Ecological disaster looms if Russia sells forests

[dArKeR]

A plan by the Kremlin which would allow Moscow to sell off the 843 million hectares of Russia's forests to private logging companies has raised fears of an ecological disaster.

Forest makes up 70 percent of Russia's territory and spans 12 time zones. It is known as Europe's lungs and is second only to the Amazon in the amount of carbon dioxide it absorbs, and is home to many rare species.

Law reviewed

On Wednesday the Kremlin decided to review the law on state ownership of Russia's forests, currently under the management of the ministry of natural resources, so they could be bought up by private companies. The estimated value of the land at private sale has been put at US$164 billion. Yet environmentalists fear that the cost of its destruction to the planet, and air quality in Europe, may be far higher.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2003/09/20/2003068559

No doubt the Earth with any type of quality life will die within your childrens' life time.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

1. The ecological disaster

is in the White House.

[Lorien]

2. Let's pray that for once

common sense and the common good will trump greed.

[aneerkoinos]

3. Sadly

With Russian pigs, there's no chance. Only hope is that they sell to foreign companies that behave in a responsible way.

I may sound harsh but I live on the northern cost of Finnish bay and the filth that Petersburg vomits in to the sea is killing it and fils our beaches with poisonous algae that make them unusable for the most of the summer.

[dArKeR]

4. Every river draining China is the same. I'd imagine all of Africa too...

South America, India...

[bigtree]

5. I think the Energy bill provides for conversion of their plutonium plants

into plants that co-fire biomass with coal. I fear that the forests will be stripped to accomodate this technology. Here in the U.S. we can barely keep the loggers at bay, and Bush's 'Healthy Forests Inituative' allows big trees to be felled to build roads to the smaller ones. Boxer and Leahy have a bill in committee that would prohibit this practice. Russia won't even think twice.