Of all the ways proposed to monitor, slow or stop deforestation around the world this may be a first: Reuters is reporting that Ghana is looking to harvest 14 million cubic meters (494.4 million cubic feet) of timber that was submerged 40 years ago when Lake Volta was formed behind the Akosombo hydroelectric dam.

$4 Billion in Timber Under the Water
Ghana’s head of Climate Change in the nation’s Forestry Commission, Robert Bamfo, said that logging of rot-resistant hardwoods such as ebony, wawa, and odum will begin in October and will reduce pressure on Ghana’s forests, which are being chopped down at the rate of about 1.9% per year. It will also bring in an estimated $4 billion.

Globally throughout the tropics, Bamfo said that there is an estimated 5 million hectares (12.4 million acres) of salvageable timber submerged in hydroelectric reservoirs.

Canadian Firm to Run Logging Operation
The underwater logging will be done by the Canadian firm CSR Developments, a company founded in 2005 to harvest submerged forests throughout the tropics, which will have a 25-year concession to harvest 350,000 hectares of submerged timber.

CSR says that when fully operational this project will employ 400 people and bring in more than $100 million in foreign earnings to Ghana each year. Additionally, by removing the submerged trees from the shallower parts of the 8,515 square kilometer man-made lake, transportation routes on the lake will expand and create new economic development in the region.

via :: Reuters and :: CSR Developments

The ONE Campaign’s new ad “Voices” features Matt Damon with different Americans’ voices – among them Michelle Obama, Cindy McCain and Mayor Bloomberg.

Thin film solar technology has attracted interest from venture capitalists because of its higher efficiency, lower use of limited silicon, and more easily automated production processes. Now, established Japanese players in the solar arena are getting in the thin film game, followed by companies in China and India, as reported in Renewable Energy World.

• Mitsubishi Chemical already produces materials for the solar industry but sees opportunity to produce the cells themselves
• Sanyo is an established producer of crystalline solar cells, but has opened an Advanced PV Development Center in Gifu, Japan to concentrate on developing thin film technology.

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Amidst the talk over the legacy of Beijing's "Green Olympics," there has been surprisingly little attention paid to the environmental impact of the city's new buildings. It's especially surprising given that buildings have the largest footprint of any human activity, that China is building more buildings every year than anyone else, and that the government says it's serious about cutting buildings' energy consumption. I'm taking a look at some of the bigger projects as examples -- or counter-examples -- of sustainable design for China and elsewhere.

The Olympic Village may be the world's largest green building complex. The 160-acre site, containing 42 residential buildings ranging from six- to nine- stories, includes a combination of high-tech and low-tech solutions to radically reduce energy and raise efficiency, including insulation, energy efficient windows, solar and green roofs, and a heat exchange system that collects and re-uses rainwater for heating and cooling, saving energy by 40 percent over typical HVAC systems.

Developer Guo Ao, which claims the buildings use half the energy of similar buildings in Beijing, with so obsessed with getting a gold award (not unusual in China) that, one consultant told me, it did not want a coveted LEED rating if it were anything less. Last week, it was proudly announced: the US Green Building Council gave the complex a LEED gold certification, and the first such award outside of the US based on a pilot program designed for large-scale neighborhoods. And if our calculations are correct, at 370,000 sqm., it is also the largest LEED certified project yet.

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Greater access to free medicine has helped reduce AIDS-related deaths in Malawi by 75 percent in the past four years, Mary Shawa, the country's principal secretary for H.I.V. and AIDS, said Monday. H.I.V. and AIDS have been blamed for 59 percent of deaths there among people 15 to 59 years old. As of March this year, the government had put 159,111 people on free antiretroviral drugs, and 106,547 of them were still alive.