*The government of Napal has handed over control of degraded forestland to households below the poverty line (BPL) and the ecology of the area has improved bringing with it economic improvements as well. The authorities started leasing out decaying tracts of forest to BPL families in 1993 and today has more than 11,000 households in 10 districts involved in managing forests. The success of the program has prompted the Nepal government to declare it a priority poverty alleviation program and extend it to 16 more districts. Down to Earth February 8, 2002

* Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has announced the suspension of all logging operations, effective from 1st January 2002. Global Witness, the UK based environmental and human rights organization which has been campaigning against illegal logging in Cambodia since 1995, applauds the decision and seeks reassurances that companies that have committed extensive illegal logging will not be allowed to resume activities.Global Witness. December 21, 2001

* The Brazilian government Wednesday announced the cancellation of all but two mahogany logging operations in the Amazon. The announcement followed dramatic government raids in late October on two illegal operations that had been exposed in a report by the environmental movement Greenpeace. The trade in mahogany--which today is found only in very remote, old- growth tropical forests--has been the subject of environmental and human rights campaigns for more than a decade in the United States and Europe, especially Britain. One World US. December 6, 2001

* More than 40 percent of the Brazilian Amozon will be protected after a joint project by the World Bank and the World Wildlife Fund is completed, a leading conservationist said Tuesday. Speaking before the third Parliamentary Conference of the Americas,uniting some 500 lawmakers from more than 20 countries, Thomas Lovejoy, a tropical biologist and chief biodiversity adviser to the World Bank, said the figure included national parks, Indian reservations, and reserves where natives live by extracting fruits, nuts and other rainforest products without cutting down trees. Environmentalists say the world's largest remaining tropical wilderness is disappearing at a rate of about 17,000 square kilometers (6,800 square miles) a year. According to the World Bank an area the size of France has already been cut down. Associated Press. November 20, 2001

* South America's largest freshwater protected area has been set aside by the government of Bolivia and was presented to the world in a ceremony in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, on Monday. The Bolivian government designated three wetlands totaling 17,760 square miles - an area larger than Switzerland - as protected sites under an international treaty known as the Ramsar Convention. It has enormous biodiversity, sustaining at least 197 species of fish, more than 70 species of amphibians and reptiles,more than 300 species of birds, and more than 50 species of large mammals. Unfortunately, it is bounded by dry forests that are considered to be the among the most endangered and least protected biomass in the world. Environmental News Network. September 19, 2001

* In a move that wildlife biologists say has spared an African Eden, a German logging company said yesterday that it had given up its lease on a tract of swamp-fringed rain forest in the Congo Republic. The Congo government said the land, the 100-square-mile Goualogo Triangle, would be added to the adjacent Nouabal,-Ndoki National Park. It is one of the few places left in central Africa where animals showed no fear of humans, because few humans have ever set foot there. New York Times. July 7, 2001

* CNN reports that lowland tropical forests in Indonesia could disappear within four years if logging continues. February 6, 2002

* The Smithsonian Institute finds that the rate of destruction in the Brazilian rainforest has accelerated in the last decade.“Forest destruction from 1995 to 2000 averaged almost two million hectares a year,” said William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. “That’s equivalent to seven football field a minute, and it’s comparable to the bad old days in the 1970s and 1980s, when forest loss in the Amazon was catastrophic.” Science Daily Magazine 2002

* At least nine paper merchants in the UK are buying PaperOne products made by APRIL, one of the world's most destructive paper companies and owner of the world's largest pulp mil.. APRIL has already cleared at least 220,000 hectares off Indonesian rainforest, an area almost twice the size of Greater London. It is now logging Tesso Nilo, recently discovered by scientists to be the most biodiverse lowland rainforest on earth. Friends of the Earth. February 11, 2002

* Half of North America's most biodiverse regions are being severely degraded according to the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation. 235 North American animal species such as the Monarch butterfly and northern codfish are threatened by pollution, human encroachment on their natural habitats and aggressive harvesting practices. Reuters. January 6, 2002

* Australia clears the equivalent of more than 50 football fields of trees and bushland every hour, making it the world's fifth highest landing clearing nation, according to the Queensland Conservation Council. Reuters. November 21, 2001

* A remote region of the Peruvian Amazon may soon be the site of a $2.7 billion gas project. The Camisea project will be located in Peru's Lower Urubamba Region, a biologically rich area that is home to several uncontacted indigenous tribes. According to a study by the Smithsonian Institution, the Camisea project will affect one of the world's most biologically diverse regions. The study found that the region houses more than 61 different plant species per acre, nearly 800 species of birds, 120 species of fish, 86 species of reptiles, 69 species of medium and large mammals, 300 species of small mammals, and 600 species of invertebrates. Researchers found the region to be in "nearly pristine condition," with no evidence of human activity. Rainforest Action Network December 15, 2001

* Only a small part of the northern forests of European Russia remain in relatively intact large sections. Russian experts who have spent five years mapping the forests say much of what is left is in jeopardy. They say the best parts of the forests enjoy no protection in law, and are ripe for exploitation. Fragmentation is the main threat. They say the main threat comes from logging roads, geological survey lines and the fires that usually follow them. Yet conserving the remainder would be comparatively cheap and simple. BBC News. October 9, 2001