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I commend you for taking a keen interest in this matter, Mits. Guyana needs more people like you. We must protect our rainforest and extract timber sustainably. The Chinese don't care about sustainability of other people's forests. China is protecting its own forests as a father protects his virgin daughter. But the same father China is raping other people's virgin forests.

 

FM

Mozambique loses a fortune to illegal timber exports

February 7, 2013

Corruption in world’s fourth poorest country aids illegal logging & timber smuggling to China

LONDON: Weak forest governance and corruption in Mozambique are facilitating illegal logging and timber smuggling to supply China’s voracious demand, costing the fourth least developed country in the world tens of millions in lost taxes annually.

The new report First Class Connections: Log Smuggling, Illegal Logging and Corruption in Mozambique by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) exposes massive discrepancies in import/export data between Mozambique and China, indicating that half the timber flowing into China is illegal.

Compiling evidence from research and undercover operations in both countries, the report features detailed investigative case studies into some of the biggest companies engineering these crimes in Mozambique today, exposing both the smuggling techniques used and the political patronage and corruption that facilitate them.

EIA forests campaigner Chris Moye said: “Despite recent commendable efforts by the Mozambican Government to control the illegal trade in timber to China, our investigation uncovers how high-level politicians, in league with unscrupulous Chinese traders, continue to not only breach Mozambique’s export and forest laws but are now putting pressure on the sustainable yield of Mozambique’s forests”.

Mozambique’s timber trade reveals major trade data discrepancies revealing that in 2012 Chinese companies imported between 189,615 and 215,654 cubic metres of timber that had been illegally exported from Mozambique – comprising a staggering 48 per cent of China’s imports from the country.

China’s 2012 imports from Mozambique dwarf not only licensed exports, but also exceed the licensed harvest by 154,030 cubic metres, generating an alarming 48 per cent illegal logging rate.

Furthermore, the United Nations ranks Mozambique as the fourth least developed country in the world. Against the background of Mozambique’s poverty, EIA estimates that about US$ US$29,172,350 in avoided tax may have been lost to State revenues in 2012 from unlicensed exports to China worth US$130,834,350.

In comparison, the estimated financing need for Mozambique’s National Forest Program’s law enforcement system for 2006-10 was US$1,051,470, while total zoning and detailed inventory costs for the same period were estimated at US$10,716,911. These costs could be covered almost three times over by the lost revenues.

Among the report’s recommendations, EIA urges the Government of Mozambique to: â€Ē Institute an immediate log-export ban of all timber species; â€Ē Initiate a joint investigation with China into the illegal timber trade; â€Ē Institute a wide-ranging investigation into forest sector corruption, including the involvement of police, customs and forest officials; â€Ē Investigate illegal exports of unprocessed timber by companies named in the report.

EIA further calls on the Government of China to: â€Ē Prohibit the import of illegal timber into China; â€Ē Liaise with Mozambique on its timber export laws, and coordinate with them on imports into China; â€Ē Ensure State-owned companies are not exporting illegal timber from Mozambique, nor importing it into China.

 

http://eia-international.org/m...legal-timber-exports

Mitwah

The Indian overnight primitive capitalist business men are also into exploitation. I remember during the 1970s' how hard these people use to work some of those Guyanese East Indian girls who worked in their stores.  The only difference between them and the overnight primitive capitalist Chinese business men is they will try to entertain us with a bollywood song and dance to fool us.

 

There is nothing wrong with foreign investment as long as we get every dollar we can out of them for our country and our people without being exploited and they still making a profit so they keep investing in us.

FM
Last edited by Former Member

View images of Haiti Deforestation:https://www.google.ca/search?q...h%253D08%3B640%3B397

Deforestation in Haiti

Deforestation has impacted Haiti on many levels.  One of the reasons why deforestation has been so intractable in Haiti is that the income generated from cutting trees and producing charcoal is crucial to many the survival of many Haitians.  This part of the site explores links and information related to this

topic.

http://www.gvsu.edu/haitiwater...tion-in-haiti-19.htm

 

 

Proud people in a land stripped Bare.  A short article about deforestation and erosion conditions in rural Haiti by Dr. Peter Wampler at Grand Valley State University.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mitwah

Deforestation exacerbates Haiti floods

GONAIVES, Haiti  (AP)  —  The torrents of water that raged down onto this city, killing hundreds of people, are testimony to a man-made ecological disaster. Poverty has transformed Haiti's once-verdant hills into a moonscape of bedrock ravaged by ravines.

More than 98% of its forests are gone, leaving no topsoil to hold rains. Even the mango and avocado trees have started to vanish, destroying a vital food source in favor of another necessity for the impoverished — charcoal for cooking.

"The situation will continue, and other catastrophes are foreseeable," Jean-Andre Victor, one of Haiti's top ecologists, said in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

"When you remove vegetation, the topsoil washes away. The earth isn't capable of absorbing rainfall," said Rick Perera of the international humanitarian group CARE, which supports alternative energy programs in Haiti to lessen dependence on charcoal.

Less tree cover also means less regular rain, since trees "breathe" water vapor into the air. The result is a dropping water table, making for even poorer farmers, the backbone of Haiti's economy.

A 90-minute flight from Miami, Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. Most of its 8 million people don't have jobs, and political instability discourages foreign investors.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged donors on Wednesday to help Haiti recover from the "devastating natural disaster." But it's very much a man-made one.

Most Haitians are descendants of African slaves brought over in the late 1600s by French colonizers who destroyed tens of thousands of acres of virgin forest to plant the cane that made Haiti the world's largest sugar producer. More wood was cut to fuel the sugar mills. Entire forests were shipped to Europe to make furniture of mahogany and dyes from campeachy.

After rebellious slaves defeated Napoleon's army and Haiti became the world's first black republic in 1804, great plantations were divided among the slaves.

Under an inherited French law, land is shared among a man's heirs. One of the fastest growing populations in the world — Haitian women average five births each — has reduced the average holding to little more than a half acre. That's not enough to support a family of seven even in a good rainy season.

Pressed for income, farmers chopped trees to make and sell charcoal.

From the air, you can see the border with the Dominican Republic, which shares Hispaniola island with Haiti. Lush forests stop suddenly and give way to barrenness. Vast stretches of the Dominican Republic remain in the hands of a wealthy few.

The difference in vegetation also is reflected in the death tolls. The Dominican Republic lost just 19 people to Jeanne, including 12 people who drowned in swollen rivers.

In 1950, about 25% of Haiti's 10,700 square miles was covered with forest, said Victor, the agronomist. In 1987, it was 10%. By 1994, 4%. Now, foreign and Haitian scientists find only about 1.4% of the Maryland-sized nation is forested, he said.

Here in Gonaives, where rebels launched the rebellion that forced out President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last February, Jeanne deluged the region with rains for some 30 hours. Water-logged valleys behind the mountains funneled torrents of water that bloated the four rivers surrounding the gritty city of 250,000 people.

After the May floods, interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, said, "The root of the problem is that we have to go and reforest the hills and until we do that, every two, three, four years after some heavy rain, the same thing could happen again."

Over the past 20 years, the U.S. Agency for International Development has planted 60 million trees in Haiti, but the poor chop down 10 million to 20 million trees each year, said David Adams, USAID director in Haiti.

Perera, the CARE official, said small-scale replanting projects and pilot programs using alternative cooking fuels such as solar energy and propane are trying to change habits. Still, 71% of the energy used in Haiti comes from charcoal, Victor said.

Though the deforestation is obvious, many steeped in superstition believe the disasters are caused by a higher power, a belief that officials say makes it hard to fix the problems.

"It was God who made this flood," said Eliphet Joseph, a 43-year-old salesman.

Other people blame decades of official corruption and mismanagement.

"The whole country's environment is messed up, that's why we had these (floods)," said Cherly Etienne, 28, who lost her cousin and aunt.

 

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...haiti-deforest_x.htm

Mitwah
Originally Posted by baseman:
Originally Posted by Stormborn:

If we stop it it will not come...removing the PPP is a big step.

Yuh don't think straight, Piwari damage yuh synapses.

Stupid man. I presume in your personal life this is and apt frame of reference...people being drunk around you. Sorry, I do not drink so you have to find another strategy. Lacking good sense you do not have many options. You are plainly very stupid. That is not surprising since racists are often not very sharp in the head. Maybe it is the inbreeding in the family as well. Check to see if any your grand father and grandmothers were close kin. I am just trying to grasp why are as dull as you are.

FM

 

Brazil says Amazon deforestation rose 28% in a year

Brazil Environment minister Izabella Teixeira Minister Izabella Teixeira says she will tackle the problem with local authorities

Related Stories

Brazil says the rate of deforestation in the Amazon increased by 28% between August 2012 and last July, after years of decline.

The government is working to reverse this "crime", Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said.

Activists have blamed the increase in destruction on a controversial reform to Brazil's forest protection law.

Last year Brazil reported the lowest rate of deforestation in the Amazon since monitoring began.

The provisional statistics from August 2012 to last July suggest that the area suffering deforestation was 5,843 sq km (2,255 sq miles), compared to 4,571 sq km (1,765 sq miles) in the previous 12 months.

The 28% rise interrupts a period of declining deforestation which began in 2009. However, it still remains the second lowest annual figure for forest loss in absolute terms.

The worst year on record was 2004, when 27,000 sq km of forest was destroyed.

Monthly data from several scientific institutions had suggested the
deforestation rate might be on the rise.

Aerial photograph of a tract of jungle cleared by loggers in the Xingu Indigenous Park on 19 November 2012 Huge swathes of rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon have been cleared by loggers

'Unacceptable'

Environmentalists say the controversial reform of the forest protection law in 2012 is to blame for the upwards trend in Brazil.

The changes reduced protected areas in farms and declared an amnesty for areas destroyed before 2008.

Global forest loss

Global map of forest change
  • The Earth lost 2.3m sq km of tree cover in 2000-12, because of logging, fire, disease or storms
  • But the planet also gained 800,000 sq km of new forest, meaning a net loss of 1.5m sq km
  • Brazil showed the best improvement of any country, cutting annual forest loss in half between 2003-04 and 2010-11

The reform, a long-standing demand of the country's farmers' lobby, known as the ruralists, was passed after several vetoes by President Dilma Rousseff.

Agriculture accounts for more than 5% of the Brazilian GDP.

"If you sleep with the ruralist lobby, you wake up with deforestation," Amazon expert Paulo Adario from Greenpeace wrote on Twitter.

Ms Teixeira said the destruction rate was "unacceptable" but denied President Dilma Rousseff's administration were to blame.

"This swing is not related to any federal government fund cuts for law enforcement," she told reporters, adding that around 4,000 criminal actions have been taken against deforesters in the past year.

As soon as she returns from Poland, where she is representing Brazil at the United Nations summit on climate change, Ms Teixeira said she would set up a meeting with local governors and mayors of the worst hit areas to discuss strategies to revert the trend.

The majority of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions, believed to be one of the main causes of global warming, stem from deforestation.

The Brazilian government made a commitment in 2009 to reduce deforestation in the Amazon by 80% by the year 2020, in relation to the average between 1996 and 2005.

A new interactive online map, created by the University of Maryland, shows areas of global forest loss and gain from 2000 to 2012.

Brazil showed the best improvement of any country, cutting its deforestation rate in half in the period 2000-2012, from approximately 40,000 sq km per year to approximately 20,000 sq km per year.

But overall the planet saw a net loss of of 1.5 million sq km of forest - an area the size of Mongolia.

More on This Story

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Mitwah
Originally Posted by Nehru:

Guyana CANNOT save the World. The RICH Countries need to STOP burning Fossil Fuel so much.  Guyana MUST do what is necessary to feed the Guyanese People. Guyana is only a very tiny part of this World.

yuh saying Guyanese will starve unless we give away all the wood...once the wood gone, what they gon eat bai? mud pie?

FM

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