Region Archives: International

In the first revision to the country’s Forest Law in over twenty years, China has banned trade in illegal logs. But will the change be enforced? On December 28, 2019, Chinese legislators revised the country’s Forest Law to ban “purchase, process or transport” of illegal logs. China is the world’s largest importer of legal and illegal timber, and if the change is enforced it could boost efforts to fight the illegal logging trade. Advocates say that the true measure of the changes will be how they are implemented and enforced.

A recently published study predicts that understory species of boreal forests will migrate northwards, following the pace of global change. Southern species may become abundant in regions where they were rare before, while northern species may see their populations reduced in the absense of further northern regions to escape to from warming climate. A study published in the scientific journal Ecography predicts the fate of 25 common understory plants in Finland for the upcoming decades. Fifteen species from dwarf shrubs, herbs and grasses to bryophytes and lichens showed a significant response to temperature and were predicted to shift distribution northward 6-8 km/year. This means a total move of ca. 460 km (range: 49–607 km) northwards from 1985 to 2041–2070. Yet the abundance of other ten species seems not to be affected by temperature, so they will probably not suffer the effects of global warming.

Smaller fragments of tropical forest experienced forest loss at a greater rate than larger blocks between 2001 and 2018, researchers have found, prompting calls for restorative measures to be taken to increase cover in highly fragmented areas. According to a statement released in conjunction with the report, which was published in Science Advances last week, the researchers identified forest fragments with a minimum size of 10-square-kilometers starting in 2000, and analyzed how much tree cover was lost in each of these fragments over the next 18 years, converting the loss into a percentage of the overall original fragment size. They found that the smaller the forest fragments, the higher the rate of deforestation in those areas. 

In the back corner of a burned lot in Australia’s fire-ravaged South Coast stands a torched tree. It’s uppermost branches reach into a cloudless sky, brittle and bare. Against its charred trunk rests half-burned rubble, remains from the gift shop it used to shade.  But that’s not where local resident Claire Polach is pointing. She gestures to the middle part of the tree, where lime green leaves sprout from blackened bark, as if the tree is wearing a shaggy sweater.  To Polach, the burst of regrowth is a sign that despite a months’ long assault of flame and smoke, the second-hottest summer on record and a multi-year drought, Australia’s nature “is doing it’s thing.”  As for people like her, recovering from the same? “We’ll follow the nature,” she says.

Robert Nasi

Interesting interview with Robert Nasi Director General, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR): I trained as a forest engineer in France before working in various tropical countries (Cameroon, New Caledonia, Mali and Malaysia) between 1981 and 1994 for what is now CIRAD, the French agricultural research and development organization. …Since its creation in 1993, CIFOR has become the go-to place for a broader understanding of forest management and the role of forests in sustainable development. We’ve made progress on getting the non-forest sector to consider the importance of forests in food security and livelihoods. Forestry is now seen as much more than simply supplying timber. More recently we’ve highlighted the role forests play in climate change. I hope I’ve made at least a small contribution to that evolution in my career. …It’s easy to be skeptical about the future. But it’s also important to remember that we have many reasons to be optimistic.

Victoria’s state-owned logging company doesn’t comply with Australian requirements designed to stop illegal logging in developing countries, the state’s Auditor-General has found. Breaches recorded by the Auditor-General show paper companies buying logs from VicForests may not be meeting the conditions of the Illegal Logging Prohibition Act, which requires companies to minimise the risks of legal breaches in supply chains. The act puts the onus on timber importers in wealthier countries rather than the regulators in poorer countries to carry out due diligence on their supply chains… Where risks of illegality cannot be reduced to a negligible level, logs cannot legally be processed. The Auditor-General’s report … found that in 2017-2018 VicForest had a non-compliance rate of 43 per cent in areas related to road design, and eight breaches were detected across the 30 logging coupes audited that were assessed to have a major environmental impact.

Global demand for products such as coffee, tobacco, cocoa, timber and cotton is depleting the rainforests and creating conditions where mosquitoes thrive. Researchers at the University of Sydney and University of São Paulo, Brazil, estimate 20 percent of the malaria risk in deforestation hot spots is driven by the international trade of exports. …Previous studies have shown deforestation and rainforest disturbances can increase the transmission of malaria by creating conditions where mosquitoes thrive. …The study, published in Nature Communications, is the first to link global demand for goods that increase deforestation to a rise in malaria risk in humans. …“We achieved this by quantitatively relating malaria incidence first with deforestation, then to primary commodity production, which we then connected to global supply-chain networks and ultimately to worldwide consumer demand,” Dr Malik said.

David Lindenmayer

A leading Australian bushfire recovery scientist has called for an immediate end to native forest logging in Victoria in the wake of the catastrophic summer bushfires.  Professor David Lindenmayer, a world expert in forest ecology and conservation, says his research demonstrates that logging makes native forests more prone to fire.  “Now we’re seeing the wicked combination of fire in highly-altered landscapes coupled with nasty fire weather. I just don’t see how we can justify it,” he said. Professor Lindenmayer, a researcher at the Australian National University, made his remarks at a speech on the science of bushfire recovery at Melbourne Zoo on Tuesday. His recent research and analysis in eastern Victoria, to be published later this year, showed native forests that had been logged and regenerated were much more likely to burn severely.

I see that Sionad Jones escaped with nothing more than a slap on the wrist recently for sawing down 250 trees and killing another 250 in a Coillte plantation in west Cork.  Ms Jones is heralded as an ‘environmental hero’ for attempting to convert some of the forest back to the way she remembers the landscape when she first moved from Wales to Bantry over 30 years ago.  If it had been my forestry I’d be livid. Since when does a person have the right to start destroying anybody’s crop just because they don’t like it?  The same logic that these activists use on Sitka spruce could apply to any field being farmed in Ireland. A farmer grows a 100pc ryegrass sward because up to now that’s been the best way to maximise grass yields.

The Arbor Day Foundation along with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations announced the first cities to be recognized through the Tree Cities of the World program. …A total of 59 cities earned this international designation including Toronto, Canada; New York, USA; Guadalajara, Mexico; Paris, France; Birmingham, United Kingdom; Campo Grande, Brazil; and Auckland, New Zealand. The complete list of recognized communities is available here [10 Canadian, 27 US].  To earn this recognition, each city met five core standards for managing city trees and forests. …The Tree Cities of the World program is a partnership of FAO and the Arbor Day Foundation that began in 2019. Its shared vision is to connect cities around the world in a new network dedicated to adopting the most successful approaches to managing urban trees and forests.