Category: RFMRC-SEA

ASEAN Environment Forest Fire Forestry Global RFMRC-SEA SOUTHEAST ASIA VIETNAM

Bac Lieu bird sanctuary faces high risk of fires

Bac Lieu bird sanctuary faces high risk of fires

Last update 11:24 | 14/03/2018
The Bac Lieu Bird Sanctuary in the Mekong Delta province of Bac Lieu is facing a level-4 risk of fires, which is likely to be raised to level 5, the level of extreme danger, said the sanctuary management board on March 13.

The lengthy hot spell brought high temperatures to the Bac Lieu Bird Sanctuary that dry canals and make plants more flammable, putting it on high alert for fires

In response to the situation, the management board has worked on shifts round the clock to watch out for the possible fires, cleared bushes and dredged canals over the past month.

It has also mobilized about 40 local residents living nearby to stay ready for any emergency while households living around the park’s buffer zone have been provided training on forest protection and asked to sign commitments that they will not set a fire in the forests.

On March 13, the board teamed up with the local firefighter police to conduct a firefighting exercise with more than 100 people in attendance.

Located in Nha Mat ward, the Bac Lieu Bird Sanctuary is only 7km from downtown Bac Lieu city. The 130-hectare park is home to over 60,000 birds, belonging to about 100 species, many of which are in danger.-VNA

ASEAN Environment Forest Fire Forestry International Regional RFMRC-SEA SOUTHEAST ASIA VIETNAM

Mekong Delta works to prevent forest fires

Mekong Delta works to prevent forest fires

Last update 10:49 | 12/03/2018

Provinces in the Mekong Delta have stepped up efforts to prevent forest fires as the region is entering the highly risky dry season.

In the southernmost province of Ca Mau, many measures have been put in place, especially to protect the 8,500ha U Minh Ha National Park.

Water in the higher parts of the park have been drying out since the beginning of this month and the threat of forest fire is high, according to the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Huynh Minh Nguyen, director of the park, said rangers have taken positions in watch towers to monitor the park around the clock.

They also regularly patrol the park to prevent people from entering to collect honey, hunt or fish, activities that could cause fires.

More than 5,000 families living in the park’s buffer zone and cajeput forests have been mobilized to help fight forest fires.

The department has called on private individuals managing forests to implement preventive measures against fires.

Forest management units should regularly assess the dryness to take proper fire-prevention measures and teach local households how to prevent fires, it said.

This month the hot weather peaks in the south, according to the South Centre for Hydrometeorology Forecasting.

In An Giang province, districts with large forest areas including Tinh Bien and Tri Ton are in a state of preparedness to prevent fires, said Tran Phu Hoa, head of the province Forest Protection Sub-department., adding that Tinh Bien alone has more than 6,270ha of forests that face the risk of fires.

Kien Giang province has seven areas that face fire risks, namely U Minh Thuong National Park, Phu Quoc National Park, Phu Quoc protective forest, Hon Dat – Kien Ha protective forest, An Bien – An Minh coastal protective forest, and a forest managed by the 422 Forestry Plantation Project.

The provincial People’s Committee has issued orders to strengthen fire prevention measures.

Kien Giang has 86,450ha of zoned forests, accounting for 13.6 percent of its total area, according to its Forest Protection Sub-department.

It has spent more than 10 billion VND (440,000 USD) on preparations to prevent forest fires this year.

Truong Thanh Hao, head of the local Forest Protection Sub-department, said the province had instructed local forest rangers, the police, army, and militia to work closely to prevent fires.

The province has built temporary dams and dredged wells in forests to store water, cleared dried branches and bushes in forests and established firebreaks.

Forest management units have stepped up checks and will close the forests at the peak of the dry season.-VNA

Read more: http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/environment/196976/mekong-delta-works-to-prevent-forest-fires.html

Forest Fire Forestry Global RFMRC-SEA

Up in smoke: We need to pay more attention to disappearing trees

Up in smoke: We need to pay more attention to disappearing trees

Trees are dying at unprecedented rates. Can we rethink conservation before it’s too late?
ERIC HOLTHAUS, GRIST03.12.2018•5:00 PM
This post originally appeared on Grist.

Each year, the Earth’s trees suck more than a hundred billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That’s an impossibly huge number to consider, about 60 times the weight of all the humans currently on the planet.

