The two 16-year-old Girl Scouts from Michigan, Rhiannon Tomtishen and Madison Vorva, who shared the award with four others from different nations, were recognized for campaigning to get Southeast Asian palm oil out of Girl Scout cookies.

They were among 15 finalists from 14 countries nominated for the prize honoring grassroots forest conservation efforts, marking the International Year of the Forest.

The girls' interest in palm oil grew out of their concern from the age of 11 for endangered orangutans and their shrinking rainforest habitat in Indonesia and Malaysia, where much of the world's palm oil originates.

Last year, their efforts led to the Girl Scouts of the USA announcing a switch towards sustainable palm oil by 2015 as an ingredient in its Thin Mints, Tagalongs, Do-Si-Dos and other fund-raising cookies.

Also sharing the prize were Paul Nzegha Mzeka of Cameroon, Shigeatsu Hatakeyama of Japan, Anatoly Lebedev of Russia and Paulo Adario of Brazil.

"Each hero embodied innovative approaches and grass-roots initiatives that make a direct impact on the forests to which they have dedicated themselves," a UN statement said.

"While these Forest Heroes come from varied backgrounds, they share a common courage, passion and perseverance that serve as inspiration to anyone wishing to make a difference for forests."

The girls were nominated for the award by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"We are so honored to receive this award and it's truly humbling to have our work recognized on the world stage," said Vorva.

In 2007, they launched Project ORANGS (Orangutans Really Appreciate and Need Girls Scouts) to persuade the Girl Scouts to replace the palm oil in Girl Scout cookies with a sustainable alternative.

Last year, Girl Scouts of the USA and Kellogg's, which produces cookies, developed a plan to transition to sustainable palm oil by 2015 and also pledged to reduce palm oil use across its entire product line.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:59 AEST Sofia (AFP) Feb 7, 2012 - Environmental pressure group WWF urged Bulgaria on Tuesday to withdraw planned changes to its forestry legislation which would relax rules on building ski runs and facilities in protected areas.

"The proposed amendments ... would allow for the construction of ski runs and ski facilities without changing land use," WWF said in an open letter to Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov.

"Furthermore, they would allow the acquisition of building rights on public land without tender and for an indefinite period," they added.

"Bulgaria is home to many of Europe's outstanding natural treasures and has a special responsibility to preserve this wealth not only on behalf of Bulgarians but also, as a member of the European Union, on behalf of all Europeans."

The proposed changes, which are yet to be approved by Bulgaria's parliament, have already sparked several protests from local environmental groups and nature lovers in the capital Sofia.

In particular they slammed recent efforts by ski run operators on the Vitosha mountain near Sofia and the Bansko ski resort in the southern Pirin mountain to expand existing ski runs and facilities to protected nature areas.

WWF also said Tuesday it was "concerned by the manner in which decision making on the proposed legislation has been taking place."

The changes were adopted by the government "in four days over the Christmas holidays and in violation of the required two weeks for public consultation," WWF charged.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:59 AEST Portland OR (SPX) Feb 06, 2012 - Yellow-cedar, a culturally and economically valuable tree in southeastern Alaska and adjacent parts of British Columbia, has been dying off across large expanses of these areas for the past 100 years. But no one could say why-until now.

"The cause of tree death, called yellow-cedar decline, is now known to be a form of root freezing that occurs during cold weather in late winter and early spring, but only when snow is not present on the ground," explains Pacific Northwest Research Station scientist Paul Hennon, co-lead of a synthesis paper recently published in the February issue of the journal BioScience.

"When present, snow protects the fine, shallow roots from extreme soil temperatures. The shallow rooting of yellow-cedar, early spring growth, and its unique vulnerability to freezing injury also contribute to this problem."

Yellow-cedar decline affects about 60 to 70 percent of trees in forests covering 600,000 acres in Alaska and British Columbia. The paper, "Shifting Climate, Altered Niche, and a Dynamic Conservation Strategy for Yellow-Cedar in the North Pacific Coastal Rainforest," summarizes 30 years of research and offers a framework for a conservation strategy for yellow-cedar in Alaska.

