Reforestation and the Medicinal Uses of Trees -Liliana Usvat Research

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Forest Statistics

By Liliana Usvat
Blog 318-365

New, high-resolution satellite-based maps released today by the University of Maryland and Google on Global Forest Watch, a partnership of over 60 organizations convened by the World Resources Institute, reveal a significant recent surge in tree cover loss largely in Russia and Canada during 2013.

Global tree cover loss in 2013 continued to be high at over 18 million hectares (69,500 square miles)—about twice the size of Portugal—slightly lower than 2012, but a troubling 5.2 percent increase over the 2000-2012 average. In 2011-2013, Russia and Canada topped the list , jointly accounting for 34 percent of total loss.

Tree cover loss is a measure of the total loss of all trees within a specific area regardless of the cause. It includes human-driven deforestation, forest fires both natural and man made, clearing trees for agriculture, logging, plantation harvesting, and tree mortality due to disease and other natural causes.

Brazil

According to the government, deforestation rose 28 percent in 2013 compared to the year before. Who’s behind the turnaround? Most of the usual culprits: farmers, ranchers, loggers and the officials who turn a blind eye to illegal logging. And now there may be a new threat: the looming end of a global suspension on buying and selling soybeans planted on newly cleared forestland.

Canada

93% of Canada's forest land is crown owned, facilities for harvesting and processing wood are held mainly in private ownership. Since the earliest days of land settlement, the transfer of harvesting rights and forest management responsibilities from the public to the private sectors-while ensuring that public resource management and development objectives are achieved-has been one of the foremost policy questions facing governments in Canada.

Much of Canada’s logging activity occurs on Crown (often referred to as “public”) land and is regulated by various provincial commercial forest tenure systems that allocate cutting rights to and confer obligations on recipients of the tenures. It is these tenure systems on Crown forest land that are the focus of this data product.

The various agreements that have been devised to accomplish this task have become collectively known as forest tenures (Haley and Luckert 1990). Forest tenures, along with forest legislation and regulations, help Canada's jurisdictions ensure that crown forests are managed responsibly and that forest companies remain accountable to Canadians.

Sixty-three percent of the crown forest land in Canada that is under some form of tenure is under volume-based agreements (Table 5.2a). The rest is under long-term area agreements. Ontario, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador use area-based tenure agreements, while Manitoba, Quebec, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories use volume-based agreements. British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia use both area- and volume-based tenure agreements.

China now accounts for more than half of North America’s lumber exports, an amount of wood equivalent to 300,000 housing starts in the U.S. China also now consumes 30% of the world’s pulp

New Trend Power Plants Fueled by Wood Porducts

There is a new trend to use lumber products in power plants as combustible.
The global bioenergy boom is driven by a surge of interest in biological materials – or biomass – to produce heat, electricity and fuels. In a world of declining fossil fuel deposits and rising fuel prices, industries and governments are hastily switching back to an ancient source of energy: trees.

In Canada, forest bioenergy once referred to a sensible, small-scale and local solution to produce heat and power by using mill and pulp residues at the plant. This is no longer the case.

Now, the sector is rapidly developing into large-scale, industrial use of natural forests for energy. This is due to new government biomass extraction policies and subsidies. Without public hearings, exhaustive science or adequate environmental standards in place, provincial governments have allocated large volumes of biomass from publicly owned forests to be burnt, thereby radically
changing the way forests are used in Canada.

This is turning to ash sustainable job opportunities, threatening the greening of the forest sector and the value- added product trend that has been emerging in recent years.

