New timber ban failing to stop illegal logging in Madagascar

Rainforest timber continues to be cut illegally from Madagascar's national parks despite a recently announced moratorium on precious wood exports and logging, reports a source from the Indian Ocean island nation.

On March 24, Madagascar's transitional authority unveiled decree (no. 2010-141) prohibiting all exports of rosewood and precious timber for two to five years during a council meeting held at Ambohitsorohitra Palace in Antananarivo, Madagascar's capital city. But with the revelation that logging is continuing within Masoala National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, questions are now being raised about the decree.

Malaysian palm oil grower loses case over damages to rainforest community

IOI group suffered a legal setback this week when the Miri High Court — a court for Miri District in Sarawak, a state in Malaysian Borneo — ruled that the palm oil grower is liable for damages caused by the destruction of land belonging to Long Teran Kanan, a Kayan native community. The legal battle has dragged on for 12-years but now represents an important precedent for forest-dependent communities in Malaysia, reports the Bruno Manser Fund, an NGO that campaigns on behalf of Sarawak's forest people.

According to the Borneo Resources Institute Malaysia (BRIMAS), Senior Assistant Registrar of the Miri High Court, Abdul Raafidin bin Majidi on behalf of Justice Datuk Abdul Aziz bin Adul Rahim, ruled that members of the village of Long Teran Kanan possess native customary rights over land that had been granted to IOI by the Sarawak state government. The court said the leases had been issued unconstitutionally and were therefore "null and void."

Gorillas in the list: New extinction fears for central African gorillas

Illegal logging, the bushmeat trade, mining, the charcoal trade and a new strain of the Ebola virus could drive gorillas into extinction in central Africa in as little as 15 years, according to a new report from the U.N. and Interpol.

Three of the four gorilla subspecies are already considered critically endangered, and the fourth is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Previous assessments by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) predicted that only 10 percent of gorilla habitat would remain undisturbed by 2032. UNEP now says that date was overly optimistic, and gorillas could lose their habitat entirely in as little as a decade. The danger to gorillas is "especially critical in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)," according to the report, due to ongoing conflicts and roaming militias, which are responsible for much for the illegal trade in the area.

Plan to chop down forests in England

The new policy to convert forests to 'open habitat' will increase the area of heathland across England by 1,000 hectares (2,470 acres) every year for at least the next five years.

This will mean chopping down thousands of hectares of mostly commercial conifers to allow rare animals like sand lizards, adder, woodlark and curlew to return.

It is estimated that 80 per cent of lowland heathland has been lost in the past 200 years to plantation forestry, agriculture and housing development.

The Department for the Environment and Forestry Commission policy for 'Restoration of Open Habitats from Woods and Forests' is designed to return much of the land taken by commercial forestry to wildlife.