Read at : Earth Negotiations Bulletin <enb@iisd.org>
Linkages Update - Thursday, 27 March 2008
http://www.iisd.ca/media/forests_deserts_land.htm#unccd
The European Commission has confirmed that it plans to enhance efforts to tackle illegal timber trade by strengthening existing rules on timber procurement. The EU currently has a number of bilateral partnership agreements with several timber exporting countries that aim to ensure that timber products have been legally harvested before export.
Link to further information
ENDS Europe Daily, 19 March 2008
FEBRUARY 2008
Clashes between environmental officials and local people and sawmill workers during an illegal logging enforcement operation resulted in the federal government sending troops to the state of Pará, to join the hundreds of police officers in their efforts to combat illegal logging. Elsewhere in the state, social activists have claimed that loggers have been illegally harvesting from the Renascer Extractive Forest Reserve. Loggers have denied illegally logging within the reserve, and blamed environmental agencies for delaying the approval of forest management plans. Meanwhile, the Brazilian government will seek up to US$1 billion per year in donations from industrialized countries and corporate sources to finance Amazonian conservation. According to Tasso Azevedo, Director of the Brazilian Forestry Service, this would be approximately half of what would be needed to stop illegal deforestation.
Links to further information
BBC News Release, 26 February 2008
ITTO Tropical Timber Market Report, Volume 13 Number 4, 16-29 February 2008
Mongabay.com News Release, 23 February 2008
A recent study by WWF and partners has found that 4.2 million hectares of tropical forests and peatlands have been cleared in the last 25 years in a central Sumatran province. The land conversion, mostly for industrial palm oil and pulp and paper production, released annual carbon emissions equivalent to 58 percent of Australia’s annual emissions. Concurrent to the loss of 65% of the province’s forest cover, elephant populations declined by 84%, and tiger populations by 70%.
Link to further information
WWF Media Release, 26 February 2008
Posted in Desertification, Forestry, deforestation, illegal logging
