1. We’ve been talking a lot about the term “green” lately (see yesterday’s blog post), and here’s another green question to ponder (from Green Inc., of course): Do green jobs create greener Americans?
2. Do you know who the world’s top 3 carbon polluters are? The United States and China are pretty obvious, but the The Vine points out that few people know what the third country on the list is. And this third little country makes it all the more important that world leaders come up with an agreement to curb deforestation at Copenhagen.
3. Speaking of keeping forests intact, Ecuador is hoping its plan to stop drilling for oil in the Amazon will get global support before Copenhagen. The plan hinges on countries coming forward to fund Ecuador the money it would have made from the oil.
4. Scientific American showers a little optimism on us this morning: Even if Copenhagen isn’t fruitfull, 2009 has been a year of great progress toward increasing global support and addoption of renewable energy sources.
5. Scientists have a new piece in the puzzle of how birds migrate. A study of European robins found that light-sensing cells in the eyes are responsible for the birds’ ability to find north and migrate – not magnetic-sensing cells in the beak, as hypothesized.

Good morning, Cool Green News addicts! We know you missed us yesterday, but we’re back with some hot links to get your day started. Dams are coming down, a literary classic offers lessons in the climate change debate and a note of hope emerges around the U.S. climate change bill currently stalled in the Senate. Read on!

1. Some call it a stunt, others a protest — the Maldives government will be holding its next session of Parliament underwater to call attention to the watery future the country faces if sea level rise due to climate change isn’t slowed. (See the Associated Press video above.)
2. The destruction of a massive and long-standing dam in Oregon is a sign that the United States’ era of dam building is giving way to a new era of dam breaching, reports the Los Angeles Times.
3. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Indonesia and the United States aren’t quite London and Paris circa the French Revolution, but they do present some interesting parallels in the global climate change debate – read The Nature Conservancy’s piece comparing the two countries in The Jakarta Post.
4. A new study finds that community-owned forests provide better benefits in terms of carbon storage and human well-being than government-owned forests. The authors argue that this information could help countries design the most effective forest carbon programs. (Hat-tip: Conservation Magazine.)
5. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator John Kerry published a joint op-ed in the New York Times this weekend with the optimistic title “Yes We Can (Pass Climate Change Legislation),”  giving many reason to hope that passage of a bill is still possible.

“The forest is our supermarket,” says Bang Liling, the deputy chief of Long Oking village inside the Berau district of Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of Borneo.

It tells you something that that’s a common phrase heard in this part of the world, which I visited earlier this fall.

“We get all of our medicine from the forest,” adds Lung Bu, village leader of Long Oking, a nearby village. “The roofs of our buildings, our huts on the field, they all came form the forest. So our lives depend on the forest.”

Think how often you go to the supermarket, not just for food but for other supplies like medicines and toiletries. Then imagine what happens when the supermarket is gone.

The protection of forests in Indonesia is clearly important to local people who depend on the forest for their resources and livelihoods. But it turns out that these forests are also important to everyone on the planet. Forests play a crucial role in fighting climate change, and Indonesia’s forests are disappearing faster than any others’ on Earth.

Forests are remarkably efficient at taking greenhouses gases out of the atmosphere. When forests are cleared, we not only lose the potential for them to pull more gases out of the atmosphere, but all the gases that were being held inside them are released and added to the global emissions tally. Deforestation alone accounts for 17 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

That’s why The Nature Conservancy is working with local villagers and logging companies in Indonesia to reduce the impacts of conventional logging practices. Simple changes can yield more intact forests, cleaner water, healthier and happier local villagers, and more trees sequestering carbon and fighting climate change.

When I was in Berau recently with the Conservancy’s reduced-impact logging (RIL) manager, Bambang Wayhudi, it struck me that this approach to logging creates a win-win-win situation — one that keeps much-needed jobs for loggers, protects forest resources for local communities and reduces the emissions caused by conventional logging.

RIL is just one of multiple carbon emission reduction strategies that are part of an approach called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). This initiative was just announced by the Government of Indonesia for the district of Berau at the UN climate change talks in Bangkok.   

Says Agus Purnomo, head of delegation of Indonesia and head of the Secretariat of the National Council on Climate Change:

“Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation is possible, and doable. By linking our district level initiative in Berau, which is just one of the sub-national processes in our national climate change program, to the international discussions we are showing how to deliver REDD implementation.”

At the global climate change negotiations coming up in Copenhagen this December, many groups—including the Conservancy—will join with several governments to send a clear message: the protection of forests is a vital part of combating climate change.

It is Bambang’s hope and the Conservancy’s hope that the local communities continue to manage their own forests with their local knowledge for their supermarket…and ultimately for all of us.

(Image: Bambang Wayhudi. Source: Bridget Besaw.)

Controversy abounds today: Ecuador institutes a new policy to limit the presence of certain people (poor locals) on the Galapagos, Apple leaves the Chamber of Commerce and concerns are raised about REDD becoming a vehicle for organized crime. Catch up on all the latest news here at Cool Green Morning.