New power plants are springing up, while others are being converted from coal to pellets. For example, the Tilbury plant (UK-RWEnpower) will be converted to burn wood pellets and according to an independent estimate, will burn nearly 7 million tonnes of per year 19. The company RWE have suggested that less than2 million tones per year would be burnt , but under any circumstances, they will become one of the world’s largest pellet power plant, importing wood pellet

The top 20 Canadian companies increased their market share of total Canadian lumber shipments, rising from 79.8% in 2012 to 80.5% in 2013. Canfor retained its leading position as the top Canadian lumber producer with 4.2 billion bf of production - a 9% gain over 2012. West Fraser held onto the number two spot with 3.6 billion bf of output (+3%). Tolko and Resolute Forest Products remained in the number three and four spots, while Interfor leaped into the number five spot from production gains at its B.C. Interior SPF mills. Together, these five firms produced a total of 12.1 billion bf (51% of Canadian lumber shipments - similar to in 2012). B.C. Interior sawmills continued to struggle with processing dead logs from mountain pine beetle-killed timber (West Fraser and Canfor both announced mill closures for the first half of 2014).
The output of the top 20 U.S. companies rose strongly: from 16.6 billion bf in 2012 to 17.9 billion bf (+8.2%) in 2013. In doing so, these firms increased their market share of U.S. production from 58% to 60%. The five largest producing U.S. companies, Weyerhaeuser, Sierra Pacific, Georgia-Pacific, West Fraser (U.S. operations), and Hampton Affiliates, produced almost 10.0 billion bf or 33% of total U.S. production. Of note, all regions in the U.S. recorded production increases in 2013, with the U.S. West leading the surge in output with a gain of 6.1%; the U.S. South increased 5.1%.
- See more at: http://www.woodbusiness.ca/sawmilling/top-20-lumber-producers#sthash.AABY9x0z.dpuf

Links

New data show Russia and Canada (two of the biggest forest countries in the world) accounted for 34 per cent of global tree cover loss from 2011-2013, losing a combined average of nearly 6.8 million hectares (26,000 square miles) each year, an area equivalent to the size of Ireland. - See more at: http://www.woodbusiness.ca/industry-news/forest-fires-caused-significant-tree-cover-loss-in-canada-and-russia-in-2013#sthash.eiddy4pM.dpuf

Globally, the world lost more than 18 million hectares (69,500 square miles) of tree cover in 2013 including both permanent deforestation and temporary losses due to harvesting, fires and other disturbances.
The data find that Russia, Canada, Brazil (2.2 million hectares), the U.S. (1.7 million hectares) and Indonesia (1.6 million hectares) make up the top five countries for average annual tree cover loss, which measures removal or death of trees within a given area, from 2011 to 2013. In 2013, Indonesia experienced its lowest tree cover loss in a decade.
- See more at: http://www.woodbusiness.ca/industry-news/forest-fires-caused-significant-tree-cover-loss-in-canada-and-russia-in-2013#sthash.eiddy4pM.dpuf

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Lemon Tree Medicinal Uses

By Liliana Usvat Blog 317-365

The lemon is a small tree with irregular branches armed with thick spines, stiff and sharp.

Essential oil of complex composition: limonene, pinene, citral, citronellal, terpineol, camphene, phellandrene, coumarins, flavonoids, vitamin C, carotenoids, mucilages, calcium oxalate. Abundant pectin, sugar, citric acid, malic acid, flavonoids. Essential oil of complex composition: limonene, pinene, citral, citronellal, terpineol, camphene, phellandrene, coumarins, flavonoids, vitamin C, carotenoids, mucilages, calcium oxalate. Abundant pectin, sugar, citric acid, malic acid, flavonoids.

Medicinal Uses

Parts used: Fruit, leaves, seeds.

Since ancient times, citron is used as a herbal remedy for

seasickness,
pulmonary and
intestinal disorders,
dysentery and
halitosis.
It can be very useful herbal remedy for diarrhea.
It eliminates gastric acidity,
stimulates functioning of the liver.
It is also helpful in cases of flatulence and
vomiting.
Citron can be very useful in cases of headaches, especially migraines.

Lemon juice is used in topical application for

healing wounds,
herpes and other
skin conditions.

The boiled lemonade is used against colds and as sweat increaser.
The lemon juice in water is used against dyspepsia alkaline and
pure juice against catarrhal angina.

