Paper company loses green certification after rainforest destruction in Indonesia

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a global certifier of sustainably managed forest, has dropped another Indonesian company for the destruction of rainforests. Asia Paper Resources International Limited (APRIL), has had its certification suspended due to evidence of conversion of rainforests for acacia plantations, the destruction of 'High Conservation Value Forest', draining peatlands, as well as continuing conflicts with local communities. The decision was made by the Rainforest Alliances Smartwood, an accreditation program with the FSC.

"This means that until practices on the ground drastically improve, pulp and paper products from Indonesia must be off limits to anyone who cares about human rights, the climate or rainforests," said Lafcadio Cortesi of the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) in a press release.

APRIL is not the first pulp and paper company to lose its certification due to deforestation and problems with communities. Asia Pulp and Paper (APP)—Indonesia's largest paper producer—lost its FSC certification in 2007 due to similar problems. A number of big paper purchasers have also dropped APP—including Office Depot, Unisource, Tiffany and Co., Wal-Mart, Staples, Woolworths, and Gucci—to the tune of an estimated loss of $300 million in 2008.

How interfering humans helped Amazon diversity

Don't tell Sting, but human activity may not be all bad news for the Amazon. A study of South American savannahs suggests that even before Europeans arrived, farmers were changing ecosystems with a landscaping method previously unrecognised in the region. What's more, the pre-Columbian alterations may have increased biodiversity.

"Human actions cannot always be characterised as bad for biodiversity," says Doyle McKey of the University of Montpellier 2, France. "Some might be good."

McKey and his colleagues came to their conclusion after studying some strange features of the savannahs of French Guiana. These plains are flooded during the rainy season, dry and parched in the summer, and often burned by fires. It was while walking through this landscape that McKey started wondering about undulations in the terrain.

Will Forest Carbon Markets Thrive, or Get Lost in the Woods?

For thousands of years, we have been planting and growing trees without difficulty. It’s simple, and forest carbon business strategy can be, too. In fact, it’s core to what I’m trying to teach the MBA/MS students in my course at the Erb Institute this semester: If the world’s best available technology for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is employing the natural photosynthetic capacity of natural forest management, we can too.

But in many ways, we are all unable to see the forests for the trees.

Even though the global carbon market grew to $136 billion with 8.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide traded in 2009, less than 0.1 percent of that was based on removing existing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere using photosynthesis. While it is very important to engage in developing a low-carbon economy, it is equally important to remove existing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, especially since this is, in fact, a key to mitigating climate change.

Turning to the matrix: a more accurate way to predict extinction

According to most conservationists the globe is striding into the midst of the Sixth Mass Extinction. Species populations worldwide are dropping and in many cases species are vanishing all together due to pollution, climate change, poaching and hunting, overconsumption, invasive species, and exotic diseases, but no threat proves more pervasive and devastating for the world's species than habitat loss.

Discovering where species are most in trouble and where they are relatively secure has become a passion for many conservationists since such information allows attention and funds to be focused to the right places. Scientists have long employed the 'island biogeography theory' to decipher species' vulnerability, but a new model announced in a paper in Conservation Biology is more accurate than island biogeography at predicting trouble spots and extinctions.