world news - 09.10.2007

Indonesia Says to Plant 79 Mln Trees in One Day

Indonesia, which has destroyed vast tracts of forest, will plant 79 million trees in a single day ahead of the UN climate change summit in Bali in December, an official said on Thursday.

The event, scheduled for Nov. 28, is part of a global campaign to plant one billion trees launched at UN climate change talks in Nairobi last year, said Ahmad Fauzi Masud, spokesman for the forestry ministry.

"Everybody, residents and officials from the lowest unit of the government to the president, will take part in this movement," he said. "It will be a national record and, possibly, a world record."

Indonesia currently holds a far less flattering world record: according to Greenpeace, it had the fastest pace of deforestation in the world between 2000-2005, with an area of forest equivalent to 300 soccer pitches destroyed every hour.

Southeast Asia's biggest economy is also among the world's top three greenhouse gas emitters because of deforestation, peatland degradation, and forest fires, according to a recent report sponsored by the World Bank and Britain's development arm.

Environmental groups are concerned that rapidly expanding palm oil plantations, partly driven by ambitious plans for biofuels, are damaging the country's rainforests.

• — Greenpeace Urges Indonesia to Stop Forest Destruction - 11.10.2007
• — Belarus to develop international standards for timber - 11.10.2007
• — Europe becomes Japan's biggest softwood supplier - 04.10.2007
• — Madagascar: The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew,have just completed the first vegetation atlas of the country. - 15.10.2007
• — Russia to propose solution in EU lumber trade row - 16.10.2007