NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/8548

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-19 | 3.5 KB

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From: EcoNet via Jym Dyer <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive,alt.activism,talk.environment
Subject: RESOURCE: New Report Reveals Temperate Forests Severely Threatened
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Date: 20 Nov 1992 01:30:59 GMT
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[From EcoNet biodiversity Conference]

=> Nov 2, 1992 by cdp:consdesk in web:biodiversity

New Report Reveals Temperate Forests Severely Threatened

LONDON -- Outside the Commonwealth of Independent States, about
90% of the world's primary temperate forests have disappeared,
according to a ground-breaking report released today by
WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature.

"The major threat facing the remaining primary forests in
temperate zones is commercial clear-cutting," said Chris
Elliott, WWF's Senior Forests Officer.  "Conversion of old
growth forests to plantations, acid rain pollution, fires, and
inappropriate legislation and policies are also having a severe
impact on these ecosystems."

The WWF report, Forests in Trouble: A Review of the Status of
Temperate Forests Worldwide, by Nigel Dudley of Earth Resources
Research, is the first comprehensive study of its kind.  The
condition of the world's two billion hectares of temperate
forests is now a major international conservation concern.
Areas in Alaska, China, Eastern Europe, the Pacific Northwest
of US and Canada, Scotland, and Scandinavia are among the
hardest hit.

Much of Scotland, for example, was once clothed in forests.
Now, only 1% out of the country's total 15% forest cover is
natural.  At least 80% of the remaining natural forest is
threatened by overgrazing by government-subsidized livestock
and wild red deer.  In British Colombia, Canada, at least 60%
of the provinces most ancient forest has been cut in huge
swatches along the 500 miles of coast.  At current rates of
cutting, little could remain in 15 years.  A short-sighted
government forestry policy in Chile has encouraged landowners
to hack down thousands of hectares of native forest each year
and replace them with fast growing conifers, which are mostly
exported in woodchip form to Japan. In all of these cases, the
biological diversity of these areas has been significantly
reduced compared to their rich, native forests.

"Current forestry practices are deplorable in most temperate
countries and must be improved," said Mr. Elliott.  Better
forestry management could play a positive role in restoring
secondary forests and providing alternatives to old growth
logging, he said.

The report urges governments and industry to take into account
the full value of all of the important goods and services
temperate forests can provide aside from timber, much of which
processed into pulp and woodchips.  These include watershed
protection, recreation, and potential medicines.  "Mining of
virgin temperate forest for pulp and paper must stop," Mr.
Elliott added.  "Efforts must be made now to conserve these
priceless remnants of natural forest for the long-term benefit
of humanity."
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For more information or a copy of the report, please contact:
Leigh Ann Hurt, WWF International Tel:[phone] Fax:(41)
22-364-8307.