Some key findings include:

+ The complex cause of yellow-cedar decline is related to reduced snow, site and stand characteristics, shallow rooting, and the unique vulnerability of the roots to freezing in low temperatures.

+ Low snow levels and poor soil drainage lead to impact root injury and the eventual death of yellow-cedar trees. The tree thrives in wet soils, but its tendency to produce shallow roots to access nitrogen on these sites made it more vulnerable when spring snow levels were reduced by climate warming.

+ Yellow-cedar health depends on changing snow patterns, thus locations for appropriate conservation and management activities need to follow the shifting snow patterns on the landscape.

+ Some responses to shifting climate are expected to be complex and difficult to anticipate. Long-term multidisciplinary research was needed to determine the true role of climate in the health of yellow-cedar and untangle it from other processes and natural cycles in forests.

The yellow-cedar is a slow-growing tree; many are 700 to 1,200 years old. The tree has long been culturally significant to Native Alaskans who use it to make paddles, masks, dishes, and woven items. The wood is also very valuable commercially (for home and boat building) because of its straight grain, durability, and resistance to insects.

Attention is now directed toward a solution to protect and manage yellow-cedar, as coastal Alaska is expected to experience less snow but a persistence of periodic cold weather events in the future.

Scientists are working with partners in the Alaska Region of the Forest Service to use this new information as the framework for a comprehensive conservation strategy for yellow-cedar in Alaska in the context of a changing climate.

"We also have ongoing projects with colleagues in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska on planting and thinning to favor yellow-cedar on suitable habitat," adds co-lead author and station scientist Dave D'Amore, "especially on well-drained productive soils where most of the commercial forestry exits. Silvicultural techniques can be used to nudge the ecological niche of yellow-cedar, making it more competitive on these favorable sites."

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:59 AEST Cuiaba, Brazil (AFP) Feb 2, 2012 - The Pantanal, a stunning biodiversity sanctuary in central-western Brazil, is threatened by intensive farming and deforestation, a leading environmental group warned as the world marked World Wetlands Day on Thursday.

Often referred to as the worlds largest freshwater wetland system, the Pantanal extends through millions of hectares of Brazil, eastern Bolivia and eastern Paraguay.

It includes sanctuaries for migratory birds, nursery grounds for aquatic life, and refuges for such creatures as the yacare caiman, deer, and jaguar. Some 4,500 different species live in the Pantanal.

A leading environmental group, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), is sounding the alarm about the growing threat to the region posed by intensive farming, deforestation, urban growth and the proliferation of hydro-electric dams.

As evidence the group cites a three-year study by 30 experts from Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina, the counties that share the Paraguay river, which flows from its headwaters in Mato Grosso about 2,600 kilometers (1,620 miles) to its confluence with the Parana River in Argentina.

"The Pantanal is under threat," said biologist Glauco Kimura, who coordinates the Water for Life program at WWF.

"This may seem surprising but it is the sad reality. Our study shows that 14 percent of the Paraguay River basin must be urgently protected," Kimura said.

Navigating the Cuiaba river, an important Pantanal tributary, escorted by raptors and colorful parrots overhead, Kimura and his team stop at the Chapada dos Guimaraes National Park, on a plateau at the edge of the Pantanal.

The threat, Kimura explains, comes from the highlands, known here as the Planalto.

"This region is like a plate," explains Kimura. "The Planalto on the edges and the Pantanal at the bottom of the plate." The Pantanal suffers from what goes on in the highlands, he says.

There are thousands of acres of farmland across the highlands. Soybeans are the regions biggest crop, but corn, rice, cotton and sugarcane are also planted.

The Pantanal is also at risk from deforestation as cattle farmers cut down trees to make room for land for grazing.

Roughly 15 percent of the region's native vegetation has already been destroyed to make way for soybean cultivation and cattle ranching, according to the WWF, resulting in soil degradadation.

This worries Pierre Girard, a Canadian hydrologist at the Pantanal research center.

