Urgency
Last chance to save Bangladeshi forest: 90 percent of the Sal ecosystem is gone
Considered the most threatened ecosystem in Bangladesh, the moist deciduous Sal forest (Shorea robusta) is on the verge of vanishing. In 1990 only 10 percent of the forest cover remained, down from 36 percent in 1985 according to statistics from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). A new study in the online open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science looks at the threats posed to the Shal forest and ways in which it may still be saved.
The Sal forest in central and northern Bangladesh has long been used by local communities for everything from medicine to food and boat construction to fuel. However due to increasing population, the forest has long been over-exploited. In addition, rubber monoculture, commercial fuel-wood plantations, grazing, urbanization, and expanding agriculture have drastically reduced Bangladesh's Sal forest. On top of habitat loss, the biodiversity of the Sal forest is suffering from illegal poaching.
Madagascar bans rainforest timber exports following global outcry
Under mounting pressure over illegal logging of its national parks, Madagascar's transitional government on Wednesday reinstated a ban on rosewood logging and exports.
The decree (no. 2010-141), which prohibits all exports of rosewood and precious timber for two to five years, was announced during a council meeting held yesterday at Ambohitsorohitra Palace in Antananarivo, Madagascar's capital city. Madagascar's Minister of Environment has already proposed a plan to address the illegal timber trade, according to the Madagascar Tribune.
With the export ban in place, the fate of 10,000-15,000 metric tons of rosewood awaiting export remains uncertain. It is also unclear whether illegal loggers and traders will be prosecuted. Nevertheless, groups that have been protesting the resumption in exports of illegally logged timber cautiously welcomed the move.
Mass Extinction Hallmark of New Age of Geologic Time, The Age of Man, The Anthropocene Epoch
The Age of Aquarius? Not quite -- It's the Anthropocene Epoch, say
the scientists writing in the journal Environmental Science &
Technology.
And they add that the dawning of this new epoch may include the sixth largest mass extinction in Earth's history.
Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams from the University of Leicester Department of Geology; Will Steffen, Director of the Australian National University's Climate Change Institute and Paul Crutzen the Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist of Mainz University provide evidence for the scale of global change in their commentary in the American Chemical Society's' bi-weekly journal Environmental Science & Technology.
The scientists propose that, in just two centuries, humans have wrought such vast and unprecedented changes to our world that we actually might be ushering in a new geological time interval, and alter the planet for millions of years.
Amazon Rainforest Indigenous Tribes
There are hundreds of indigenous tribes in the Amazon rainforest.
The indigenous groups in all of South America have disappeared or been
torn apart by the colonization process, disease, alcohol, forced labor
and war.Limit palm oil development to lands that store less than 40 tons of carbon/ha
A new study finds oil palm plantations store less carbon than previously believed, suggesting that palm oil produced through the conversion of tropical forests carries a substantial carbon debt.
The study, conducted at two sites in Sumatra and Kalimantan by scientists at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), found that mature oil palm plantations store less than 40 tons of above-ground biomass on average over their 25-year lifespan. By comparison logged-over forests at the two sites stored 70-200 tons of carbon per hectare.
