The UK's Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) has announced plans to sell up to 150,000 hectares of its forest to the private sector—over half of its forests in England—touching off harsh criticism from environmentalists, including the UK's Green Party.

"If this means vast swathes of valuable forest being sold to private developers, it will be an unforgivable act of environmental vandalism. Rather than asset-stripping our natural heritage, government should be preserving public access to it, and fostering its role in combating climate change and enhancing biodiversity," Green MP Caroline Lucas said.

To combat criticism, Defra has stated that sustainable management systems would remain in place in auctioned lands, and any tree felling would have to be approved by the Forestry Commission.

"We are committed to shifting the balance of power from 'Big Government' to 'Big Society' by giving individuals, businesses, civil society organizations and local authorities a much bigger role in protecting and enhancing the natural environment," a letter from Defra to British MPs reads.

Yet environmental groups and many in the media remain unconvinced.

"All areas of woodland and countryside need careful management to maximize their benefits for wildlife and people, and until the Government is able to show how this will be achieved in private hands, we think they should remain in public ownership," Friends of the Earth (FOE) said in a statement.

Rumors have mounted that if forests are sold all off to private interests, they could be razed for golf courses or housing developments.

The Woodland Trust warns that the sale could undercut the Forestry Commission's ability to carry out its goals.

"If revenue from these sales does not find its way back into Forestry Commission income streams, which looks likely, it could seriously threaten the commission's ability to support the future planting of new native woodland, which is a major priority for us and for government response to the climate change agenda, as well as into restoration of planted ancient woods."

Currently approximately 12% of the UK is covered in trees. Forest cover has tripled over the past century, but remains well behind the European average.

The UK government's announcement comes not long after they committed $160 million to persevering overseas forests for biodiversity. (By Jeremy Hance)

Source: Mongabay

Some rights for the image is reserved under Creative Commons license

Much is said about how forestry will be an important part of Indonesia’s emission reduction plan.  Many in the conservation community believe that the best way to reduce net emissions is to reduce the area of forest harvested for wood products or land cleared for conversion to agriculture or other land uses.  

On the surface, this sounds like a great idea, but what about the demand? How can we conserve while at the same time meeting the demand for wood and wood products?

Indonesia produces about 35 million cubic meters of legal round wood every year, but consumes substantially more than that — perhaps as much as 50 million cubic meters per year. This leaves a large gap between legal wood supply and demand for wood and wood products — a gap that is equivalent to over 170,000 hectares of selective forest harvest every year. As human population grows and per capita incomes increase, demand for wood and wood products will most likely continue to grow.

Now enters the idea of avoided deforestation and degradation — which means cutting fewer trees at a time when demand for wood is already higher than the legally sanctioned supply. Whether through a moratorium on new concessions or reductions in land cleared for agriculture or estate crops, the plans for reducing net emissions through avoided deforestation will result in decreasing the legal wood supply.  
It seems clear that taking forest land out of production means lower legal wood supply. This was demonstrated through experience of over the last decade when the selective logging concession area was reduced at the same time demand continued to grow.  

The result was a gap of some 40 million cubic meters of legal timber and a matching an increase in illegal logging. It is wonderful to hope that forest law enforcement can be improved to reduce illegal logging, yet the practical realities of controlling illegal logging are stark – it is very difficult to control illegal logging when there is not enough legal timber in the marketplace.

This is even more important as people’s use of wood and paper products continues to grow as population and incomes both increase. The ultimate driver of forest loss and conversion of forest land to other land uses is a hunger for forest products and land for agriculture. These drivers are unlikely to change in the short-term.

Sustainable forest plantations on degraded lands can provide rural livelihoods, help meet future wood requirements and provide direct and indirect climate change benefits. Increasing the wood supply from such plantations is a key part of the legal wood supply picture — but these plantations need to come on line before other reductions are made in production from natural forest. Otherwise illegal harvest will increase as the legal harvests decrease.

So does a reduction in legal wood supply result in lower emissions from forest land use?  Probably not. Illegal supplies will replace legal supplies and similar quantities of wood will be used.  

It is clear that trying to reduce net emissions from natural forests will only be effective at the national level if wood supply needs are met first. Until then, a reduction in legal supplies will not result in significant net emission reductions — it will only provide market incentives for an increase in illegal logging. (By Kenneth MacDicken)

The writer is International Finance Corporation (IFC) program manager for Sustainable Forestry Program in Indonesia.

Source: The Jakarta Post

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In a speech in Nagoya, Japan at the UN's Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD) actor and conservationist, Harrison Ford, called on delegates to put aside differences and adopt a strong treaty to protect biodiversity. As a US citizen, he also urged his country to become a full signatory of the CBD.

"The time has come for the United States to step up to the plate. The problem is so big and the time is so short, we have no choice. We have to act and we have to act now," said Ford, well-known for roles in the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films among others. Off the silver screen, Ford is the Vice Chair of environmental organization, Conservation International (CI).

