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News archives

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Nature programs' goal: No child left inside
A back-to-nature movement to reconnect children with the outdoors is burgeoning nationwide. Programs, public and private, are starting or expanding as research shows kids suffer health problems, including obesity, from too much sedentary time indoors with TV and computers. "There's a lot of mo... Continued...

Saving the walnut tree (Venezuela)
Environmental authorities are carrying out a conservation plan for the Venezuelan walnut (Juglans venezuelensis), native to the mountains that separate the capital from the Caribbean sea, a habitat that is under threat from logging, urbanization, soil degradation and changes in rainfall patterns. ... Continued...

Russia's upper chamber of parliament passes forest code criticized by environmentalists
Russia's upper chamber of parliament on Friday passed a new forestry code that has been severely criticized by environmentalists. The Federation Council voted 128-10, with four abstentions, to approve the code, which would remove forests from private ownership and transfer responsibility for the... Continued...

$1.5 million to advance promise of woody biomass for fuel in Washington
With a potentially huge supply of woody material thinned from Washington forests, the state's pulp and paper mills could become the "biorefining" backbone for turning woody plant material into fuel and other products, a University of Washington professor says. Such a major transformation is possib... Continued...

Logging nations set tough agenda for action
Timber exporting and importing nations set themselves a tight agenda for action on Monday, giving themselves barely 18 months to produce tough new tactics to tackle illegal logging. With the practice estimated to be costing developing nations at least US$15 billion a year in lost revenues leavin... Continued...

New look at world's forests shows many are expanding
For years, environmentalists have been raising the alarm about deforestation. But even as forests continue to shrink in some nations, others grow — and new research suggests the planet may now be nearing the transition to a greater sum of forests. A new formula to measure forest cover, developed ... Continued...

Report finds Wisconsin state forests continuing to expand
A look at increased forest resources providing Wisconsin with additional timber and outstanding recreational opportunities are the highlights of the first annual report on the Wisconsin state forest system. The report also identifies invasive species as one of the greatest threats to the state’s for... Continued...

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Homes in forests create wildfire concerns (OR)
Slim budgets, overgrown forests, climate change and the penchant among baby boomers for expensive, unprotected retirement homes in western woods threaten the nation's firefighting capacity, officials have warned Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. More and more people live in and near flammable ... Continued...

Third small log conference eyes reality check (OR)
Are healthy forest profits and forest health mutually exclusive? Bill Ginn, The Nature Conservancy's Director of Global Forest Partnerships, says no. Ginn lines up as the latest co-chair for the now-biennial Small Log Conference, coming to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, March 28-30. Registration is curren... Continued...

Making ethanol from wood chips (MA)
Experimental methods for converting wood chips and grass into ethanol will soon be tested at production scale. Mascoma Corporation, based in Cambridge, MA, is building demonstration facilities that will have the capacity to produce about one-half to two million gallons of ethanol a year from waste b... Continued...

Buffalo thorn chosen tree of the year (Zimbabwe)
An indigenous tree -- buffalo thorn -- has been chosen as the tree of the year for the 2006 National Tree Planting Day because of its outstanding medicinal properties. The start of the tree planting season is always the first Saturday of December, this year December 2, with more than 89 000 seedl... Continued...

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Forest fragmentation hurts Amazon biodiversity
Chopping up the dense forests of the Amazon lets hot winds blow in and around ancient trees, killing them off hundreds of years early, researchers reported Monday. Many species of trees, and other plants and animals that depend on them, are disappearing more quickly than most experts anticipated... Continued...

Protecting a little-known tree from an insidious disease (VT)
In the 29 years since a fungal disease known as butternut canker was first observed in southwest Wisconsin, it has infected over 90 percent of butternut trees throughout their native range from New Brunswick, Canada, to Georgia to Minnesota. Dale Bergdahl, recently retired after 29 years as a Uni... Continued...

Minnesota's sustainable forestry label challenged
Concerns over widespread ATV use in some state forests could cost the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources the certified sustainable label earned earlier this year. The state’s certification, awarded in January by the international Forest Stewardship Council, is a formal blessing that the DN... Continued...

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Former Superior lumber mill now home to three wood products (MT)
Laurie Johnston fed a wooden pole into the doweling machine that fed the pointer-capper that passed it on to the trim saw. The straighter poles moved on to the splitter. By then, Johnston had initiated the process another dozen times. The vernacular of the lumber milling world may be alien to ... Continued...

Ely school builds Nevada’s first biomass project
The Nevada Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Task Force (Task Force) today announced the David E. Norman Elementary School will receive the Task Force’s 2006 public sector Renewable Energy And Conservation Honors (REACH) Award for outstanding contributions to renewable energy and energy conse... Continued...

World's forests are making a comeback
Many of the world's forests appear to be making a comeback, and some are more thickly forested now than they were nearly 200 years ago, a new study reported Monday. The United States and China had the greatest gain in forests over the last 15 years, while Brazil and Indonesia lost the most, acco... Continued...

Forestry helps reduce rural poverty, hunger (Viet Nam)
The biggest challenge for the Government is to both protect forests and ensure they economically benefit the 25 million people living close to them, a senior forestry official has said. Nguyen Ngoc Binh, director of the Department of Forestry (DoF), said: "The livelihood of these people is still ... Continued...

Medicinal plant board looks at forest depts to nurture rare species (India)
Faced with the dwindling numbers of rare medicinal tree species like Ashok, Guggal, Kanchan and sandalwood, the Union Ministry of Health’s National Medicinal Plant Board (NMPB) is taking far-reaching steps to ensure conservation, which would include earmarking land and setting up of nurseries for su... Continued...

Ecology group's bid to save Himalayan pine forest
An environmental group has filed a complaint in the Supreme Court to stop illegal extraction of resin from pine trees in Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh. The Himalayan Chipko Foundation Sunday said they have filed the application in the apex court, highlighting the "corruption and environmental ... Continued...