http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/24351

 From: Reuters
Published November 9, 2007 08:39 AM

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Foreign nations share the blame for the destruction of Indonesian forests and should pitch in to help restore them, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Friday.
 Indonesia, host of a U.N. climate change conference in December, has been a driving force behind calls for rich countries to compensate poor states that preserve their rainforests to
soak up greenhouse gases.

... 

 Kala said developed countries such as Japan and the United States had been major consumers of Indonesian timber, much of which was logged illegally. "It means they have to pay," he said.

According to global environmental group Greenpeace, Indonesia had the fastest pace of deforestation in the world between 2000-2005, destroying an area of forest the size of 300 soccer pitches every hour. The Indonesian government says it must be given incentives, including a payout of $5-$20 per hectare, to preserve its forests. It also wants to negotiate a fixed price for other forms of biodiversity, including coral reefs.

Indonesia has a total forest area of more than 225 million acres, or about 10 percent of the world's remaining tropical forests. But the Southeast Asian country -- whose forests are a treasure trove of plant and animal species including the endangered orang-utan -- has already lost an estimated 72 percent of its original frontier forest.

09 Nov 2007 13:20:00 GMT

Blogged by: Emma Batha
http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/19216/2007/10/9-132020-1.htm

Cravero, who heads the U.N. Development Programme's Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, is spearheading a major new campaign to help women and girls affected by conflicts and natural disasters. The UNDP launched an appeal this week for $10 million to set the ball rolling.

Among other things, the initiative aims to increase women's security in crises, ensure they have access to justice and boost their participation in all stages of the peace and recovery process.
 ...

Cravero believes one reason why brutality against women during and after conflicts has got so much worse is because the nature of war has changed. Most conflicts today are not between countries; they are within countries. It may sound strange to say but to some extent armies observe rules of conduct that militias and rebel groups do not.

Sexual and physical violence against women also increases after natural disasters, says Cravero.

This is partly because social mores collapse with the destruction of traditional communities and partly because of the high levels of frustration in camps. With no means to support their family, men take their anger out on women.

Another often overlooked fact is that natural disasters often kill many more women than men. For example, three times as many women died in the Pakistan earthquake as men. Why? Because women were more likely to be indoors and died when their homes collapsed on top of them. In the Indian Ocean tsunami, many women didn't survive simply because they didn't know how to swim.

Women's livelihoods tend to be more vulnerable too. Cravero points to the example of some Caribbean countries where women depend entirely on a single crop. When a hurricane strikes their income is wiped out until they can sow and harvest again. "Men are more able to stick a hammer in their back pocket and get one of the construction jobs for rebuilding," Cravero says. And at the end of the day women are responsible for their children. If they can't put food on the table they may get pushed into selling sex, which in turn increases their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.

Disaster risk assessments must address women's different needs and skills, the UNDP says in its eight-point plan.

 http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/274984 

Nov 09, 2007 04:30 AM
Surging palm-oil demand from the food and biofuel industries threatens to ignite a "climate bomb" as developing countries strip forests and swamps to make way for plantations, Greenpeace said yesterday.

Indonesia, the biggest producer of the oil, releases 1.8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases or 4 per cent of the world total a year by burning its peatlands to grow palms, said John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace U.K.

Nestle SA and Unilever PLC are among those "turning a blind eye" to the destruction by using cheap oil in their products, Greenpeace said. Commodity traders "blend palm oil from deforestation and conversion of peatlands into an undifferentiated supply for the global market, leaving little trace of their sources."

Greenpeace "exaggerates Nestle's role," a spokesperson said, while Unilever said it is "looking for a sustainable solution."