Rainforest Action Network Launches Campaign to Monitor African Rainforests
9/1/98
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Title: Rainforest Action Network Launches Campaign to Monitor African
Rainforests
Source: Rainforest Action Network
Status: Distribute freely with proper credit to source
Date: 9/1/98
SAN FRANCISCO - With growing US involvement and investment in Africa's
commercial development, Rainforest Action Network has launched a new campaign to
monitor threats to the last remaining ancient rainforests there. This is the
first US-based campaign to focus specifically on African rainforest issues.
The campaign's first rainforest hotspot is the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC) -formerly Zaire-where the escalating political crisis has put the future
of the region's rainforests in jeopardy. DRC contains half of Africa's intact
tropical forest, and one eighth of what remains on the planet in total.
When fighting in DRC finally subsides, there will be tremendous pressure to
repay foreign debts by quickly selling-off the country's vast natural resources
in order to secure foreign capital.
When timber and mineral resources play-out the ecosystem is left devastated, and
the forest-dwelling peoples-in the Congo Basin, the Baaka, Bakola and other
pygmy peoples-are dislocated from their traditional way of life.
"Rainforest Action Network will work to support the efforts of existing groups
both in Africa and internationally that recognize the unique value of Africa's
tropical forests," said Africa Campaign Director Erick Brownstein:
"Additionally, we will encourage first world nations to forgive DRC debts in
order to allow the country to implement integrated environmental and social
policies rather than follow the environmentally destructive path taken by so
many less-industrialized countries."
The present conflict in DRC has put infrastructure development plans on hold,
giving the rainforests a reprieve from commercial development. US-based
companies have, until recently, been identifying potential mining sites in the
rainforest and infrastructure projects to service them, including the building
of roads. Roads into the rainforest open access for industrial logging and
bushmeat hunting, which threaten the integrity of the rainforest ecosystem and
push populations of gorillas and elephants into extinction.
"When the fighting in DRC stops," added RAN's Brownstein, "we hope to see a
democratically elected government in place that will respect the rights of
indigenous and forest-dependent peoples, and will insure the stewardship of the
country's vast - and irreplaceable - rainforests."
Rainforest Action Network works to protect the Earth's rainforests and support
the rights of their inhabitants through education, grassroots organizing and
non-violent direct action. RAN's Africa Campaign is funded as part of a $1-
million grant from the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund.