Scientists plead for protection of forests

Scientists plead for protection of forests

www.theglobeandmail.com

OTTAWA — Canada will be urged today by more than 1,500 scientists from more than 50 countries to strengthen protection of the increasingly threatened boreal forest, a key component in the planet's battle with climate change.

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I know this forest and I know how huge it is. Protecting it is only common sense, IMO. I'd prefer not to see it degraded the way the Amazon rain forest has been mainly because oxygen is a good thing.

atlas.nrcan.gc.ca...



www.theglobeandmail.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 14/5/07 by masqua]

the enviorment in canada is suffering from pollution...oceans are posioned
the wildlife is not as abundant as one would suppose.
lets face it the Indians (I am 1/3 Mohawk) had it great...
the rest is history.
the future of the canadian north is secure...we will not kill it directly
no we will do it globally.
sad and dumb we are.
we have no connection to mother earth...none at all.
Crom!

Maybe it should be mentioned the Canadian boreal forrest is part of a belt circunventing the globe. It continues through Alaska and Siberia through Russia, Finland and Sweden, to end by the Atlantic coast in Norway.

I don't know how they manage and treats the forest in Russia, but I've lived in Sweden and seen how they do it there. It ain't nice. They 'harvest' huge areas at a time with huge machines that cuts and barks them in one motion and load them on trucks. Leaving what was a beautiful patch of forrest in the morning in one big mess by the afternoon. After a year or so, when the leftover have degraded and become dead branches, other monster machines go in and plants small new trees. Then wait 20 to 30 years and the process is repeated.

Don't know if they still do it that way, it's more than 30 years ago I lived there, but I would suspect so, or else it wouldn't be profitable.

On the other hand, the small forest owner doesn't nessecary do it like that. I used to help my landlord in the winter, thinning his forest, cutting by hand, with chainsaw, draging by hand the stems out to the track. We would take out a lot during the 3 month period, but the forest would still be there, and unless you knew you couldn't see it was touched.

But big companies owns more and more land and small farmers less and less.