SINGAPORE: The haze that is expected to hit Singapore in the coming months could go on for as long as three months, experts have warned.

This is similar to what the Republic experienced in 1997, they said.

Prolonged hazy skies could happen if a strong El Nino effect sets in, compounded by the already-started illegal land clearing by farmers in Sumatra.

El Nino is a phenomenon which causes severely dry weather and high temperatures in this region.

According to environmental reports, there were more than 3,000 hotspots in Sumatra at the peak of the haze crisis in March alone.

This compared to about 2,700 in June last year.

The next dry season will occur between June and October, and experts are concerned illegal land clearing in Sumatra will result in large-scale fires.

"If they deliberately set fires to clear land, particularly if it's land being cleared illegally, they are not going to listen to anyone who tells them not to start the fire," said Mr Faizal Parish, Director of Global Environment Centre, a non-governmental organisation based in Malaysia.

"They won't take immediate action to put out the fire. The problem (in Sumatra) is the need for active enforcement on the ground."

Worse, the March fires have not yet been put out completely.

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Experts warn of long period of haze

InsideClimateNews.org I entered the Amazon on the wings of a military-trained cowboy from San Antonio, Texas. Below, the Araguaia River flowed reddish-brown along a meandering path that extends some 1,600 miles before flushing into the Atlantic Ocean alongside the Amazon. Peering down from the cockpit, John Carter reminisced about life before bulldozers, fires and guns forced a tactical retreat.

"When we lived here, this was all my backyard," he says. "During the dry season, this water is crystal clear. I used to go spear-fishing."

The forest was so vast when Carter and his Brazilian wife Kika moved here in 1996 that he recorded clear cuts whenever he flew, in case the engine on his plane ever gave out. But soon enough the land rush was on, and the forests went up in flames set by people clearing land. When the carnage arrived at their doorstep, Carter consulted with his wife and they chose to fight, for their cattle ranch, their forest and the frontier he grew to love. Outspoken and seemingly fearless, he became something of a legend.

Below us, flat plains extended beyond the river, dark pools of water gleaming in the morning sun. Individual trees popped out of the barren earth at oddly regular intervals, each perched atop its own termite mound where it would remain safe during the annual floods. We continued north into the state of Mato Grosso"thick forest"and the flood plains gave way to a patchwork of ever-larger agricultural fields.

Although Carter eventually moved his family back to the United States due to a steady stream of death threatsand one attempt at sabotage on his planehe has been quietly building what he calls an "insurgency" in the Amazon through the grassroots operation he founded, dubbed the Aliana da Terra, or Earth Alliance. Set up in 2004, the Alliance consists of more than 700 landowners large and small who have committed to a core set of principles, including legal and sustainable agricultural methods as well as fair labor practices. Currently funded in large part by the Norwegian government, its territory covers an area that is more than twice the size of Connecticut. Carter has been slowly selling off his own assetscattle includedto make it all work.

On this particular day, Carter is flying a plane he co-owns with Jim Cable, an American businessman based in Brazil, and our first stop was the Xavante Mariwatsd indigenous community. I watched tribal members wave from below as Carter set the single-engine propeller plane down on a dirt runway. Inside a concrete building on an open plaza, he paid his respects and then got down to business.

The Alliance has helped the tribe drill a well, put up fences and start a cattle herd. Now it is working with them to expand a joint program to fight increasingly severe fires. Most are agricultural fires that have jumped the line, although Carter suspects fire is also being used as a tool and a weapon now that the authorities are keeping a closer eye on deforestation.

Carter told the tribe that the Alliance was ready to continue training its members in firefighting and work with them to expand operations so long as the tribe adopted a plan to support the program in the long run with sales from its cattle herd.

"I just need to see if you are in agreement," he said. "Who is going to coordinate this is you, not us."

The Xavante chief, Damio Paridzan, listened at a school desk in the middle of the room. Dressed in black pants with a black button-up shirt, complete with a feathered headdress and classic Brazilian Havaiana flip-flops, he spoke of the governments decision to relocate the tribe in the 1960s and its subsequent struggle to regain its land. After praising Carter for his help, he raised his voice and asked the question: "Should we close the deal?" The room erupted in cheers.

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An American Cowboy Fights for the Amazon

Surgical land clearing-aerial footage of Patrick cleaning up around a pond
Clearing undergrowth around pond @ future home site. Terex PT 110 forestry with Loftness G3 mulching head.

By: John Pierce

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Surgical land clearing-aerial footage of Patrick cleaning up around a pond - Video

A burst of growth in the wake of drought-breaking rains across inland Australia in 2011 helped to turn the country into one of the world's biggest carbon sinks, new research has found.

While oceans and land typically absorb about half the carbon emissions caused by fossil-fuel burning and land clearing, the unusually strong La Nina weather event and associated heavy rains resulted in land vegetation alone accounting for 40 per cent of the CO2 take-up that year.

