Region Archives: International

Viveka Beckeman

EU environment ministers, led by Belgium, narrowly passed the Nature Restoration Law despite uncertainties about Austria’s position, and this law is unbalanced, said the Swedish Forest Industries Federation (SFIF) in a statement. “The law faced sharp criticism and chaotic processes in the EU Parliament and Council. While the goal of restoring nature is good and aligns with SFIF’s Sustainability Roadmap, the legislation has serious flaws,” said Viveka Beckeman, SFIF’s director general. SFIF’s main criticism is that the law doesn’t account for differences between member states, especially in their interpretation of the Habitats Directive and historical land use practices. This oversight risks significant economic impacts from land use restrictions, particularly on forestry. …Beckeman added that implementing the law will be challenging. Member states need to align their habitat assessments and restoration needs and agree on effective measures to balance restoration with other policy goals and reduce negative impacts on society.

BRUSSELS — European Union countries gave final approval to a long-awaited plan to better protect nature in the 27-nation bloc, a divisive issue after months of protests by farmers who argued that the laws were driving them toward bankruptcy. After surviving a razor-thin vote by lawmakers last summer, the so-called Nature Restoration Plan faced opposition from several member states, leaving the bill deadlocked for months. The law was finally adopted at a meeting of environment ministers in Luxembourg after rallying the required support from a qualified majority. …The Nature Restoration plan is part of the EU’s European Green Deal that seeks to establish the world’s most ambitious climate and biodiversity targets and make the bloc the global point of reference on all climate issues. Under the plan, member states will have to meet restoration targets for specific habitats and species, to cover at least 20% of the region’s land and sea areas by 2030.

The biotic pump theory has ruffled feathers in the climate science community ever since Anastassia Makarieva and Victor Gorshkov submitted their paper “Where do winds come from?” to the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics in 2010 (it was finally published in 2013). It remains a relevant enough topic that some scientists say needs further study and incorporation into potential climate-modeling scenarios. If true, the theory explains how the interior forests of vast continents influence wind and the water cycles that supply whole nations, and could even help explain phenomena such as the “cold Amazon paradox,” when wind patterns seemingly defy accepted theory to blow the strongest from the warm Atlantic to the colder Amazon. If forests actually drive moisture-laden air currents that govern wind and rain, the upshot is that further forest loss may have unknown and devastating effects on not just the global climate, but also on water supplies.

Europe’s forests face increasing pressures. Impacts include fewer tall forests, climate change-induced wildfires, insect outbreaks, and, most recently, increased wood harvesting to meet additional demand for “home-grown” biomass in response to the Ukraine war and changing energy demands. Against this backdrop, the EU’s proposed Nature Restoration Law would introduce critical safeguards to prevent further decline in the quality of Europe’s forests. The law seeks to protect remaining old-growth forests, set aside additional forests for restoration, and improve the biodiversity of forests managed for wood production. Here, we look at the latest data, including that from University of Maryland’s GLAD lab and available on WRI’s Global Forest Watch platform, to investigate European forest changes.

Researchers believe they may have solved the mystery of zombie fires inside the Arctic Circle, which disappear underground in winter only to re-emerge and burst into flames again in spring. These fires occur in peatlands in Siberia, Canada and Alaska. Researchers originally thought the fires started on the surface and continued smouldering underground. Now there is a different explanation. When microbes break down peat, the process generates heat. Much as a haystack can spontaneously combust due to the action of microbes, which raise its temperature past the flashpoint, peat can get dangerously hot. But it does not catch fire until the air temperature rises in spring.

Todd McClay

The Climate Forestry Association (CFA) has praised the Government’s recognition of the forestry sector’s potential to play a major role in meeting New Zealand’s climate commitments. Minister of Forestry Todd McClay announced the Government would be introducing a package of initiatives during the course of this parliamentary term to support industry growth and to deliver positive outcomes across the forestry and wood processing value chain. …“It is important to ensure there is sufficient pipeline of logs to support domestic wood processing as well as encouraging the planting of new trees on suitable land to meet our international climate change commitments,” says Mr McClay. …“Forestry plays an important role in helping New Zealand meet its emissions reductions obligations. This review is the government’s first step on halting Labour’s attack on forestry through increased costs and regulations,” Mr McClay says.

