News

Upper Green River Valley Gets More Protection

With its sagebrush mesas and free-roaming elk and pronghorn, the Upper Green River Valley is part of the longest wildlife migration corridor in the lower 48. A year ago, tens of thousands of WildAlert subscribers urged the Bureau of Land Management to back off drilling plans for this region of Wyoming.

Working with local citizens, and with your help, The Wilderness Society scored a victory with a revision to the BLM's draft plan for the region, which will quadruple the land that's off limits for gas leasing — to 440,000 acres. While not perfect, this revised plan will protect habitat critical for mule deer, pronghorn, sage grouse, and elk.

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MEXICO CITY - Mexicans went out and planted more than 8 million trees across the country on Saturday as part of a government push to shed its reputation for environmental mismanagement and rampant illegal logging.

Packs of volunteers, including oil workers and schoolchildren, trekked into fields and forests up and down Mexico wielding shovels and wheelbarrows full of government-supplied saplings. They planted a 8.3 million trees, the environment ministry said.

"We are repairing just a little of the enormous damage that we are doing" to the environment, President Felipe Calderon said at a tree planting event just north of the capital.

Illegal logging destroys some 64,000 acres (26,000 hectares) of Mexican forest each year, the government says, putting Mexico near the top of a UN list of nations losing primary forest fastest.

Environmental activists say the figure is much higher.

"Everybody needs to help out a little to keep the world green," said volunteer Marcela Lopez as she patted down soil around a sapling on the west side of Mexico City.

Environmental group Greenpeace called the government-led effort a publicity stunt, saying a better way to keep forests healthy would be to cut back on logging, which is often controlled by the country's powerful organized crime gangs.

"This program is a fraud. Only 10 percent of what is planted survives, which means they are throwing the federal budget for reforestation straight into the garbage," the group said in a statement.

Calderon regularly speaks out against global warming, and the leftwing Mexico City mayor has launched a number of green initiatives to curb rampant pollution in the city, where government fuel subsidies and a lack of public transport mean the roads are permanently choked with cars.

Mexican Environment Minister Juan Rafael Elvira said the point of the tree planting was to raise environmental consciousness in Mexico, which ecologists also criticize for allowing the oil industry to contaminate many rural states.

"We don't just want a green country. We want to plant trees to nurture environmental conscience," he said. (Reporting by Mariano Castillo, Rodolfo Pena and Jason Lange, editing by Todd Eastham)

Story Date: 7/7/2008

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Thank you for your recent email concerning Palm Oil.

Thank you for your letter in which you express your concerns about the
Côte
d'Ivoire's Tanoé Swamps Forest and call for protection of this forest.
Sustainability is a key concern for Unilever and we appreciate your
feedback on this important issue. 

The West African Primates Conservation Association (WAPCA) has
contacted
Unilever to ask for its help in protecting biodiversity and endangered
primate species in the Tanoé forest in the Ivory Coast. 

Like yourself, WAPCA and its partners in the Ivory Coast (the
University of
Cocody - Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire,
SOS
Forêt and and the Nature Conservation Society of Ivory Coast) have
expressed concerns that palm oil company PALMCI (which has connections
to
Unilever) might go ahead with a possible expansion into the forest
without
having done an Environmental Impact Assessment.

We have assured WAPCA and the local organisations that we will do
everything we can to ensure that there is no damage to the
bio-diversity of
the forest and that endangered species are protected.

PALMCI confirmed that it has been granted 6,000 hectares of concession
area
in the Tanoé Forest but have assured Unilever that their planned
approach
has always been to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment before
exercising their concession rights. PALMCI has also ensured that the
Environmental Impact Assessment is conducted in line with both national
legislation and the criteria of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil
(RSPO). There will not be any expansion activity before the EIA has
been
finalised and agreement reached on how the bio-diversity of the region
and
its endangered species can be protected. Unilever and PALMCI are in
contact
with WAPCA and with the local organisations involved in the Ivory Coast
to
follow up.

Unilever’s connection to PALMCI is as principal end-user of the palm
oil
and hitherto as a minority shareholder, though as part of a wider
restructuring of Unilever’s business in Cote d’Ivoire, we have
signed an
agreement (due for completion by end 2008) to sell our interests in
local
oil palm plantations. We will however remain a principal end-user of
palm
oil from PALMCI plantations. As such, and in line with the commitment
to
sustainable palm oil that Unilever made in May 2008, we will use our
influence to ensure adherence to best practice in terms of
sustainability
and Environmental Impact Assessments. This is also stipulated in the
terms
of the sale of our plantations.

We invite you to follow the progress we make on our global commitment
on
our website
http://www.unilever.com/ourcompany/newsandmedia/pressreleases/2008/Unileverc
ommitstocertifiedsustainablepalmoil.asp

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Dear Elizabeth and Care2 Members,

I am delighted to share with you some very exciting news about a giant victory for Sierra Club and the Giant Sequoia National Monument.

