Audits could curb illegal loggingFri, 17 Oct 2008 08:06:00 EST The Indonesian Forestry Ministry's bold move to require forestry companies to have their wood stocks audited throughout the supply chain to ensure the wood is derived from sustainably managed forests could go a long way in reducing illegal logging in the country. Hadi Pasaribu, the Forestry Ministry's director general for the management of forestry production, who revealed the new policy recently, did not elaborate as to when the audit -- internationally known as forest certification scheme -- would be mandatory for wood-based companies. | |
When it comes to forest soil, wildfires pack 1-2 punchThu, 16 Oct 2008 10:42:00 EST For decades, scientists and resource managers have known that wildfires affect forest soils, evidenced, in part, by the erosion that often occurs after a fire kills vegetation and disrupts soil structure. But, the lack of detailed knowledge of forest soils before they are burned by wildfire has hampered efforts to understand fire's effects on soil fertility and forest ecology. | |
Scientists to probe Antarctica for sea rise cluesThu, 16 Oct 2008 09:32:00 EST Scientists will visit a vulnerable part of an Antarctic ice shelf this year to work out if it will crack off in coming decades and perhaps trigger a rise in sea levels, they said Thursday. | |
Acidifying oceansThu, 16 Oct 2008 09:30:00 EST James Zachos fishes around his desk and pulls out a plastic bag filled with chunks of deep-sea sediments. The sediments, wrested from the South Atlantic in 2003, are 55.5 million years old and 'deep red in color because they are almost entirely clay. | |
Forest plan may 'fuel corruption'Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:23:00 EST The UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has launched a plan to save the world's threatened rainforests - but already it is running into opposition. The review by Swedish businessman Johan Eliasch proposes paying poor nations not to cut down their trees. | |
Climate Change: Pushing Species To The BrinkTue, 14 Oct 2008 09:45:00 EST Thirty-five percent of the worldâs birds, 52 percent of amphibians and 71 percent of warm-water reef-building corals are likely to be particularly susceptible to climate change, the first results of an IUCN study have revealed. The report identified more than 90 biological traits which are believed to make species most susceptible to climate change. It found that 3,438 of the worldâs 9,856 bird species have at least one out of 11 traits that could make them susceptible to climate change. | |
Rich countries must pay for rainforests: UK reportTue, 14 Oct 2008 08:28:00 EST Rich countries should pay tropical nations billions of dollars a year to save their forests, using donor money and global carbon markets to foot the bill, said a UK-commissioned report on Tuesday. In the longer-term, by 2030, developing countries should also start paying to help create "carbon neutral" global forests through binding targets to slow deforestation and plant trees. | |