1. They look like shooting stars, but this new infrared video actually shows 500,000 bats emerging from a cave in New Mexico. Researchers set out to get an accurate count of the bat population without shining light on them and found significantly less bats than estimated from 1950s studies. (video above)
2. Everyone’s talking about Apple again… this time, it’s because the super-company has decided to leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because the agency won’t support legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (Hat-tip: Environmental Leader.)
3. Some on the international stage are worried that REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation) projects may be impossible to monitor and will result in corruption and organized crime, reports The Guardian.
4. Climate change is all about minimizing risk, say the authors of a new study from MIT. Researchers released a new analysis showing that early efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will help minimize the risk of future climate change. (Hat-tip: Bright Green Blog.)
5. To help protect the giant tortoises, boobies and other wild inhabitants of the Galapagos, the government of Ecuador is limiting the presence of humans — specifically poor local residents. Tourists, on the other hand, are still welcome.

When nature calls, how do you respond? Just 2 percent of us in the United States use 100 percent recycled toilet paper at home, according to a recent New York Times article on the “Charmin effect”. Yet somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 percent of people recycle other products regularly. 

We buy local when possible, we bring our own bags to the grocery story, and many of us even offset a portion of our carbon emissions. But when it comes time to head to the WC, we regress into eco-horrors. “Ahem, Ms. Mother Nature, uh, could you please wait outside? I’m going to be a minute…” 

Why? Softness. That’s right. We’re willing to sacrifice nearly anything to save the Earth, except our quilted comfort. Hey, we do enough, right? Can’t we just keep this one little luxury? 

I get it. I was just like you. But then I went to the Atlantic Forest — the other Brazilian rainforest, the one you may have never heard of — and I met Pedro Agustin. 

Pedro is a tree planter helping to restore Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, which has been destroyed over centuries — for development, for ranching, for farming, and yes, for non-native eucalyptus plantations that in turn are regularly harvested to make rolls and rolls and rolls of pillowy, soft toilet paper. 

Thanks to donors contributing a dollar per tree to The Nature Conservancy’s Plant a Billion Trees campaign to rebuild the Atlantic Forest, Pedro and his co-planters each put about 300 seedlings back in the ground every day during the planting season.

As impressive as that is, it’s no match for the trees our toilet habits are demanding be cut down every day in the Atlantic Forest and in North American old-growth forests, just to keep our keisters well caressed.

But after visiting the Atlantic Forest and seeing what’s at stake, and how hard Pedro and the other planters are working, I decided to give up the plush stuff.    

Of course I still miss it—who wouldn’t? But Pedro inspired me. Not just with his planting talents, but because he used to spend all day yanking trees out of the ground for a eucalyptus plantation—perhaps even one that supplies paper pulp to TP manufacturers. Now he devotes his days to putting them back in.  

When I learned that, the last bits of my stubborn commitment to cottony rolls were flushed away, and I made the switch. You can too. Learn more about Pedro’s planting and how you can support the Conservancy’s efforts to bring the Atlantic Forest back from the brink. 

Cara Goodman is a marketing specialist/writer with The Nature Conservancy’s Latin America program.

(Image 1: Toilet paper rolls. Source: Limeydog via a Creative Commons license. Image 2: Author Cara Coodman and tree planter Pedro Agustin plant trees in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. Source: Adriano Gambarini.)

1. Could deer provide clues to the evolution of whales? It seems so. Scientists recently discovered two species of mouse deer in Asia that can swim, suggesting that all ruminants were once water-loving and providing further clues to the evolution of whales.
2. Scientists at the Royal Society in London, joined by Sir David Attenborough, warn that to save coral reefs from bleaching, we’ll need to start actively removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
3. A network of polar bear specialists met at Copenhagen last week to review the latest data from the Arctic, and had sobering news to report: many populations of polar bears seem to be declining.
4. Wildlife rehabilitation centers in Indonesia are taking in more and more baby orangutans orphaned by the clearing of forests for palm oil plantations.
5. Ten newborn lynx have been found in Colorado, giving biologists hope that the species might recover after disappearing from the state entirely in the 1970s, due to habitat loss and purposeful killing.

1. A new climate change report released today by the U.S. government says climate change is happening now, it’s already affecting our lives and it will get more severe. The Guardian reports the Obama team is treating the news as a call to action for the American public. Also, hear what a Conservancy scientist has to say about the report’s signficance.
2. Mridul Chadha at Red Green and Blue says achieving an international agreement on climate change at Copenhagen this December seems very unlikely.
3. A study of nearly 300 communities in Brazil found that clearing forest for ranches and farmland did not lead to long-term economic, social and health benefits for residents. The prosperity of such boom towns is short-lived, says the study, suggesting that sustainable development is better for the forest and the people.
4. Sure, jellyfish look like alien invaders, but could they really take over our oceans? Scientist Anthony Richardson warns of a jellyfish explosion that could have dire consquences for marine life.
5. Pacific oysters are dying in huge numbers – for the fifth year in a row. Scientists suspect the die-off could be due to ocean acidification. (Hat-tip: Blogfish and Yale Environment 360.) 