Just a week ago we saw the end to the Sierra Club’s three year long battle with the timber industry, preventing them - once and for all - from logging in the Giant Sequoia National Monument.

The win came at the 11th hour, as the Sierra Club legal team prepared to appear in the Ninth Circuit court to argue the last case standing, a last-ditch appeal by the timber industry, regarding commercial logging in the Monument. But on the eve of the hearing, they abandoned and withdrew their appeal - putting the final nail in the coffin of this very drawn out case - and putting an end to the pillage of these iconic trees.

This was a major victory for the Sierra Club - and it would not have been possible without the support of our committed Members and Supporters. Thank you.

Beginning in 1901, when John Muir lobbied for the expansion of Sequoia National Park to encompass the entire range of the giant sequoia, the Sierra Club has advocated for the protection of giant sequoia ecosystems in their entirety. And after years of fighting to keep our towering Sequoia trees safe from the timber industry's saws, we have finally won. Thanks to this hard-earned victory, our children and grandchildren will be able to stand in awe of these noble giants for generations to come.

Thank you again for your contribution to this critical victory - it never could have happened without your support.  

Sincerely,  

Carl Pope
Executive Director

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The Bush administration on Friday proposed keeping potentially oil-rich wetlands in Arctic Alaska off-limits to drilling because of their ecological sensitivity, a reversal of its earlier plan.

The Bureau of Land Management proposed a 10-year leasing moratorium for 430,000 acres of wetlands north and east of vast Teshekpuk Lake in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Environmentalists and local groups hailed the decision.

"This plan provides a balanced approach to energy development and wildlife protection, and forms a solid basis for the Bureau of Land Management to proceed with an oil and gas lease sale later this year," Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said in a statement.

The area, the North Slope's biggest freshwater lake, is considered potentially rich in oil and gas as well as a critical habitat for migrating birds and caribou. Two years ago, the administration was poised to sell leases to energy companies seeking to drill.

But a lawsuit by environmentalists and native groups forced the agency to revisit the plan in late 2006.

Extensive public comment, input from the local government and practical considerations contributed to the policy change, said Jim Ducker, an environmental program analyst for the BLM.

Ducker noted that the area is 40 to 70 miles away from any oil-field infrastructure.

"Our thinking is, it's pretty darn unlikely that we're going to have any development there" in the near future, he said.

Ducker said the BLM hopes the new plan will result in a lease sale this fall, to encompass essentially the same area offered for lease by the Clinton administration in 1999.

Geologists estimate the area holds 2.8 billion barrels of oil, he said, with 800 million barrels in the deferral area.

Environmentalists were pleased with the BLM's new plan.

"It is a win," said Stan Senner, executive director of Audubon Alaska, one of the groups campaigning for preservation. "I think they've responded to public interest in seeing that the area's protected, and it gives people who care about the place time to work on a permanent solution."

The BLM statement noted that North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta said "The lease sale can proceed while one of the region's most sensitive wildlife habitats will be protected. It's a win-win."

The borough, which opposed oil development in the area because it is important to Inupiat Eskimo hunters, was enlisted to help prepare the new plan after a federal judge voided the previous leasing plan.

The 23 million acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, on the central North Slope, was created in 1923 as a potential source of energy for the military.

Despite sporadic exploration drilling since the 1940s, almost all the successful oil development that ensued on the North Slope occurred on state land east of the reserve.

Industry interest in the petroleum reserve resurfaced in the 1990s, after Arco Alaska Inc. discovered the Alpine oil field on state land bordering the federal unit. Alpine is now operated by Arco successor ConocoPhillips.

While there has never been any commercial oil production in the petroleum reserve, ConocoPhillips and partner Anadarko plan to develop Alpine satellite fields on the federal land there.

(Editing by David Gregorio)

TUNIS - The African Development Bank (AfDB) will provide $814 million over the next two years to help safeguard Central African forests threatened by war, poverty and poor governance, the bank said on Thursday.

Bank President Donald Kaberuka told reporters the money would go to 13 projects aimed at improving the management of natural resources in 2008-2010 in the Congo Basin, home to 37 percent of the world's remaining tropical forests.

"Forests (in the Congo Basin) have an important economic and climatic role ... Unfortunately, these forests are threatened mainly by poverty, governance crises and conflicts," he said.

The bank previously provided a total of $2.7 billion to Central African states to improve farming and protect forests.

A 2006 study by non-governmental organisations showed that half of the Congo Basin forests would disappear in 2030 due to intensive exploitation and population growth.

Environmental groups say that protecting tropical forests is the most direct and fastest way to mitigate some of the impact of climate change.

Scientists say Africa is expected to be hit hardest by global warming, which is blamed on carbon dioxide emissions from industry, transport and modern lifestyles in rich countries.

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