Paying to keep the trees in the Amazon alive - it ain't that simple as it might look like

We talked here many times about the concept of paying landowners to keep their trees standing and not cut them down.

This idea is gaining more popularity as a tool to fight climate change and a very interesting article in the New York Times presents some of the difficulties involved with the implementation of this concept, especially in Brazil.

Here are some of the issues Elisabeth Rosenthal brings up the article ("In Brazil, Paying Farmers to Let the Trees Stand"):

1. How much money is enough to keep the trees standing? The payment strategy includes direct payments to landowners to keep forests standing but with uprising demand to the alternatives, which are mainly cleared farmland to raise soy or cattle, the price can be high. Too high. For example, the article presents José Marcolini, a farmer that is offered by an environmental group $12 per acre per a year to keep it untouched, but at the same time can get for cleared farmland here up to $1,300 an acre.

2. How to avoid paying for tree plantations? as the article explains, "one proposed version of the new United Nations plan would allow plantations of trees, like palms grown for palm oil, to count as forest, even though tree plantations do not have nearly the carbon absorption potential of genuine forest and are far less diverse in plant and animal life." This is a situation that should be avoided - the programs should be solely focused on forests because of both environmental and monetary (limited resources) reasons.

3. Clearing away the trees is often the best way to declare and ensure ownership - the article mentions that "in parts of Southeast Asia, early experiments in paying landowners for preserving forest have been hampered because it is often unclear who owns, or controls, property."

4. Need to change - We have to remember that until not too long ago, developing the Amazon was the priority and the Brazilian government encouraged settlement through homesteaders’ benefits like cheap land and housing subsidies, many of which still exist today. It means that you need to change the state of mind, believes and values of the whole country to make real changes in the way the Amazon is considered and valued by the people.

As we see there are many issues to deal with and the success of such programs is still far from being a sure thing. But nevertheless for the first time there's money in forest preservation and this is going to be a game changer this way or another.


More related posts:

Will the new Climate Bill help protecting forests or become a source of income for timber companies?

How investors can save the forests? check out the Ethical Corporation Magazine

Al Gore and Wangari Maathai calls the U.N. General Assemby to support protection of forests

Merrill Lynch is investing in forest protection

How to deal with the growing deforestation in the Amazon rain forest?

Prince Charles wants to team up with Norway to save forests

Preserving forests to fight global warming

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting green printing

Green Book of the week: Sleeping Naked Is Green by Vanessa Farquharson

Today we have a great book to share with you with a story of a challenge that I believe is shared by a growing number of people who want to green up their lifestyle significantly, but not to radically change who they are. Can it be done? one journalist from Toronto shows the answer is YES.

Our book today is:

Sleeping Naked Is Green: How an Eco-Cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car, and Found Love in 366 Days

Author: Vanessa Farquharson

Vanessa Farquharson is an arts reporter and film critic at the National Post, based in Toronto, where she also writes a weekly column on the environment.

Visit her website: www.greensathistle.com (Photo Credit: © Catherine Farquharson)

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published on: June 2009

What this book is about? (from the publisher's website)
No one likes listening to smug hippies bragging about how they don't use toilet paper, or worse yet, lecturing about the evils of plastic bags and SUVs. But most of us do want to lessen our ecological footprint. With this in mind, Farquharson takes on the intense personal challenge of making one green change to her lifestyle every single day for a year to ultimately figure out what's doable and what's too hardcore.

Vanessa goes to the extremes of selling her car, unplugging the fridge, and washing her hair with vinegar, but she also does easy things like switching to an all-natural lip balm. All the while, she is forced to reflect on what it truly means to be green.

Whether confronting her environmental hypocrisy or figuring out the best place in her living room for a compost bin full of worms and rotting cabbage, Vanessa writes about her foray into the green world with self-deprecating, humorous, and accessible insight. This isn't a how-to book of tips, it's not about being eco-chic; it's an honest look at what happens when an average girl throws herself into the murkiest depths of the green movement.

What we think about it?

Firstly I'm proud to say that we spotted Vanessa's blog - green as a thistle - almost two years ago and warmly recommended it back then when she was still in the middle of her challenge.

And what a challenge it was! It's actually interesting to review this book now that another challenge is getting some more attention again - No Impact Man - with the new documentary and the upcoming book. What's the difference between the two? in two words: toilet paper. Colin Beavan (aka No Impact Man) didn't use toilet paper at all for a year (Just a hand and a bowl of water). Vanessa on the other hand didn't use toilet paper only for number one (She actually tries to learn more how he did it when they meet in New York...).

But of course it's more than that. The journey of Vanessa Farquharson is most likely a journey most urban young people can identify with, dream about and implement if they only want to. It's a significant journey in terms of results, but it's much more flexible than Collin's journey and in a way it makes it more realistic and more interesting. This flexibility also makes this journey more creative -Vanessa for example does not reject flying but decides to use the bathroom before boarding on a plan to decrease her flight's footprint.

Vanessa is always looking for the right balance - she doesn't want to become a treehugger (in its old version, not the hip cool new one), nor she wants to be what she calls "new age hippies"who "are often so intent about meeting X,Y, and Z standards when it comes to greening Sheri lifestyle but because they couple this with so little skepticism it comes off as flaky or even cultish."