Although considered an evolutionary force responsible for shaping ecosystems and biodiversity, fires’ natural cycle is being altered by human activities, increasing the odds of destructive megafire events. Here, we show that forest type modulates the responses of terrestrial mammals, from species to assemblage level, to a catastrophic megafire in the Brazilian Pantanal. We unraveled that mammalian richness was higher 1 year after fire passage compared to a pre-fire condition, which can be attributed to habitat modification caused by wildfires, attracting herbivores and open-area tolerant species. We observed changes in assemblage composition between burned/unburned sites, but no difference in mammalian richness or relative abundance. However, by partitioning the effects of burned area proportion per forest type (monospecific vs. polyspecific), we detected differential responses of mammals at several levels of organization, with pronounced declines in species richness and relative abundance in monospecific forests. 

IKEA has been accused of contributing to the rapid deterioration of Romania’s biologically rich forests. Two recent investigations reveal the impact of the flatpack furniture giant on the country’s Carpathian mountains, one of Europe’s largest remaining areas of old growth forests. According to a Greenpeace report, more than 50% of Romania’s ancient forests have disappeared in the past 20 years, due to corruption and poor law enforcement. A new report from the NGO details the role that IKEA and the Ingka Group, its largest franchisee, have played. …In a separate investigation, Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe visited Romania’s old growth forests to examine IKEA’s supply chains. Its report, claims that at least seven suppliers for IKEA’s leading wood products were linked to the “systematic destruction” of old growth forests. …Some forest campaigners feel IKEA is hiding behind the FSC, a certification scheme they claim is failing to protect old growth forests. 

In the not-so-distant past the furniture adorning most British homes was old-fashioned, solid and, given its relatively high cost, more or less permanent. Then IKEA arrived in the 1980s, and suddenly the nation’s living rooms and kitchens were filled with modern-looking furnishings carrying hip foreign names and very low price-tags. It’s a story replicated in IKEA’s 63 markets around the world. The privately held retailer, founded in Sweden, but now headquartered in the Netherlands, has enjoyed meteoric success with its flat-pack, do-it-yourself approach to homeware (and, for a sub-set of its customer base, its iconic meatballs). But its business model also entails a colossal materials footprint, and that is out of synch with today’s eco-conscious consumer market. …But how does a low-cost, high-volume retailer like IKEA undergo a sustainability transformation? Is full circularity really possible for a company of this size and type?

The Forestry Commission is to extend its measures to tackle a beetle pest across East Anglia. The Ips typographus, or larger eight-toothed European spruce bark beetle, is a serious pest of spruce trees in Europe and has been spotted in the region. Measures introduced in 2022 to the South East will now cover parts of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, as well as Lincolnshire, from 12 June. Spokesperson Andrea Deol urged landowners and timber processors to “remain vigilant” because “we are now entering the next [beetle] flight season”. The insect is present in spruce trees, especially Norway spruce, in most of Europe and has probably blown into the region. It was first spotted in the UK in Kent in 2018 and prefers stressed or dying trees, but could attack healthy trees in the right conditions, according to the commission.

Tropical forests store a third of the world’s carbon in their wood and soils. However, their future as a carbon sink has been uncertain. Scientists have long wondered whether nutrient-poor tropical soils would limit the ability of mature and recovering forests to thrive. A study published in New Phytologist offers a hopeful response, suggesting that forests have flexible strategies that help them overcome the challenge of scarce nutrients. “We may not have to worry about it so much,” concluded senior author Sarah Batterman, a tropical forest ecologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. “Because of these flexible strategies, trees may be able to support a carbon sink in the future, even with nutrient constraints. Our findings support the potential of tropical reforestation and conserving intact forests as a long-term climate solution.” …Forests of different ages responded differently to the nutrient additions, showing that “trees are actively responding to their nutrient environment,” said Wong.