Island Press Field Notes

Taking America by storm with actions reminiscent of the 60s, “Occupy Wall Street” has gone viral in an attempt to raise awareness about corporate interests being placed above public needs. But the movement has yet to sound alarm bells on the Tongass rainforest, where a native corporation is seeking to develop and log over 100-square miles of public lands through a legislative lands transfer proposed in Congress.

After 30 years of controversy that tore at the social fabric of Tasmania, the federal and Tasmanian governments of Australia finally signed the Tasmanian Forests Intergovernmental Agreement to provide support and funding that will help the timber industry transition out of native-forest logging and will protect the region’s high-conservation-value rainforests. In sum, the government will provide much-needed financial support for workers and contractors to cease logging native forests while it takes legal steps to protect these forests as formal reserves similar to national parks.

In my travels through the mangroves of the Americas I was keen to learn how mangroves had influenced or been incorporated into local cultures. In Caravelas, in the Brazilian state of Bahia, I met three remarkable brothers who promote the indigenous culture of Bahia—a culture that is infused with images and myths relating to mangroves. Here is a blog post I wrote from Caravelas ... Read more »

In the Esmeraldas region of northern Ecuador a large mangrove reserve has been created, within which several villages have custodianship of the forests. Here traditional ways of mangrove-dependent fishing continue, including picking cockles from the mud around the mangrove roots.