"Soybean is cultivated at the headwaters of the rivers that feed and then form the Pantanal. There are risks of erosion, but also of contamination of the Pantanal," he warns.

The WWF study -- conducted jointly with the US-based Nature Conservancy, another leading environmental group -- underscores the need for joint action by the countries and regions affected.

"There is no more space for intensive farming as if there was an infinite stock of native forest to destroy and fresh water to pollute," says Kimura. "We need to protect ground water, create more protected areas and improve agribusiness practices."

Kimura believes that protecting the Paraguay river basin is crucial to conserve the region's unparalleled wildlife diversity. Currently only 11 percent of the basin is protected.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:59 AEST Columbus OH (SPX) Feb 03, 2012 - A new study comparing the carbon-holding power of freshwater wetlands has produced measurements suggesting that wetlands in temperate regions are more valuable as carbon sinks than current policies imply, according to researchers.

The study compared several wetlands at two Ohio wetland sites: one composed of mostly stagnant water and one characterized by water regularly flowing through it. The study showed that the stagnant wetland had an average carbon storage rate per year that is almost twice as high as the carbon storage rate of the flow-through wetland.

In addition, the scientists came up with measures of carbon storage in the stagnant wetland that exceed carbon measurements recorded in recent years in various types of wetlands, suggesting to the researchers that temperate freshwater wetlands may have a significant role in worldwide strategies to offset greenhouse gas emissions.

All types of wetlands deserve more credit than they receive as carbon sequestering systems in global carbon budgets, the researchers say. However, they also say that boreal peatlands - wetlands containing deep layers of organic matter in subarctic regions - should not be the only wetlands favored in policy considerations.

"These numbers are a lot higher than those often used to determine policy about wetlands. All of our numbers are, in general, considerably higher than average rates of carbon sequestration for boreal peatlands, but the boreal peatland numbers rule the roost in climate change," said William Mitsch, senior author of the study and an environment and natural resources professor at Ohio State University.

"Wetlands make up 6 to 8 percent of the landscape, but they hold much more than 6 to 8 percent of the world's carbon. They are the forgotten carbon sink."

Mitsch completed the study with Blanca Bernal, a graduate student in Ohio State's School of Environment and Natural Resources. The research appears online and is scheduled for future print publication in the journal Global Change Biology.

Mitsch and Bernal collected soil core samples from a forested wetland in Gahanna, in central Ohio, and from Old Woman Creek, a freshwater wetland near Lake Erie in northern Ohio.

The Gahanna wetland is called a depressional wetland, or a swamp that remains saturated year-round. Old Woman Creek is part of a state park connecting an agricultural watershed with the lake that experiences pulses of water from both entry points.

They analyzed both the carbon content of the soil as well as the depth of the sediment that had stored carbon over the past 50 years.

The depressional wetland community as a whole sequestered an average of 317 grams of carbon per square meter per year (2,750 pounds of carbon per acre per year), compared to the average 140 grams per square meter per year (1,215 pounds per acre per year) stored by the flow-through wetland area.

By comparison, boreal peatlands in Canada and Siberia sequester much less, at 15 to 25 grams carbon per square meter per year (130 to 220 pounds of carbon per acre per year).

Because the depressional wetland is just 59 acres, compared to the flow-through wetland's coverage of 138 acres, the total annual carbon storage for each is similar: almost 85 tons of carbon per year.

In the study, Mitsch and Bernal noted other measurements taken since 1993 in wetlands, most located in North America. In the depressional or forested wetlands in particular, the average carbon-storage measurement in this new study exceeded those other readings in every case. To Mitsch, this suggests that determining the carbon storage in swamps, and forested pools in particular, should be a priority.

"Few studies have been done in temperate wetlands other than ours, and even fewer have been done in forested wetlands like our Gahanna Woods wetland, where we measured the highest rates," Mitsch said.

In almost all cases the measurements were taken using the same methods. To determine the age of the sediments in wetlands - and therefore the rate of carbon storage per year - researchers use radiometric dating with cesium-137. Above-ground nuclear testing in the mid-20th century left behind the cesium-137 compound as a marker in sediments throughout the world.