The compress of juice applied to the upper stomach stops the vomiting.
It´s also used against chronic obstructions of liver and
spleen.

Methods of preparation: Boil for 5 minutes 5-12 g of fresh lemon leaves or the bark of fruit. Drinking 300-500 ml per day divided in 2-3 doses. The same decoction is applied topically to the affected parts 2-3 times a day.

Lemon seeds boiled in cow milk have vermicide effect.
The fruit is used in cooking and soft drinks.
For stabilizing the blood pressure must be taken the juice of 2 lemons in a glass of water, 2 or 3 times a day.

Lemons leaves are used as an anti-inflammatory when applied as an essential oil onto your skin. Steep the leaves in hot water for a natural diuretic and to help reduce cramps or relieve soar throats. Also a powerful antibacterial, lemons can help to combat bacterial-related ailments.
The citron may thus be one of the first citrus cultivars due to its health connections. In early Asia it may have also been known as protection against scurvy along with other related properties such as helping to retain teeth; although this wasn’t understood in the West until the past few centuries. Not only high in ascorbic acid, Vitamin C, citrus fruit is also rich in folate and potassium, among other beneficial compounds and minerals.

History of the Lemon

Earliest cultivation of citrus goes back at least 2500 years to Asia. Although quite late as a Ming Dynasty work, this Chinese “still life” painting on silk below at the Freer-Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum shows a pair of citrus fruits at the lower left of the blue bowl.

The occurrence of citrus in Europe and Mideast were thought to have been natural occurring native trees and shrubs, but historians today believe that the ancestor of the citrus trees, Citrus medica L., was introduced by Alexander the Great from India into Greece, Turkey, and North Africa in the late 4th century BC. The most ancient citrus was called ‘citron.’

There are ancient clues from wall paintings in the Egyptian temple at Karnak that citrus trees had been growing there. There were other suggestions that citrus trees may have been familiar to the Jews during their exile and slavery by the Babylonians in the 6th century BC. Even though speculations suggest that citrus trees were known and grown by the Hebrews, there is no direct mention in the Bible of citrus.

According to some, the oldest attested reference to citrus (lemon and orange) occurs in Sanskrit in the sacred text Vajasineyi Samhita before 800 BCE, where it is named as jambhila [1] although not all agree this citrus reference is plausible. One of the earliest attested references to citrus, however, is from the Chinese poet Ch’u Yuan (Qu Yuan) in the 4th century BCE, who often mourned the loss of virtue in the state. He praised the orange tree as a possible allegory of ideal kingship rarely realized:

“Orange tree, nurtured by nature, born to be adaptable to the soil and water here…
Your leaves green and flowers clean,
so delightful is the riotous profusion.
even though between layers of leaves there are thorns,
the fruits are so beautiful and round…”

The first recording of citrus, Citrus medica L., in European history was done by Theophrastus, in 350 BC, following the introduction of the fruit by Alexander the Great. In early European history, writers wrote about Persian citrus, that it had a wonderful fragrance and was thought to be a remedy for poisoning, a breath sweetener, and a repellant to moths.

Citrus was well known by the ancient cultures of the Greeks and later the Romans. A beautiful ceramic tile was found in the ruins of Pompeii after the city was destroyed by a volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Another mosaic tile in the ruins of a Roman villa in Carthage, North Africa, in about the 2nd century AD, clearly showed the fruit of a citron and a lemon fruit growing on a tree branch.

Early Christian tile mosaics dating back to 300 AD of both oranges and lemon were shown in lemon-yellow and orange colors surrounded by bright green leaves and freshly cut tree branches; the relics can still be seen in Istanbul, Turkey at mosques that once were churches of Emperor Constantine.

A Jewish coin from the Maccabean Era about 136 BCE shows a citrus fruit. It became an important Succoth fruit in Jewish tabernacle and temple ritual.