Our forests perform a cornucopia of services: Serving as a stabilizing force for nearly all of terrestrial life, they foster biodiversity and even make us happier. But as climate change accelerates, drawing that carbon out of the air has become trees’ most critical role.

Absorbing CO2 is key in a time where each year matters greatly to our ability to avert the worst effects of climate change: Carbon “sinks,” like the wood of trees and organic matter buried in dirt, prevent the gas from returning to the atmosphere for dozens or even hundreds of years. Right now, about a third of all human carbon emissions are absorbed by trees and other land plants — the rest remains in the atmosphere or gets buried at sea. That share will need to rise toward and beyond 100 percent in order to counter all of humanity’s emissions past and present.

For trees to pull this off, though, they have to be alive, thriving and spreading. And at the moment, the world’s forests are trending in the opposite direction.

New evidence shows that the climate is shifting so quickly, it’s putting many of the world’s trees in jeopardy. Rising temperatures and increasingly unusual rainfall patterns inflict more frequent drought, pest outbreaks, and fires. Trees are dying at the fastest rate ever seen, on the backs of extreme events like the 2015 El Niño, which sparked massive forest fires across the tropics. In 2016, the world lost a New Zealand-sized amount of trees, the most in recorded history.

Read more: https://www.salon.com/2018/03/12/up-in-smoke_partner/

ASEAN Environment Forest Fire Forestry Global International Regional RFMRC-SEA SOUTHEAST ASIA VIETNAM

Fire destroys 40ha of forest in Gia Lai

Fire destroys 40ha of forest in Gia Lai

Update: March, 11/2018 – 13:00

Viet Nam News GIA LAI — A fire that broke out in the Ia Grai protection forest in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai was brought under control on Sunday morning.
However, more than 40ha of a forest, comprising pine trees planted in 2015, was destroyed.
Lê Tiến Hiệp, head of the forest’s management board, said that the fire occurred on Friday afternoon.
More than 200 people from the management board, provincial Border Guards and local residents from Ia Chía and Ia O communes were called to extinguish the fire.
The team managed to temporarily halt the fire on Friday night. However, due to dry conditions and strong winds, the flames reappeared. Ia Grai District authorities called for more firemen from Đức Cơ District to stamp out it.
Ia Grai District authorities kept a close watch on the scene to prevent the fire from re-occurring.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. — VNS

Read more: http://vietnamnews.vn/society/424149/fire-destroys-40ha-of-forest-in-gia-lai.html#Ta8Ig5jgRUbozGrX.97

ASEAN CAMBODIA Forest Fire Forestry International Regional RFMRC-SEA SOUTHEAST ASIA

Cambodia’s military crackdown recalls bloody ‘Kratie insurrection’

March 10, 2018
RFMRC SEA

Cambodia’s military crackdown recalls bloody ‘Kratie insurrection’ By: Paul Millar and Leng Len – Photography by…

ASEAN Environment Forest Fire Forestry International MYANMAR Regional RFMRC-SEA SOUTHEAST ASIA

Fire at 40 points in forest near Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar; sabotage suspected

Fire at 40 points in forest near Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar; sabotage suspected

Cox’s Bazar Correspondent  bdnews24.com

Published: 2018-03-08 20:04:47.0 BdST Updated: 2018-03-08 20:04:47.0 BdST

The authorities suspect an incident is an act of sabotage.

Teknaf Assistant Commissioner (Land) Pronoy Chakma said the Fire Service crew started working to douse the blazes around 2 pm on Thursday.

The Nayaparha and Leda refugee camps, adjacent to the 28-acre reserved forest west of Teknaf Upazila Council, are about a kilometer from the border.

Pronoy said they sent the firemen after the locals informed them about the fire at 40 places in the forest.

He said the Fire Service workers brought the blazes under control at several places until 4 pm.

“They are trying to control the fire at other places so that those cannot spread to nearby settlements,” he said.

The AC (Land), however, could not confirm the reason behind the fire.

“We in the administration suspect this is an act of sabotage. We are investigating,” he said.

Nearly 700,000 Rohingyas have joined around 400,000 refugees in Bangladesh after the Myanmar army launched an operation against the ethnic minority on Aug 25 last year.