Based on how deep cesium-137 was detected in the soil cores, the researchers were able to date sediment from each wetland that has built up since 1964, the year the concentration of the compound reached its peak.

A backup method to determine sediment age by assessing the level of Pb-210, a radioactive form of lead, is used when cesium-137 is not a reliable marker.

The highest carbon sequestration rate - 473 grams per square meter per year (4,100 pounds per acre per year) - was found in the most heavily forested area of the stagnant wetland.

This suggests that the leaves, bark and wood from the trees in these areas might be less likely to decompose than are marsh plants that populate many wetland communities, Mitsch said, noting that those forest remnants dropping into the water lead to the collection of more carbon in the soil.

Plants in a wetland are the key to carbon storage - they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. And the standing water in wetlands reduces the amount of respiration of that carbon dioxide back into the air.

"In an ecosystem that's terrestrial, especially a forest, plant life falls to the floor but the forests don't fill up with leaves because they're decomposing, returning some of that carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere," Mitsch said.

"Wetlands tend to accumulate this litter over centuries, maybe over thousands of years, and they have plants and are productive systems, but they tend not to decompose everything. So carbon builds up in the soil for a long time."

Mitsch is making the case for wetlands as carbon sinks in an effort to foster preservation of wetlands, which are also coastal protection systems, buffer zones between land and waterways, and filters of chemicals in water that runs off from farm fields, roads, parking lots and other surfaces. He, Bernal and other Ohio State graduate students are conducting similar research to gauge carbon sequestration rates in wetlands based in tropical areas.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:59 AEST Coral Gables, FL (SPX) Feb 01, 2012 - The key to understanding how future hurricanes and sea level rise may trigger changes to South Florida's native coastal forests lurks below the surface, according to a new model linking coastal forests to groundwater. Just inland from the familiar mangroves that line the coasts lie hardwood hammocks that are sensitive to salinity changes in water found in the soils.

University of Miami (UM) Ecologist Donald L. DeAngelis, who is also a researcher for the U.S Geological Survey (USGS), has worked with collaborators to develop a novel computer model describing the underlying forces that maintain this vegetative boundary.

The findings, published in the current issue of the journal Landscape Ecology, indicate that large pulses of saline water into the hammock vegetation may cause mangroves to invade areas now populated by hardwood hammocks.

"A high level of salt in the soil favors the mangroves and stresses the hardwoods," says DeAngelis, professor in the Biology Department at the UM college of Arts and Sciences and one of the principal investigators of this project "Hardwood hammocks are a unique feature of the Everglades, they are home to many species, and if they decrease in numbers that will mean a loss of habitat for some organisms."

During storm surges, the salty winds and waves rush into areas of brackish water. The likelihood of such salt water overwash from the coast is expected to increase as sea level rise affects the natural coastal processes in the region.

The study is one of the first to couple vegetation dynamics with hydrology and salinity of the area in order to study the factors affecting the forest boundary.

The work reveals that the sharp mangrove-hammock boundary, or ecotone, is defined by a combination of factors such as water levels during the dry season, tides, changes in the land's features, and trees own ability to alter the environment to their benefit (a process known as positive feedback).

"Ecotones are of great interest to ecologists because many species like to live along the edges between different vegetation types, so you can get rich diversity in those areas," says Jiang Jiang, doctoral student in the Biology Department at UM College of Arts and Sciences and co-author of the study.

Changes in water management, such as the expected increase in freshwater from the implementation of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, may help offset the possible effects caused by future salt water overwash and inundation.

"The USGS project that we are working on will include a big landscape hydrology model that will predict the freshwater flow into the southern Everglades and at the same time take into account sea level rise," says DeAngelis.

The study, supported and funded by the USGS, lays groundwork for a larger investigation in which the agency is developing models to look at how sea level rise will affect coastal regions in South Florida. Other co-authors are Thomas J. Smith III, ecologist at the USGS and co-principal investigator of the project; Su Yean Teh, lecturer at the School of Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia; and Hock-Lye Koh, professor at the School of Civil Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia.

