Sustanon
Bluelighter
Goodluck extracting trees for sassafras, thats the same as makin coke from leaves ud need tons to make it worthwhile.
i can hardly fathom a world without tuna, flake, flathead etc in 40 years - They're not exactly endangered are they.
Nearing Extinction - The species in the greatest danger of slipping into extinction is the western north Atlantic population (stock) of bluefin tuna. Thanks to 4 decades of overfishing, it has been driven to just 3% of its 1960 or pre-longlining abundance - a decline of 97% - as shown in ICCAT's figure at left. (ICCAT is the international commission that claims management authority over all tunas, marlin, swordfish and the other big fish of the Atlantic) In comparison to bluefin, Atlantic white marlin abundance has been driven to 6% of its pre-longlining abundance, and Atlantic blue marlin has been driven to 20% of its pre-longlining abundance.
'Ecstasy oil' seized in Pursat
Friday, 28 August 2009 15:04 James O'Toole and Tha Piseth
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FORESTRY Administration officials seized 2,600 litres of sassafras oil used to manufacture the drug MDMA, or "Ecstasy", last week in a major drug bust in Pursat province, government officials and conservationists said Thursday.
The oil, which is extracted from the wood of trees known in Khmer as mreah prov, was discovered on August 19 in barrels below the false bottom of a dump truck driven by Lim Pim, a 27-year-old Vietnamese man who was arrested at the scene, according to the environmental group Conservation International (CI). He was driving to Pursat town from the Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary in Veal Veng district.
Mok Dara, director of the Interior Ministry's Anti-Drug Department, said the oil has been regulated by drug control laws since 2006 due to its role in drug or illicit substance production, and that authorities around the country have become increasingly focused on it.
"There are five cases already that have happened in Cambodia in 2009, in Battambang, Kampong Chhnang and Pursat provinces," he said.
Last week's arrest in Pursat was made by rangers from the Forestry Administration's Central Cardamom Protected Forest enforcement team, a targeted project funded in part by CI.
CI became interested in this issue in the early 2000s, after noting the severe toll that the harvesting of the oil had taken on the Kingdom's forests, said David Emmett, the organisation's regional director.
Oil extracted from trees in Cambodia is typically transported across the border to Vietnam for refinement.
To generate enough oil for cross-border trafficking, Emmett said, producers cut down trees at a rapid rate, a process devastating to local ecosystems.
"It's like this cancerous growth in the forest," Emmett said. Cambodian production is centred in the Cardamom mountains of the southwest, and in the forests of the northeast.
Rural producers can expect to make around US$10 per kilogram of oil, Emmett said, "but when it gets out to Phnom Penh and Hanoi, it becomes massively more valuable".
Seng Bora, also of CI, estimated that the oil seized in last week's bust would have netted producers perhaps US$50,000, though by the time it reached the border, it could have been worth up to $270,000.
In June, rangers seized 5.2 tonnes of the oil in a single bust - the largest ever of sassafras oil in Cambodia, officials said at the time.
In June, rangers seized 5.2 tonnes of the oil in a single bust - the largest ever of sassafras oil in Cambodia, officials said at the time
I know for a fact that gummy shark which was the main source of flake in southern Australia for decades has been decimated by long line fishing to a small % of what it was 50 years ago.
For this very reason you are lucky to get real gummy shark when you order flake these days. School shark and blue shark (blue shark is left in freezers for months to leach out all the mercury) are now sold in it's place due to over fishing.
As for tuna, it would have to be one of the most endangered fish species on earth...
Just out of interest are there any indigenous Australian trees high in safrole?
And could someone give the name of the tree in the photo above?
Just out of interest are there any indigenous Australian trees high in safrole?
The drug ecstasy (or MDMA) is made from safrole oil, much of it produced illicitly in the Cardamom Mountains of western Cambodia. An article in GlobalPost reports how production of this oil for the drug is deforesting this area, causing erosion and polluting nearby streams with the distilleries’ waste. The western Cardamoms are also home to more than 80 threatened species, such as the Asian elephant, Indochinese tiger and Siamese crocodile, according to the conservation nonprofit Fauna and Flora International. That group, the report says, has been helping local authorities stage raids on safrole oil distilleries, most of which are found in the Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary.
Safrole oil comes from a tree known in the region as Mreah prew phnom. It takes four of these trees to produce one 40-gallon barrel of safrole oil and six less valuable trees to use as firewood to process just one Mreah prew phnom tree.