Thursday April 5, 2007, 5:43 pm

"Western consumers are leaving a violent ecological footprint in Burma and other countries," said an American environmental activist who frequently travels to Burma and goes by the pen name Zao Noam to preserve access to the authoritarian country. "Predominantly, the Burmese timber winds up as patio furniture for Americans. Without their demand, there wouldn't be a timber trade."

At the current pace of cutting, natural forests in Indonesia and Burma -- which send more than half their exported logs to China -- will be exhausted within a decade, according to research by Forest Trends, a consortium of industry and conservation groups. Forests in Papua New Guinea will be consumed in as little as 13 years, and those in the Russian Far East within two decades.

Thursday April 5, 2007, 6:41 pm
I agree Melanie. If we don't stop cutting and taking all the forests there will be nothing left to enjoy for future generations. We need to realize the forest is our life line. Once this is gone so are we!

Mary & Becker

Friday April 6, 2007, 1:37 pm
Our thirst for cheap goods not only has helped cause this but also child slave labor to help build the goods, as long as we keep buying merchandise from China this will continue. Big business loves this.

Friday April 6, 2007, 2:28 pm

That is it Joe, "thirst for cheap goods". The big multinationals compete by moving operations overseas, by mining natural resources and human resources from poorer countries, to dramatically lower costs of production, all to satisfy demand for cheap goods back in the G8. So, our role as consumers is undeniable.

Sunday April 8, 2007, 4:15 am
What a horrible environmental mess!!! I agree with all of you.

The entire situation will stop with the panic that will set in when there is no room or food in the big three, China, Africa and India. The unbelievable consumption and waste drawn from the belly of Mother Nature, we literally have no regard or respect for using these resources in a reasonable manner. In a word we are glutononous idiots.

Many blame all this wanting of on the United States but if it had not been for us it would have been another country. Seemingly it is the nature of man to dominate and destroy in the disguise of making life better. The question is: Making it better for whom and what for as opposed to Mother Natures provisions. Man has manipulated, twisted and mangled the idea of living off the earth is a respectful healthy manner.

Through the years of my life I've always wanted to be born sometime in the 18th century, now I know why, for now I'm faced with the fear of so many calamities my children will suffer through to bear.

There is little use in prayer & hope for the 3rd world countries will surely undo whatever efforts made to change this global warming for they want exactly what will kill so many of us, our life of luxury and self gratisfication..........

Truly animals are far more intelligent than Man!

Think of tomorrow-
plant a seed
grow a forest
for Mother Nature
and her animals............

Sunday April 8, 2007, 1:13 pm

QUOTE

Every day huge volumes of logs, many of them harvested illegally, stream toward Chinese factories where workers churn out products such as furniture and floorboards. These wares are shipped to major retailers like Ikea and Home Depot, and are bought by shoppers with little inkling of the wood's origins.

END QUOTE

IKEA and Home Depot are two retailers who are actually trying to improve their environmental stewardship and yet they remain solid distributors of illegal lumber, which can be attributed in part to the lack of transparency in the international timber trade. I posted an article before about a tracking system, to track the source of lumber. I believe this could really help. Sadly, that article received little attention, even here at Care2.

Even so, there are many products, very clearly labeled, that consumers still purchase, even though these companies are known to exploit their laborers and devastate the environment. Maybe, too many of us just don't want to be inconvenienced. And that is truly sad.

Sunday April 8, 2007, 7:11 pm
noted
sad that we can't pull it together to save the world...just becouse it will mean a leaner lifestyle..

Monday April 9, 2007, 5:26 pm
As Americans, we exported a lot of timber harvest to developing countries because of environmental regulations in the United States that companies don't want to deal with. Labor is also a lot cheaper in these developing countries too. There is a lot of resistance to using American grown timber here in the United States because no one wants to see clear-cuts or shelter tree practices used in the U.S. especially on Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service land. If Americans were in sync with the environmental movement, they should be willing to pay more for American grown timber, if the timber is grown sustainably. I don't have the statistics in front of me, but there are a lot of national forests that could be thinned using sustainable practices, but a lot of people don't want timber harvesting on public land even if it meant improving the health of the forest. In southern Illinois in the Shawnee National Forest, we are seeing a change from an oak-hickory community to a maple-beech community because fire is being withheld from the ecosystem and the "environmentalists" in southern Illinois do not want any timber harvesting to take place on the Shawnee National Forest. A lot of timber that is grown in the United States is on private land. There is some harvesting on public land but the Forest Service and BLM put up with "environmentalists" say that the timber harvest is illegal or going to hurt the forest. Some species of trees only regenerate after a clear-cut (e.g. oaks, hickories, etc.) where some trees don't need to have a clearcut to regenerate (e.g. maples, beeches, etc). I guess "environmentalists" are going to have to chose between allowing more timber harvests on public land in order to maintain the health of the forest or chose to export the problem like it sounds like we already have done. There are different was to forestry practices to harvest timber from public lands, but the "environmentalists", for the most part, don't want harvesting on public lands (this is not a fact for the whole U.S. but from where I went to school in southern Illinois). I think we need to allow the foresters of the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to do their jobs, but with input from the public. I am writing this comment as a forester and as someone who also wants to protect the environment too.

Tuesday April 10, 2007, 2:26 am
Its not good. Must change!

Thursday June 14, 2007, 11:39 pm
Geez, that looks like the forest in British Columbia! For shame to all who must have wood instead of clean air and oxygen. Logs are being sent whole to China and Japan to build houses that could also be built with sustainable bamboo. Go figure, we use bamboo her as a specialty. Does anyone see the sense?