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TOTAL/ ELF UNOCAL: BIOD AA: Help Sa



Subject: TOTAL/ ELF UNOCAL: BIOD AA: Help Save Nigeria's Cross River Rainforest (fwd)

WORLDWIDE TOTAL (FINA ELF) BOYCOTT SINCE 1996

Read and Remember this:  The oil companies are afraid of the Interet
activism. Unocal's former Vice Chairman (in fall issue Columbia Journal
Affairs): "In recent years multinationals have increasingly faced a new
political risk, fostered by activists who oppose a regime. These
activists target multinational corporations that do business in certain
countries, claiming that such companies are complicit in the ruling
regime's exploitation of and damage to local ethnic groups, host-country
workers, fragile ecosystems and ancient cultures. Activists use
political-orgnanizing techniques, the mass media and the Internet to
subject corporations to repeated attack."

The multinationals have a chance to learn, to change, but they refuse,
preferring to consider activism come a threat to their profits, and
their traditional way of doing business. Well, they are damn right.

Don't forget, mediate yes, "attack", thats how they describe the debate.
And they counterattack, in pure military styled mentality, propaganda,
security arrangements and warefare. The current French Spot military
satellite Rangoon junta deal is just another step in their logic of
"counter-attack" measures. 

These guys are really sick, just for more money...billions. The oil
price of a barrel of light sweet crude hit 28.dollars, thats two billion
dollars more to every top oil company in profits this year!!!
All to be used to find more, the race for the last of gas and oil
reserves is in full motion NOW!

POEPLE! THESE OIL GAS ELECTICITY ENERGY COMPANIES ARE DESTROYING THE
WORLD.CULTURES AND PEOPLE. THE CROSS RIVER REGION IS SACRED LAND OF THE
GODS AND SOME OF THE MOST POWERFULL SPIRITS EVER IN THIS WORLD.

THE OIL COMPANIES COME WITH THEIR GIANT RIGS LIKE INDUSTRIAL MONOLITHS
AND STAKE THEIR RIGHTS TO DESTRUCTION FOR PROFITS OF SHAREHOLDERS AND
CLAIMING THEY ARE DOING HUMANITY A SERVICE.

HERE IS MORE OF THE SAME. YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW.

