FORESTRY & DEVELOPMENT

The bark beetle, 4-8 mm in size, is one of the most dangerous forest pests. The main food base for the bark beetle is spruce, pine, birch, less often fir, cedar and larch. The bark beetle feeds on the bast tissue of the tree – this is the inner layer of the bark, along which nutrients move from the roots to the crown of the tree. When the bast is eaten around the circumference, the nutrition of the tree stops completely and the tree dies. The bark of the tree is also used by adults for breeding. The functional purpose of the bark beetle in nature is the sanitary cleaning…

Logging resumes in Guinea after more than a year of prohibition motivated by the need to preserve a forest cover victim of massive looting. The West African country is one of the “bad students” of forest conservation. In Guinea, the resumption of logging has been authorized by the government. The measure comes after more than a year of a ban motivated by uncontrolled logging in a country with rich biodiversity attacked by massive deforestation. At the end of the Council of Ministers of October 14, 2022, the Guinean government indicated that the exploitation of wood should however be reserved for local use and supervised. As for the export of wood,…

In developing countries, economic growth often comes into conflict with environmental protection: as crop and pasture land expands, huge tracts of forest go under the axe. But perhaps there is a way to reduce global deforestation by increasing the productivity of existing farmland. Large-scale deforestation of tropical forests entails a host of unpleasant consequences – from the reduction of biodiversity to further deterioration of the climate. And Brazil is a key example: over three million square kilometers of the territory of this country are forests, but today more than a third of the Amazon area is occupied by agricultural land, which has already led to a decrease in the number…

Peter Wohlleben has been a bestselling author since “The Secret Life of Trees”. He recommends leaving the forest to its own devices. The forest suffers from climate change. Germany’s best-known forester, Peter Wohlleben, wants to give him some rest, and Environment Minister Lemke wants to cut down on wood. The German forests are suffering, the drought of recent years has hit them hard. According to the new Forest Monitor, a quarter of the trees have massively lost their vitality. The crowns become light because too few nutrients arrive. Only every fifth tree is healthy. Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke wants to save the forest in which fewer trees are felled.…

FSC Forest Week aims to spread the benefits of responsible management, production and consumption. FSC® Forest Week 2022, previously known as FSC® Friday, will take place between September 24 and 30 in order to educate and inform consumers about the benefits of FSC® certification and generate more spaces for education to transmit the value of sustainability to a greater number of people in the world. As part of this festival, the Swedish transnational Tetra Pak renews its commitment to caring for the environment and sustainable forest management, joining this celebration held annually by the Forest Stewardship Council FSC®, promoting the dissemination and benefits of management, responsible production and consumption, and…

With the election campaign in full swing, the CSN and Nature Québec are warning the public against the current depletion of Québec’s public forests, which could have serious repercussions for workers, biodiversity, forest communities, landscapes, vacationers and First Nations. The public forest is deteriorating and the Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks (MFFP) must quickly change course to regain the community’s trust and put an end to the climate of confrontation that is taking hold in the forest. By Louis Bégin, President of the CSN Manufacturing Industry Federation, Frédéric Venne, Biodiversity and Forest Coordinator at Nature Québec and the co-signatories Louis Bélanger, eng.f., Nature Québec, Marie-Ève Desmarais, eng.f. , Jean-Pierre…

The forest fire in Saxon Switzerland is in its third week. Hundreds of firefighters continue to extinguish embers. Rain is not in sight. Professor Johann Georg Goldammer is a fire ecologist and heads the Center for Global Fire Monitoring in Freiburg im Breisgau. His team is currently on duty with the extinguishing tank in Grunewald. He also observes the fire in Saxon Switzerland. Question: In the case of a forest fire in Saxon Switzerland, the embers are still particularly dangerous. Professor Goldammer, where do you see the reasons for this? Johann Georg Goldammer: We don’t only have this issue in Saxon Switzerland. We also saw it with the fires in…

Forest fires continue to rage in parts of southern Europe: in Greece, a village near the burning Dadia National Park has been evacuated. It also continues to burn on the holiday island of Lesvos. In Spain, a fire is causing concern on Tenerife. The massive fire in Dadia National Park in north-eastern Greece continues to rage uncontrollably. The village of Dadia was evacuated during the night, and in the morning the military and forest workers were deployed to cut aisles through the pine forests and thereby prevent the flames from spreading further. Firefighting operations on the ground and in the air also continued. 320 firefighters were deployed with 68 fire…

Labor has just overthrown the Conservatives in the Australian parliament. The new Prime Minister wants to catch up with the delay taken by Australia in terms of the environment. But the coal lobby is still powerful… Australia is changing course! After Labor’s victory in the legislative elections on Saturday, ending nine years of Conservative rule, the one who should become Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has indicated that he will place his program under the seal of the fight against climate change. “I really want to change the country,” he said. According to him, Australia has fallen behind in environmental matters and must repair its image. He thus wants to “let…

Ahead of World Environment Day, Everland, which represents the world’s largest portfolio of high-impact forest conservation projects (REDD+), released the Forest Plan, which outlines goals to help develop up to 75 forest conservation projects in critical hotspots around the world. The plan was developed in response to promises made by 141 countries at COP26 to end deforestation, a major cause of climate change, by 2030. The plan includes the largest voluntary carbon finance effort to date, with one transaction alone expected to generate more than $2 billion in funding streams over the next 10 years for community-based forest conservation projects in the global south. The Forest Plan will further expand…