New and recent Journals/Newsletters/Books/Reports

The Nordic Council of Ministers has recently published a 176-page book entitled Nordic Wetland Conservation. The book covers 30 years of conservation experience in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden and includes self-governing territories like Greenland, Åland, and the Faeroes. Available from bookstores in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and English versions, it provides coverage of general wetland issues, the wise use concept, the Ramsar Convention and other international regimes, and the status of wetlands in each of the Nordic countries.

The book was launched at a meeting held 4-7 May (www.ramsar.org/mtg_nordic_ramsar_2004.htm). For more information, surf to www.ramsar.org/ w.n.nordic_book.htm

An activist guide to the peat industry, including where peatlands are, which companies are involved in extraction and how and where peat is sold.

This document gives an overview of peat use in the UK in an attempt to focus the campaign to stop the destruction of peatlands both in the UK and abroad. It lists facts in an easy to understand and easy to use manner (just copy and paste them into your argumentative letter).

Providing a necessary tool to debunk any false claim it also urges peatland conservationists to base their struggle on something more robust than loud cries of indignity.

The Earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses. - Utah Phillips

The book “Peat and its Use in Horticulture” by Viljo Puustjärvi has been reprinted on the initiative of the Association of Finnish Peat Industries (Turveteollisuusliitto ry). The 160-page book, originally published in English in 1977, contains information about the properties of peat as growing media.

This special issue on environment friendly land use options of wetlands focusses on a landscape ecological approach to restoration and subsequent use of wetland areas. Viewing wetlands as an integral part of the landscape and its hydrology is essential in successful restoration also of wetland functions beneficial to the environment. The specific eco-hydrological characteristics of an area also need to be considered when deciding upon forms of use. An interdisciplinary approach is necessary and this issue presents some baseline and case studies. (In German)

Peatland News is published twice yearly by the Irish Peatland Conservation Counsil. This 22 p. glossy magazine presents news on the ongoing work of the IPCC and some popular background information on peat and peatlands. The last pages are dedicated to Peter Foss, who retired from the staff after 20 years of service. Catherine O’Connell will take over from Peter as Chief Executive.

This issue of the “Archives of Nature Conservation and Landscape Research” presents the proceedings of a meeting of the German branch of IPS and focusses on eco-hydrology and eco-chemistry of wetlands with a considerable attention on peatlands. (in German)

The IPS has produced a documentary film on “Wise Use of Mires and Peatlands” will have its premiere at the opening session of the International Peat Congress on Monday, 7 June 2004. The DVD is based on the book “Wise Use of Mires and Peatlands” by Hans Joosten and Donal Clarke and consists of a 17 minutes introduction into the topic, followed by eight detailed films on the development of peat and peatlands, the extent of peatlands, their functions, the use of peat in the horticultural sector, in energy production, peatland use planning, the after-use of cut-away peatlands, and the Wise Use concept. The duration of all video clips together is 60 min. Moreover, the DVD contains still images and essential statistics on the extent of peatlands and their utilization all around the word. For more information: ips@peatsociety.fi

Blanco, D.E. & de la Balze, V.M. (eds) (2004) Los Turbales de la Patagonia (Patagonian peatlands) Wetlands International Publications (19). 149p + app.

This publication results from the project “An inventory of Patagonian Peatlands: towards wise use and biodiversity conservation.” different specialists involved with peatland conservation and wise use in Argentina and Chile cooperated in this project, with financial support from de Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under the Global Peatland Initiative managed by Wetlands International in cooperation with the IUCN-Netherlands Committee, Alterra, IMCG, and IPS.

The book is written in Spanish and provides a lot of information on the peatlands of Patagonia to stakeholders, the academic community, and general public.

The first section presents some general remarks, including a Spanish terminology, and a general introduction to the main features of Patagonian Peatlands. The following section presents a zonation of the region in six peatland zones as a first step in the inventory. In a second step a more detailed modular approach was used to exemplify the different peatlands types that occurr within Argentina and Chile. Furthermore, there is information about birds, mammals, and macroinvertebrates inhabiting the Sphagnum bogs of Tierra del Fuego, as well a chapter dealing with peatland benefits, current uses, and conservation in Argentina. The final chapter is related to the peatlands as wetlands of special concern for the Ramsar Convention.

Tuck-Po, L, de Jong, W & Ken-ichi, A (2003) The Political Ecology of Tropical Forests in Southeast Asia: Historical perspectives. Kyoto University Press, Kyoto; 293 pages

The reasons given for tropical forests degrading or disappearing are often simplistic: loggers remove too many trees, companies convert forest for plantations, and small farmers slash forest for agricultural fields. “The Political Ecology of Tropical Forests in Southeast Asia: Historical Perspectives”, edited by Lye Tuck Po (Malaysia's Center for Technology, Environment, and Development), Wil de Jong (CIFOR), Abe Ken Ichi (Japan Center for Area Studies) provides more accurate explanations by identifying the political dimensions of forest resource appropriation, contests over forest benefits, and the role of power in the processes of unsustainable forest use. The book brings together ten chapters from a number of forest experts covering 100 years of tropical forest political ecology in Asia.

Several of chapters demonstrate that modern struggles over forests and forest degradation have their roots in colonial periods. Colonial powers used force and discourse to control forests. Lesley Potter in her chapter demonstrates how colonial forest departments invented the argument that deforestation negatively affects the local climate, to expulse forest farmers from timber rich forestlands. Wil de Jong writes that the control of the lucrative trade in such forest products as rattan was often decided by colonial powers using force against local Sultans. In turn, local Sultans used force against forest dwellers, and powerful forest dweller groups used force against weaker groups.

Although the key actors in Asia’s tropical forests landscape have changed, many of the processes of contestation remain the same. National rulers, like Suharto in Indonesia, gave away forest concessions to business cronies and the military for the sake of national economic development, and often to win political support. But according to Steve Rhee, a Yale Ph.D. candidate and CIFOR collaborator, recent decentralisation policies have seen the control over forests increasingly contested at lower government levels, or even at the village level among forest dwellers with different ethnic affiliations.

The political ecology of Asia’s tropical forest also has a wider international dimension, and it is not only confined to underdeveloped countries. Fred Gale examines the history of the International Timber Organization and its support for tropical timber producing countries in the face of increasing international concern about the affect of unsustainable logging. John Knight reveals how contemporary economic development thinking has created a set of new problems for forest dependent peoples in Japan where massive imports of foreign timber negatively affects their livelihoods and weaken the links between their forestry existence and their traditional cultural identity.

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