Indonesian Forest Community Rejects Emissions Trading

Several villages in Indonesia want to reject millions of dollars of international aid to run a forest conservation project near their homes. They are concerned that efforts to stop deforestation will prevent their communities from using the land for subsistence, as they have for generations.

Ten women sit in a circle on the ground by a wooden-slat hut, using mortars and pestles to crush ginger and garlic. They are helping a neighbor prepare for her daughter’s upcoming wedding in the village.

Thirty-three-year-old Nordia says that she can help her neighbor because she does not have to work today. She collected enough sap from rubber trees in the forest yesterday to sell at the market. The money will last her family for a week.

She says that the community needs the forest to live, to build homes. She says they need the leaves and other resources from the forest, as well as the land for agriculture.

This is Lubuk Beringin – a river village of about 600 people in Jambi province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. All of the modest huts here are made of wood from the forest and the village is powered by the river, using a microhydro mill.  

But this community’s traditional way of life is threatened by deforestation and development. Jambi province has lost two-thirds of its primary forest, largely because of illegal logging and land clearing for lucrative palm oil plantations.

What is happening in Jambi province is part of growing national and international environmental concern. According to the environmental organization Greenpeace, Indonesia has one of the fastest deforestation rates in the world – losing 51 square kilometers of forest every day. The burning of forests has also contributed to Indonesia’s status as the world’s third-largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Australian-run project comes under a U.N.-backed program, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, called REDD, in which developed countries can offset their carbon emissions by paying poorer nations to protect their forests. The district of Merangin is one of five sites the Australian government is surveying for its REDD project.

Related video: Understang the REED Program

Here in Lubuk Beringin village, most people do not know that their forest is a potential project site.

Neil Scotland, the project’s manager from the Indonesia-Australia Forest Carbon Partnership, says that the program is in its early stages. He ensures that communities will be consulted.

“What we propose to do in Jambi is, begin with a wide process of consultation – look at how we can support existing needs,” Scotland said. “Local people’s needs and aspirations, how to manage forests and how to manage forest resources. And ensure that REDD is compatible with those needs.”

But Nordia, like many people in her village, does not want money or interference from the government.

She says her village does not want Australia to protect the forest because the community has the right to use it. She says the forest is for Lubuk Beringin.

To be able to officially claim rights to the land, Lubuk Beringin and two neighboring villages are lobbying the Forestry Ministry to categorize the area as a village forest. That would keep companies off of the land for 35 years.

Musri Nauli, a board member of Jambi’s Friends of the Environment, says that naming the area a village forest is the best way to protect it.

He says that the communities in Merangin already protect and manage their forests and that other countries cannot expect to just come in and protect the forest better than locals themselves.

Last year, after a logging company’s 20-year concession to the land expired, Lubuk Beringin and two neighbor villages passed local laws stipulating what and how much could be taken from the forest. Local leaders have nailed signs to trees to remind people how to sustain the forest.

Other leaders are more open to international help. Aidil Putra, head of the Jambi Farmers Union, says his community would welcome international intervention, if it helped prevent forest conversion for large-scale commercial use.

He says that, if the people of Jambi agree to the terms of a project with Australia, then Australia can help them defend their land against big companies.

While the future of Merangin’s forest hangs in limbo, a two-year moratorium on new forest concessions in Indonesia buys the community a little time.

The freeze was announced in May by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in a $1 billion REDD program agreement with Norway that has pledged the money to offset its carbon emissions. The moratorium is expected to begin next year, but companies with existing permits can continue logging as usual.

Contributing editorial Source: VOA

Study: Indoor Pollution Kills 2.2 Million Young Chinese

A new report released in China says more than two million Chinese youths die each year from health problems related to indoor air pollution, with nearly half of them under five years of age.

Modern, industrial China is synonymous with air pollution.

But now Chinese citizens face another deadly environmental threat – one that lurks in their homes, schools, and places of work and leisure.

A new report released Sunday by the state-run China Center for Disease and Control and Prevention, reveals more than two million young Chinese die each year from in-door pollution. The report says indoor pollution levels can often be 5-10 times higher than those measured in the nation’s notoriously bad outdoor air.

Goods and materials used in the home, schools, office and leisure place – from roof insulation to sofas – are manufactured using lethal toxins such as formaldehyde, benzene, ammonia and radon.

The study, which was reported Monday by China’s state media, indicates that one million of those prematurely killed by such chemicals in the home and schools are children under the age of five.

