Forest Rambles

Haiti

2010-01-15T23:19:00.000-05:00

The border between Haiti (left) and the Dominican Republic highlights the relative deforestation of Haiti.

Photograph courtesy NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

The quiver tree is dying?

2010-01-06T21:51:00.000-05:00

Namibia's landmark trees dying from climate change

Traffic in Africa

2010-01-06T20:39:00.002-05:00

http://www.nation.co.ke/blogs/-/634/837064/-/view/asBlogPost/-/59nrymz/-/index.html

One of the perks of living in a small college town.

Space beer

2009-12-08T22:49:00.002-05:00

Beer made in space

Want to spend a few years at school?

2009-11-10T22:18:00.003-05:00

This this article

I likes this quote:

How much does increasing college-going rates matter to our economy and society?

Caplan: College attendance, in my view, is usually a drain on our economy and society. Encouraging talented people to spend many years in wasteful status contests deprives the economy of millions of man-years of output. If this were really an "investment," of course, it might be worth it. But I see little connection between the skills that students acquire in college and the skills they'll need later in life.

2009-11-07T17:06:00.000-05:00

i liike this a picture. I believe it was taken in Addo.

I guess the elephant let the guy go. Otherwise we'd see a crushed car picture.

Norman Borlaug - Extension agent to the world?

2009-09-17T08:04:00.001-04:00

Norman Borlaug's Complicated Legacy

Africa is a big continent

2009-09-16T22:51:00.000-04:00

Carbon emission tradeoffs

2009-09-16T22:44:00.000-04:00

Self explanatory

Also, think about the emmisions reductions using less wood/charcoal.

World Bank's Word Development Report 2010

2009-09-16T22:42:00.000-04:00

Its on Climate change. World Development Report Is unusual for the WB to go for a non-poverty related topic but climate is obviously a burning issue.

Some interesting points from the report:

" existing technologies and best practices could reduce energy consumption in industry and the power sector by 20–30 percent, shrinking carbon footprints without sacrificing growth"

"In Africa, mitigation opportunities are linked to more sustainable land and forest management, to cleaner energy (such as geothermal or hydro power), and to the creation of sustainable urban transport systems. So the mitigation agenda in Africa is likely to be compatible with furthering development. Nor do greater wealth and prosperity inherently produce more greenhouse gases, even if they have gone hand in hand in the past.’

‘Producing more and protecting better in a harsher climate while reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a tall order…. agricultural productivity will have to increase, perhaps by as much as 1.8 percent a year compared to 1 percent a year without climate change… This must be done in a harsher climate with more storms, droughts, and floods. And it has to incorporate agriculture in the mitigation agenda—because agriculture drives about half the deforestation every year and directly contributes 14 percent to overall emissions.’

‘developing countries will bear most of the costs of the damages—some 75–80 percent.’

‘Mitigation finance needed in developing countries could be around $400 billion a year by 2030. Current flows of mitigation finance averaging some $8 billion a year to 2012 pale in comparison. And the estimated $75 billion that could be needed annually for adaptation in developing countries dwarfs the less than $1 billion a year now available. [$400bn] is equivalent to 0.2 percent of projected world GDP in 2030, or 3 percent of today’s global investment spending.’

Quote of the day

2009-09-02T09:44:00.002-04:00

"Relegating conservation to government is like relegating virtue to the Sabbath. Turns over to professionals what should be daily work of amateurs."

Aldo Leopold, 1935

Farms and Tree Cover

2009-09-01T16:28:00.000-04:00

Headlines from a press release at the 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry state "almost half worlds farms have significant tree cover." Reading further we see study "found that about 10 million square kilometers of agricultural land have at least 10 percent tree cover." This was done via remote sensing so it is probably good science. 10% ain't bad at all. The questions are what role they are playing in the landscapes and a policy implications of the study - as one of the interviewee in the press relase succintly states:

'"The problem is that policymakers and planners have been slow to recognize this phenomenon and take advantage of the beneficial effect of planting trees on farms. Trees are providing farmers with everything from carbon sequestration, to nuts and fruits, to windbreaks and erosion control, to fuel for heating and timber for housing. Unless such practices are brought to scale in farming communities worldwide, we will not benefit from the full value trees can bring to livelihoods and landscapes."

Temperate forest store more carbon then tropical forests

2009-09-01T07:33:00.000-04:00

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper reports that temperate forest store more carbon then tropical forests. Caveat - we talking old growth forests in Oregon and Australia. Sure those Eucs and Doug Fir are fast growing.

Glitz, Markets and Agroforestry

2009-08-31T23:02:00.000-04:00

The worlds oldest land use - agroforestry. I could not attend the World Agroforestry Conference held in Nairobi but sure there was lots said about the importance of agroforestry to food security, poverty alleviation and sustainable land use in developing countries. Hopefully the message is getting out. As agroforestry practitioners we don't do a great job of marketing. We are lost in the zone between agriculture an forestry and get the short end of the stick in both disciplines. Hopefully the list of distinguished speakers and glitz at an event like this helped gain some respect but I'm not optimistic. It takes more then an couple of Noble prize winners and UNEP heads, etc. It takes evidence on the ground. Pedro Sanchez, World Food Prize winner and former head of the World Agroforestry Center wrote a great article on the science and promise of agroforestry. He talked about the promise of agroforestry as a specialized science but says we have a long way to go. He cites success stories such as N-fixing trees as fertilizers in Southern Africa, or the Faidherbia albida tree as a great example of a "miracle tree." That article in Agroforestry Systems came out about 15 years ago.

How far have we come when the lead stories coming out of the conference are about Wangari Maathai complaining about lack of extension services for agroforestry research dissemination, and on Faidherbia albida's benefits? Whats new? With all the good stuff agroforestry can bring to sustainable livelihoods why so little action on the ground? Can we blame it on policy makers (related to all the problems of development) or are we not doing enough to promote agroforestry? I'd say it both but what should we be doing to market agroforestry as a solution? We've been trying for ages. Lots of questions - few answers.

Welcome

2009-08-31T21:43:00.000-04:00

On this blog I'll ramble on about forest news, views from around the world, particularly Africa. My other "more professional" blog focuses on Pennsylvania Forestry. Enjoy!