In Bangladesh, the Rohingyas are staying in shanties at the camps at Teknaf and Ukhia in Cox’s Bazar, and Bandarban. Many of them have also taken shelter on government land on hills.

Recently, tension mounted on Ghumdhum border following deployment of additional troops by Myanmar. Later, the border guards of the two sides held a meeting and conducted a joint patrol to ease the tension.

Read more: https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2018/03/08/fire-at-40-points-in-forest-near-rohingya-camps-in-coxs-bazar-sabotage-suspected

ASEAN BRUNEI DARUSSALAM Forest Fire Forestry International Regional RFMRC-SEA SOUTHEAST ASIA

Study reshapes the floral relationships between the world’s tropical forests

Study reshapes the floral relationships between the world’s tropical forests

Hannah Halusker, College of Science

March 8, 2018

CLEMSON, South Carolina – Research from more than 100 scientists across the world, including that of Clemson professor of biological sciences Saara DeWalt, has recently combined to show that the world’s tropical forests are more similar than scientists previously thought.

In 1994, DeWalt had just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology from Brown University. Fully funded by a Fulbright Scholarship, DeWalt was able to conduct an ethnobotanical study in the lowland tropical forest of Bolivia. There, she assessed how an indigenous people called the Tacana made use of different tree and vine species in their everyday lives. To conduct the study, DeWalt led a forest inventory of trees near two Tacana communities.

More than two decades later, DeWalt’s documentation is part of a new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that indicates that tropical forests can be grouped into two major regions based on the similarity of their flora: American and African tropical forests versus Indo-Pacific forests.

In addition to helping scientists reclassify the world’s tropical forests, the discovery supports what geologists know about the breakup of West Gondwana, an ancient supercontinent that contained what has since become Africa and South America.

In prior studies, researchers have attempted to understand how closely related forests in different parts of the world are by comparing how many tree species they share.

“For example, if two sites were compared, each with 100 individuals, and they shared 20 species, then we’d say the similarity of the two sites is 20 percent,” said Ferry Slik, the lead author of the study and an associate professor at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam Herbarium in Brunei, Borneo.

Read more: newsstand.clemson.edu/mediarelations/study-reshapes-the-floral-relationships-between-the-worlds-tropical-forests/

ASEAN CAMBODIA Forest Fire Forestry Global International Regional RFMRC-SEA SOUTHEAST ASIA

Policemen, protesters hurt in Cambodian land dispute

Policemen, protesters hurt in Cambodian land dispute

The Associated Press | March 08, 2018 09:45 AM | Updated March 08, 2018 10:46 AM

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA

At least seven policemen and two protesters were hurt Thursday in a clash after villagers in northeastern Cambodia blocked a national highway to protest being forced off land they have occupied for at least two years.

Officials and NGO workers said about 200 villagers in Kratie province who have been living on land that was given to a concessionaire to develop into a rubber plantation blocked the road for two hours.

Land disputes became a critical issue in Cambodia in the early part of last decade, as great blocs of land were granted as concessions for logging, rubber, and other economic development projects. Violent and sometimes fatal conflicts between villagers, who rarely held formal land titles, and the authorities, acting on behalf of the concession holders, became common to the point that they were considered to be a threat to political stability.

In 2012, Prime Minister Hun Sen issued a directive suspending new land concessions to private companies and ordering a review of existing ones, though it is not clear the order was effectively implemented.

ASEAN Forest Fire Forestry International Regional RFMRC-SEA SOUTHEAST ASIA

Penang’s commitment to safeguard its forests

Penang’s commitment to safeguard its forests

Published on  |  Modified on

LETTER | The recent news of continued logging in the Ulu Muda Forest Reserve, Kedah has troubled nearby residents and the rest of Malaysia.

Small logging concessions and illegal logging activities hidden from public eyes have punctured the heart of the pristine forest and affected both water source and water quality. Such activities have also snatched away homes and feeding grounds for elephants, hornbills, leopards and other protected wildlife species.

The rampant logging activity upstream of Sungai Muda consequently affects the livelihood of over four million people from three states: Kedah, Perlis, and Penang.

To be more specific, 80 percent of Penang water supply comes from Sungai Muda, 96 percent for Kedah, and 50 percent for Perlis.