The scientists hope to extend the application of this model to include other ecotones and other parts of the world that experience frequent storm surges. The researchers would like to be able to predict if salt water intrusion will have a long-lasting effect on vegetation, and on fresh water supply.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:59 AEST Berkeley CA (SPX) Jan 27, 2012 - Wetland restoration is a billion-dollar-a-year industry in the United States that aims to create ecosystems similar to those that disappeared over the past century. But a new analysis of restoration projects shows that restored wetlands seldom reach the quality of a natural wetland.

"Once you degrade a wetland, it doesn't recover its normal assemblage of plants or its rich stores of organic soil carbon, which both affect natural cycles of water and nutrients, for many years," said David Moreno-Mateos, a University of California, Berkeley, postdoctoral fellow. "Even after 100 years, the restored wetland is still different from what was there before, and it may never recover."

Moreno-Mateos's analysis calls into question a common mitigation strategy exploited by land developers: create a new wetland to replace a wetland that will be destroyed and the land put to other uses. At a time of accelerated climate change caused by increased carbon entering the atmosphere, carbon storage in wetlands is increasingly important, he said.

"Wetlands accumulate a lot of carbon, so when you dry up a wetland for agricultural use or to build houses, you are just pouring this carbon into the atmosphere," he said. "If we keep degrading or destroying wetlands, for example through the use of mitigation banks, it is going to take centuries to recover the carbon we are losing."

The study showed that wetlands tend to recover most slowly if they are in cold regions, if they are small - less than 100 contiguous hectares, or 250 acres, in area - or if they are disconnected from the ebb and flood of tides or river flows.

"These context dependencies aren't necessarily surprising, but this paper quantifies them in ways that could guide decisions about restoration, or about whether to damage wetlands in the first place," said coauthor Mary Power, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology.

Moreno-Mateos, Power and their colleagues will publish their analysis in the Jan. 24 issue of PLoS (Public Library of Science) Biology.

Wetlands provide many societal benefits, Moreno-Mateos noted, such as biodiversity conservation, fish production, water purification, erosion control and carbon storage.

He found, however, that restored wetlands contained about 23 percent less carbon than untouched wetlands, while the variety of native plants was 26 percent lower, on average, after 50 to 100 years of restoration. While restored wetlands may look superficially similar - and the animal and insect populations may be similar, too - the plants take much longer to return to normal and establish the carbon resources in the soil that make for a healthy ecosystem.

Moreno-Mateos noted that numerous studies have shown that specific wetlands recover slowly, but his meta-analysis "might be a proof that this is happening in most wetlands."

"To prevent this, preserve the wetland, don't degrade the wetland," he said.

Moreno-Mateos, who obtained his Ph.D. while studying wetland restoration in Spain, conducted a meta-analysis of 124 wetland studies monitoring work at 621 wetlands around the world and comparing them with natural wetlands.

Nearly 80 percent were in the United States and some were restored more than 100 years ago, reflecting of a long-standing American interest in restoration and a common belief that it's possible to essentially recreate destroyed wetlands. Half of all wetlands in North America, Europe, China and Australia were lost during the 20th century, he said. S

Though Moreno-Mateos found that, on average, restored wetlands are 25 percent less productive than natural wetlands, there was much variation. For example, wetlands in boreal and cold temperate forests tend to recover more slowly than do warm wetlands.

One review of wetland restoration projects in New York state, for example, found that "after 55 years, barely 50 percent of the organic matter had accumulated on average in all these wetlands" compared to what was there before, he said.

"Current thinking holds that many ecosystems just reach an alternative state that is different, and you never will recover the original," he said.

In future studies, he will explore whether the slower carbon accumulation is due to a slow recovery of the native plant community or invasion by non-native plants.

Coauthors with Moreno-Mateos and Power are Francisco A. Comin of the Department of Conservation of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Restoration at the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology in Zaragoza, Spain; and Roxana Yockteng of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France. Moreno-Mateos recently accepted a position as the restoration fellow at Stanford University's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. ]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:59 AEST Jupiter, Fla. (UPI) Jan 26, 2012 - A Florida couple was fined $1.6 million for cutting down mangrove trees on their property without proper state and city permits.