Australia contributed about 60 per cent of the additional worldwide carbon sink, revealing a larger role for semi-arid regions than previously known, the lead author of a paper published on Thursday in Nature journal, Benjamin Poulter, said.

''Semi-arid regions have been overlooked in the carbon cycle because they have low productivity and because they store low amounts of carbon in vegetation and soils in comparison with tropical or boreal systems,'' said Dr Poulter, now an assistant professor at Montana State University after leading the study at France's Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et l'Environnement.

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The research also found Australia has been on a greening trend, with vegetation expanding 6 per cent since 1981. The carbon uptake of plants has apparently become four times as sensitive to rainfall.

However, the scientists wrote that while drier regions could rival rainforests in carbon take-up, the more transitory nature of the vegetation meant its role as a sink could quickly reverse.

''The carbon that was stored in vegetation in 2011 was relatively quickly returned back to the atmosphere because of annual mortality of semi-arid grasses or because of increased fire activity consuming the greater fuel loads,'' Professor Poulter said.

''Changes in the behaviour of dryland systems in the global carbon cycle are very short-lived, and contribute mainly to larger inter-annual atmospheric CO2 variability,'' he said.

An indication of how temporary those carbon gains are may be on display in the coming year. The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed on Tuesday that an El Nino event had at least a 70 per cent chance of forming this year.

Continued here:
Rain in outback helped extend world's carbon sink, finds paper

Hundreds of young people will be clearing weeds and planting trees from Hawaii to Vermont under a federal program that depends largely on private funding, the U.S. interior secretary said Thursday.

The government is putting in $1.9 billion of the $6.7 billion for the project announced by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. Most of the rest is coming from Wells Fargo, according to Greg Knadle of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a nonprofit created by Congress in 1984 to support wildlands. The group managed the donations for the young workers' project.

The crucial role played by the private sector underlines that the "budget situation is tight," Jewell told The Associated Press, saying internships and youth programs are the hardest hit at such times.

Jewell noted that when she was in the private sector, she tried to make clear to lawmakers that corporate support should not be a replacement for government funding. She said she hoped business leaders would continue to make that point.

"The term supplanting is something we worry about," said Jewell, who led outdoor retailer Recreational Equipment Inc., or REI, before being appointed interior secretary last year. Private efforts "should be the margin of excellence, not the margin of survival."

Jewell spoke at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, once home to military chemical weapons and agricultural pesticides manufacturing. After a Superfund cleanup, the 15,000-acre refuge was opened in 2010, offering city dwellers access to a natural grassland. Some of the more than 600 young people employed under the public lands project this year will be working at the refuge near Denver.

Some 1,500 volunteers also will be involved in projects that, in addition to Colorado, are planned in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wyoming.

On Thursday, Jewell helped members of Groundwork Denver plant cottonwood trees at the arsenal wildlife refuge. Groundwork Denver is one of several groups across the country that had projects funded under the program announced Thursday. It will work with 18 young people from low-income, urban families at the refuge.

Dele Johnson, a 23-year-old from Arvada, said work with Groundwork over the past two years has taken him to Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain National Park and urban gardens.

"This kind of work has prepared me to advocate for natural places," said Johnson, who just completed a public relations degree at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He said he wanted a career in which he could encourage other minorities to explore and protect the outdoors.

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Private Money Boosts Federal Public Land Program

Sacred burial grounds and community forests should be granted more protection under a new government proclamation issued this month, but rights groups and land-grab victims are wary that, without proper enforcement, it will amount to little in practice.

An interministerial proclamation, or prakas, signed by Minister of Agriculture Ouk Rabun and Minister of Environment Say Sam Ol on May 9 and obtained by the Post yesterday, aims to strengthen the management of economic land concessions (ELCs) to protect community areas, such as community forests and burial sites.

Each company must implement the tiger skin formula of guaranteeing that its ELC does not affect the farming lands of villagers, community forest and protected forest, the prakas says.

The tiger skin formula means that land inhabited by farmers must be cut out of the concession area.

The clearing [of land] must guarantee the preservation of the protected areas, including graveyards, jungle forest and spirit places, it says.

But rights groups and villagers were sceptical about how effective the prakas will be.

Chhay Thy, Ratanakkiri provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc, said that the prakas has been issued too late and was more likely a public relations gambit.

The ministries just released it so it would look good. They do not have any real intention to protect the forest, he said.

According to Thy, companies have already cleared most of the protected forests and graveyards in the area and planted rubber trees in their place.

Sav Nork, 42, community leader of the Jarai ethnic group in OYadav district, said the authorities had taken no action when he lost land to an ELC.

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Directive aims to stop ELC abuses

LUFKIN, TX (News Release) -

A Lufkin woman has been named the 2014 recipient of the Leopold Conservation Award, the state's highest honor for private land conservation, for her family's ecological transformation of a sizable piece of East Texas land in Nacogdoches County.

