Global Forest Science's newsletter, The Leaflet is published three times a year. Stay up to date on the latest news about our forest research, children's education programs and what's new at the Global Forest Science headquarters.

Our 3rd field research season is well underway, and I thought you might like to know of a few of the recent exciting developments at the offices of Global Forest. First of all, we have opened a second office near San Francisco, California. Our children's online club GFAwesome is rapidly growing; there are now over 4000 children from 39 countries that Ambassador Thomas regularly communicates with. Under the leadership of our new Executive Director Ms. Alexandra Lang (BSc, MBA), I am delighted to report that Global Forest is now well poised to enter our next phase of strong growth. Over the past 3 months donations and sponsorships have grown exponentially - thank you to one and all! After visiting our weather watch school in Oxford, I had the opportunity to spend a splendid and evocative evening dining with our Honorary Director Marcel Marceau in Paris. Mr. Marceau is remarkable, and as usual, he has an active and sincere interest in our efforts to conserve the world's wild forests. He will be touring in North America this autumn, and I look forward to meeting with him again then. Dr Reese Halter.

Seven months after its launch, GFAwesome.org, our kid's website, has taken off. On May 7, our weekly membership subscriptions leapt from 8 new members per week to over 800! Since that initial jump, new membership has leveled off at an average of 250 new kids per week. GF Awesome and our other educational initiatives are designed to get kids motivated, mobilized and involvedl in forest exploration and conservation.

Science kids and grades 1 to 3 alike realize that trees are cool! Over the past 10 weeks I have visited our weather stations in Perth, Western Australia; Ballarat, Victoria, Australia; Slocan, British Columbia; and Oxford, England. I spoke to the science classes about conservation biology, the importance of our wild forests and animals, the most precious natural resource on our planet - fresh water, and all of the potent medicines that are now coming from plants and trees within our wild forests. I continue to be humbled and delighted by the positive response and questions from reading my children's book: "Forest Adventures with Bruni the Bear". The Australian, British, and Canadian children that I have met were thoroughly engaged and thrilled to learn about the importance of trees.

Our international insect quarantine facility at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC is set to open on the 24th of September 2001. For more information on the event, please call Kate Smith (604)733-2503 or email.

The cancer fighting drug, taxol, which is derived from the bark, stem and roots of the Pacific yew tree is now successfully being used to fight lung cancer. This is in addition to taxol's known treatment for breast and ovarian cancers.

Global Forest and Roots Canada have embarked on a novel initiative that will see Forest Adventures with Bruni the Bear featured in a back-to-school promotion in stores across Canada this autumn.

Global Forest has grown with the arrival of summer's warmth. We extend a warm welcome to the following new staff: Alexandra Lang, our Executive Director, and Sophika Kostyniuk, our new Conservation Coordinator. Sophika will be replacing Ben Beardmore, who will be starting his Masters at Simon Fraser University at the end of August.

Dr. Bob Van Pelt's Forest Giants of the Pacific Coast is due out in December. It documents the largest trees from California to Vancouver Island, with overviews on 20 species, and profiles of 117 individual trees: 224 pages, 115 original line drawings, 115 color illustrations, and 23 color maps. It is a magnificent tree book - a must for all who love trees. Visit our web site for more information.

Drs. Gerhard Gries (Simon Fraser University,) Paul Schaffer (USDA, New York State) and John Clearwater (NZ consultant) have received the official green light to combat the infestation of a foreign defoliator: the Painted Apple Moth. This Australian moth threatens the $3 billion (NZ) plantation forestry industry in New Zealand. Dr. Gries' team was successful in combating the White Spotted Tussock Moth outbreak in New Zealand in 1997. We wish these entomologists the best of luck!

Over the last three years, Professor Bob Teskey and PhD student Mary Ann Macguire of the University of Georgia at Athens, have been studying the way trees process CO2, with the help of funding from Global Forest. Their recent discoveries have worldwide importance. "We are finding out that trees do not absorb all of the CO2 that they need to exist from the atmosphere. In fact, contrary to what was previously thought, we have found that as much as 10% of CO2 is being recycled within the tree itself," says Prof. Teskey. He warns that this has some huge implications for global carbon budget models that previously assumed that 100% of the CO2 trees need to survive was being supplied by the atmosphere. Based on Teskey's results, these earliermodels now appear to have overestimated the capacity of trees to utilize atmospheric carbon dioxide, and ameliorate global warming.

