“We now know that protecting the boreal forest is one of the most cost-effective and efficient things McGuinty can do to mitigate climate change,” says ForestEthics director Tzeporah Berman. “It’s essential that it become a component of any plan.” Forestry contributes the same amount of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere in Ontario as do all the province’s cars and light trucks.

The forest industry in Canada is pledging to be carbon neutral by the year 2015. Forest companies are hoping their activities including logging, pulp and paper operations and products production will not be sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Globe and Mail

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the creation of the Congo Basin Forest Fund, with roughly equal contributions from Britain and Norway totalling $215-million.

The basin represents about a quarter of the planet’s remaining rain forest cover, and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization has estimated that deforestation is reducing its size annually by 940,000 hectares or roughly 1 per cent of its total.

The New York Times

Asian countries need help to build cities that can cope with the region’s ’’unprecedented’’ urban expansion of more than 100,000 people a day over the next two decades, the Asian Development Bank said Wednesday.

The Globe and Mail

Struggling provincial forestry firms started a new marketing effort yesterday, promoting wood as a solution to climate change.

The Globe and Mail

Eco-activists and other crusaders often rely on high-profile stunts to generate funds and media buzz for their causes: dangling from smokestacks, chaining themselves to trees, dressing up as fuzzy mascots for “die-ins.”

The Guardian

Developing countries and human rights groups will clash today at a key UN climate change meeting intended to arrest the destruction of tropical forests. The felling is responsible for almost 20% of annual global carbon emissions, making it a crucial target in the battle against global warming.

The Guardian

Forests and peatlands have a unique role to play in the battle against climate change. Living forests and peatlands can sequester carbon emissions, while dying ones release previously stored carbon. Every year the annihilation of these two habitats generates more greenhouse gas than every car, truck, train and plane on earth. This is roughly the same as the amount of CO2 that is emitted by the United States or China each year.