CAUTION:only loggers allowed

corrupt forest officials, timber mafia, and poor government planning have led to extensive destruction of the only remaining natural forests in northern Bihar.

Unkindest cuts

timber products from precious high altitude Nepalese forests continue to meet the timber demand of homes and monasteries in Tibet. Finished timber products smuggled by the Nepalese traffickers into Tibet is depleting the precious forests in the northern Himalaya. It has also become a source of revenue for the Chinese government.

Trees for guns

political and military leaders from Cambodia and Vietnam are involved in large-scale illegal logging, according to an environmental group in Britain. If the government policies are not changed, Cambodia's forests will be logged out in three to five years, the group notes.

Brazil

The Brazilian government is opening its timber reserves in the Amazon rain forest to commercial loggers. Unable to stop the rampant illegal logging, Brazil hopes to combine economic potential with controlled development. While Brazil has in the past opened reserves to logging, the new concessions are the first that will be sold for logging in the Amazon rain forest. The forest reserves cover 2.2 million ha. The initial opening will cover 5003.75 ha near the Tapajos River in Para state. The contracts will run for a year.

Forest vigil

a high-level committee formed by the Lok Ayukta of Madhya Pradesh, began probing the felling of Malik Makbooja trees in Bastar district in early May, said state government sources. The move came following a public interest litigation moved by S R Hiremath, coordinator of Samaj Parivartan Samudaya, a Karnataka-based social organisation. Hiremath accused the timber mafia, politicians and bureaucrats of wreaking havoc on Bastar's pristine environment.

Double standards

a recent report of the us state department has turned a blind eye to the illegal timber trade across the border of Thailand and Cambodia. In order to preserve its cordial relations with Thailand, the department has notified the us Congress that Thailand has effectively sealed its border with Cambodia and curbed the smuggling of timber from Cambodian forests.

Brazil

Woodcutters operating in the Apyterewa indigenous area in the Para state are luring local Parakana Indians into facilitating smuggling mahogany. Carlos Fausto, an expert from the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro, said that the crisis has been denied by the ministry of justice which has done nothing to mitigate the problem. Reportedly, at least 15 per cent of the 980,000-ha indigenous area has continued to be invaded by woodcutters, miners, farmers and settlers. Fausto blames the situation on the "planned omission" of law enforcing federal agencies.

The last frontier?

the forests in the Terai region of Uttar Pradesh may soon be turned into a graveyard of stumps if immediate steps are not taken to contain the illegal felling of trees. It has come to the notice of the state government that organised mafia gangs were operating on a large scale in the region and smuggling timber across the border to Nepal. Saw mills installed on the other side of the border are doing brisk business by selling sawn timber to local markets in Nepal and even to China.

Paradise lost

THE Gorongosa is being suffocated Slowly. Illegal mahogany-felling operations in and around this timber-rich national park of Mozambique is threatening to devastate the region's fragile ecology. There are about 7 timber interests cutting in the area, some licensed by the government and some not; despite the visible evidence of largescalt uncontrolled logging, government sources are at a loss as to the number of legal concessions granted in the area. The government is keen to rehabilitate Gorongosa. But this might turn out

Kids of burden

Parents in the Paonta valley villages (Himachal Pradesh), are loaded with worries about the ways of their children, as parents anywhere are wont to do. The kids have apparently become willing accomplices in the smuggling of khair wood from the region.