She finds her balance eventually, but in the meantime we have the opportunity not only to learn on the changes she makes to green up her lifestyle, but also on her life, her family and her friends. It gets intimate sometimes, which adds an interesting layer to the "green" core story, and last but not least - it always comes with handful of wit, humor and sarcasm, which makes even the most difficult days bearable and this book a real gem.

Bottom line: it's a great book (and also a great gift), well-written, interesting and it's even really green - it's printed on 100% PCW recycled and FSC certified paper. Just go and get it!

GIVEAWAY ALERT!!

We're giving away our review copy of the book, courtesy of the author, and of course a tree will be planted for the copy!

How you can win? Please add a comment below with an answer the following question: What is the most meaningful step you took so far to green up your lifestyle? Submissions are accepted until Thursday, September 3, 12PM EST. The winner will be announced the following day.

If you're looking for other interesting green-themed books, you are invited to check out our green books page on Eco-Libris website's green resources section.


Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: plant a tree for every book you read!

We have a winner on our giveaway of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Renewable Energy for Your Home"

We had a giveaway of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Renewable Energy for Your Home" following the book's review last week.

We asked you to share with us what renewable energy system you would like to have at home and learned that most of you are interested (not surprisingly) in having solar panels. And we have a winner!

The winner of the giveaway is reader nfmgirl who wants it all, as she explains in her comment:

I always wanted a variety. I wanted to have a place out in the "boonies", and have some solar, some wind (a small windmill, not one of those monsters that explode bats lungs), and a water wheel. I want it all!

Congrats to nfmgirl and thanks to all the other participants. If you didn't win this time, don't worry - you'll have another chance to win a great green book in our next giveaway which will be online later on today.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting green reading!

It's August 26 - Happy Birthday!

What's the connection between John Wilkes Booth (an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln), guitarist Jimmy Olander, actor Macaulay Culkin and myself?

We were all born on August 26 and celebrating today (except Booth of course) our birthday! If you're also celebrating your birthday today - happy birthday to you too!

We love birthdays (especially ours..) and therefore we would like to remind you of the opportunity to celebrate a birthday of friends, family members, colleagues and anyone you care about with Eco-Libris!

Eco-Libris is offering you now to plant trees to balance out the books of your loved ones who celebrate their birthday. Not only that new trees will be planted to balance out their books, but they will also receive our stickers with a beautiful birthday card made of recycled paper. And we also try to keep it affordable - the added charge for the birthday card is only $1.5.

All you need to do is to choose how many of the birthday person's books you want to balance out on our special birthday gift page (http://www.ecolibris.net/birthday.asp), change the shipping address on the payment page to the address of the gift receiver and we will take care of the rest!

This is also a great green add-on if you're buying a book as a gift for the birthday person, especially if you're buying her or him a green book.

The birthday cards we send are made by Doodle Greetings (see picture above of one of their cards). Not only these cards come with a beautiful design, but they are also eco-friendly - printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper and are made chlorine-free and acid free. Sounds like a good fit with Eco-Libris stickers!

And of course, if it's your birthday and you want to give yourself a green gift - get yourself a nice green book and plant a tree for it with us!

I'm going to eat some cake. Happy Birthday everyone!

Raz @ Eco-Libris

Green printing tip no. 12: How to prepare files for your next Green Digital run?

Today we have another new tip on our weekly series of green printing tips, where we bring you in collaboration with Greg Barber, an experienced eco-friendly printer.

Today Greg is talking about the preparation process on your side when it comes to digital printing.

How to prepare files for your next Green Digital run?

Tip #12

Digital printing has increased my Green printing sales. Most of our clients are smaller green entrepreneurs, and many are brand new to printing in general. I get a lot of questions from these young entrepreneurs, who want to do the environmentally correct print job, but struggle with preparing the files for us. This is also a good review for the seasoned designer.

When preparing your files, that have solid pantone colors in the graphics, do "not" convert your files to CMYK. Most designers that know digital is printed in CMYK or RGB, think they need to convert the files to what they think we need.

But, we prefer you don't do that. Our pre press equipment will automatically convert your files to what we need. We prefer to see your pantone color(s), and we then have your colors as a guide, as we do the conversion ourselves.

Sometimes, our equipment might convert to RGB, and sometimes your digital pictures will be printed as RGB automatically. You wouldn't be able to foresee that we prefer that option.

We want to make being Green easy for you. We will do the extra work.

The same holds true on printing our 100% PCW or Tree Free business cards. Just give us 1 up files. Don't impose them for us. The imposition is automatic.

The only thing that can hold you up is forgetting to add 1/8" bleed when the ink goes to the edge of the sheet. And, don't put your copy closer than 1/4" from the edge. Remember - digital printing needs a little margin.

If you have any further questions following our tips, or you have a specific question you want us to address, please email us to info@ecolibris.net .

Links to the last three green printing tips:

Green Printing Tip #11 - What are your green options when it comes to promotional items?

Green Printing Tip #10 - Are you buying environmentally sound business cards?