This year's award recognizes Virginia H. Winston, owner of the 3,418-acre Winston 8 Ranch, which is located five miles south of Nacogdoches. The ranch is a verdant medley of pine forest, longleaf pine, open range and wetlands providing food and shelter for a resurging population of whitetail deer, quail and Eastern turkeys. But that's not the way it was in the 1970s, when Mrs. Winston and her late husband John acquired the property.

Given in honor of renowned conservationist Aldo Leopold, the prestigious award is conferred each year by Sand County Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to private land conservation, in partnership with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) as part of its Lone Star Land Steward Awards program. In Texas, the Leopold Conservation Award Program is sponsored by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Lee and Ramona Bass Foundation, DuPont Pioneer, Farm Credit and The Mosaic Company.

"Thankfully for Texas, more and more landowners are quietly yet diligently working to restore their property to benefit a host of habitats and fish and wildlife species," said TPWD Executive Director Carter Smith. "The Winston family has absolutely led by example. Through a substantial commitment of time and effort, they have converted a close-cut tract of land into one of the state's finest examples of exemplary land stewardship. We could not be more proud to recognize them for their important work."

"The nation benefits when private landowners seize opportunities to recover damaged land, as the Winstons have done," said Brent Haglund, Sand County Foundation President. "Families like the Winstons show us that the ethic and spirit of Aldo Leopold's writing and work continues."

Mrs. Winston accepted the Leopold crystal award and a check for $10,000 at the annual Lone Star Land Steward Awards dinner in Austin on May 21.

"The property has an active wildlife habitat improvement program that involves timber management, prescribed burning, invasive species control, and native habitat restoration," noted U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Jeffrey A. Reid in his nomination of the Winston 8 Ranch. "It is obvious [the Winston family is] planning for the long-term and not just immediate wants and needs."

Reid's nomination listed these accomplishments:

"The Winston legacy and dedication to stewardship is entrenched in their core family values," Reid said. "When John Winston acquired the property in the 1970s, it was largely a cutover track of land. Intensive planting, management, and harvesting have led this property to be held up as one of the premier examples of multiple use forest land and open pine management."

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State honors Lufkin family for land conservation

Surgical land clearing-can your machine do this
Forestry mulching w/ Terex PT110 Loftness G3 mulching.

By: John Pierce

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Surgical land clearing-can your machine do this - Video

Israeli bulldozers leveled large tracts of Palestinian land in the Bethlehem area village of Nahalin on Monday, locals said. Head of the village council, Majid Ghayatha, said that Israeli bulldozers uprooted dozens of olive and almond trees in the Wad Salem area. Several grapevines were also destroyed. Israeli military forces deployed on hilltops above the village to prevent land owners from accessing their fields.

Locals said they believe Israeli forces are clearing land for a new road connecting the Neve Daniel and Beitar Ilit illegal settlements.

A spokesman for Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories did not answer calls seeking comment.

Karen Whyte, a Christian volunteer from Coventry, who lived with the family last summer, wrote: "This morning, 1500 trees on the farm were destroyed by Israeli bulldozers. The apricot fruit was due to be harvested in June. You may remember this is where I volunteered last summer.

"It seems the Israeli's are clearing land to build a road to connect two settlements. They have cleared land around the village of Nahalin too - where I used to shop!"

"This will never hit the headlines, but I have no words...at least the family are physically unhurt. Hold them and others like them in your hearts. The family say: 'We refuse to be the enemy'".

The Tent of Nations is a family farm, surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements. They have a Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/tentofnations?fref=ts

See also: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=698431

Source: Karen Whyte/Maan News

Excerpt from:
Holy Land: Israeli bulldozers destroy family farm near Bethlehem

Some 250 families in Kampong Speu provinces Phnom Sruoch district have sought intervention from rights group Adhoc to help resolve a land dispute involving a business they allege is headed by the son of former provincial governor Kang Heang.

Families from three villages say Heang, who left his position last year, offered a 910-hectare land concession to Master International Perison Group in 1997.

We have filed to every government institution our last choice is to depend on NGOs for help, community representative Sao Pom said.

In 2011, the company began clearing fields, which prompted violent clashes.

Villager Sao Yuy, 64, said Prime Minister Hun Sens student land measurers had promised to demarcate the families land if they voted for the ruling party at last years election.

We have already fulfilled our jobs, so this time well act through our own means, she said. The authorities have given economic land concessions to the company blindly without knowing the land belongs to families farming yearly, so the authorities stoke disputes.

A document signed by former Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun says the concession was Heangs idea. However, he denied wrongdoing yesterday.

We never seized peoples land. It is state land. We do not know where these stupid people and idiots come from, he said, adding his son was not involved in the company.

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Land fight in Kampong Speu