Class 4 Wildlife and Vegetation Changes

The Title link goes to the original program in Powerpoint format, and now located in Google Docs (aka The Cloud). Note that some links did not convert to active links, but you can still cut and paste them into you browser window to get to the referenced site.

Forest Preservation, a big step forward.....REDD Plus

Forrest Dweller, Papua New Guinea

Oslo, Norway: $4 Billion has been pledged by wealthy nations to assist poor nations in preserving their forests. What is so encouraging about this step, is that wildlife will definitely benefit, regardless of how much impact it has on global warming.

As with most aid programs, the real difficulty will come with implementation, with making sure the funds are really effective in reducing forest destruction. "An agency monitoring the aid will be up and running before U.N. climate talks start in Cancun, Mexico, later this year...

The new monitoring agency would oversee individual agreements between countries to fight deforestation and educate local populations who live off forests — estimated at more than 1 billion worldwide — to do so in a sustainable way."

REDD Plus =  Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (title link is now UN-REDD)

REDD and the amended Lacey Act

This link is to an article on the World Resources Institute site (WRI).
"On May 22, 2008, the U.S. Congress passed a landmark amendment to the 100 year-old Lacey Act, originally enacted to prohibit the transportation of illegally captured animals or wildlife products across state lines. The new law extended this protection to plants - including timber, paper, and other forest products - thereby giving the U.S. government a powerful tool to eliminate illegally sourced wood and increase transparency in the global forest product supply chain."

The article highlights the first enforcement action under the amended Lacey Act, and also points out that the Act could have a significant impact in reducing illegal timber cutting in developing countries.  REDD is the widely adopted acronym for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation. UN-REDD was probably one of the Copenhagen convention's most agreed upon approaches to slow global warming.

At the WRI site you can also find a concise legal interpretation of the Copenhagen Accord.

U.N. forest-carbon scheme "nearly done"

This article from Reuters starts out very positive, and makes you want to think that some concrete good came out of Copenhagen. But, as you read to the end, the very real threat of the scheme being undone by corrupt governments and local people is disheartening.

Papua New Guinea August 2009 by Bill

Cap-and-Trade Fraud in Europe

It's a lesson to be learned, critics of cap-and-trade say. Creating such a system in the United States would invite "corruption, illegality and criminal activity," much as it has in Europe, said Max Schulz, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

"This is the problem with politicians trying to create a market for something that the free market otherwise doesn't value," Schulz said. "An emissions trading market is an artificially, politically-created market....

"If we pass a system like Europe has, we're going to get all the problems Europe has experienced," he said. "You're asking for a lot of problems."

My thoughts? It's too bad there are so many corrupt people in the world! If you haven't already, read the above post about U. N. Forest-carbon scheme, and note that again the main challenge to this being successful is from corruption.