News
Plague of deforestation sweeps across south-east Asia
20 May 2013
Illegal logging and unchecked economic development are taking a devastating toll on forestsIn 1968, during the six-month siege of Khe Sanh — one of the most bitterly fought battles of the Vietnam War — a special U.S. Air Force outfit flew defoliation missions. Called the Ranch Handers, their motto was: "Only you can prevent a forest."They may not have succeeded in their goal, but rapid development in Vietnam and the surrounding nations of the greater Mekong region is on the way to accomplishing...
Top Indonesian official calls out misinformation in environmental campaign
20 May 2013
Indonesia's top REDD+ official confirmed there is no plan to open 1.2 million hectares of forest in Sumatra's Aceh Province, calling into question numbers used by environmentalists in their bid to stop reclassification of the province's forest land.
Vietnam: Forests turn bare, exhausted
20 May 2013
The specialists attending the workshop on the land use experience held by CODE, a consultancy institute, and Oxfam on May 12-15 all agreed that the forests in Vietnam are facing too many dangers.
Pham Quang Tu, Deputy Head of CODE, said that he has found many forests which look like forests if seen from outside, but it was stripped bare inside. The natural forest in Huong Khe district of the central province of Ha Tinh, is a typical example.
The reports from relevant ministries...
Myanmar: Forest cover areas reduce to 19% of entire area
20 May 2013
Forest cover areas in Myanmar has reduced to by 51,900 square miles (19% of its area), an official from the Forest Department under the Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry said.
According to release, forest cover areas in Myanmar have reduced by 46 per cent of its entire areas in recent years. Although illegal loggings have been prevented, the timbers in some wild areas which have difficulty to govern are still produced, a forestry expert said.
“Previously we...
Ministry steps up efforts to increase forest cover in Laos
20 May 2013
Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Vilayvanh Phomkhe has instructed his officials to work closely with local authorities to ensure everything is ready for this year’s tree planting.
The minister issued an order on May 7 ahead of National Tree Planting Day, which falls on June 1. The order aims to bolster government efforts to increase forest cover to 65 percent of the total land area by 2015 and to 70 percent by 2020. District agriculture and forestry officials are asked to...
La pluie, autre bienfait des forêts du bassin du Congo après le stockage du carbone
20 May 2013
Sans les vastes forêts du Bassin du Congo, le système de précipitations serait gravement interrompu.
Les réponses au changement climatique se classent en deux grandes catégories : l’atténuation (c’est-à-dire la réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre responsables du changement climatique) et l’adaptation (c’est-à-dire l’adaptation des moyens de subsistance et des styles de vie aux effets des changements climatiques). Parmi les stratégies d’adaptation...
Gestion des forêts en Afrique centrale : nous avons bien avancé mais la route est encore longue
20 May 2013
Nous avons besoin de voir une augmentation spectaculaire dans les zones gérées correctement au cours des 20 prochaines années, pas un retour à l’exploitation business-as-usual des forêts. Ollivier Girard/CIFOR
Il y a presque 20 ans, lorsque j’étais doctorant-chercheur au sein du programme Tropenbos Cameroun, nous avons accueilli une équipe de chercheurs du CIFOR qui étudiait la gestion durable des forêts en Afrique. L’équipe avait besoin de tester ses critères et indicateurs dans une...
Forest management in Central Africa: We’ve come a long way but there’s still a long way to go
20 May 2013
We need to see a dramatic increase in properly managed areas over the next 20 years, not a return to the business-as-usual exploitation of forests. Ollivier Girard/CIFOR
Nearly 20 years ago, when I was working as a PhD student with the Tropenbos Cameroon Program, we hosted a team of researchers from the Center for International Forestry Research studying sustainable forest management in Africa. The team needed to test its criteria and indicators in an area with a forest management plan. The...
Mangroves under threat as Cameroonians move toward coast
20 May 2013
Africa’s shoreline is threatened by sea level rise, as coastal cities expand rapidly. Jean-Marc Liotier.
Mangroves that could protect Cameroon from rising seas may be subject to more pressure than they can bear, as people migrating to the country’s southwestern coast clear trees at a rate so fast they can’t regenerate, scientists at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) said.
As the world grapples with the affects of climate change, it cannot afford to ignore...
California's cap and trade should not use forestry offsets
19 May 2013
Sacramento Bee: When Californians passed AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, we committed to one of the most forward-thinking pieces of climate legislation in the country, with comprehensive strategies to reduce carbon emissions from nearly all sectors of the economy. Unfortunately, the California Air Resources Board is considering a move that will undermine the best intent of this law by linking it to a benign-sounding yet dubious and untried scheme to protect rain forests in Mexico and...