The US in one of three countries that has not signed onto the UN's Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD): the other two are Andorra and the Holy See. President Bill Clinton signed the treaty in 1993, but the US Senate refused to ratify it.

Ford told CNN that he was "embarrassed" the US was not yet a signatory.

"Nature is at the tipping point. We have to act decisively, boldly now. We have to be efficient with the use of our resources. We have to be directed and focused on the most important thing, the most important places. The places that provide the greatest reservoirs of biodiversity and provide the greatest services to the human community," Ford said to CNN.

A number of recent reports have shown that despite the goal of the CBD to have stemmed biodiversity loss by this year, wildlife populations and species continue to precipitously decline. According to the IUCN, 20% of the world's vertebrate species are under threat of extinction and the number climbs higher every year. Another report, by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), found that wildlife populations have declined by 30% overall since 1970.

Ford, along with CI, is pressing the international community to commit to protecting 25% of world's landmass and 15% of the oceans by 2020. Currently approximately 13% of the world's landmass is under some form of protection and less than 2% of the oceans. Although some of these areas still suffer from habitat destruction and poaching.

Asked to convince people why they should care about biodiversity, Ford said on CNN: "It is in your self interest. Human beings are part of the natural world and the natural world requires all of its components working—just like the body requires all of its organs working together. The natural requires biodiversity—all of the elements of life working together—in order to be healthy".

Scientists say that biodiversity provides numerous 'ecosystem services' including pollination, food production, new medicines, soil health, clean water, and carbon sequestration among others that are not factored yet into the economic system. A recent analysis by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb) found that degradation of ecosystems by the world's top 3,000 corporations was costing the world $2.2 trillion every year with such costs disproportionately hitting the poor.

The CBD meeting was buoyed yesterday by an announcement of a $2 billion fund from Japan to help developing nations conserve biodiversity. (By Jeremy Hance)

Source: Mongabay

UN talks on a new deal aimed at protecting nature and equitably sharing in its benefits seem to be on course for a positive conclusion.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting has seen intensive diplomacy as delegates tried to iron out their remaining differences.

The Japanese hosts in particular have been desperate for a successful end.

Western nations have given ground on the thorniest issue - the equitable sharing of natural genetic resources.

But resolution has not been reached on other outstanding points, such as how much of the Earth's lands and oceans should be place under protection.

China has been criticised by environment campaigners for insisting that the agreement here should call for protection of no more than 6% of the marine environment - and none at all outside coastal waters.

The current global target is 10%; and most countries want to see considerably more than that in the final agreement.

"Six percent is ridiculous," said French Ecology Minister Chantal Jouanno.

"The main problem today is the sea, so six is ridiculous in terms of the challenge we're facing here," she told BBC News.

The other outstanding issue has been money, with Brazil and its allies arguing that by 2020, $200bn per year should be made available for biodiversity conservation.

A deal has been reached under which developed countries will agree to have such a plan in place by 2012, when Brazil will host the second Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Poor countries have insisted that they cannot be expected to ramp up their own spending on conservation massively given the other demands on their budgets.

"The forest and the other biological resources we have serve the general interests of the global environment," said Johansen Voker from Liberia's Environmental Protection Agency.

'More than words'

The genetic resources issue, known as Access and Benefit-sharing (ABS), kept delegates working through Thursday night, with their ministers picking up the baton on Friday morning for an intense round of diplomacy.

The ABS protocol is intended to ensure that developing countries receive recompense when products are made from genetic material of organisms from their territory - known as Access and Benefit-sharing (ABS).

Hugo Schally, EU lead negotiator on the issue, outlined why the wording mattered so much.

"These words are not just words, they mean differences in economic circumstances," he told BBC News.

"What material does this protocol actually apply to? That means in terms of research-based industry, in terms of... economic exchanges - they're literally worth billions of dollars or euros or pounds, or whatever you want."

In essence, developing nations demanded that the agreement cover anything made from this genetic material - technically known as "derivatives" - whereas western nations, where the world's pharmaceutical giants are principally based, wanted a far smaller scope.

After Japan produced a version of text giving the developing world much of what it wanted, the EU and its allies conceded on most of the major points.

EU leaders had told African and Asian countries it was the best deal they could ever hope to get.

If the final loose ends are tied up, Japan looks set to emerge with credit having steered the tough negotiations through its final hours.

"What the Japanese government really wants to do here is to get agreement so they can be proud of the Nagoya CBD," said Wakao Hanaoka, oceans campaigner with Greenpeace Japan.

"What is really needed, since the Japanese government has just started its role of chairing the CBC intil 2012, is to keep doing what they have promised to international society."

This meant, he suggested, taking effective conservation in the marine environment - including backing cuts in fisheries for threatened but lucrative fish such as bluefin tuna. (By Richard Black)

Source: BBC News