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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Nigerian
Greens Fight Hong Kong Loggers
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
7/10/96
OVERVIEW
& SOURCE by EE
Reuters
reports on the latest threat to the African nation of Nigeria's
environment,
which only has 5% of its original forest cover still intact.
A large
industrial forestry operation is about to commence in a remote
region
on Nigeria's eastern border with Cameroon.
"Forested hills cut by
streams
sustain a rare baboon, elephants, the endangered rock fowl and over
1,000
species of butterflies." Given the failure of Asian style industrial
forestry
to even come close to ecological sustainability or social equity,
this
project represents a beachhead for very intensive forest clearing in
the
largest remaining African rainforest which is a critical world
ecosystem.
g.b.
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Subject:
Nigerian Greens fight Hong Kong loggers
7/9/96
Copyright
1996 by Reuters
LAGOS,
Nigeria (Reuter) - Nigerian environmental groups are protesting
against
a Hong Kong logging company which plans to exploit the rainforest
home of
rare and endangered animal and bird species.
The
coalition of environmentalists has begun a campaign against the Western
Metal
Products Co. (WEMPCO) for threatening the eastern Cross River forest
which
they say has a bigger range of species than anywhere outside the
Amazon.
"We
are not against logging as such, but WEMPCO have not addressed the
issue
of environmental degradation and reached agreements to make sure
there
is no damage, that is why we are now forced to protest," Ako Amadi of
the
Nigerian Conservation Foundation told Reuters Tuesday.
The
environment is an emotional issue in Nigeria, where last November
author
Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other environmental and civil activists were
hanged
for the murder of four pro-government chiefs after a trial widely
seen as
flawed.
WEMPCO
is close to completing a factory that will be able to process 2,119
cubic
feet of wood a day but rejects accusations it will destroy the
forest.
"They
are already accusing us of polluting streams with lead and mercury
and we
haven't even started work," WEMPCO director Andrew Choi told
Reuters.
WEMPCO
says it has put in over $10 million dollars so far, and could begin
work in
a few months and produce sawn timber and plywood for export and
local
markets for the next 40 years.
The
battleground between conservation and development is a remote region on
Nigeria's
eastern border with Cameroon.
Forested
hills cut by streams sustain a rare baboon, elephants, the
endangered
rock fowl and over 1,000 species of butterflies.
"Some
of the monkeys seen there have not been properly identified, they may
even be
new species," said Amadi.
Only
five percent of the forest which once cloaked 35 percent of Africa's
most
populous nation still stands, the largest part of it in Cross River
state.
Choi
said WEMPCO had carried out an environmental impact assessment and had
the
approval of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency.
"For
every tree we cut we are going to plant three. We are talking with
nature
groups about setting up reserves within the concessions for some of
the
rarer species as well," he said.
WEMPCO,
owned by Hong Kong Chinese interests, has been in Nigeria for over
30
years making enamelware, buckets and roofing sheets. It diversified into
forestry
in the 1980s.
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