Delmas, a French shipping company that has been under pressure for facilitating the destruction of Madagascar's rainforest parks, has been cleared to begin picking up contraband rosewood as soon as Monday, report local sources in the Indian Ocean island nation. Leaders behind last year's military coup - which displaced the autocratic, but democratically elected President Marc Ravalomanana - have signed off on the shipment.

Observers in Vohemar report a frenzy of activity in preparation for the shipment. Rosewood and ebony logs have sitting in the port city for nearly three months while Delmas has wavered on whether the shipment was worth the potential damage to its reputation. On several occasions Delmas has said it would no longer ship illegally logged rosewood from northern Madagascar, but the company has faced heavy pressure from the "transition authority", which is seeking to use revenue from the rosewood trade to finance campaigns ahead of an election it hopes will legitimize its power grab in March 2009.

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0225-madagascar_delmas.html

25/02/2010
Click here to read on...

Posted by The Editor, Brsitol 24-7

Bristol City councillors have thrown out an application to build a controversial biofuel power plant in Avonmouth, after rejecting legal advice and planning officers' reports.

At a heated meeting in the Council House this afternoon, members of the Development Control (North) Committee voted six to two against the plan submitted by W4B Bristol to build a ‘green' energy plant to power the equivalent of 25,000 homes.

http://www.bristol247.com/2010/02/24/biofuel-plant-rejected-in-landmark-planning-decision/

24/02/2010
Click here to read on...

Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com

Whole Foods pledges to use only sources of palm oil that have been independently verified and certified to meet environmental and social sustainability criteria in its private label brand products by 2012.

America's largest organic grocer has announced its products will no longer use palm oil sourced from unsustainable producers, reports the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), an activist group that has led a campaign against destructive palm oil production. The move adds pressure on the palm oil industry to develop an effective and credible certification system for palm oil.

http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0224-whole_foods_palm_oil.html

24/02/2010
Click here to read on...

The pulp and paper industry worldwide has increased its use of woody biomass for energy by half over the past three years in a switch towards renewable energy, according to Wood Resource Quarterly.

Biomass is plant-based matter in many forms, which can generally be burnt or have its oils extracted for burning. Woody biomass is often the wood offcut and sawdust waste leftover from log, lumber and paper processing in forestry operations. This renewable source of energy is increasingly being turned into pellets in a growing international market.

http://www.carbonpositive.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=1902

23/02/2010
Click here to read on...

Illegal loggers are targeting community-managed forests in South Sumatra, renewing questions over forestry governance and law enforcement as the Indonesia prepares to capitalize on payments for conservation and reforestation under a proposed climate change mitigation mechanism known as REDD, reports the Jakarta Press.

According to the Jakarta Press, loggers have been illegally cutting timber from forests managed by local communities. These areas, which were previously barren or heavily degraded, have been rehabilitated and reforested over the past ten years under a remarkably successful forest management program which generated sustainable income for 6,537 farming families living around protected (Bukit Barisan Selatan and Way Kambas national parks) and production forests in West Lampung, Sumatra. The effort turned some 12,000 hectares into "dense forests."

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0222-redd.html

22/02/2010
Click here to read on...

The practical challenges of successfully tackling deforestation and restoring forests in developing countries have been highlighted by problems facing an otherwise successful forestry programme in Indonesia. One of the country's model community forestry projects is now being compromised by illegal logging with action so far taken by authorities not enough to halt it even though laws exist to do so, the Jakarta Post reports.

The community forest programme in areas of Lampung, on the south east tip of Sumatra, sees 12,000 hectares of land being managed by 6500 local families who preserve and restore standing forest, reforest cleared areas and farm selectively in and around the forest.ttp://www.carbonpositive.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=1901

22/02/2010
Click here to read on...