If they can do it on China, we can do it here!! End Commercial Logging Now! Jane Clark ================================================= Title: China lumberjacks to become tree-planters Source: Reuters Date: September 4, 1998 BEIJING, Sept 4 (Reuters) - China will order its army of lumberjacks to lay down their axes and plant trees, the Xinhua news agency said on Friday amid mounting official concern over how rampant logging has worsened deadly flooding this year. The State Forestry Administration had drawn up a 19.5 billion yuan ($2.3 billion) plan to stop logging along the Yangtze and Yellow rivers and in the northeast and to start large-scale reforestation, Xinhua said. ``With the implementation of this forest-conservation project, over one million people now employed by the forestry industry will lose their present jobs by 2000,'' it said. ``Most of those laid off will have new jobs as tree planters, forest tenders and other related work,'' it quoted Li Yucai, the administration's deputy director, as saying. The plan, to start this year, calls for a halt to logging by 65 lumber companies and a cut in timber production of 10 million cubic metres (353 million cubic feet) by 70 other companies, it said. The plan aimed to better protect ancient forests and shift China's timber production to new forests by 2010, it said. Although China's forests covered 87.26 million hectares (215.6 million acres), or nine percent of its territory, unchecked logging threatened to wipe out all its forests within 10 years, it quoted one expert as saying. Authorities have increasingly acknowledged the role of logging along China's major waterways in devastating floods, which have killed more than 3,000 people and caused at least 166 billion yuan in damage this year. ``The devastating floods in China this summer are due, at least in part, to deforestation and the serious damage it has done to vegetation along the upper reaches of the Yangtze and other rivers,'' Xinhua said. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send email to [log in to unmask] Make the message text (not the Subject): SIGNOFF IOWA-TOPICS