Even though the Kedah Forestry Department issued a claim that there is no environmental impact from the logging activities, and water quality is not affected, this short-sighted and dubious claim fails to look at the long-term water supply issue.

These impacts of logging on human lives mean only one thing: gazette the forest reserve as water catchment area or risk our livelihood. All logging activities need to stop immediately. Delayed action will only cause more cascading effects.

The tragic fate of forests in Malaysia continues to be aggravated after the degazettement of 4,515 ha forest reserve in Terengganu earlier in January. The state government granted the land to TDM Berhad, which plans to turn the area into oil palm plantation. This move angered most environmentalists.

Read more: https://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/414558

ASEAN Forest Fire Forestry Global INDONESIA Regional RFMRC-SEA SOUTHEAST ASIA

When bogs burn, the environment takes a hit

When bogs burn, the environment takes a hit

The peat sequestered in the wet ground keeps much of Earth’s carbon out of the atmosphere

BY LAUREL HAMERS 12:00 PM MARCH 6, 2018

In 2015, massive wildfires burned through Indonesia, sending thick smoke and haze as far as Thailand.

These fires were “the worst environmental disaster in modern history,” says Thomas Smith, a wildfire expert at King’s College London. Smith estimates that the fires and smoke killed 100,000 people in Indonesia and neighboring countries and caused billions of dollars in damage. The fires were costly for the rest of the planet, too: At their peak, the blazes belched more climate-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each day than did all U.S. economic activity.

Two years later and 13,000 kilometers away, a fire smoldered on the fringes of a barren, northern landscape. The remote blaze could have gone unnoticed. But Jessica McCarty and other fire researchers actively monitor satellite imagery of Earth the way some people check Facebook. One Sunday in August, McCarty, of Miami University in Ohio, was surprised to see massive plumes of what appeared to be white smoke over a swath of Greenland. The giant landmass had not been on her fire radar. It’s mostly ice and the parts that don’t have sparse vegetation.

The settings of these two blazes couldn’t have been more different, but scientists suspect the two had something important in common: plenty of decaying organic matter known as peat.

Peatlands — which include bogs, other swampy wetlands and, yes, Greenland’s icy soil — are ecosystems rich in the decayed organic matter.

In their healthy, soggy state, peatlands are quite fire resistant. So when it comes to fire risk, peat-heavy landscapes haven’t historically gotten the same attention as, say, the dry pine forests of the western United States. But with those devastating peat fires in Indonesia, the spotlight has turned to the planet’s other peatlands, too.

Worldwide, peatlands store massive amounts of carbon in thick blankets of wet organic matter accumulated in the ground over centuries. And though they cover just 3 to 5 percent of Earth’s land surface, peatlands store a quarter of all soil carbon. That adds up to more carbon than all of the world’s forests combined.

But changes in land use — draining the water to plant acres of crops that demand drier soil, a common practice in tropical regions, or building a road through an area — can dry out the peat. And then, a single carelessly tossed cigarette or an errant lightning strike can ignite a fire that will smoke and smolder for months, releasing thousands of years of stored carbon as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Or fires set to clear land for agriculture can get out of hand like they’ve done in Indonesia: Over the last few decades, the country has drained many of its peatlands to grow oil palms and other crops. Now, the country is seeing the worst-case scenario of what can happen when peatlands are disrupted and desiccated. In northern latitudes, meanwhile, thawing permafrost exposes peat that has been buried for years, which can fuel fires like those seen in Greenland last summer.

In the short term, peat fires clog the air with deadly smoke and smog. In densely populated areas such as Indonesia, blazes can devour homes and businesses and claim lives. But the fires’ impact lingers long after the flames die down. Peat fires reshape entire ecosystems. Once the peat burns away, it can take thousands of years to build up again. And all of the carbon that was once neatly stored away is instead floating around in the atmosphere, contributing to climate change much like burning coal does.

Now, scientists are trying to get a better handle on peatlands and the effects of agriculture, development and a climate that’s shifting toward warmer and drier. Recent discoveries of hidden peatlands in Africa and South America expand the extent of peat around the world, and up the stakes for protecting those carbon stores. New research is making it increasingly clear that, without a shift in approach, humans might strip away healthy peatlands and get, in return, a lot of climate-warming carbon dioxide.

Read more: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/bogs-peatlands-fire-climate-change