Consciousness of a Tree

By Liliana Usvat    
Blog 364-365

The inner senses of the tree have a strong affinity with the properties of the earth itself.
They feel their growing, as you listen to your hearth bit.

They also experience pain which while definite unpleasant and sometimes agonizing,  is not an emotional nature in the same way that you might feel pain.  

A tree knows human beings also, by the vibrations in the air as they pass, which hit the tree trunk from varying distances and even by such things as voices. The tree does not build up an image of man but a composite sensation which represents an individual. 

The same tree will recognize the same person who passes it by each day.  

Trees have their own consciousness. The consciousness of a tree is not as specifically focused as your own, yet to all intents and purposes the trees is conscious of 50 years before its existence and 50 years hence. 

Its sense of identity spontaneously goes beyond the changes of its own form, 

It has no ego to cut the I identification short. Creatures without the compartment of the ego can easily follow their own identity beyond any change of form.

A simple tree deals with the nature of probabilities as it trusts forward into new seeds. The tree knows the present and future history but it understands a future that is not preordained. It feels its own power in the present as it constructs that future. 

In deeper terms the tree's seeds also realize that there is a future there a variety of futures toward which they grope.

from "The Unknown Reality A Seth Book" By Jane Roberts and Robert F Butts

Year 1996 and Forests

By Liliana Usvat    
Blog 363-365

What happen in 1996?
Somebody at the international level did something took a bad decision that affected the world climate and forested areas.

Madagascar forest started to disappear. 90% of the forests have been erased since that year. 

Romanian Forest lost 30% of the wood mass. A large amount of forests are still erased by a foreign company and Austrian Company.

England moved 49 power plant from coal to wood as if wood is renewable energy. They use wood from other countries since they have such a big empire.

USA has around 200 power plants using wood derivative products. 

Canada is loosing 45 sq km per year of forest. Logging companies sue for millions of dollars Green peace for bringing to attention of clear cutting practices which erase the ability of the forest to regenerate itself.

In one province in Canada British Columbia

During the period 1992 to 1996, industry sales increased from $11 billion in 1992 to almost $18 billion in 1995 before falling to about $16 billion in 1996. During that period, net earnings ranged from a loss of about $250 million in 1992 to net earnings of about $1.3 billion in each of 1994 and 1995 before turning to an estimated loss of $250 million in 1996. 

Sand storms are sweeping Asia. South Korea started to plant trees in China to avoid sand storms in her country. 


Japan’s voracious consumption has been well documented, according to the report, as have the “exploitative activities of [Japanese] companies overseas.” Rather than reforming their purchasing and consumption patterns, however, “many companies have set up highly efficient public relations departments to counter allegations and deflect attention away from their activities.”

The report notes that, “rather than making more information publicly available, the sogo shosha, Japan Lumber Importers Association, and the Japanese government no longer release timber import figures for fear of further criticism.” In a similar move, these corporations have also reduced their direct logging operations, and instead buy from Chinese companies that have taken over the cutting and hauling.
  

Them machines that cut trees are more and more complex and efficient.


Worldwatch Institute confirms this in its 1999 State of the World report. “In industrial countries, where most of the world’s commercial wood is produced, timber harvest is the primary cause of forest degradation,” says the report. “In developing nations, land clearing for agriculture and grazing combine with timber harvesting to reduce forest area. It is often timber harvesting, accompanied by roads that penetrate the forest and provide access to otherwise inaccessible places, that precipitates land clearing.”

Links
http://www.globalforestwatch.org/map

Forests in Argentina

By Liliana Usvat    
Blog 362-365

The forests of Argentina are being cleared at a rate of 40 football fields every hour. To stop the destruction we took to the trees - and to the streets. While our activists protested in the forest, we joined forces with other environmental groups, got 1.5 million signatures of support and pushed through Argentina's first federal forest protection law.  


The new law includes a nationwide one-year moratorium on clearing of native forests - to avoid a rush of deforestation while forest management regulations are put in place. After a year, any jurisdiction still lacking regulations will continue to be prohibited from issuing new logging and land clearing permits.

The Forest Law also establishes environmental impact studies and public hearings - measures that will help protect forests where indigenous people live and small scale farmers.  To pay for implementation, the law allocates funds from the national budget, plus income from a new export tax on genetically engineered soy.

Forest clearing to plant genetically engineered soy beans destroys 300,000 hectares of native forest per year.

Argentina currently does not have restrictions limiting the cultivation of forests in private properties. Only native forests are regulated by the government contingent upon the approval of the cultivation project by local government

An estimated 1.115 million hectares were planted as of 2005. There were also 33.2 million hectares (82 million acres) of native forest reserve.  

Argentina, often perceived as a vast fertile territory, is losing its native forests. Nearly 40% of animal and plant species in the country's arid and semi-arid ecosystems are in danger from habitat loss, a new study suggests.

The current plantation rate is estimated to be 50,000 hectares per year. It is also estimated that the consumption of wood products from cultivated forests is 5.3 million cubic meters, and sustainable wood supply to the year 2015 will be more than 20 million cubic meters. Argentina, however, is not a major consumer of wood products. 

Argentina’s exports of forestry products began in earnest in the 1990s. However, as a producer of primary goods with low value added, the country experienced an overall trade deficit that ran from US$500 million to US$1 billion from 1992 to 2002. 

With the sharp devaluation of the peso in 2002, exports of Argentine forest product were given a shot in the arm. Argentine goods became more attractive and exports began to increase, especially for high-value-added products. Between 2002 and 2004, exports increased from US$300 million to about US$700 million. 

So what started the sudden export of wood Money. Who decided that countries should cut their forests to make more and more money?

Who are the end users of these large amounts of money resulted from logging?

In terms of the major destinations of Argentina’s exports of wood and furniture products, the United States, Brazil, Spain, and Chile continue to be the most important markets. In 2005, both South Africa and the Dominican Republic emerged as markets for this sector.

 China in 2005 also increased its demand for forestry products from Argentina, but they are mainly low-value-added products. Some of the most important exports goods from Argentina are fiber and particleboards, plywood, wood boxes and containers, and wood handles for tools 

In 1914, Argentina was estimated to have more than 106 million hectares of native forests; by 1996, when a national action programme against desertification began, only 36 million hectares remained. Today, the country's forests are vanishing at a rate of more than 829,000 hectares a year, mainly where agriculture is pushing into native forests.

In Argentina, 75 percent of our native forests have already disappeared, and every hour the equivalent of 20 football pitches (soccer fields, for you North Americans) of forest is destroyed to grow transgenic soya. 

The damage is irreversible, it is almost impossible to grow forest on the soil again - and today an area the size of Germany is at risk. In the last month, a provincial government has already sold off a natural reserve to companies planning to sow genetically engineered (GE) soya, an unprecedented act. This cannot carry on! That's why the Greenpeace Jaguars have gone into action to defend north-west Argentina's remaining forest.

The destruction of the forests in north-west Argentina means the loss of thousands of animal and plant species, the degredation of the soil and its contamination thanks to the use of pesticides, as well as hundreds of indigenous and local people losing their homes.

The forest had been destroyed for agriculture for years, but the rate of destruction has accelerated since 1996, when Monsanto introduced GE soya beans into Argentina. Since then, the country has extended its agricultural frontiers to grow GE soya for export as animal feed, at the expense of its threatened forests, wildlife and the homes and livelihoods of many people.

Protecting forests will not only preserve biodiversity and defend the rights of forest communities, it's also one of the quickest and cost effective ways of halting climate change.