Special Supplement for Activists
ACTION ALERTS
Tired of seeing Douglas Firs used to build carports? Or do you think Redwoods were put on this earth to make great chopsticks? Either way, you're a person whose care and concern shouldn't go to waste. Fortunately, many forest related sites now have "action alert" pages where you can read about the latest controversies and send your thoughts directly to those who wield the chainsaw and the legal brief. So, wake up, tune in, and log on to some of the following sites, where getting involved is about as easy as hitting "enter."
A good place to start is the Ecological Enterprises Forest home page, which has a listing of numerous current Forest Conservation Action Alerts. This site will list all the current and recent action alerts from the Rainforest Action Network , Greenpeace, Rainforest Information Center, Environmental Defense Fund, Taiga Rescue Network, World Wildlife Fund, and many others. One-stop shopping to save the Earth!
Nativus, a Brazilian NGO, is focused on the rainforest of the Atlantic Coast of Brazil. Less well known than the Amazon, the Atlantic Coast rainforest actually contain the most diverse flora per hectare of any ecosystem on the planet, and yet only 5% remain! In English and Portuguese.
Ama's action alerts are focused on US forest policy decisions. This is a good place to have your say about the Federal Government's management of public forest lands, or just to find out Bill Clinton's email address.
Greenpeace. Yes, it's those doyens of direct action themselves, those building-climbing, traffic-stopping, whaler-harrassing warriors for the world, the men and women of Greenpeace. Here, though, in addition to their regular feats of derring-do, those Greenpeaceniks offer the more prosaic, but equally vital, chance to say it with words (whole sentences even). The focus is biodiversity, but many, many forest related appeals can be found here.
Brought to you by our mates down under, Australia's Rainforest Information Centre provides opportunities to protest forest problems all over the Pacific and Asia, with a Top Ten list of action priorities. Currently a thorn in the side of the Malaysian Government's activities in Sarawak. If you too care about dipterocarps, come join the fun!
Another veteran group that knows how to howl with the best, Rainforest Action Network has a new priority action alert each month, often focused on forest related issues. This is a good place to learn about the issues while also taking an active role on rainforest preservation throughout the tropics.
The Earth Island Institute and its ReThink Paper campaign are leading the charge on citizen involvement in alternative fibers and paper reuse and recycling. Recent action alerts have asked readers to help keep alternative fiber producers honest and forthright, and to eliminate subsidies on National Forest lands so hemp and kenaf can take their rightful places in your pocketbooks and pulp fiction.
Big-daddies on the global environmental scene, the World Wildlife Fund does not put out numerous action alerts, so those you see better command your attention. Currently, they want your help in saving the technically pronounceable Bialowieza Primeval Forest in Poland.
These guys aren't even an advocacy group, but instead -- of all things -- an internet service provider. However, the Institute for Global Communications (the only unionized ISP, I'll have you know) does care about forest issues, and maintains an extensive archive of action alerts from numerous groups. This is updated every week and thus may be the best place to go for the most recent controversies in the land of Smokey the Bear.
This site isn't focused that closely on forests, but hey, it is the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club puts out many alerts, archives all of their past one, provides a lot of background information, and can back it all up with thousands of very active chapter members around the country. If you want to play a part in a potent parade of protest, give these guys a try.
Well, here it is, probably the biggest, nastiest, most publicized fight over any piece of turf in America - Headwaters. This is the site to visit if you want to put in your two cents about a 60,000 acre tract of old-growth Redwoods that has embroiled the President, Senators, captains of industry, and even the IRS and the SEC. The site is presented by Bay Area Action, Headwaters Sanctuary Project, and others and has lots of ways for you too to become embroiled in years of controversy.
DISCUSSION GROUPS
Dying to tell a tree-hugger where to stick that rare mahogany? Hoping to tell a logger why tree-spiking serves the greater good? Here are your opportunities to engage in unedited, unrestrained verbal assault (I mean, constructive dialogue) on any forest issue you can imagine. Following is a list of the places where you can talk to others who actually care as much about obscure forest issues as you do.
The Gaia Forest Conservation Archives sponsor two discussion groups designed for "courteous and frank discussions on how to achieve widespread forest conservation and preservation worldwide." One is focused on general forest issues, the other on the Amazon rainforest.
The Institute for Global Communications sponsors numerous discussion groups on forest related issues. First, though, you must become a member of the IGC networks. Once done, you can participate in one of 17 discussion groups, including forest.canada (Canadian forest issues), forest.paper (Social and environmental impacts of tree plantations), forest.policy (including review of Agenda 21, debate on principles, criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management, reporting guidelines on sust. Forestry), forest.usa.ca (Information on Californian forests), and rainfor.general (General information and discussion about global rainforest issues).
http://www.metla.fi/info/vlib/Forestry/Category/Groups/#Mailing lists
This 'virtual library" on forestry lists dozens of discussion and special interest groups. Among the groups are the Independent Forum on Forests, the Tropical Forest Resource Group, the biodiversity and Ecosystems Network, the Forests, Trees and People Newsletter, and many others. Many of the special interest groups are scientific working groups intended to share information among scientists all over the world. One example is The Integrated Conservation Networking System (ICONS), an information management system designed to meet the needs of non-government, rural and indigenous organizations and individuals working in developing countries.EMAIL LISTS
Too lazy to surf the net in order to keep up? Here's your salvation, an array of email lists that will bring the information straight to you. A very effective way to keep up to date on important developments in forest related issues.
