Local landowner initiated court case has shut down logging for two months. The PNG Forest Authority's review of the granting of the right to log to notorious Rimbunan Hijau [search] of Malaysia in Ramu River valley expected soon. Industry and corrupt government officials pulling out all stops to re-grant permit to this violent and corrupt criminal-enterprise. Massive cash payments and brutal violence – to intimidate communities resisting logging – is rife. Yet local protest to logging continues to intensify in Madang [search], as do calls to end all industrial primary rainforest logging in PNG.

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Donate to Ramu/Sogeram Landonwers Resisting RH & primary rainforest logging

Delmas shipping, a subsidiary of French shipping giant CMA-CGM, is being pressured by the transitional Madagascar government to ship hundreds of containers of illegally logged ancient rainforest logs from Madagascar to China anytime soon. Post-coup illegal log and wildlife trade continue to threaten Madagacar's biodiversity rich rainforest remnants, ecological sustainability and future potential for national advancement.

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Yet another paradise lost?

Prime Minister Michael Somare of Papua New Guinea is ruling as a Mugabe like thug bent upon becoming a tin-pot dictator. Once a great man that led his country to independence, Mr. Somare is now using his “Grand Chief” status for corrupt personal, family and tribal gains – illegally and immorally allocating huge swathes of his great nation’s forest and marine resources without landowners’ prior and informed consent. On the bidding of Somare’s increasingly despotic and erratic leadership, Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) natural assets are being sold off to invading Asian business interests – destroying rainforest, ocean, water and land – as well as the resource and ecosystem rich nation’s future development potential. Will one man – big man Sana or not – single-handedly destroy Earth’s third largest remaining contiguous old rainforest expanses for personal gain?

Nowhere is this more evident than in Madang Province, PNG, which contains some of Earth’s last remaining mostly intact tropical and marine ecosystems in the world. The “Jewel of the South Pacific” includes large ancient rainforest tracts, huge tuna and other fisheries, and barely explored mineral deposits; as well as beautiful, loving and peaceful people. Madang’s rainforests and oceans feed and house all its citizens, regulate national and regional climatic patterns, and make the Earth habitable by providing global ecosystem services. As Somare flits about in his new high-end private jet (who paid for that?) signing illicit business deals with Asian cartels and otherwise stealing Madang and the nation’s resources (including attempts to corner nascent carbon markets), Madang and PNG’s infrastructure including schools, hospitals, police and roads are in shambles.

Shared survival requires powering down, going back to the land, and ecological resistance.

The human family faces imminent and (Copenhagen would suggest) inevitable collapse of the biosphere – the thin layer of life upon an otherwise lifeless planet – that makes Earth habitable. Marshes and rivers and forests and fish are far more than resources – they and all natural ecosystems are a necessity for humanity’s existence upon Earth. A few centuries of historically unprecedented explosion in human numbers and surging, albeit inequitable, consumption and resultant resource use, ecosystem destruction and pollution; is needlessly destroying being for all living things. Revolutionary action such as ending coal use, reforming industrial agriculture and protecting and restoring old forests and other natural ecosystems, is a requirement for the continuation of shared human being.

Earth is threatened by far more than a changing atmosphere causing climate change. Cumulative ecosystem destruction – not only in climate, but also water, forests, oceans, farmland, soils and toxics -- in the name of “progress” and “development” -- threatens each of us, our families and communities, as well as the Earth System in total and all her creatures. Any chance of achieving global ecological sustainability depends urgently upon shifting concerns regarding climate change to more sufficiently transform ourselves and society to more broadly resist global ecological change. Global ecological, social and economic collapse may be inevitable, but its severity, duration and likelihood of recovery are being determined by us now. It does not look good as the environmental movement has been lacking in its overall vision, ambition and implementation.

Mongabay reports that Delmas shipping company is planning to take as many as 200 containers (worth $40M) of illegally logged rosewood rainforest timbers out of Vohemar port in Madagascar on the 21st or 22nd of December [1]. They reported four shipping companies have transported rosewood from Madagascar this year. Three of these have agreed to stop shipping rosewood following criticisms from international conservation groups, but the fourth, Delmas (a subsidiary of French shipping giant CMA-CGM) continues to ship illegally logged precious woods in large quantities.

MORE INFORMATION & TO TAKE ACTION!

With logging stopped by court order, violence breaks out in Ramu logging area in Papua New Guinea. Two youths in custody for stealing from loggers shot as a warning to the community. With local opposition to Rimbunan Hijau and continued industrial logging growing, foreign logger turns to further bribery and intimidation.

(MADANG, PAPUA NEW GUINEA) - Logging has been stopped for nearly two weeks at the Ramu Block 1 concession held by Rimbunan Hijau (RH) of Malaysia in Madang, Papua New Guinea (PNG). Facing a court order, a plethora of other court proceedings, and rising local landowner discontent, RH has responded by calling on the police to send a warning to logging opposition, and widely making cash bribes to be allowed to resume logging.

