Region Archives: International

The coronavirus pandemic could wipe out populations of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, leading scientists have warned. Our closest living relatives, which share about 98% of human DNA, are known to be susceptible to catching respiratory diseases from people. Even pathogens producing mild symptoms in humans have been lethal to great apes in the past. The fact that Covid-19 is fatal for some humans leads experts to fear it could potentially prove devastating to great apes. No great apes have yet been reported to have contracted Covid-19, so the true impact is unknown. But many great apes are already at risk of extinction due to forest destruction and poaching, so the researchers say closing national parks, reserves and zoos must be seriously considered. National parks in Congo and Rwanda have already shut to tourists and researchers, but the decision is not an easy one. Without a human presence, the risk of poaching rises.

UK — People are being urged not to visit the nation’s woods and forests, as the lockdown to tackle the coronavirus pandemic takes hold. Forestry England… issued a statement urging people to heed the Government’s advice to stay at home to save lives. …Forestry and Land Scotland also urged people to make their walk or cycle a local one, saying; “Do not get into your car to travel to one of the woods we manage.” Director-General Hilary McGrady said: “Following the scenes we saw at the weekend, where visitors travelled to coast and countryside, it is really important that we do all we can to discourage travel, and ask people instead to stay local and observe social distancing as guided by the government.

New photos showing the devastating impact of bushfire in east Gippsland forests are sparking renewed calls for the Victorian government to rethink its approach to logging and bring forward the promised 2030 phase-out of the native timber industry.  A series of before-and-after pictures by the photographer Rob Blakers show the impact of last summer’s fires on the slopes of Mount Kuark, known as one of the few places in Australia where cool and warm temperate rainforests grow together.  All shots were taken within a 48,500-hectare area that the premier, Daniel Andrews, announced in November would be immediately exempt from logging to protect the greater glider and other threatened species.  The Goongerah Environment Centre, a local conservation group, said all of Mount Kuark and more than 90% of the newly protected area in Gippsland had been razed.

Parts of eastern Scotland are at an “extreme risk” of wildfire in the coming days, with a map illustrating the areas which could be worst hit. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has said that southern and eastern parts of the country face a “significant threat” of fire taking hold in dry grass and vegetation. The warning is in place from Saturday to Monday with sunshine and dry weather forecast for most of the country. A map courtesy of the European Forest Fire Information Service, which can be seen at the top of this article, shows that the north east of the country and western areas are likely to be worst affected. Edinburgh and the Lothians are also at some risk along with Fife and parts of central Scotland. The areas highlighted in red are worst at risk and the areas in green are least under threat.

In the first revision to the country’s Forest Law in over twenty years, China has banned trade in illegal logs. But will the change be enforced? On December 28, 2019, Chinese legislators revised the country’s Forest Law to ban “purchase, process or transport” of illegal logs. China is the world’s largest importer of legal and illegal timber, and if the change is enforced it could boost efforts to fight the illegal logging trade. Advocates say that the true measure of the changes will be how they are implemented and enforced.

A recently published study predicts that understory species of boreal forests will migrate northwards, following the pace of global change. Southern species may become abundant in regions where they were rare before, while northern species may see their populations reduced in the absense of further northern regions to escape to from warming climate. A study published in the scientific journal Ecography predicts the fate of 25 common understory plants in Finland for the upcoming decades. Fifteen species from dwarf shrubs, herbs and grasses to bryophytes and lichens showed a significant response to temperature and were predicted to shift distribution northward 6-8 km/year. This means a total move of ca. 460 km (range: 49–607 km) northwards from 1985 to 2041–2070. Yet the abundance of other ten species seems not to be affected by temperature, so they will probably not suffer the effects of global warming.

Smaller fragments of tropical forest experienced forest loss at a greater rate than larger blocks between 2001 and 2018, researchers have found, prompting calls for restorative measures to be taken to increase cover in highly fragmented areas. According to a statement released in conjunction with the report, which was published in Science Advances last week, the researchers identified forest fragments with a minimum size of 10-square-kilometers starting in 2000, and analyzed how much tree cover was lost in each of these fragments over the next 18 years, converting the loss into a percentage of the overall original fragment size. They found that the smaller the forest fragments, the higher the rate of deforestation in those areas. 

In the back corner of a burned lot in Australia’s fire-ravaged South Coast stands a torched tree. It’s uppermost branches reach into a cloudless sky, brittle and bare. Against its charred trunk rests half-burned rubble, remains from the gift shop it used to shade.  But that’s not where local resident Claire Polach is pointing. She gestures to the middle part of the tree, where lime green leaves sprout from blackened bark, as if the tree is wearing a shaggy sweater.  To Polach, the burst of regrowth is a sign that despite a months’ long assault of flame and smoke, the second-hottest summer on record and a multi-year drought, Australia’s nature “is doing it’s thing.”  As for people like her, recovering from the same? “We’ll follow the nature,” she says.

Robert Nasi

Interesting interview with Robert Nasi Director General, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR): I trained as a forest engineer in France before working in various tropical countries (Cameroon, New Caledonia, Mali and Malaysia) between 1981 and 1994 for what is now CIRAD, the French agricultural research and development organization. …Since its creation in 1993, CIFOR has become the go-to place for a broader understanding of forest management and the role of forests in sustainable development. We’ve made progress on getting the non-forest sector to consider the importance of forests in food security and livelihoods. Forestry is now seen as much more than simply supplying timber. More recently we’ve highlighted the role forests play in climate change. I hope I’ve made at least a small contribution to that evolution in my career. …It’s easy to be skeptical about the future. But it’s also important to remember that we have many reasons to be optimistic.

Victoria’s state-owned logging company doesn’t comply with Australian requirements designed to stop illegal logging in developing countries, the state’s Auditor-General has found. Breaches recorded by the Auditor-General show paper companies buying logs from VicForests may not be meeting the conditions of the Illegal Logging Prohibition Act, which requires companies to minimise the risks of legal breaches in supply chains. The act puts the onus on timber importers in wealthier countries rather than the regulators in poorer countries to carry out due diligence on their supply chains… Where risks of illegality cannot be reduced to a negligible level, logs cannot legally be processed. The Auditor-General’s report … found that in 2017-2018 VicForest had a non-compliance rate of 43 per cent in areas related to road design, and eight breaches were detected across the 30 logging coupes audited that were assessed to have a major environmental impact.