Feb
When is an oil palm plantation a rainforest?
And another from commenter Graham. He’s on a roll.
When is an oil palm plantation a rainforest? When the EC is handing out carbon offsets and paying for rainforests to be burned.
“Two weeks ago, a leaked document from the EU revealed that the European Commission and some member states hope to include oil palm plantations in the definition of forests. Yesterday, the Jakarta Post reported that Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry is drafting a decree to reclassify oil palm plantations as ‘forests’.
“Currently, the UN defines a forest as any area larger than 500 square metres with crown cover of 10 per cent and trees capable of growing two metres high. Clearly, this definition fails to address the conversion of native forests to monoculture industrial tree plantations.”
EC directives have accelerated the worldwide demand for bio-fuel with mandatory targets and are effectively financing the conversion of virgin rainforest into oil palm plantations.
No more orang utans.
Source: REDD-Monitor
Possibly related posts:
And so it goes -
From November,2009
While the burning of fossil fuels is considered the main contribution to global warming from humans, tropical deforestation also plays a significant role. Climate experts say it may account for 20 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental activists say to reduce global warming the international community should pay countries such as Indonesia, Brazil and Congo to protect tropical forests. VOA’s Brian Padden traveled with Greenpeace activists to Riau Province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra to look at how deforestation threatens the world.
Burning forests to clear land for agriculture has long been a lucrative endeavor in Indonesia. Agus Nata is a palm oil farmer who owns eight hectares of land. Years ago he cut down and sold any trees of value on his land. Then he burned what was left.
He says burning the fields is the cheapest and easiest way to clear the land. The global market for the palm fruit he now produces, which can be used to make biofuels, is growing. Large agricultural companies are also clearing and burning vast areas of forest. In the past 50 years, more than 72 million hectares of Indonesia’s forest have been destroyed….
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Greenpeace–Indonesias-Forest-Fires-01NOV09-.html
DUPLICITY,is the game played by the EU and the UN.
We are making contributions to save the rain forest and the eurocrats and unicrats are destroying it.
Rain forest is composed of mixed mature locally natural trees ,not farms by any other name.
Rain forest sustains flora ,fauna,insects and animals not tractors and squatters.
More cases of POLI-SPEAK,tell a lie but never the truth.
and GOLf
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/20/pachauris-teri-institute-golf-course-water-hog-in-a-city-desparate-for-fresh-water/
In the late 19th century San Francisco photographer Edward Muybridge was asked if he could use the fledgling technology to settle a bet. When a horse is in full stride is there ever a point where all four of it’s hooves leave the ground simultaneously? Muybridge set up a series of cameras on a race track whose shutters would trip as the horse ran by. Sure enough one of the camera’s captured the horse with all four hooves off the ground. A professor from a nearby university who happened to observe the event had the serendipitous thought that Muybridge’s photograph proved that the horse’s behavior met the technical definition of flight. He sent a copy of the one photograph to his Congressman in Washington asking for a grant to study the question further. Hearing of this wonder other Congressmen asked for funds to determine how this discovery impacted on various other disciplines. Soon an entire literature was produced and an administrative edifice was built throughout the country based on the new science of equine flight. Having learned about all of this in school the Wright brothers of Canton, Ohio determined to breed the best flying horses in all the world. Dedicating themselves to the task night and day for the rest of their long lives they achieved an improvement in equine flight of several inches over the original observation. And that’s the story of how we learned that horses could fly and we could not.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (PIK) about Pachauri: “He lives like a monk in India and all the money he is receiving he is giving to his institution.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7001693.ece
Now the truth about TERIs golf court: But with the golf course and environs requiring up to 300,000 gallons a day during the summer to keep the lush greenery in condition (pictured above), questions are being asked about the sustainability of the facility, which would have difficulty in meeting the volume required solely from harvested water. …
You’re right about this one. Calling oil palm plantations “forests” is absurd.