Around 1178 A.D. twenty-seven varieties of sweet, sour, and mandarin oranges are described in detail in China by the medieval period attested by Han Yen-chih’s Chü lu.

The lemon was also known to Rome from its plantings in Pompeii. Paleobotany has now proven this not only visually interpreted from wallpaintings like the House of the Fruit Orchard and mosaics but also from carbonized wood from the Villa Poppaea at nearby Oplontis.

Citrus was especially prized in the 17th century by Dutch botanists whose botanical gardens at Leiden and Amsterdam brought the exotic fruit to the attention of the wealthy. Orangeries – built with many windows to let sun in but keep frost out for protecting the trees from Northern winter damage – soon sprang up in nearly every royal palace and garden once the health virtues of citrus became better known.

Links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xjku2d97kk

http://health-from-nature.net/Lemon,_Citron.html

http://www.gardenguides.com/79195-ways-use-lemon-tree-leaves.html
http://www.electrummagazine.com/2012/10/exotic-history-of-citrus/

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Bible Trees The Myrtle - Medicial Uses

By Liliana Usvat
Blog 316-365

Myrtle (myrtus communis), also known as true or Roman myrtle, is a hardy, evergreen, highly fragrant shrub with dark green oval shaped leaves and attractive white flowers followed by black berries, during blossoming season (June-July).

The myrtle tree is an indigenous species common in many parts of southern Europe and North Africa.

Like most other native trees, it had nearly disappeared from the Maltese countryside but there is evidence that in a number of localities such as Wied Għajn Riħana it used to be common.

The myrtle does not grow high and at most reaches five metres but its special attributes are aromatic leaves and beautiful white flowers that are in bloom from late spring to late summer.

Later in the year the myrtle tree produces large numbers of blue-black berries. The berries contain several seeds and it is very easy to propagate the tree from them.

The berries attract many birds that feast on them and help the plant by carrying away the seeds in their gut. When they defecate, they deposit them away from the parent plant, helping to disperse the species far and wide.

The myrtle is also cultivated and can be found in gardens even outside its natural range. It is ideal for hedges and one can be found in the front garden of the Domus Romana museum in Rabat.

Medicinal Uses

The leaves, chewed raw or used as a standard infusion, is used as a general tonic and restorative, of special value during bouts of sickness, depression, or strain. It quickly revives the spirit, quickens the mind and strengthens the nerves.

Cases of poor memory and mental confusion in old age are successfully treated with Bog myrtle. The branch tea once was used as a diuretic for gonorrhea

In Sardegna and Corsica a liqueur known as Mirto is made from the berries. Myrtle has been used medicinally for at least 3,000 years and scientific studies show that the ancient medical uses of myrtle were based on real properties.

Myrtle oil is used, among other things, to treat respiratory problems by clearing the airways.

Myrtle and in particular myrtle berries contain many compounds that are thought could be beneficial to human health.

One group of flavonols known as myricetin, found in glycosides, are thought to have anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

Myricetin may alleviate the suffering of Alzheimer patients as it is known to inhibit beta-amyloid fibril formation.

The flavonoids in myrtle, including myricetin, are heart healthy as they can help reduce the oxidization of LDL cholesterol, which leads to heart disease.

Studies using myricetin on diabetic rats have demonstrated that the flavonol reduces glucose plasma levels and might be beneficial to diabetics. Healers in Middle Eastern countries have traditionally used myrtle as a treatment for diabetes.

Egyptians used the plant to treat nervous afflictions.

French women drank tea made from crushed myrtle leaves, believing that it would help to preserve their youthful appearance and overall vigor.

Myrtle has been conventionally used to treat coughs, bronchitis and other respiratory infections.

There are two types of myrtle, and it's important that you do not confuse the two. Myrtus communis is known as "true" myrtle. The other variety, called "Madagascar Myrtle" (Eugenia jambolana), is a completely different plant and has entirely different effects on the body.

Myrtle has been found to effectively clear up acne and other imperfections on the skin. It should topically be applied in its essential oil form, often in another carrier oil or in very limited concentrations.

