forests

UN timber deal would OK “a new form of colonialism," critics charge

Dec. 17, 2009
in

 By Alexander Kelly

COPENHAGEN – Clayton Thomas-Muller hails from Ontario, Canada -- a First World nation that’s loaded with timber. Ana Filippini comes from nearly the opposite end of the Western Hemisphere, Uruguay, a developing country with vast grasslands known as pampas.

Despite the differences in their homelands, both made their way here to deliver a message to a United Nations conference on climate change:

Your plans to save the Earth could kill our people.

Specifically, they fear for indigenous people who depend on natural forests and grasslands.

A United Nations proposal being negotiated here this week to govern cutting of forests – which accounts for an estimated one-fifth of the human-caused global warming – fails to distinguish between natural and manufactured forests. It’s an omission that would enable timber corporations to log virtually any intact forest on the planet, replacing it with immense swaths of industrial farmland containing only one type of tree, critics charge.

[caption id="attachment_7465" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="An indigenous Brazilian man addresses a forum on deforestation and native peoples at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen that ends Friday. InvestigateWest photo by Mark Malijan. "]An indigenous Brazilian man addresses a forum on deforestation and native peoples at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen that ends Friday. InvestigateWest photo by Mark Malijan.</p /> </p> </div> <ul class=

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    • Consequences of climate change destroy northern forests

    Aug. 24, 2009
    in

    Fires and beetle infestations are devastating northern forestsin a cycle that is both caused by and promoting climate change, reports Charles J. Hanley of the Associated Press. As the climate warms, forests in Siberia, Europe, Alaska and northern Canada will grow weaker while pests grow stronger with milder winters. These boreal forests are key in absorbing carbon dioxide, but as they succumb to warming, they would become a source of greenhouse gases as they decay and burn.

    Change is already happening in western North America, where a mountain pine beetle epidemic has killed 6.5 million acres of forest from Colorado to Washington and 35 million acres in British Columbia. The spruce bark beetle has already consumed 1 million acres in the Yukon during a 15-year epidemic. Scientists say these unprecedented epidemics are signs the climate is already changing, especially in the north.

    Plant life in the north is also shifting, as warmer temperatures double the amount of shrubs and grasses on tundra, according to Bob Weber of the Canadian Press. Because the shrubby vegetation is darker, it would absorb more solar energy, possibly increasing the rate of global warming even more.

    – Emily Linroth

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