UK drops rule to protect rainforests – conservation links for Nov 14, 2010
Guest column: Forest code must be fixed Financial Times
The incoming government in 2011 will be very aware of the 20 per cent of the vote that Marina Silva of the Green Party won in the first round of the presidential election.
EU rain forest rules may hit German rapeseed Reuters
German oil mills fear supplies of rapeseed for biodiesel production may be disrupted by new European Union rules requiring feedstocks come from certified sustainable farming, an oilseeds industry leader said on Friday.
Legislation to outlaw illegal timber is axed despite coalition pledge The Guardian
The government has backed away from legislation that would outlaw the possession of illegally logged timber from the world’s rainforests. A previous commitment to make it against the law to own, as well as to import, illegal wood, has been quietly dropped, say campaigners, including Green MP Caroline Lucas, who has clashed with the environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, over the issue.
Drought in the Amazon, Up Close and Personal The New York Times
You can learn a lot muddling around a forest in the middle of nowhere, but you also learn a lot once you’re back in the city catching up on your e-mail. In the field we worried about why it was raining so little. Back in Iquitos, Peru, we discovered that our field work had coincided with the worst drought ever recorded in the Amazon basin. Reading the previous two-and-a-half weeks of e-mail, it was possible to track the drought’s progress through the newsletters I receive every few days from a Brazilian research institute.