Roger and Myrna Byrd of Jupiter removed 109 mangroves, a tree Florida has protected since 1985, in late 2010, The Palm Beach Post reported Wednesday.

"Those mangroves will take two or three decades to grow back. It is imperative the judicial system support laws to protect these critical habitats," said Albrey Arrington, the Loxahatchee River Environmental Control District's executive director, referring to the fine handed down by Jupiter Magistrate Paul Nicoletti.

The Byrds must pay the city $15,000 per tree, Nicoletti ruled, and must also pay legal fees to the city.

Neighbors had testified Roger Byrd had complained on several occasions the mangroves were blocking his view of the river.

Mangroves, which can grow to a height of 25 feet, act as a nursery for sea life, filter water and reduce erosion.

The Byrds' attorney said they would appeal.

"That amount is certainly excessive," attorney Greg Kino said.

"I am disappointed but confident we can win an appeal because the law is on our side."

The Byrds had turned down a compromise offer from Jupiter last year to pay a fine of $109,000, or $1,000 a tree, the Post reported.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:59 AEST Canberra, Australia (UPI) Jan 24, 2012 - Timber production in the world's tropical countries is exceeding the forests' ability to replace the felled trees, an Australian report says.

Researchers at Australian National University and James Cook University said the standard cutting cycle of 30-40 years is too short to allow trees to grow to a volume required by commercial loggers, the BBC reported Tuesday.

This would result in ongoing pressure to harvest primary forests, leading to deforestation, they said.

Researchers cited the Solomon Islands, where timber had been a major source of government revenue, as an example for being "a microcosm of the challenges facing sustainable forest management in the tropics."

"For nearly a decade, the nation had been warned that the volume of timber annually harvested from native forests was too high and, if unchecked, that timber stocks would be seriously depleted by 2012," the researchers said.

"In 2009, the Central Bank of the Solomon Islands asserted that exhaustion of timber stocks had arrived even earlier that predicted and its economic consequences were likely to be severe."

The report compared the logging practices to exploitation of non-renewable resources such as oil.

"It has become common these days to speak of 'peak oil," it said, referring to a rapid increase in production, followed by a peak and then a decline.

"In the tropics, we assert, we should also begin to seriously consider the implications of 'peak timber.'"

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:59 AEST Athens (AFP) Jan 24, 2012 - Rising oil prices and chilly economic times are prompting increasing numbers of Greeks to chop down trees for winter warmth, a group of forest engineers warned Tuesday.

Nikos Bokaris, a spokesman for the Panhellenic Union of Forest Engineers, said the debt-wracked nation's forest ecosystems were not yet under threat, but urged the government to act quickly to prevent broader damage.

"You have to remember what happened in Albania," Bokaris said, describing how that country's population felled trees en masse after the collapse of communism. "Even the trees lining the roads were chopped down."

Greek foresters filed 1,500 criminal complaints last year, twice as many as in 2010. About 70 percent of Greece's forests are public, with most of the rest belonging to various religious institutions.

Bokaris attributed the rise to a sharp drop in national funding for forest management, coupled with a near-doubling of oil prices in 2011.

He said forest funds had been slashed from 20 million euros ($26 million) in recent years to 10 million euros from now on.

The cuts are part of Greece's austerity measures agreed with international creditors in a bid to win vital debt bailouts.

The Greek arm of environmental group WWF has also expressed concerns. Its forests expert Konstantinos Liarikos said both individual and organised group activity were impacting the forests.

"Wood poaching," as some in Greece call it, is not a new phenomenon in a country where even modern homes in Athens still have fireplaces. Domestically provided firewood is often not enough, with the shortfall made up by Balkan lumber.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:59 AEST Subscribe to our daily selection of space, military, environment and energy newsletters responseText http://visitor.constantcontact.com/manage/optin/ea?v=0016gbbKsaiGSpQFojVO8ZoHw%3D%3D