"Our pioneering work would not have been done without the aid given to us by Global Forest," says a thankful Dr. Teskey. His team's research papers will soon be published and available through Global Forest.

Trevor Goward and Toby Spribille have initiated a study on lichens and bryophytes as indicator species of the interior rainforest of British Columbia, Washington, Montana and Idaho.

Sarah Turner is studying parental care in Japanese Macaques who have suffered from physical deformities due to the pollution of their habitat in northern Japan. This study forms the basis for her Masters thesis under Professor Lisa Gould at the University of Victoria.

Alestine Andre, Brenda Beckwith, Kimberlee Chambers, and Ann Garibaldi have joined Nancy Turner's research group at the University of Victoria using the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples to study non-timber forest use. Ann, Alestine and Kimberlee will be applying their research to their Masters Theses, whilst Brenda is pursuing her Ph.D.

For more information on these projects and others, visit our research focus area

Harvesting Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs, sometimes called Special Forest Products, Alternative Forest Products or Botanical Forest Products), is gaining prominence in Canada and many other parts of the world, as an income-generating alternative to logging forests for timber production. Recent industrial focus on timber extraction has resulted in escalating destruction of forests on a global scale, with a simultaneous loss of global biodiversity. This is particularly the case with clear-cutting, where the entire forest cover is removed in order to harvest select commercially valuable trees. This method has changed the structure, function and composition of forest ecosystems in major ways. Following clear-cutting, natural forests are often replaced with single-species tree plantations, resulting in genetic and ecological simplification and the loss of many forest values. Using resources from standing forests thus seems to be a desirable and necessary option.

NTFPs consist of any fungus or plant material other than dimension timber harvested from forests for subsistence use, trade or sale. NTFPs include a wide array of products such as wild edible mushrooms, fruits and vegetables; floral greens; medicinal and pharmaceutical products; landscaping plants and wildflower seeds; as well as honey and maple syrup. Other products that sometimes fall under this category are firewood, Christmas trees, specialty woods for carving and small-scale crafts, and weaving materials. In British Columbia alone, an estimated total income of $80 million or more is derived from products such as salal greens, wild mushrooms and forest medicinal and culinary plants.

Economically, "non-consumptive forest uses" and services that standing forests provide for us are also considered to be NTFPs. Among these economic NTFPs are water supply, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, educational opportunities, scenic and aesthetic values, and recreation. For some of these, direct economic benefit is difficult to quantify, but in any full cost accounting they need to be considered as supporting human subsistence and sustenance. Viable economic alternatives to industrial forestry can include a mix of sustainable harvesting of NTFPs and other activities involving forests, scenery and cultures, such as ecotourism and outdoor education, thus allowing economic prosperity to coincide with conservation of our forest's biodiversity.

Dr. Nancy Turner heads Global Forest's NTFP research group at the University of Victoria. Her team is learning the basic biology of NTFPs to allow their careful management in a diverse forest economy. To learn more about Dr. Turner's work and the Global Forest's NTFP Research Program Area, visit our research focus NNTP area More information on Non-Timber Forest Products is available online in our bibliography.

Hi everyone. This is the Ambassador with a quick update on what's happening at Global Forest headquarters.

Over 3000 new members from all over the world joined the GF Awesome Club last month and since then the club's been growing every day. That's very exciting. There are kids from Uzbekistan, Trinidad, Spain, Australia and Jordan. And these are only a few of the countries. We're making friends from all over the world. Isn't that great?

Dr. Reese, Kate and I went to the EcoFest at Capers Market with our Global Forest booth. Lots of people roamed the booths that were there. They liked to hear about GF Awesome and the cool kids' website, and I answered all of their questions about Global Forest and what we do to help save the trees. I had a wonderful time and I look forward to our next Eco Fest.

