Governments around the world are failing to protect forests, and drastic action must be taken to curb commercial logging, according to a new report produced by a coalition of major international environmental groups. Logging threatens wildlife, exacerbates climate change, and causes flooding, soil erosion, and fire, the report says. Even selective logging, it says, causes damage in rainforests. Meanwhile, Philippine House Speaker Manuel Villar is warning that the current rate of illegal logging in the country — some 123,000 hectares of forest each year — would completely denude the Philippines’ forests by 2036. Villar is pressing for a bill that would ban the ownership, sale, and use of chainsaws. And in Ethiopia, some 200,000 hectares of forestland is lost each year, cleared for farms or cut for firewood and construction, according to the national Environmental Protection Authority.