Green Printing Tip #9 - What to look for when selecting a green printing vendor?

You can find links to all the tips we published so far on our green printing tips page, which is part of our green printing tools & resources.

You can also find further valuable information on Greg Barber Company's website - http://www.ecofriendlyprinter.com.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting green printing

Which wine would go well with the book you're reading?

Ever since I saw Gary Vaynerchuk presenting at the BEA last May I follow him (not literary, just on the web..) and I just love reading about his insights creative ideas. His latest one: pick the best wine to go with a new book.

GalleyCat reported that Vaynerchuk, author of the upcoming book "Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion", Wine Library TV host and the master of social media has started pairing wines and books at The Daily Beast.

His first selection was pairing a 2005 Montepulciano with "Ground Up" by Michael Idov.

Here's a little taste of Vaynerchuk's choice on Book Beast: "This is a fun read and is very much a real look at the world. In selecting a wine I aimed for something equally real, a traditional wine without lots of makeup. The 2005 Monti Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is a real wine with a sense of place. It delivers the charm of a bright Italian red wine and also offers up a subtle coffee-bean flavor that, if only briefly, catapults me right into a neighborhood coffee shop just like Café Kolschitzky."

This is a great idea and Vaynerchuk seems the right person to do it, bringing it in an interesting, educational but also a fun way. I just hope he will soon have the opportunity to pair a new "green" book with a great organic wine!

Yours,
Raz @@ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting green reading!

Kudos to Wiley for their first annual corporate citizens report, but where are the figures?

Publisher John Wiley & Sons released last week its first annual Corporate Citizenship Report to share the progress of its global Corporate Citizenship initiative, which was introduced in 2008, and establish goals for the coming year.

As their press release mentions, Wiley launched this global initiative to address its key social, economic, ethical, and environmental challenges; formalize and globalize its policies and strategies; improve its communications; and become more proactive addressing its carbon footprint and supply chain matters.

This is a very impressive initiative and the report itself is also an achievement in itself, as such report is very rare in the publishing industry. So first and foremost I think Wiley deserves big kudos for their efforts to become more sustainable and for this report. Nevertheless, one thing was missing in this report: figures.

Here's one example: paper. The report is very clear about it:

"Wiley uses paper sourced from mills around the globe and recognizes our responsibility to select papers that meet the highest standards of sustainable, clean, and efficient production.

In 2008-2009, Wiley established global guidelines for environmentally favorable paper sourcing and procurement strategies based on generally accepted best practices, with guidance from stakeholders, industry trade associations, and third-party certifiers. Moving forward, Wiley will adopt locally tailored programs that apply these global principles, guide decision making, and facilitate external communication."

What was achieved in 2009? The report explains that Wiley did the following:

- Formalized global Responsible Paper Sourcing guidelines.

- Reduced paper consumption by adopting lighter weight papers and reducing waste, migrating more print subscriptions to online license deals, and taking advantage of digital technologies to deliver content online as well as more efficiently in print.

What are the goals for 2010? The report gives the details :

- Support paper choices by leveraging resources such as PREPS (Publishers Database for Responsible Environmental Paper Sourcing) and EPAT (Environmental Paper Assessment Tools).

- Reduce paper use and shipping through new print technologies such as Print On Demand and Ultra Short Run.

As you can see Wiley takes the issue of paper very seriously, but were are the numbers? when Wiley says it reduced paper consumption in 2009 - is it a 10% reduction, 25% reduction or maybe 2% reduction? I mean, there's no real way to value these steps when they're put in such a vague way.

And it's not just the part about paper. I also couldn't find on the other parts of the report figures describing either a 2009 achievement or a 2010 goal, except with ethical conduct goals (such as monitoring vendor performance by making annual visits to at least 75% of our major vendors).

Wiley mentions in the report that "This is a long-term initiative, with the full support of our leadership team. It may take years to reach some of our ultimate goals, but we intend to achieve measurable improvement from year to year. For information on our initiative and our progress, please visit www.wiley.com/go/citizenship." I was hoping that maybe the missing figures can be found there, but unfortunately I found none.

Just for comparison let's look at another company from the publishing industry, although this time it's mainly magazines - Time Inc. If you look at their 2007-2008 sustainability report you'll see it's full with figures that let you a good understanding of their efforts and can also assist you to benchmark them against other companies' sustainability efforts. Here's just one example:

After considering what would be both ambitious and practical, Time became the first U.S. publisher to set targets for producing less greenhouse gas throughout its supply chains. Time asked the paper companies to reduce carbon emissions 20% from a 2004 base by the year 2012. Some suppliers pointed out that they had already achieved some reductions before 2004 and felt they deserved credit for their leadership role. To accommodate these suppliers, Time set some alternative but equally challenging goals. Keeping the same target year of 2012, the paper companies have the options of cutting carbon output by 25% from a 2000 base or 30% from a 1996 base.

As I said earlier I still believe Wiley deserves kudos for their efforts and I hope the second report will include all the figures that are so missing here. Nevertheless, I think that this report could do a much better job with figures to help us seeing Wiley's deep commitment to sustainability.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting green reading!