Last week, drunken youth became angry with company employees and ill-advisedly robbed a tool shed. First thing the next morning two youth leaders were caught by officers (who were allegedly visibly intoxicated). While restrained and in police custody, the youths were shot at point blank range in the leg, and let go. The youths are recovering in the hospital, and information is being gathered for legal proceedings.

“Logging companies bribing police to send a warning to opposition is not ethical or just development. Violence has come to Madang Province, as various Asian logging, mining and fishing industries fall over themselves to harvest these resources immediately and incautiously,” notes Ecological Internet’s President, Dr. Glen Barry. “Clearly PNG’s resource allocation processes have become corrupted and Madang’s three big development projects – RH logging, tuna canneries, and Ramu mine – must be stopped and thoroughly investigated.”

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Securing world food security while maintaining operable forests, global climate, water, ocean and terrestrial ecosystems – and human rights, justice and equity – is the biggest challenge facing humanity. Water and food are the next bubbles to burst -- expect severe shortages of both in the 2010s. It is long past time to get back to the land through protecting and restoring old forests and organic permaculture farming. Our survival depends upon being with land, collecting water, letting forests age and growing food.

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Sir Michael Somare -- Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Prime Minister -- jets soon to Copenhagen pledging to protect the country’s rainforests in exchange for REDD carbon money. Yet back home he has left a long list of shameful and corrupt rainforest/climate policies. As Copenhagen and REDD talks start, Somare pals Rimbunan Hijau of Malaysia continue logging in Ramu, Madang, despite a court order demanding they stop. Corruption, human rights abuses, and ecological devastation have no place in REDD or Papua New Guinea.

TAKE ACTION HERE NOW:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=png_redd_logging

PICTURES OF RIMBUNAN HIJAU’S DESTRUCTION IN RAMU, MADANG:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158287&id=84943913664

An Open Letter signed by more than 80 organizations from 31 countries was delivered yesterday to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) [search] and to World Wildlife Fund (WWF) co-initiator of the initiative. In the letter, they are urged to end the “greenwashing” and certification of palm oil plantations as being “sustainable”.

According to the Open Letter, palm oil companies certified by the RSPO are directly responsible for much social and environmental damage: dislocation of local populations’ livelihoods, destruction of rainforests and peat lands, pollution of soils and water, and contribution to global warming. These are the reasons why “palm oil monoculture[s] are not and can never be sustainable and ‘certification’ serves as a means of perpetuating and expanding this destructive industry”.

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Copenhagen climate talks [search] must not provide Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) carbon market funds for old, natural forest logging, or for conversion of natural or semi-natural forests and other ecosystems to plantations. Ending deforestation and degradation of old and relatively ecologically intact primary and old growth forest ecosystems, and the ecological restoration of late-successional old growth forests, are keystone responses to maintaining the global climatic system. TAKE ACTION!

Loggers and wildlife traders continue to violate Madagascar's biodiversity [search] rich rainforests including protected areas. In March of this year controversy surrounding leasing of agricultural land resulted in a military coup. In the chaos that ensued, armed gangs funded by Chinese traders entered Madagascar’s Marojejy and Masoala National Parks, two world-renowned World Heritage Sites, and logged rosewood, ebonies, and other valuable hardwoods. NGOs operating in Madagascar report continued armed, open and organized plundering of precious wood from several natural forests, including these parks.

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(EARTH) -- Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has unexpectedly pulled out of nearly completed secret negotiations with Ecological Internet to work jointly to reform the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to stop certifying as environmentally acceptable the first time logging of old forests [1]. After fifteen years of FSC membership, RAN still cannot say how much first time industrial primary and old growth forest logging FSC has certified as "well-managed" while implying environmental sustainability (no one including FSC board members can, or at least they are not talking). Estimates place it as high as 60 million hectares of old forests having been cleared with FSC certification for such necessities as toilet paper and lawn furniture, with an equal amount imminently threatened.

RAN's tropical rainforest campaign has collapsed into irrelevancy. For several years there has been no activity other than working on oil palm, fund-raising and throwing lavish parties. A year ago, after two years of protests and threats to disrupt their REVEL celebrity studded fund-raiser, they pledged to reinvigorate their rainforest campaign, starting with writing to FSC to find out just how much old forests they are destroying. Apparently being an FSC member has few benefits, as no response has been received. By supporting FSC, Rainforest Action Network is greenwashing rainforest destruction globally. FSC is only marginally better than competing industry certification schemes in that it depends upon old forest logging to meet market demand for throw-away consumer items. Old forest logging must end.

This was not surprising for "The National", the mouthpiece of the PNG timber industry, and owned by the largest foreign logger. But why is it that The Nature Conservancy (TNC), AusAID and the Government of PNG have conspired to block the advertisement in the Post-Courier as well, the other major national daily newspaper, as has been alleged? The conflicts of interest herein detailed show clearly that most carbon market players in PNG have interests other than protecting rainforests and reducing carbon in the atmosphere.