On June 5th, the whole Global Forest team got to visit Stanley Park for the Urban Stewards Program. The St. Mathew Begbie school kids invited me to join them, and together we followed a path that led to 5 ecology stations. The stations had games that were set up as ecology lessons such as "ecosystem tag", "ecosystem races" & "eco-game shows." I was also interviewed for the 6 o'clock news. After the fun events, everyone got together in the dining pavilion and put on shows about keeping the environment healthy. Our Global Forest team handed out tree seedling kits and I talked to people at our booth. We all had a great day!

Ten year- old, Thomas Budd, is the GF Awesome Ambassador. He promotes the GF Awesome Club and communicates with members via his monthly email newsletter. To contact Thomas please email Ambassador@GFAwesome.org. You can also see Thomas' 6 o'clock news clip in the vieo archives.

We would like to extend sincerest thanks to Mrs. Sheri Berkowitz, who has made a significant contribution to support Global Forest's line of educational books and our Project Mapping the Ancient White Cedars of the Niagara Escarpment; some of the oldest trees east of the Canadian Pacific Coastline.

Global Forest wishes to express our gratitude to our Honorary Scientist, Dr. Andrew Weaver, for his generous donation to our Environmental Monitoring Program Area.

Thanks to the Wilburforce Foundation of Seattle, Washington, for their generous donation to fund Trevor Goward's and Toby Spribille's research on the mosses and lichens of the Interior Rainforest. This project will be used as part of the Yukon to Yellowstone initiative to create a Habitat Corridor along the Rocky Mountain Trench.

A special thank you from all the Vancouver children who can now be involved in next year's Urban Stewards Program is extended to the Schad Foundation for their generous educational grant.

The weather kids of Jacoby Creek School in Bayside, California, have once again put the Global Forest weather station to use in their community. Last October, they informed the California Department of Forests (CDF) of a daily local wind pattern that had caused a CDF burn to go out of control near their town. That put them on the map as local weather experts. But the story doesn't end here.

As the energy crisis in California worsens, alternative cost-saving energy sources are increasingly on local residents' minds, and now people know just where to get reliable information on local weather conditions. To date the class has received three requests for data to evaluate the feasibility of sun and wind energy. The school board is exploring the option of wind turbines for powering their school, while two community members are looking into solar cells for their homes.

On June 5, The Urban Steward's Project, a joint venture between Global Forest and Stanley Park Ecology Society, wrapped up its first year. The five classes from Champlain Heights Elementary, Lord Roberts Elementary, Sir Matthew Begbie Elementary, Bayview Elementary and Carnarvan Community School congregated in Stanley Park for a day of fun, games and ecological activities. Each class presented their conservation project to the other classes, visitors from the Vancouver School Board and Parks and Recreation Board, as well as to members of the media. Check out: www.globalforestscience.com/media/clippings/ to view Shaw Cable's 6:30 News Segment on the festivities.

While the 2000/2001 Urban Stewards year is barely finished, we are hard at work on developing the upcoming year's project thanks to the support of the Schad Foundation and many local sponsors. Twenty-one Vancouver-area businesses and business people have come on board. They include: Aquabus; Action Athletics Wear and Crest Ltd; AJ Graphics Ltd; Bob Rennie Marketing; Cats Only Veterinary Clinic; Eagle Spirit Gallery; Hoskin Scientific Ltd; Kensington Travel; Kimprints; Korva World Class Collision; Ms. Kaplan of Medicard Finance Inc.; Nemar; Pacific Boarders; Quick Cobbler; Rolfe, Benson Chartered Accountants; Super Valu-Davie St.; Takis Taverna Greek Restaurant; V&J Plants; Vancouver Architectural Antiques Ltd; Western Drum Recyclers; Zippy Signs Inc. Global Forest extends a big thanks to these organizations for their generous support and dedication to children's ecological education.

North America uses more energy per capita than any other continent on the planet. We can reduce our consumption without affecting our lifestyles by remembering to turn off lights as we leave a room. Your electricity bills will be reduced as well!