proposed 5-year program to collect ⚫ BLM and the Forest Service each • The Forest Service also took the - Inventoried national forests most - Worked with Congressional com- Yew Act of 1992, which authorizes the Forest Service to negotiate yewbark sales and use receipts to pay for the program. - Collected 825,000 pounds of bark in 1991 on 10 national forests in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington and, as of August 1992, collected 646,000 pounds of bark for continued clinical trials. International Forestry In 1992 public and private efforts were underway to promote sustainable forest management abroad, especially in developing countries. Examples follow. USDA Forest Service. The 1990 Farm Bill authorized the secretary of Agriculture to create, within the Forest Service, an Office of International Forestry led by a deputy chief. Estab 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 Source: Executive Office of the President, United States of America National Report, (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, June 1992). lished in June 1991, the Office of International Forestry coordinates programs in the following areas: Tropical forestry technical assistance and training, Cooperative work with USAID, • International scientific and techni- • Cooperative research with other Support to international organizations responsible for global forestry issues, and • Operation of the Institute of Tropical Forestry in Puerto Rico as an international institution. The Office of International Forestry administers the following programs: • Forestry Support Program. In 1992 the Forest Service provided forestry technical assistance and trainers in support of 18 USAID programs, including projects in Indonesia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Ghana, Uganda, Panama, Haiti, Guinea, and the Sahel. Tropical Forestry Program. The Forest Service held workshops in 1992 on agroforestry and remote sensing in East Africa, Latin America, and Panama. Forest Service staff provided training and technical advice to Brazil on wildfire suppression and helped establish "Twinning Relationships" between U.S. national forests and forestry organizations in Mali, West Africa, and Costa Rica. • Disaster Assistance Support Program. The Forest Service provides emergency response, preparedness, prevention, and mitigation assistance for global disasters, including catastrophic forest fires. Cooperative Research. In 1992 Forest Service scientists participated in 11 cooperative research programs in four countries-Pakistan, Poland, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and Yugoslavia. In addition, they provided forest pest management assistance to Africa and China. Forestry Carbon Dioxide Offset Schemes. Several private U.S. firms are experimenting with forestry projects in developing countries to offset carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. operations. For example, in August 1992 New England Power Company and Innoprise, a major Malaysian forest products company, announced a 3-year pilot project to make logging practices less damaging to the rainforest in Malaysia. The project is part of a previously announced plan by the utility to lower or offset its greenhouse gas emissions 45 percent by the year 2000. By reducing the number of surrounding trees destroyed during harvesting and by enhancing forest regeneration, the foresters hope to sustain trees capable of removing 300,000600,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the life of the project-trees that otherwise would have been removed from land that would not have been reforested. The project will be monitored by the Rain Forest Alliance, a New York-based environmental group. If successful, reduced impact logging techniques could be applied to tropical hardwood rain forests in the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea, and other developing nations. |