The research has shocked international groups that monitor the affects of pollution and hazardous chemicals on Chinese citizens.

Jamie Choi, head of the China Toxins Campaign’s for Greenpeace China, says the government, though aware of the health risks caused by such chemicals, needs to implement tighter regulations.

“These are absolutely shocking figures and definitely go to show how important hazardous chemical management in this country should be, although it’s not something a lot of people are paying attention to right now,” said Jamie Choi. “It is obviously going to become a bigger and bigger problem. There definitely has to be a much more comprehensive manner in which the Chinese government tackles hazardous chemicals and indoor pollution. There has to be a comprehensive management system and that is the route they should be taking.”

The reports says formaldehyde poses the biggest threat. It is often found in building materials and new furniture in China. It is slowly released into indoor environments over the course of several years.

The report says long-term exposure to such substances can cause a range of health problems including respiratory diseases, mental impairment and cancer, with young children, fetuses in-utero and the elderly at most risk.

UNICEF spokesman Dale Rutstein says the reported one million deaths of children under the age of five from indoor pollution is alarming. He says it undermines the great work China has made in recent decades cutting infant mortality rates.

“China has made huge strides in reducing the under five mortality rates in the last few decades. They have come down significantly through things like immunization and women’s health – safe motherhood, safe childbirth,” said Rutstein. “In general, child mortality has significantly declined and other types of dangers now emerge in the statistics. It’s logical that environmental health and toxins in the environment would begin to show up as one of the major threats to children.”

No one from the China Center for Disease and Control and Prevention was available for comment on the study.

China’s rapid industrialization over three decades has made it one of the world’s most polluted countries. Most cities are smothered in smog while some 360 million citizens lack access to clean drinking water. Sixty millions of those citizens are forced to drink stagnant supplies.

Millions die each year as a result of the bad air and polluted water, yet environmental and health concerns remain low on the list of priorities because economic growth remains the main focus.

Source: VOA

Greenpeace: 3 Chinese Power Companies Emit More Greenhouse Gases Than UK

The environmental group Greenpeace says China’s three largest power companies created more greenhouse gas emissions last year than the entire United Kingdom.

In a new report, Greenpeace says China’s reliance on coal is hurting Beijing’s fight against global warming.

Greenpeace recommends a new tax on coal for power companies.

It also calls on China to double its renewable energy goal so that by 2020, 30 percent of its power comes from solar and wind.

With its burgeoning economy and growing demand for cars, China has rapidly become one of the world’s biggest polluters.

Chinese officials have said they are working to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The three Chinese companies named by Greenpeace are China Huaneng Group, China Datang Corporation and China Guodian Corporation.

The Greenest Paper of Them All

Wondering which paper towel or toilet paper is the greenest?

The nonprofit advocacy group Greenpeace has released a pocket guide to paper products — an updated version of the old National Resources Defense Council guide. The products also include facial tissues and paper napkins, although many people suggest ANY paper napkin is not a good thing. Use cloth until it’s dirty, wash it with the rest of the clothes and skip the ironing.

Anyway, among the brands Greenpeace recommends are Green Forest, Natural Value, Seventh Generation, 365 and Trader Joe’s. It suggests you avoid Kleenex Cottonelle, Charmin, Quilted Northern, Angel Soft and even Scott Naturals.  You can download the guide at http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/forests/tissueguide.

Greenpeace uses three benchmarks in making its ratings. The recommended brands are made from 100 percent overall recycled content, a minimum of which is 50 percent post-consumer recycled content, and are not bleached with chlorine or toxic chlorine compounds.

The guide lists those recommended, those that “can do better” and those that should be avoided. With each brand, it lists the percentage of recycled content and specifies the bleaching process.

“Tissue products that are made from recycled content help to reduce our impact on ancient forests, protecting forest ecosystems and wildlife,” said Greenpeace forest campaigner Lindsey Allen in a statement. “By using our guide and voting with their dollars, shoppers can help save endangered forests.”

Critical among them is the Canadian Boreal, which provides nesting grounds for millions of songbirds. But it is being heavily logged, and Greenpeace contends many of the trees go straight into paper products.

Greenpeace has had a long-standing battle with Kimberly-Clark, the largest tissue product company in the world. Greenpeace gave an “avoid” rating to these Kimberly-Clark brands: Kleenex, Scott, Cottonelle and Viva.

Distributed by (MCT)