Region Archives: International

In 2001, Glenveagh National Park in County Donegal was the scene for the most ambitious nature restoration projects ever to have taken place in Ireland. The release of golden eagles which had been driven to extinction a century before. …It quickly became apparent that the landscape had become so degraded that it could not support sufficient prey for the birds. …Earlier this year, Minister of State for Nature, Malcom Noonan, launched “one of the most ambitious nature restoration projects in the history of the State”. …Tree planting will remain part of the plan and a dedicated nursery has been established on site to grow oaks and birches as well some of the rarer species, such as yew, juniper and aspen, as well as introducing Scots pine from seedlings in the Burren in Clare, which is the only truly native stand of this tree known in Ireland. [to access the full story an Irish Examiner subscription is required]

The statistic seemed to crop up everywhere. Exact wording varied, but the claim was this: that 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity is protected by Indigenous peoples. When scientists investigated its origins, however, they found nothing. In September, the scientific journal Nature reported that the much-cited claim was “a baseless statistic”, not supported by any real data, and could jeopardise the very Indigenous-led conservation efforts it was cited in support of. Indigenous communities play “essential roles” in conserving biodiversity, the comment says, but the 80% claim is simply “wrong” and risks undermining their credibility.

When the Victorian government announced it would stop logging its own native timber for commercial purposes, environment groups celebrated. …Commercial logging officially ended on January 1 this year, but those celebrations now seem premature. The timber mills that haven’t shut their doors continue to process native hardwood timbers – now fed by private landholders felling forests on their properties, and the government’s 300 per cent expansion of bushfire “fuel reduction” targets. Much of the timber felled by government-employed or contracted workers in state forests and national parks will be sold as firewood. …Bushfire mitigation works do not require approval under federal environment laws. …Professor David Lindenmayer, one of the world’s most cited ecologists, said he was yet to see evidence that the government’s fuel breaks program would reduce bushfire risks.

Marta Dusseldorp closes her eyes as she soaks up the tranquil stillness of an ancient forest. …The Australian actress is visiting Tasmania’s Tarkine in the state’s north-west for the latest season of ABC iview’s Back Roads. Covering nearly half a million hectares, the area is home to Australia’s largest tract of cool-temperature rainforest. …But the Tarkine is also resource-rich, making it a political flashpoint for forestry, mining and environmentalists. …Inside this ancient rainforest are plant species that have thrived for millions of years, from the time Australia was connected to the Gondwana supercontinent. …The question of how to balance the conservation of the Tarkine with Tasmania’s economic interests makes it a hot-button political topic. But as other Australian states are winding back the deforestation of native trees, Tasmania is still logging wild areas, including a small section of the Tarkine.

New South Wales (NSW) is a global hotspot for deforestation, with the latest government figures showing landowners cleared land equivalent to almost twice the size of the Australian Capital Territory over the five years to 2023. The figures from the annual NSW Statewide Landcover and Tree Study (SLATS), out on Friday, show landowners cleared 420,000 hectares of native vegetation from January 2018 to December 2022. More than 45,000 hectares of native vegetation were destroyed in 2022, including 21,131 hectares of woody vegetation (trees and shrubs) and 24,121 hectares of non-woody vegetation (grasslands, ferns and ground cover). …In 2023, World Wide Fund for Nature ranked NSW last out of all nine states and territories for protecting and restoring trees. Victoria ranked third, while Tasmania and Queensland were seventh and eighth. …NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe said: “This report shows that land clearing in NSW remains too high. The NSW government is committed to turning this around.”

Ozone gas is reducing the growth of tropical forests—leaving an estimated 290 million tonnes of carbon uncaptured each year, new research shows… The new study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, calculates that ground-level ozone reduces new yearly growth in tropical forests by 5.1% on average. The effect is stronger in some regions—with Asia’s tropical forests losing 10.9% of new growth. Tropical forests are vital “carbon sinks”—capturing and storing carbon dioxide that would otherwise stay in the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.