The Gaia Forest Archives provides two free mailing lists, one on worldwide forest/biodiversity campaign news (currently going to 1000+ people worldwide), and the other on Papua New Guinea Rainforest campaign news (750+ people worldwide).
http://forests.org/forms/signlist.htmGreenpeace, modest warriors that they are, have a number of mailing lists which will provide you with their take on forest and other environmental issues.
http://www.greenpeace.org/cbiofor.htmlIsland Press is a leading publisher of environmental books, and its Eco-Compass Listserve offers information on publications in several categories (Ecosystems is the one you want), as well as books published by IUCN, Earthscan, and The Nature Conservancy.
http://www.islandpress.com/subscribe.html
To keep up to date on the ever-entertaining Headwaters Forest debate, sign up for this email list. The best way possible to know when to fire up the VW Van in time for the next rain-soaked rally.
http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/headwaters/email/index.htmlCanada's version of Headwaters is Clayoquot Sound and all of the other once-pristine forests of coastal British Columbia. Get on the Cascadianet listserve to keep up with the battles of the far north.
http://www.olywa.net/cascadianet/front.htmThis "virtual library" on forestry has numerous electronic mailing lists to choose from (or don't choose, sigh up for them all and watch your computer crash). Among the offerings: canopy@lternet.edu (research, education, and conservation of organisms and interactions in forest canopies), forest@listserv.funet.fi (an international discussion group on forestry with some 960 members from over 30 countries), Rainforest@UMIAMI.IR.MIAMI.EDU (All aspects of rain forests), SAF-NEWS (Mailing list of the Society of American Foresters), and several Usenet newsgroups including bionet.agroforestry, bionet.agroforestry, and misc.industry.pulp-and-paper.
http://www.metla.fi/info/vlib/Forestry/Category/Groups/#Mailing listsCALENDAR
Meetings, meetings, meetings. Dreaded though the thought is, attendance at some of the innumerable forest related meetings which take place all over the world all year round can provide anyone with key information or contacts. If you have the a burning desire to spend time in a windowless, stuffy hotel or convention center for days on end, the following web sites can help you get there.
http://www.metla.fi/info/vlib/Forestry/Category/Events/
This virtual library on forestry provides a cornucopia of information on upcoming meetings, categorized for the true connossieur into Congresses and Conferences, Workshops and Courses, Seminars and Symposia, and Exhibitions. Most of the meetings listed are scientific and/or academic and take place all over the world. This site also provides links to several other calendars of events. A good place to start.http://iufro.boku.ac.at/iufro/meetings/meet.htm
This site, sponsored by the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations, also focuses on the scientific, and is weighted towards IUFRO meetings (although others are listed).http://www.fore.canterbury.ac.nz/events.htm
Brought to you by The New Zealand School of Forestry, this site has extensive listings of upcoming meetings throughout the world. Again, the focus is on science/academia, but where else can you find out about the 11th World Fertilizer Congress?http://www.envirolink.org/environews/enews.html
The Envirolink Calendar is not focused explicitly on forests, but makes up for this by providing listings at the beginning of each month on meetings taking place that month. If you're wondering what's going on right here, right now, try this one out.gopher://gopher.metla.fi/1m/public/conf/conferences
This is a text only site that lists quite a number of conferences around the world. The catch: all listings are for past conferences. But hey, if you want to know what has happened before, or who to contact for conference proceedings, papers, etc., this site is better than a stick in the eye.WHAT YOU CAN DO
One way or another, we all care about forests. How do we translate that concern into action? If you have the energy to drag yourself away from the World Wide black hole at which you're currently gazing, the following sites provide innumerable ways in which even you can make a difference.
http://www.ran.org/ran/what_you/index.html
The Rainforest Action Network lists a dozen or so things you can do, from joining their organization (surprise) to faxing/emailing their approved list of enemies to protecting one acre at a time. Details are provided.http://www.wri.org/wri/ffi/whattodo/
The World Resources Institute, good policy wonks, provide some eminently detailed and well reasoned ways of getting involved. A few suggestions are fairly practical (demand "good wood" products, plant trees, "learn, teach and share"), while others reflect a policymaker's view of the world (ensure that decision-makers manage forests with the general public's needs in mind keep informed about policy issues affecting frontier forests).http://www.panda.org/forests4life/Whatcanido.html
The World Wildlife Fund wins the vagueness award, with suggestions such as "Take Action!" and "Educate Yourself!". Actually, they do go into more detail, but you'll just have to check out their site to see what they say.http://www.conservation.org/web/how2help/how2help.htm
Conservation International wins the palm for most suggestions, topping out at 65 (however, not all are forest related). Other than several exhortations to join/support CI, they also suggest: re-using brown paper bags, burning only seasoned wood, building smaller campfire (easy for a bunch of tropical ecologists to say), and recycle paper at home and at work.http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/campaigns/ef/rforest/howhelp.html
Defenders of the Rainforest (an all-teen group) offers Seven Things You Can Do to Save the Rainforest. These are actually specific and well described ideas, so hats off to the teens (although I'm not sure how to identify and avoid "rainforest" beef - does it have wood chips in it?).
More on Forests:
Table of Contents | Twelve Hundred Words or Less... | Web Resources
Activist Groups | Voices | New in the Literature
Hotspots | On the Other Hand... | Funders