Wood residues – the materials left over when trees are logged and processed – hold the potential to support resource-efficient energy access, revitalize rural economies and help mitigate climate change, according to this new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In many countries, wood …
The recent news item in the Asian Wall Street Journal that New Zealand's log industry is to receive a big boost because of the restrictions imposed by the Supreme Court of India on Indian logging, should be treated like a slap in the face of India's forest officialdom. Subsequently, the …
Wood can now be produced from waste. The UK's Save Wood Products Limited has come up with a product called durawood that combines the properties of wood and plastic. Derived from recycled polystyrene packaging waste, the product bears the aesthetic and physical properties of wood and the durability of plastic. …
Phenols are a group of toxic compounds that impart bad odour and taste to water. According to a recent report, sawdust waste can help remove phenol and other related toxic compounds from water. V Sivandan Achari and T S Anirudhan, scientists from the University of Kerala at Trivandrum, studied the …
IN KILLUKULAVAIPATTI village in the drought prone Pudukottai district of Tamil Nadu, M Thangappa - a 45 -year old marginal farmer - earns his livelihood from the thorny, bushy plant, Prosopis juliflora, popularly called Kattukaruvel. Like him, many subsistence farmers and landless labourers use juliflora not only as fuelwood, but …
THE Karastaka government has been Facing pressure from the industry since Long to open up land ceiling limits for agricultural lands. Principal add the deal are Sterling Tree Magnum(STM) and Anubhav Plantation in raising commercial timber like teak wood plantations. These concerns have been buying all over India but in …
In a belated step to conserve the nation's depleted forest resources, the Kampuchean government has announced a complete ban on the exports of logs and sawn timber. As if to set the seal on its new-found conservation zeal, agriculture minister Tao Senghour even announced a final date for the export …
The informed environmentalist will find it difficult to agree with the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) decision to ban the use of wood in its buildings and -- defying all ecological logic -- substitute mineral products for it. The implicit assumptions in this decision are that the use of wood …
Australia's new role as a protector of forests in the South Pacific is causing uneasiness in Malaysia. Trouble has been brewing since early August, when Australian prime minister Paul Keating accused Malaysian, South Korean and Indonesian logging companies of "ripping off" the island nations by paying too little for timber …
THE Japanese have come up with a process that makes wood resistant to fire, decay and warping. Earlier attempts at improving one of the 3 attributes invariably worsened at least 1 of the other 2. In the new process developed at the Miyagi Prefectural Institute of Technology, the wood tissue …
WOOD is out, and matt or glossy steel and plastics are in, as far as the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) is concerned. In line with the government of India's decision to promote wood substitution, the ministry of urban development has instructed CPWD to ban the use of wood in …
A RECENTLY developed species of a native Australian tree -- the northern black wattle (Acacia auriculiformis) -- may save the precious tropical teak forests from being wiped out by offering high-quality furniture wood. Already well-established in China, India and south-east Asia, the black wattle is not a favourite for good-quality …
FOR THE inhabitants of New South Wales, Australia, the nightmare is finally over. "The bushfire, undoubtedly the fiercest one ever witnessed in the modern history of the continent, has been contained at last," declared an exhausted but visibly relieved Bush Fire Services Commissioner, Phil Koperburg, in Sydney in mid-January. His …
EUCALYPTUS wood is a perfect contortionist -- when sawn, it can crack, bend, warp and twist. Making furniture out of this wood, therefore, has been a hopeless task. But now scientists at the Dehra Dun-based Forest Research Institute have developed a way of seasoning and sawing eucalyptus so that it …
THESE are difficult times for UK farmers. Food surpluses are forcing land to be taken out of food production. In many instances, farmers are being paid to leave their land idle - the system of "set-aside" payments - but this fails to compensate fully for falling incomes. Farmers have been …
ALTHOUGH world trade in forest products continues to be dominated by the industrialised countries, exports of forest products have come to play an important economic role in many developing countries, too. Over the last decade, Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia have increased their export of forest products at a rate much …
INDONESIA will start putting ecolabels on tropical timber from sustainable sources from 1995, in order to comply with the International Timber Trade Organisation's (ITTO) policy on ecolabelling. However, the decision has spawned doubts about enforcement and fears of a negative impact on the country's timber industry. The ITTO policy maintains …
ECONOMIC demands are nullifying the efforts of the World Wide Fund for Nature, which is trying to save the rich biological diversity of the Sulieman mountain range in Pakistan. The Chilghoza pines growing here produce edible seeds, which bring in a lot of money to an otherwise not-so-prosperous area. But …
NOT SO long ago, Ladakhis would have laughed at the idea of growing vegetables in winter when the mercury nosedives to about -300 C. Not any longer. The greening of the Ladakhi winter market has begun, as defence scientists successfully grow fresh green vegetables in greenhouses. Scientists believe greenhouse cultivation …
THE WORLD'S first certification system for "sustainably produced timber" has been set up. At an early October meeting in Toronto, environmentalists, businesspersons and human rights groups launched the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which will verify claims that wood products and wood pulp come from sustainable forests. Producer countries have treated …
Which is better: a forest where trees and plants grow wild and free or a plantation of one or two species of trees, lined up neatly? Forests in their natural state are generally regarded as useless and chaotic whereas orderly plantations are considered to be "sustainably yielding" for logging. The …
