Brazil asks EU to hold off on implementing deforestation law

Plantma X combines soil scarification and mechanical planting – at the same time. SCA borrowed a machine for a few weeks to see if it could be the solution that would enable tomorrow’s efficient planting process. The machine looks almost like something from a Star Wars film when it crawls across the clearcut in the Graninge area. The two long swivelling arms extrude from the back and plant seedlings every time the arm tips reach the ground. Plantma X has been developed in a collaboration between Grangärde Konsult och Innovation and other companies*, together with Sveaskog. Over the course of a few summer weeks, SCA borrowed the machine to carry out its own trials. Click read more below for the rest of the article.

Every day we send email, navigate the web and store our videos, photos or music in the Cloud. We often have the impression that the whole process is trivial and nearly free, but this is not at all the case. So says L’Agence de l’Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l’Énergie (ADEME), an agency of the government of France which, promotes an environmental approach to the workplace and to daily living. In a recent Guide, La Face Cachée de Numérique, (The Hidden Face of Digital), they describe the widespread environmental impacts of the growing number of digital devices (increasing energy consumption, use of primary minerals, pollution and waste production) and how to reduce them. In the Guide, it is estimated that there are 2 billion smartphones, 1 billion computers, 5 to7 billion other connected devices and 45 billion servers worldwide and that 8.4 billion connected devices would be sold in the world in 2017, 31% more than in 2016. The forecast for 2020 is 50 billion connected devices. In one hour, there are 8 to 10 billion emails sent (not including spam) and 180 million Google searches and the average distance a piece of data travels is 15,000 km. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Stakeholders from around the world are invited to give feedback on the revised national forest certification system for Indonesia. Deadline for comments is 7 May. The Indonesian Forestry Certification Cooperation (IFCC), the PEFC national member for Indonesia, revised the country’s national forest certification system following the entry into force of the revised 2018 PEFC Sustainable Forest Management standard. The revised IFCC Forest Certification Scheme is one of the first national systems submitted to PEFC for endorsement that includes a Trees Outside Forests (TOF) standard. TOF certification was one of the innovative developments of the 2018 PEFC Sustainable Forest Management standard.