Contact:
Tim Doody: rainforestsny@gmail.com
Simon Counsell: info@fsc-watch.org
Dr. Glen Barry: glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org

PHOTOS AND VIDEO OF BANNER:
http://RFNY.org

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32461153@N08/

September 24th, New York: This morning, environmental activists unfurled a 35-foot banner blocking the iconic view of 10th Avenue from the High Line park to protest the Amazon wood [search] used in the park for bleachers, benches and decking. The banner read, "High Crime on the High Line! FSC Lies: Amazon Wood Is Not Sustainable [search]!"

Two New York City-based groups, Rainforest Relief and New York Climate Action Group, coordinated the banner action to confront the "First International FSC Friday," an event held on September 25th by the Forest Stewardship Council to promote their certification scheme.

According to Friends of the High Line's website, the tropical hardwood used throughout the High Line was certified by FSC-accredited agencies. The wood, called ipę, originates from primary Amazon forests in Brazil and Peru. Ipę trees are typically 250 to 1,000 years old and grow an average of one or two trees per acre.

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Urge all Earth's citizens and tribes to pursue a 10:10 pledge, protect and restore all old forests, and pursue other ambitious, short-term actions -- both personally and at Copenhagen -- as a start to avert abrupt climate change and global ecological collapse. Stewardship Revolution starts here as global ecological sustainability depends upon dramatically reducing greenhouse emissions in the short term. TAKE ACTION!

A call for reluctant Earth revolutionaries to unite and slay the economic growth machine consuming ecological being.

A disease is ravaging Earth as ever more people, consume ever more, destroying natural ecosystems that are our shared habitat. In a few short centuries the violent, expansionist and deeply ecologically unsustainable Western mindset has become virtually universally accepted. The meaning of life is more, ever more of everything, at the expense of a finite biosphere. The emptiness of such a vacuous worldview is revealed through changing climate, devastating human inequities and an irredeemably corrupt economic system.

More than just a climate crisis, humanity is facing profound over-population and injustice that are spurring dozens of inter-related ecological and social crises. Billions suffer as their basic human needs go unmet, while billions more gorge themselves. Forests, prairies, streams, rivers, estuaries, wetlands, lakes, soil, oceans, air and all the rest are all life's flesh and blood. Humanity, Earth and kindred species have entered the late stage condition of ecological overshoot -- whereby our cumulative demands upon ecosystems exceed their life-giving capacity and cause them to collapse.

We are eating creation. Hardly anyone is thinking or acting at the necessary scale to avert global ecological Armageddon. Market based solutions are pervasive with corruption and inequity. Nothing we do is going to maintain an affluent life, as it is now for some. Widespread economic decline will certainly accompany abrupt climate change and global ecosystem collapse; indeed, it has begun. If existing political systems are unable to deal with the inevitable collapse of the growth machine, at the same time as pursuing rigorous environmental policy-making, then new political structures will be necessary.

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Ombudsman report on 20 years of corrupt IFC, World Bank Group lending to the Indonesian oil palm industry casts doubt on Bank's fitness to manage international forest carbon funds that may emerge at Copenhagen climate talks. It is time for the World Bank to end finance of oil palm, sustainable forest management, paper pulp and other industrial rainforest developments known to be the root causes of deforestation, degradation and climate change. The Bank must permanently end financial support for these industrial developments impacting primary rainforests, or it is the wrong entity to administer forest carbon monies.

MORE INFORMATION AND TAKE ACTION NOW!

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Malaysia is the world's leading rainforest destroying nation. Insist Malaysian authorities respect native customary land rights and boundaries of Penan's last remaining ancestral rainforest reserves; halt rainforest destruction in Sarawak for oil palm, pulp plantations and hydro-electric dams; and ensure rainforest destruction and abuse of indigenous rights by Malaysian companies end globally.

MORE INFORMATION AND TAKE ACTION NOW:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=malaysia_penan_blockade

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The fact notorious illegal loggers Samling of Malaysia [search]; who have devastated rainforests globally including those of the Penan, are surreptitiously in contention for Liberian logging [search] contracts illustrates, despite decades of failed reform efforts locally and internationally, that the global industrial tropical timber logging industry remains irredeemably corrupt. There is no evidence first time industrial logging of primary forests is ever ecologically sustainable or reduces poverty. Please call upon Liberian President to pursue development based upon standing rainforests, and reject entirely the resumption of industrial logging. NOTE: After sending this protest you are forwarded to several crucial ongoing alerts, which we ask you to please send as well

MORE INFORMATION AND TAKE ACTION NOW:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=liberia_logging_resume

By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet (EI)
CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org

Ecological Internet and Rainforest Rescue of Germany have launched a campaign leading to Copenhagen's climate talks in December to ensure carbon based funding for forest protection -- called avoided deforestation [search], or Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) [search] -- remains ecologically and socially rigorous, or does not proceed at all. REDD has the potential to help end primary and old-growth forest logging and other industrial destruction and diminishment of old forests.

The REDD concept faces immediate risk of being usurped by industry. The focus in project design remains primarily upon profit-making and greenwashing "Sustainable Forest Management", rather than necessary policies to ensure large areas of primary and old-growth forests are fully protected to optimally keep existing and new carbon sequestered. It is even being suggested that first time logging of primary forests and establishment of industrial tree plantations should be worthy of carbon market financing.