The Global Legal and Sustainable Timber Forum (GLSTF) has launched the Action Framework for Promoting Legal and Sustainable Timber Supply Chains to strengthen international collaboration among stakeholders in timber supply chains, promote the sustainable development of the timber industry, and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals and combating climate change. The GLSTF was created in 2023 by ITTO and Macao’s Commerce and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM), and the inaugural Forum was convened in 2023. GLSTF 2024 brought together more than 700 participants from over 40 countries, representing governments, industries, associations, companies, international organizations and academics.

The Amazon rainforest is home to a remarkable variety of plants and animals not found anywhere else on Earth, with some species only located in certain areas, but the reason for this has perplexed and divided scientists for decades. Now a new international study, led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, challenges traditional thinking about how the Amazon evolved during the last Ice Age, which spanned the period between around 2.6 million and 11,700 years ago. It demonstrates that the world’s largest tropical rainforest is more sensitive to environmental change than previously thought, providing a further warning about how the ongoing, large-scale, rapid human-driven climate and land use change presents a threat to this precious ecosystem. …The team used a combination of advanced climate and vegetation modeling techniques with computer-based predictions of the type of plants that grew during the last Ice Age and their location, based on records of fossilized pollen from sediment.

Bangkok is turning to nature to help fight the floods. A city forest larger than New York City’s Central Park is slated to open in the capital as early as this December. The new park will be filled with 4,500 trees and a floodplain where rainwater will be purified with vegetation. This joins Benjakitti Forest Park, where a former tobacco factory has been turned into a new $20 million city forest.The city has one of the lowest ratios of green spaces in Southeast Asia. The aim is to build 500 parks by 2026.

A handful of rare Wollemi pine saplings, propagated from a secret population in the Blue Mountains, are being auctioned off to mark 30 years since the species’ discovery. The pine’s last wild community consists of just 46 adult and 43 juvenile trees in a secluded rainforest canyon in a World Heritage-listed area north-west of Sydney. According to fossil records, the critically endangered “dinosaur tree” dates back more than 90 million years, and was presumed to have gone extinct around 2 million years ago, until a remnant grove was stumbled upon in 1994. The auction is the first time saplings that are each genetically distinct will be released to the public. …There’s no estimate on how much the saplings will sell for, but saplings at previous auctions have sold for hundreds to thousands of dollars.

Timber harvesting has ceased near where an endangered coastal emu nest was discovered in a state forest near Grafton on the NSW North Coast. The Forestry Corporation of NSW had initially found nine eggs in the nest, but the state’s environment department confirmed that its Saving our Species (SoS) team later found another egg had been laid. SoS collected and transferred seven of the 10 eggs to an incubator, where two have hatched so far. …Coastal emus are endangered, with fewer than 50 believed to remain in the wild. Forestry Corporation senior ecologist Chris Slade said they voluntarily ceased timber harvesting in the state forest on Tuesday afternoon this week. …Retired ecologist Dr Greg Clancy, who has had an interest in coastal emus for decades, said he was excited by the recent find. However, he said with so few nests discovered it had been difficult to monitor the species, with several factors impacting their chances of survival.

UNITED KINGDOM — More than 1.9 million trees were planted in 2023 as part of a major project to boost woodland cover across northern England, it has been revealed. The Northern Forest project will see 50 million trees planted from coast to coast and around cities such as Liverpool, York, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield and Hull by 2043. Since 2018, nearly eight million trees have been planted – with the highest number recorded last year, the Woodland Trust said… The work of the Northern Forest is just part of the wider effort in England over the past year, which saw tree-planting rates increase by 52% from the previous year with 5,529 hectares of new woodland planted… The Woodland Trust said this was “significant progress” towards meeting the Environment Act target of achieving 16.5% tree and woodland cover in England by 2050.

Although the Victorian Government announced it was halting native forest logging in January 2024, several kinds of logging are continuing in the state. One of these kinds of logging is known by another name: “Forest Gardening”… The term Forest Gardening is not a First Nations concept. Rather, the term and concept was first used by Robert Hart, an English horticulturalist (Whitefield 1996), but it is now being applied to what are to date industrial logging operations… The underlying rationale for Forest Gardening and Cultural Thinning in Australian forests is that they are “overgrown”. That is, there are too many trees and the understorey is too dense. In contrast, the pre-British invasion forest was open and park-like.