is also vital to the local economies of many countries. For example, the logging of tropical timber provides work for 100,000 people in the Sarawak province of Malaysia and generates US$ 1.5 billion annually in exports. However, the resource management of tropical forests is grossly underfunded, causing numerous problems..



Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5

home | archives | news | XML / RSS feeds


XML / RSS / Syndication options

mongabay.com features more than 250 RSS feeds to meet your specific area of interest

All mongabay.com news
Only rainforest news
Only Brazil news
Only Biodiversity news
Only Climate Change news
Only Madagascar news

more XML feeds