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- Bali delegates agree to support forests-for-climate (REDD) plan
Mongabay: Delegates meeting at the U.N. climate conference in Bali agreed to include forest conservation in future discussions on a new global warming treaty, reports the Associated Press. The move could lead to the transfer of billions of dollars – in the form of carbon credits – from industrialized countries to tropical nations for the purpose of slowing greenhouse gas emissions by reducing deforestation rates. Deforestation presently accounts for roughly 20 percent of anthropogenic emissions ... - Malaysia: Tribes of the Borneo rainforest at odds over presence of the logging industry
Associated Press: Like a slithering red snake, the dirt road cuts through the jungles shrouding an endless row of hills. At the first sign of humanity, the logging road stops abruptly: a crude barrier of branches tied together by dry palm fronds and a handwritten warning: "When We Say No, We Mean No." In the middle of the ancient rainforest in Borneo, this simple blockade erected by a jungle tribe has become the symbolic frontline in the battle to protect forests from a logging ... - U.N. puts forests on the agenda
Assocated Press: Delegates to the U.N. climate conference here have agreed to include forest conservation in any future discussions about a new global-warming pact, paving the way for billions of dollars in new spending to attack illegal logging. With deforestation accounting for 20 percent of global emissions, governments are desperate to find a solution to a problem fueled by rising demand for timber and palm oil, widespread corruption, and endemic poverty. The program, Reducing Emissions ... - Carbon Dioxide Expelled From Peatland When Natural Swamp Forest Is Converted To Oil Palm
Science Daily: A new data analysis undertaken by Dr. Susan Page of the University of Leicester Department of Geography and colleagues involved in the EU-funded CARBOPEAT and RESTORPEAT projects shows conclusively that large amounts of carbon dioxide are released from peatland in Southeast Asia when it is converted from natural swamp forest to plantations of oil palm or pulpwood trees. This supports the findings of a recent Greenpeace report on the impact of growing oil palm on tropical ... - Philippines: Illegal logging threatens S. Cotabato's water resources
Sun STar: South Cotabato's water resources may reportedly end up dry in a few decades if the illegal logging activities in the area would not be stopped soon, a local environmental watchdog warned. Sister Pia Rabiera, chair of the province's Multi-Sectoral Forest Protection Committee (MSFPC), said the continuing destruction of the province's forests and watershed areas has already reached an "alarming stage" since the area now only has 11 percent primary and 23 percent secondary ... - Malaysia's Penan in battle for survival
Agence France-Presse: Deep in the Borneo jungle, 70-year-old Ara Potong stiches a rattan mat and wonders how much longer he can continue to survive on the bounty of the fast-disappearing forest. The grey-haired Penan tribesman, with the stretched earlobes distinctive to his people, deftly slices the thin rattan to fashion a mat that will be traded for basic goods like rice, sugar, salt and oil. "Logging has damaged the jungles. Now it is difficult to find rattan. We need it to make mats," ... - 'The end of cheap food'
Washington Post: If people can't eat, they can't do much else. One of the great achievements of the past century has been the enormous expansion of food production, which has virtually eliminated starvation in advanced countries and has made huge gains against it in poor countries. Since 1961, world population has increased 112 percent; meanwhile, global production is up 164 percent for grains and almost 700 percent for meats. We owe this mainly to better seed varieties, more fertilizer, more ... - New, Rare And Threatened Species Discovered In Ghana
Science Daily: Scientists exploring one of the largest remaining blocks of tropical forest in Western Africa discovered significant populations of new, rare and threatened species underscoring the area's high biological diversity and value. The findings from a 2006 expedition to Ghana's Atewa Range Forest Reserve (Atewa) led by Conservation International's Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) are presented in a report made public December 6, 2007. The RAP discoveries include a Critically Endangered ... - Deal to fight deforestation agreed at climate talks
Reuters: Climate talks in Bali reached a deal on Friday to tackle greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, hailed as a sign of developing nations' commitment to fighting global warming. The breakthrough might eventually allow poor but forested nations to turn conservation into a tradeable commodity, with the potential to earn billions of dollars selling carbon credits. But one of the scheme's key architects warned that, if successful, it will create such large emissions reductions ... - Agreement reached in Bali on deforestation
Telegraph: Measures to save the rainforests will be included in a post-Kyoto climate change treaty, a meeting of 180 countries has agreed. This has achieved what 20 years of campaigning by environmental groups in developed countries has failed to do since the idea of a world forestry convention was first proposed in the 1980s. The agreement on reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries (REDD) gives the green light to "early action" ahead of the treaty coming ... - Fund Targets Emissions Cuts in Peatlands Conservation
Reuters: Dutch company BioX Group and environment body Wetlands International launched a fund at a U.N climate meeting in Bali this week that aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by investing in restoration of peatlands. Peat is formed when trees, roots and leaves rot, and is a natural carbon store. When burned or drained to plant crops such as palm oil, peat releases large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2). By preventing cultivation and draining of peatlands, the projects that the fund ... - In Bali, new incentive for developing nations to curb emissions
Christian Science Monitor: Efforts to map the way to a post-Kyoto climate treaty have sailed into rough water this week. But amid the turbulence, a key climate initiative is gathering momentum. Dubbed REDD, it would reward nations for keeping chain saws out of threatened tropical forests, serving as a powerful magnet that could pull several developing countries with significant emissions into a new global-warming pact. Deforestation accounts for roughly 20 percent of the greenhouse gases that human ... - REDD alert in Bali over deforestation
Telegraph: How can it be that 15,000 delegates can gather in Bali to produce the answer to climate change and be in danger of missing the point? At least 3,000 of them should be concentrating on burning trees, which the IPCC reckons is responsible for 20 per cent of global CO2 emissions - from deforestation in the tropics that is. Until this year forests barely got a look in on climate change. But now it is different. Deforestation is THE hot topic. The danger is, the one mechanism ... - Climate talks close to working out forestry deal
Reuters: Delegates at climate talks in Bali are close to agreeing guidelines for a pay-and-preserve scheme for forests under a future deal to fight global warming, Indonesia's foreign minister said on Thursday. Under the scheme called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries (REDD), preservation of forests could become a tradeable commodity with the potential to earn poor nations billions of dollars from trading carbon credits. Scientists say deforestation in the ... - Nobel scientist in biofuel warning
Press Association: A Nobel Prize-winning scientist has warned that switching from fossil fuels to biofuels could do the planet more harm than