Liberia’s rainforest silently being destroyed
Catholic priest Robert Tikpo, chairperson of the Save My Future Foundation (SAMFU), last week defended a damning report of the plunder of Liberia’s rainforest by foreign companies. SAMFU is a local forest watchdog organization based in the Liberian capital of Monrovia.
The SAMFU report observes that some 170 logging companies have intensified their operations to the extent that they now represent a great threat to the Liberian forest. At an environmental workshop held in Monrovia last week, a participant claimed that some companies operate seven days a week at high speed, felling all kinds of trees without reforestation, creating erosion problems, and rendering the areas useless for future industry.
The Liberian logging industry is one of the largest foreign currency earners for the government. However, rural people, who are direct custodians of the forest, have not benefited from the revenue generated from the industry. They continue to live in abject poverty. Eighty percent of the country’s 2.5 million people live below the poverty line of one US dollar a day. Safe drinking water in the countryside is a luxury and health services are near collapse as the nation’s reconstruction and development stand still, the result of a decade-old war. (IPS)

Fierce blaze threatens Mt. Kenya ecology
A raging fire, suspected to have been started by arsonists, has now burned over 4,000 hectares (15 sq. miles) of Mt. Kenya forest and is threatening the Mt. Kenya ecology and some 882 rare plant species, unique to the area, say government officials there. On Feb. 28 the fire was bought under control by the Kenya Wildlife Service, forest guards, the Kenya Army, and the local community. However, experts in Nairobi say the inferno cannot be extinguished manually, and that only well-equipped airplanes can effectively contain the raging fire if it does not die out naturally.
The fire came weeks after the new government of President Mwau Kibaki announced tough measures to stop illegal logging, encroachment of the forest by neighboring communities, and growing of narcotics inside the forest. The government has in the last few weeks fired senior forestry officers in the region for condoning wanton destruction of the forest, classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (ENS)

Bush aims to slow mercury reduction efforts
The Bush administration intends to roll back efforts to reduce mercury pollution despite increasing scientific evidence of its health risks, according to public health and environmental advocacy groups.
Critics contend the administration’s Clear Skies initiative would allow coal fired power plants, the leading US source of mercury pollution, to emit three times the amount of the toxic substance into the atmosphere than allowed under existing law. Under the Clean Air Act, mercury emissions from power plants could be reduced by about 90 percent, reducing the total to about five tons by 2007. But under Bush’s new Clear Skies initiative, mercury emissions are capped at 26 tons in 2010 and capped at 15 tons by 2018.
“Mercury is the poster child for what is wrong with the President’s plan,” said Frank O’Donnell, executive director of Clean Air Trust, a nonprofit environmental group. (ENS)

Global warming driving pika losses
The pika, a small mammal that makes its home on the talus slopes of western mountains in North America, may be one of the first animals to fall victim to global warming, new research suggests. A study published this month shows that global warming may have contributed to local extinctions of American pika populations in the Great Basin area.
A smaller relative of rabbits and hares, with shorter, rounded ears, American pikas can be heard calling back and forth on high elevation slopes in the mountains of the western US and southwestern Canada.
“Losses of pikas are disturbing because they are often assumed to be locally abundant and, in decades past, scientists assumed that alpine and subalpine ecosystems were relatively undisturbed because of their isolation,” said ecologist and primary study author Dr. Erik Beever. “The responses of American pika populations are likely an early signal of the impacts of climate change in alpine and subalpine systems,” he added. (ENS)

Climate change spurs genetic adaptation in animals
While politicians and researchers debate the realities of climate change, plants and animals worldwide are already adapting. Red squirrels in Canada’s North now give birth weeks earlier so their young can take advantage of the shorter winters that have come with increasing global temperatures. Much of the squirrel’s adaptation is due to its ability to adjust its behavior to climatic conditions. But careful analysis revealed an inherited genetic change that advanced breeding one day per generation. Four generations have since passed and even if spring comes late next year, the squirrels will breed four days sooner.
Although this first documentation of an animal changing its genetic make-up appears to be a successful adaptation to cope with global warming, the future is still a concern. Squirrels are a highly adaptable species, but that is probably not the case for many other animals. It is also possible that the squirrels have already reached the limit of their genetic flexibility, and even if they have not, they might not be able to keep pace with changing climatic conditions.
Plants and animals in other parts of the world are also responding to these changes. Two massive studies published in the science journal “Nature” earlier this year found that many species have extended their ranges northward to keep up with the earlier arrival of spring because of a 0.6° C global temperature increase in the past 100 years. Scientists believe a 6° C rise is possible by 2100. (IPS)

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