Global Forest Information Service

Last week, a commentator on REDD-Monitor asked about a company called World Carbon Marketplace. The commenter pointed out that on the company’s website, 28 people were advertising carbon credits from 58 projects supposedly worth a total of just over £2 million. There are several companies, mainly based in the UK, that are selling carbon credits [...] [...]

The Agroforestry and Forestry in Sulawesi (AgFor) project works for improved, sustainable and gender-equitable use of agroforestry and forestry products. Improving smallholder systems and markets through projects emphasizing the productivity and sustainability of forestry and agroforestry, is a key focus of the CGIAR’s Collaborative Research Project 6 on Trees, Forests and Agroforestry—of which the World [...]

A high-level science-policy seminar brought together a full house of leading forest policy scientists and decision makers last week at the European Parliament to discuss the Opportunities and challenges in meeting renewable energy targets from forest biomass: an EU perspective as well as the need for EU sustainability criteria for solid biomass.The seminar was organized by the high-level discussion and information-sharing forum on the future of forests in Europe – ThinkForest EFI press release (http://www.efi.int/portal/news___events/news/?bid=1107)

Members of the Batin Sembilan people living in the Harapan Rainforest Project in Sumatra recently sent a letter to KfW and Germany’s International Climate Initiative, requesting that they ask PT REKI, the company running Harapan, “to prioritize conflict resolution efforts” and to avoid “intimidating and insulting language and communication”. The International Climate Initiative, under Germany’s [...] [...]

The thematic scope of the event included: the future for forest products and the environment; the necessity for forestry certification and the new EU Timber Regulation; climate change and carbon neutrality; and going green as a good business practice.

Ha Noi, Viet Nam 18th April, 2013—Vietnamese citizens are being encouraged to stop buying or consuming rhino horn through a series of advertisements developed by WWF and TRAFFIC as part of their campaign against Illegal Wildlife Trade.

Rainforest Action Network: This is the first blog post I`ve written for RAN. I`m the new senior agribusiness campaigner and I was hired because RAN believes that it is more urgent than ever that we take our palm oil work to the next level. I`m writing this post to lay out the next phase of our campaign to stop the destruction of Indonesia’s rainforests for palm oil. I want to bring each and every one of you reading this on board right from the beginning. We have reached the last stand for Sumatran orangutans, but it’s...

Inter Press Service: Two of the world's largest multilateral institutions have released new data linking greater urbanisation with higher levels of human development, and are announcing that they will place greater priority on issues of urbanisation in coming decades. According the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), urban areas in the developing world look set to pull in a staggering 96 percent of the additional 1.4 billion people expected in those countries by 2030. According to some metrics, that...

The federal government’s Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) is suing a wood pellet company who hasn’t repaid their loan. Enligna Canada Inc. had a wood pellet plant in Middle Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia.  In 2011 the company was placed in receivership.  Enligna Canada is owed by a German consortium, Enligna AG, a renewable energy company. In 2009, ACOA [...]

ForestTalk.com - Your source for Canadian forestry news

Mongabay: Federal prosecutors in Brazil are threatening to fine 26 beef producers $282 million for buying cattle raised in illegally deforested areas and on Indian reservations, reports Reuters. The fines are based on Brazilian laws that prohibit beef producers from buying cattle from ranches that rely on slave labor, recently deforested areas in the Amazon, and indigenous reservations. The fines are calculated using the number of animals allegedly raised in illegal conditions. According to prosecutors, the...

Mongabay: More than 60 percent of Madagascar is suffering from a massive locust infestation that is threatening crops and livestock, potentially increasing risks to native wildlife and forests from hungry farmers, warns the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). According to a report issued Monday, the locust plague is especially severe in the central and southern regions of the island nation. The crisis has worsened already difficult conditions created by cyclone “Haruna” which hit Madagascar in...

Canopy has decided to leave the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement citing a lack of results. The organization said today, “ After almost three years since the agreement was announced, not one hectare of Canada’s Boreal forest has been protected. Canopy has determined more meaningful and speedier results for the Boreal forest can be achieved through our [...]

ForestTalk.com - Your source for Canadian forestry news

Two Nova Scotia mills have formed an agreement to work together. Port Hawkesbury Paper will be renovating its wood room this spring.  During that same time period, Northern Pulp will be down for a 10 day maintenance shutdown. So, the companies have agreed to word together.  Northern Pulp will provide wood chips for Port Hawkesbury [...]

ForestTalk.com - Your source for Canadian forestry news

LiveScience: In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, local governments are rethinking how to best protect the U.S. coastline from storms and flooding, which appear likely to exert a larger toll as the result of sea level rise and climate change. The coast is now much less protected for the next storm, because Sandy's storm surge and winds destroyed dunes, flood walls and other barriers, said Joe Vietri, director of coastal and storm risk management for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, at a news conference here...

Mother Nature Network: Applying a maxim from computer science to biology raises the intriguing possibility that life existed before Earth did and may have originated outside our solar system, scientists say. Moore’s Law is the observation that computers increase exponentially in complexity, at a rate of about double the transistors per integrated circuit every very two years. If you apply Moore’s Law to just the last few years’ rate of computational complexity and work backward, you’ll get back to the 1960s, when the...

World Resources Institute: The World Bank’s annual spring meetings take place this week in Washington, D.C. One big topic on the agenda is how to update the World Bank’s “safeguard” policies. Created in the early 1990s, these policies ensure that the Bank considers the social and environmental effects of proposed projects. For example, the safeguards require those borrowing money to assess the project’s environmental impacts and to compensate households who are negatively affected. The full suite of safeguards is now under...

Calgary, Canada – Amidst protests from a broad coalition of Canadians and international allies, Ecuadorian government officials met with Canadian investors and oil company executives Wednesday at the Telus Convention Center in Calgary. Labor unionists, aboriginals, environmentalists and faith groups united in support of Idle No More, calling on the Ecuadorian government to suspend its auction of oil concessions in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest. The group delivered a declaration of opposition from five indigenous nationalities whose rainforest communities would be devastated by the oil round.

Grist: The notion of "externalities" has become familiar in environmental circles. It refers to costs imposed by businesses that are not paid for by those businesses. For instance, industrial processes can put pollutants in the air that increase public health costs, but the public, not the polluting businesses, picks up the tab. In this way, businesses privatize profits and publicize costs. While the notion is incredibly useful, especially in folding ecological concerns into economics, I`ve always had...

ScienceDaily: An historic fish, with an intriguing past, now has had its genome sequenced, providing a wealth of information on the genetic changes that accompanied the adaptation from an aquatic environment to land. A team of international researchers led by Chris Amemiya, PhD, Director of Molecular Genetics at the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (BRI) and Professor of Biology at the University of Washington, will publish "The African coelacanth genome provides insights into tetrapod evolution"...