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CAMEROON

EU funding rainforest destruction with taxpayers' money

Action Alert:
Your protest is important!

Two Action Alerts on a European Union plan to fund road building in Cameroon. No environmental impact assessments are planned and if past experience is any indication, the roads are likely to encourage loggers and poachers, with devastating results for the pygmies who inhabit the forests, and for gorillas, chimps and other species.



Dear friends,

With taxpayers' money the EU plans to give a 55 million ECU grant to Cameroon for road projects.

Cameroon has not declared which roads it wants to build or rehabilitate, nor do environmental assessment studies exist for these projects.

In the past, the EU has already funded such road projects. For example the EU gave 600 000 ECU for the rehabilitation of the Abong Mbang road to Lomie in the Cameroon rainforests. As a consequence, illegal timber consessions and poaching have expanded rapidly. BBC and German TV stations have documented the immense damage and the poaching of gorillas and
chimps. The pygmy population loses its life-supporting resources from the forest and its social organisation is uprooted.

The EU Development Fund plans to discuss the grant for the next 55 million ECU in mid June.

Please protest with your government. Request that the details of the road projects be discussed publicly. Request that full envrironmental assessment studies be made before the grant is approved. Request that Cameroon demonstrates effective control of poaching and illegal logging before the grant is approved.

You could also address your protest to the German development minister who is currently Chair of the EU Development Council:

Frau Ministerin Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul
Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ)
Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 40, 53113 Bonn
Telefon: 0228-535-3311 Fax: 0228-535-3325
email: poststelle@bmz.bund400.de


Source: Rettet den Regenwald e. V.
Pöseldorfer Weg 17
20148 Hamburg
Tel. 49- 40 - 4103804
Fax: 49- 40 - 4500144
regenwald@umwelt.ecolink.org
http://www.umwelt.org/regenwald


Here is a also an URGENT ACTION from The Rainforest Foundation in this matter, which we forward to you:

Having already helped wreck the rainforests around the World Heritage Dja Biosphere Reserve, the European Commission is now proposing a massive new aid programme of road-upgrades in the south of Cameroon. The Commission has no plans to even conduct Environmental Impact Assessments before proceeding with the roads. The roads are aimed at aimed at helping poor
farmers, but they simply encourage logging companies to move into unexploited areas - many of which are inhabited by Baka pygmies. The 55 million ECU project is expected to be considered by the European Development Fund committee within the next two months.

Please write, calling for a suspension of new road projects in Cameroon's rainforests, to: Joao de Deus Pinheiro, Commissioner for Development Cooperation, The European Commission, rue de le Loi 200, 1049 Brussels, Belgium.

For more information:

The Foundation's website at www.rainforestfoundationuk.org contains sound clips about the impact of a previous EU-funded road project in Cameroon, and a briefing on the latest threats.

The Rainforest Foundation UK (rainforestuk@gn.apc.org)
City Cloisters
188 Old Street
London EC1V 9FR

T: +44 171 251 6345
F: +44 171 251 4969


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Link here for background info on Cameroon