The organic compounds and powerful antioxidants in myrtle can help the cells heal quicker and improve the appearance of those affected areas. In its herb form, it can be consumed to see similar effects working from the inside out!

One of the ancient applications of myrtle leaves was for the treatment of urinary tract or kidney issues. Myrtle can help to stimulate urination, thereby eliminating excess toxins, salts, fluids, and even fat, thereby helping to regulate the functions of your kidneys.

Myrtle and its Culinary Uses

Myrtle leaves are usually dried and used like bay leaf. They have a flavor similar to allspice, with a touch of menthol. The flowers are used as a garnish and myrtle berries are dried, ground and used like a spice, in a similar way to juniper berries.

Myrtle leaves and berries are used to season lamb and pork dishes in Middle Eastern cuisine but are far less popular in the west, although they can be found in some western supermarkets. In Italy and on the island of Sardinia, where myrtle grows wild, the herb is a staple spice used in the kitchen and also for wood smoking to impart a distinctive flavor to barbecued food.

At the end of a meal Sardinians and also people on the island of Corsica often enjoy a glass of Mirto. Mirto is a liqueur produced from both myrtle berries, known as sweet, (rosso) and myrtle leaves, Mirto bianco.

Bible Reference

While the Israelites suffered in exile, God offered a vision of hope - all kinds of trees growing in the desert. “I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive; I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together...” -Isaiah 41:19

Symbolism

The ancient Greeks dedicated the myrtle to the gods Aphrodite and Demeter and in many parts of the Mediterranean the myrtle still symbolizes love and immortality.

Myrtle, Myrtus communis is associated with both Aphrodite and Venus — the Greek and Roman goddesses of beauty, love, laughter, protection and joy.

In fact, myrtle forms part of the wedding bouquet in some European countries and it is also used to make a crown for the bride
In Greek mythology, myrtle, with its small creamy-white fragrant blossoms, represented the goddess Aphrodite and adorned the Three Graces, her attendants who were symbolic of the “graces” of femininity. “Although many plants and flowers were dedicated to Venus in Roman antiquity, the myrtle was the most sacred.”

Prized by the Hebrews, myrtle was their symbol for marriage. The online resource, Alchemy Works, explains that the association with marriage in many ancient cultures is probably because myrtle “was originally connected with sex.” An ingredient in magic love potions, it was thought to be “helpful in creating and preserving love.”

Women of both ancient Roman and Greek cultures bathed in healing and soothing myrtle-scented water; these baths became sacred rituals for brides in preparing for their wedding.

Uses of Myrtle

Although the myrtle flower and tree are known for their many uses – from spicing up a meat dish, to adding a bit of sweetness to perfume – they are best known for their place in mythology and magic. The two best known tales tell of Adonis and Aphrodite. Adonis’s story states that his mother, Myrrha – daughter of the king Theias of Assyria – tried to escape from the clutches of her tyrannical parentage, and so the goddess Aphrodite turned her into a myrtle tree.

Theias, still quite angry with his daughter, shot an arrow into the trunk of the tree, which shattered the bark. From the newly made hole, Adonis sprang forth. The story of Aphrodite is connected with that of Adonis. Finding the infant, she fell in love with it; when he grew older, she became smitten with him. Knowing his origins, she named the myrtle tree as one of her sacred plants.

The myrtle flower has several other, looser, connections with Greek myth. For instance, Erato – the muse of marriage and love – wore a crown of roses and myrtle, while Phaedra – an enchantress – became a minor goddess that was associated with myrtle, as well as barley, the moon and rain. In magic, these flowers are commonly used as a sign of respect to the goddess of love, Venus. They are also frequently made into love charms, and placed in love spells.

links
http://fairhavenucc.org/Pages/PlantList6.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXcnr9jEKao
http://medicinalherbinfo.org/herbs/BogMyrtle1.html
http://www.raysahelian.com/myrtle.html