DAWN STAR



Jouni K Nissinen wrote:
> 
> ACTION ALERT
> ***********************************************
> WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
> Help Save Nigeria's Cross River Mangrove and Rainforest
> ***********************************************
> Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org
>      http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives
>         http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation
> 
> 11/23/99
> OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY
> There is a window of opportunity to assist in the conservation of the
> largest remaining rainforest in West Africa, Nigeria's Cross River
> rainforest.  The region includes rare and unique gorillas, drill
> monkeys, chimpanzees, gray parrots and other endangered animals and
> plants.  The decision has recently been made to halt logging in the
> area.  This progress must be consolidated through complimentary
> letters.  Please respond to this Action Alert.
> g.b.
> 
> *******************************
> RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
> 
> Title:   Help Save Nigeria's Cross River Mangrove and Rainforest
> Source:  Rainforest Action Network via
>          Global Response Quick Response Network
>          P.O. Box 7490
>          Boulder CO, USA 80306-7490
>          Phone: 303/444-0306
>          Fax:   303/449-9794
>          http://www.globalresponse.org
> Status:  Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
> Date:    November 22, 1999
> 
> Dear Members of Global Response's Quick Response Network:
> 
> We've just received this message from Odigha Odigha, at NGOCE (a
> coalition of Nigerian environmental organizations):
> 
> "We are overwhelmed by Global Response's effort toward persuading the
> State & National governments to protect the Cross River Rainforest.
> The Governor needs intense pressure.  For a more rapid response,
> members could fax their letters to the State Governor (fax number
> given below)."
> 
> Since 1996, Global Response letter campaigns have supported NGOCE's
> courageous work to stop logging in and around Nigeria's Cross River
> National Park.  Please send a fax or letter today to convince the
> Governor of Cross River State to give permanent protection to the
> rainforest.  Here's a new Action Alert from Rainforest Action
> Network:
> 
> Help Save Nigeria's Cross River Mangrove and Rainforest
> 
> November, 1999
> 
> The attached briefing document and action alert are designed to
> assist international organizations and individuals attempting to
> increase the level of protection for the second largest frontier
> forest in Africa, Nigeria's Cross River rainforest, during the
> current window of opportunity.
> 
> ***ACTION ALERT!!!***
> 
> The largest remaining rainforest in West Africa, Nigeria's Cross
> River rainforest, has recently been given a temporary stay of
> execution, increasing the chances that the region's rare and unique
> gorillas, drill monkeys, chimpanzees, gray parrots and other
> endangered animals and plants will survive.
> 
> Please write a very polite letter to Donald Duke, the Governor of
> Cross River State, commending him for his decision to suspend all
> logging concessions in the remaining areas of rainforest.  (It is
> rare that Nigeria receives compliments for its social or
> environmental policies and praise may pave the way for continued
> progress.)  Ask him to prohibit all commercial logging of primary
> forest in Cross River state and to give the state's forests and its
> many endangered species permanent and effective protection.  Ask him
> to permanently revoke WEMPCO's forest concessions and wood processing
> permits, which are currently the largest threat to West Africa's
> rainforest.  Hong Kong-based WEMPCO plans to log and export hundreds
> of thousands of board-feet of Nigerian lumber.  Indicate that
> sustainable, small-scale, diversified community businesses are far
> healthier for communities and their economies than cut-and-run export
> schemes, and that tree plantations cannot replace complex forest
> ecosystems.
> 
> Mr. Donald Duke
> Executive Governor of Cross River State
> Office of the Governor
> P.M.B. 1070
> Calabar, Cross River State
> Nigeria
> 
> FAX NO: Int'l Code + 234-87-239191
> 
> (Postage from US is 60 cents for half-ounce letters, 55 cents for
> postcards to Nigeria.)
> 
> BRIEFING DOCUMENT:
> 
> According to 1998 statistics from the World Resources Institute
> (WRI), 90% of West Africais original rainforest is gone, and what
> remains is heavily fragmented and degraded by human use.  Connected
> West African watersheds are currently restricted to one region in
> Cote d'Ivoire and another larger one along the border of Nigeria and
> Cameroon.  These remaining fragments are amongst the most
> biologically rich areas on Earth, containing a large percentage of
> the plants and animals indigenous to West Africa.  All of Nigeria's
> intact rainforest watersheds, covering about 7,000 sq. kilometers,
> are in Cross River state.  Cross River also contains 1,000 sq.
> kilometers of mangrove and swamp forest.  The Nigerian government
> estimates that 20% of the primary forest has been destroyed in the
> past two decades.
> 
> One-third of Africa's primate species -- and the most endangered, the
> drill monkeys and gorillas -- are found here as well as guenon
> monkeys, hippopotamuses, chimpanzees, elephants and an incredible
> diversity of migratory and resident birds.  The Nigerian gorilla may
> prove to be a distinct subspecies.  If true, this would be the most
> endangered gorilla population in the world.  Cross River state
> harbors 950 species of butterflies -- a quarter of the number to be
> found in tropical Africa; 100 are not found anywhere else and at
> least three are new to science.  Many of Africa's rarest trees, such
> as mahogany, ironwood, camwood and mimosup, grow in this forest,
> which connects to a larger forest area in Cameroon.  Additional tree
> species cut and exported from West Africa to Europe, Japan and the
> U.S. include: afzelia (Afzelia africana), ekki, idigbo (Terminalia
> ivorensis), obeche, and teak (Tectona grandis).  There may still be
> flora and fauna species that remain to be identified.
> 
> The two greatest threats to Nigeria's rainforest and its forest
> dependent species are logging and the growing demand for bushmeat.
> Commercial hunting and poaching of wildlife, known as bushmeat, is a
> major source of protein for Nigeria.  Fires and farms eat away at the
> jungleis edges, while logging and hunting strike at the heart of it.
> 
> Of the five percent of the primary forest remaining in Nigeria,
> approximately half is legislatively protected in Cross River National
> Park.  Established by presidential decree in October 1991, it was
> conceived largely through the efforts of focusing local and state
> support behind a land-use plan fronted by WWF and backed by local and
> international NGOs and scientists.  The protected area is widely
> considered too vulnerable to sufficiently protect many of the
> endangered and threatened species it contains.  As with many forest
> reserves worldwide, legal protection is not always rigorously
> enforced. This and local communities' attitudes towards forest
> resource use are the largest factors in determining the fate of the
> forest's fragile and endangered species.  This is why many Nigerian
> NGOs strongest efforts are currently focused in the forest
> communities and on the state government.
> 
> There is, however, a brief window of opportunity for additional
> forest and wildlife protection, as Cross River state's new governor,
> Mr. Donald Duke, has suspended all forest logging concessions that
> were granted under the previous administration.  Nigerian newspapers
> note that the cancellation of logging licenses were connected with
> the reckless manner in which the forest reserves had been exploited
> over the years by individuals and corporate bodies, and is reviewing
> local NGOs demand for the creation of a regional Conservation
> Commission.
> 
> This current opportunity exists largely due to a number of factors:
> 1) Nigeria's recent transition to democracy and the government's
> interest in raising Nigeria's international credibility.
> 2) Efforts by NGOCE  (the coalition of Cross River conservation
> groups listed below) in organizing local communities around the
> ecological and economic benefits of rainforest preservation.
> 3) Local and international pressure during the past four years
> against Hong Kong-based WEMPCO, which has the largest logging
> concession in the Cross River rainforest.
> 4) Conservation groups and academic's continued efforts and funds to
> preserve the primates and other key threatened species.
> 5) Community concern with the lack of benefits received from
> multinational corporations for allowing logging in their community
> forest.
> 6) Growing awareness in Nigeria at both the community and national
> level of their disappearing resources and environmental issues in
> general.
> 
> The fight to preserve the forests of Cross River is unique in that
> it's led by indigenous groups, notably, NGOCE (Non-Governmental
> Organizations Coalition for the Environment) which has numerous local
> member organizations.
> 
> Inquiries and requests for information should be routed to: U.S. RAN
> 415-398-4404 221 Pine St #5, SF, CA 94104.
> Nigeria: Mr. Odigha Odigha, Executive Director NGOCE, 20 Ediba Lane,
> P. O. Box 1832 Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria. Telephone: 011-
> 234-87-230-681. Email: cash@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 
> Please be aware that Nigerian postal, telephone and e-mail service
> are notoriously unreliable (although reportedly getting better).
> 
> ###RELAYED TEXT ENDS###
> This document is a PHOTOCOPY for educational, personal and non-
> commercial use only.  Recipients should seek permission from the
> source for reprinting.  All efforts are made to provide accurate,
> timely pieces; though ultimate responsibility for verifying all
> information rests with the reader.  Check out our Gaia's Forest
> Conservation Archives & Portal at URL= http://forests.org/
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