At The New York Times, Andrew Jacobs reports environmentalists’ frustration with the decision to resume damming on southwest China’s Nu River. The new dams are expected to displace as many as 60,000 people locally,...
The New York Times’ Martin Fackler reports fears that Chinese air pollution is harming forests on the remote island of Yakushima in southern Japan. The island, a UNESCO World Heritage site, inspired the forest setting for...
After a National People’s Congress member and timber executive bemoaned the strain placed on China’s environment by the use of disposable chopsticks, a fresh round of debate has emerged over whether China should wean...
Michael Sullivan at National Public Radio describes how Cambodia’s forests are falling prey to China’s enormous demand for lumber: “It’s just like in the United States in the 1960s, when every single...
Bamboo is often marketed as a green wonder material, but its cultivation can be seriously destructive to local ecosystems. Sean Gallagher reports for the Pulitzer Center on surging bamboo production in Sichuan and its...
Northern Chinese forestry authorities released over half a billion bees in order to suppress a destructive plague of American moths, according to Xinhua: Forestry authorities in north China’s city of Baoding released 600...
Alister Doyle of Reuters reports on the role of Chinese forests in carbon dioxide absorption: A study by Peking University said that increased summer rains, efforts to plant forests, an expansion of shrubland, shifts in crop use...
Hainan seems to be acting up to save its losing forests. Translated from Southern Breeze magazine: In early July, Hainan’s People’s Congress conducted a blanket examination of its forest resources. The island also...
It appears not every bit of environmental news out of China bespeaks disaster. A new report from Forest Trends, an NGO, credits Chinese willingness to use recycled waste paper with the salvation of millions of tons’ worth of forests worldwide: “Just last year, China’s use of waste-paper instead of trees to make paper products probably […]
From Chinadialogue: Every year around this time, many cities and regions of China hold a tree-planting month. Employers in the cities often fund tree-planting outings for their staff. In counties, towns and villages, farmers are given support for tree-planting projects, which they hope will bring in some extra earnings. A renewed enthusiasm for greening the […]
From China Daily via China Net: China has strengthened efforts to crack down on illegal logging and timber trading, the State Forestry Administration (SFA) said yesterday. Its spokesman Cao Qingyao denied accusations of China plundering the world’s rainforests to meet its booming demand for wood. “The statement concerning the question that China’s large demand for […]
From the New York Times: Widespread tree planting in China has slowed the rate at which the earth’s forested area is dwindling, but the clearing of tropical forests, much of it in areas never previously cut, continues to grow, according to a new United Nations report. The study was published yesterday by the United Nations […]
From the Independent: Western politicians queue up to sing its praises. Economists regard it with awe and delight. Other countries are desperate to imitate it. Yet there is another side to China’s exploding, double-digit-growth miracle economy – it is turning into one of the greatest environmental threats the earth has ever faced. See also “Beijingers […]
From the Financial Times: Chinese logging companies are still plundering vast swathes of forests in northern Burma in collusion with local ethnic militias, despite Beijing’s past commitments to crack down on illegal logging, an environmental group said. Global Witness, a UK-based agency that links natural resource exploitation with conflict situations, said around 95 per cent […]
From the Guardian: The forests of Zhangjiagang are horizontal: tens of thousands of felled, stripped trees lying on the quayside of China’s biggest timber port, far from their roots in Indonesia, Russia, South America and Africa. The trunks of pine, maple, merbau and zebra wood are dead, but this forest is growing. Every year, more […]
From China Economic Net: The State Forestry Administration has publicized its 2004 report on the situation of tree planting in the country to mark China’s Arbor Day on Saturday. The report says measures being taken to improve the ecological environment have proved effective with 7.2 million hectares of land being successfully afforested last year. The […]
Reuters reports on a report by the WWF which says China’s timber imports are threatening the world’s forests: China’s soaring demand for timber, driven by its rapid economic expansion, is a major threat to the world’s forests as illegal loggers make fortunes supplying the mainland, conservation group WWF said on Tuesday. China’s timber imports have […]
(AFP Photo) Vai Yahoo News, from AFP: “Global environmental group Greenpeace accused a Singapore-based multinational pulp and paper company of illegal logging and rampant forest destruction in southwestern China’s Yunnan province. Asia Pulp and Paper Co. Ltd (APP) was flouting China’s forestry law and was preparing to sow destruction to Yunnan forests by replacing natural […]
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