Daily Archives: April 2, 2019

Firefighters on Tuesday contained a blaze high in the rugged forested mountains of western China that claimed the lives of 30 colleagues, in one of the worst disasters for the emergency services in recent years. Open flames had been extinguished and only a few areas continued to emit smoke with no further threat of the fire spreading, state media reported. The bodies of the dead firefighters were transported to the town of Xichang in Sichuan province, where residents presented flowers as a sign of mourning and respect. Some of the bodies could only be identified through DNA, state broadcaster CCTV reported. …The Xinhua News Agency quoted firefighting official Xie Shi’en as saying wind, dry air and combustible material creative an explosive effect where the men were working.

India recently joined the select club of countries with their own globally-recognized forest certification scheme. Certification Standard for Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) is a scheme developed by an Indian non-profit organization called Network for Certification and Conservation of Forests (NCCF). It has attracted global recognition after being endorsed by a Geneva-based non-profit organization Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). …India has a forest cover of 21.54% of the total land surface. Its timber and non-timber products have a huge market in the domestic and world market. However, there was no reliable forest certification programme for its huge green cover as yet. This called for an urgent need for such a program. …The global applause received by India should motivate other countries to be a party to the efforts related to making the world more sustainable.

Defra Ministers have appointed three new Non-Executive Commissioners to Forestry Commission. Jennie Price CBE, Peter Latham OBE and Liz Philip have been appointed for three years commencing on 1 April 2019. The Commissioners will play a pivotal role in establishing a strong, sustainable future for the organisation, enabling it to set out with confidence on the road to the next 100 years of forestry in England. …Forest Research will continue to operate across GB, and the whole FC will remain an outward looking, connected organisation, engaging with the forest industry and other national and international partners and stakeholders, and delivering research and other services to Scotland and Wales by agreement with the devolved governments. …Peter Latham is currently the Chair of the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification International (PEFC), a Director of Association Technique Internationale des Bois Tropicaux (ATIBT) and a trustee of the Commonwealth Forestry Association. 

AUSTRALIA — A tiny flying fox previously unrecorded in a rainforest on the Sunshine Coast has been discovered in a four-day scientific survey near Maleny. …The small fruit bat is listed as vulnerable in NSW, and has been never formally recorded in the 55-hectare Mary Cairncross rainforest reserve. …Ms Freudmann was a part of a team of Australian scientists and artists who swapped the laboratory and studio for a rope and harness to survey what has been described as the final biological frontier — the rainforest canopy. The team took turns being suspended up to 50 metres above the ground to survey the top crowns of five giant strangler fig trees. …While there is a degree of risk involved in dangling 50 metres from the ground, the discoveries are compelling, such as tiny orchids that only grow high in the canopy and cannot be seen from the forest floor.

BEIJING — A forest fire in southwestern China turned deadly over the weekend when winds shifted unexpectedly, trapping firefighters and local officials in a maelstrom. The bodies of 30 people who could not escape were found on Monday, officials announced. Among those who died were the chief of a regional forestry bureau in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province, and his deputy. The officials had traveled to the scene of the fire, which broke out on Saturday in a remote location at altitudes nearing 13,000 feet, and had not been heard from since. …The death toll appeared to be the largest for firefighters in China since a devastating blaze at a chemical plant in Tianjin killed more than 100in 2015 …“The forest fire risk level in some areas is extremely high,” The Paper, said.