1. A new REDD brief from The Nature Conservancy says forest carbon policy shouldn’t just focus on deforestation, but the practices that cause degradation, too. The Vine and Treehugger both cover the topic.
2. What’s the big obstacle to Waxman-Markey now? Grist says it could be agriculture interests.
3. James Hrynyshyn over at The Island of Doubt calculates that each person has 37 tons of carbon to “spend” for the rest of our lives. Considering that the average American is responsible for approximately 20 tons a year, he asks: How will you spend your allotment?
4. Are biofuels the best way to reduce emissions from the aviation industry? David Biello at Yale Environment 360 considers whether we can even produce enough biofuels, and the carbon impact of more agriculture to produce them. 
5. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has charged three big companies for making false claims about the biodegradability of their products. Could ‘green lawsuits’ be the next trend in sustainability?

A story involving poisonous snakes, wild pig hunts, blowguns with poison darts, the ancestors of headhunters and pathbreaking conservation?

That’s a hard story to pass up…even if it’s halfway around the world.

So I didn’t. In November 2007, I traveled to the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo to report on how The Nature Conservancy brokered an agreement between indigenous Dayak villagers and an Indonesian logging company that nearly came to blows over 100,000 hectares of tropical forest the villagers depend on for their livelihood…and the northeast part of Borneo depends on as a crucial watershed.

Before the Conservancy was invited in to mediate the conflict, the loggers and the villagers were in chronic conflict over use of local portions of the Segah River and alleged desecration of areas and resources of cultural importance to the Dayak (like an ancestral cemetery).

The tension had escalated to the point where the Dayak took heavy logging equipment hostage and chased loggers out of a camp by singing headhunting chants.

What the Conservancy was able to achieve here was nothing short of remarkable:

• It brokered an agreement that allowed the loggers to sustainably harvest high-value logs from the forest (logs that, because they’re sustainably harvested, fetch much higher market prices).

• In exchange, the loggers brought many benefits to the villages, including electricity, revenues from the logging, access to doctors, scholarships for its children, and a road to the outside world. The loggers also agreed not to violate areas of high cultural value for the Dayak.

• The Conservancy taught the villagers collective governance best practices so they could negotiate with the logging company for their best interests.

• And the Conservancy continues to act as an honest broker, helping the two sides monitor compliance with the agreement.

It was an exhilarating trip. But what didn’t make it into my story for nature.org was a couple of details one finds in few other places on Earth — like the wild pig hunt held in my honor one day.

(I’m a vegetarian, so I waited behind…and didn’t partake of the pig brought back for roasting. You can see the traditional starch I did eat — as well as a Dayak hunter who catches his breakfast every day using poison darts and a blowgun — in the slideshow that accompanies my story.)

I also didn’t mention the poisonous snake that jumped in our boat as we crossed the Segah River one day…a snake that made everyone else jump out of the boat but froze me as it slithered directly under where I was sitting.

Fortunately, I was able to step out of the boat without being harmed…and come back from Borneo with a great story of conservation success. (The snake wasn’t so lucky. But there were many others…)

Please let us know what you think of the story, and be sure to read some of the other pieces about our new forest work now on nature.org.

(Image: Mak Goes, a Dayak villager along the Segah River in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, who uses a blowgun his grandfather gave him to hunt game. Credit: Robert Lalasz/TNC.)

Another Earth Day has come and gone, and whether you’re an Earth Day cynic or you can’t help but look on the bright side, one thing is still true: you’ve gotta stay informed. So read on for our round-up of the day’s top stories from the enviro-blogosphere.

• Guardians of Forest Carbon: Indigenous people and conservation groups met in Alaska this week to discuss the vital role indigenous people have in shaping climate change policy, particularly forest projects like REDD.
• One Fish Two Fish… A study examining different reef-fishing techinques found that line fishing had the least impact on reef fish. The authors suggest that resctricting more harmful fishing practices (spear guns and traps) is a one alternative to closing climate-sensitive reefs off entirely.
• The Lexicon of Climate Change: Andrew Revkin at Dot Earth asks that we all agree to eliminate the term “carbon emissions” in favor of the more accurate “greenhouse gases” or “heat-trapping substances.”
• Down the Drain: A comprehensive study of 925 of the world’s major rivers found signficant reduction in water flows , particularly in rivers serving large populations. Researchers say the causes are climate change, dams and water diversion for agriculture and industry.
• It’s Never Too Late: The Guardian lists their top picks for Earth Day activities, and hey, we’re on it! Remember, every day is Earth Day, so if you didn’t get to these yesterday, you can always start now.

(Image: Huli wigmen of Papua New Guinea. Source: Mark Godfrey/TNC)