Branching Out

Farmers in Tree Bank programme harvest long-term profits and win over sceptical neighbours

Bangkok Post | 19/04/2012

“Are you in your right mind? What are you going to get from planting trees? What will you eat? You must be crazy"

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Pure-play carbon credit companies in crisis

The crash in carbon credit prices globally has served a crushing blow to companies operating in this space in India. Firms, whose business models were based purely on profit from sale of carbon credits, have either closed down or substantially downsized their operations

Namrata Singh | The Times of India | Apr 16, 201

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Interview with Frances Seymour, CIFOR: “The Letter of Intent prompted a tectonic shift in the dialogue about forests”

Interview with Frances Seymour, CIFOR, at CIFOR’s office, Bogor, March 2012. (The response to one question from Lou Verchot was by email.)

Chris Lang | REDD-Monitor | 13th April 2012

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Growing Food Demand Strains Energy, Water Supplies

The northern region of Gujarat State in western India (map) is semi-arid and prone to droughts, receiving almost all of its rain during the monsoon season between June and September. But for the past three decades, many crop and dairy farms have remained green—even during the dry season

Jeff Smith | National Geographic News | April 6, 2012

A man irrigates his field with an electric water pump east of Gauhati, in northern India. Excessive water pumping has strained both water and energy supplies in India, China and other hot spots around the world. Photograph by Anupam Nath, Associated Press

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Habitat sacrificed to warn the world

The man who signed the permit that allowed 1600 hectares of carbon-rich peat forest and orang-utan habitat to be razed and turned into a palm oil plantation agrees his decision was ''morally wrong''

Michael Bachelard | The Sydney Morning Herald | April 6, 2012

Abundant … up to 300 orang-utans lived in the Tripa forests. Photo: Pat Scala

 

 

 

 

 

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Indonesia court refuses to rule on peat swamp case

An Indonesian court has thrown out a lawsuit concerning the development of peat swamp forests that was brought by conservationists who fear for the fate of orangutans

The Associated Press in Times-Standard | April 3, 2012

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As Fukushima Worsens, US Approves New Nukes

Nuclear Regulatory Commission OKs New Nuclear Plants in South Carolina

Common Dreams | March 30, 2012

The Vogtle nuclear power plant, which was given the first license since the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster in 1979

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Indonesia opposition parties block fuel price hike

Leading Indonesian political parties said on Friday they will oppose a government plan to raise fuel prices unless oil prices climb further, dealing a blow to the ruling party's efforts to control a swelling budget deficit in Southeast Asia's largest economy

Reuters | Mar 30, 2012

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Barefoot College and Microformers shine as innovative power solutions

Institutions like India's Barefoot College, which teaches women how to run and repair solar installations, and projects like Microformers, which converts old microwave ovens into transformers, show ways to generate cheap electricity in poor regions

By Pete Mercouriou | Global Envision in Christian Science Monitor | March 30, 2012

People install solar panels on the Saint-Michel health center and a fish hatchery in Boucan Carre, Haiti. The panels will provide the town with a dependable electricity supply for the first time. Only a quarter of Haiti's 10 million people has regular access to electricity. In 28 countries, Barefoot College is teaching people to harness solar power for electricity. Dieu Nalio Chery/AP/File

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Up in smoke: ecological catastrophe in the Sumatran swamps

Fires raging unchecked in an Indonesian peat swamp forest could wipe out the remaining Sumatran orang-utans which live there, conservationists are warning

The Independent | 30 March 2012

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“REDD is just a project that the industrial countries use to try to keep their economic benefits”

Interview with Tejo Pramono, La Via Campesina and Elisha Kartini,Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI – Indonesian Farmers Union) at SPI’s office, Jakarta, February 2012

By Chris Lang | REDD-Monitor | 27th March 2012

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Palm oil case against 'Green Governor' in Indonesia heats up

Environmental activists have launched an urgent appeal calling for a "just decision" in a court case that has pitted Aceh's "Green Governor" and palm oil developers against efforts to save endangered orangutans in a Sumatran peat forest

Rhett A. Butler | mongabay.com | March 22, 2012

Sumatran orangutan in the Leuser rainforest. Photo by Rhett Butler.

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For peat’s sake, we need an overhaul of forestry aid

On 9 September 2007, Australian Ministers and the Indonesian President announced a $100 million Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership (KFCP). This would involve, it was declared, protecting 70,000 hectares of peat forests, re-flooding 200,000 hectares of dried peatland, and planting 100 million trees in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. What has happened to a project that was promised, as Minister Downer put it back in 2007, to make “a very real and very practical contribution to improving our environment” and yield “immediate and tangible results”?

By Erik Olbrei and Stephen Howes | Reneweconomy | 22 March 2012

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Japan left with one nuclear reactor after shutdown

Japan has shut down another nuclear power station, bringing it a step closer to suspending atomic energy, following the Fukushima disaster

BBC News Asia | 26 March 2012

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power station is not currently in operation

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Blood, sweat and fears: the research scientists in Borneo's rainforests

Louise Murray joined an international team of research scientists in Borneo, where burrowing mites and enraged elephants are just part of a day's work

Louise Murray | guardian.co.uk | 23 March 2012

Timm Döbert, Terhi Riutt, Ed Turner and some field assistants at work in Borneo. Photograph: Louise Murray for the Guardian

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SAFI: Forest Department and Merlins Wood process in Pakistan neither consultative nor transparent

In February 2012, REDD-Monitor wrote about a London-based company called Merlins Wood and its REDD-type projects in Pakistan. Sarhad Awami Forestry Ittehad (SAFI), a local NGO, rejected the agreements the company had made in Pakistan. SAFI has now produced a resolution about Merlins Wood

By Chris Lang | REDD-Monitor | 23rd March 2012

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Why Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry is reluctant to investigate APP’s illegal logging of ramin trees

When Greenpeace told the Ministry of Forestry that it had found evidence that Asia Pulp and Paper was illegally logging ramin trees, the Ministry’s response less than enthusiastic. More than two weeks later, the Ministry told Greenpeace that it “intends” to visit APP’s pulp mill. Meanwhile APP has been busy removing the evidence from its timber yards

By Chris Lang | REDD-Monitor | 20th March 2012

PHOTO Credit: Greenpeace

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Migration not a matter of choice but survival, says Kiribati President

Following a recent decision by its Cabinet to buy land in Fiji as 'climate change insurance' for its population, Kiribati President, Anote Tong has called on the international community to address the effects of climate change that could wipe out the entire Pacific archipelago

By Brigitte Leoni | UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction | 15 March 2012

Children in the village of Tebikenikora, on Kiribati’s main Tarawa atoll (Photo: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe)

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Indonesia asks Britain to take back 1,800 tons of 'illegal' waste

Indonesia has asked Britain to take back 1,800 tonnes of waste after inspectors found liquid and illegal mixed waste in containers marked as "scrap metal," Britain's Environment Agency has said

The Telegraph | 16 March 2012

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Ministry of Forestry signed off on clearing of forest with protected species in Indonesia

Indonesia's Ministry of Forestry signed off on a plan by Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) suppliers to log areas of forest that contained protected ramin species, according to documents released by Greenomics-Indonesia, an activist group

mongabay.com | March 15, 2012

Active clearance of peat swamp forest by APP pulpwood supplier PT Mutiara Sabuk Khatulistiwa. Photo © Greenpeace.

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