Clear felling operations are already sawing, hacking, and bulldozing their way through one of the most biologically rich areas on earth to prepare the land for the establishment of externally financed agro-industrial estates. Adding to local concern is the recent granting of further commercial logging concessions in the area. Such is the outrage at the loss of forest land that local groups are gearing up to peacefully demonstrate against the plans at a government-backed November conference, set up to lure multinationals into buying into the scheme. Local fury is intensifying with the knowledge that the activities are proceeding contrary to the recommendations of Nigeria's Forestry Development Department and Britain's Department for International Development to sustainably manage the land - especially as there are already depleted areas of little conservation importance.

The destruction of the rainforest will be devastating for local people. Many thousands are dependent on its abundant natural resources for their livelihoods. Hunting, fishing and the gathering of non-timber forest products form the basis of much of their income, and the rivers are their main source of drinking water.

If all this wasn't bad enough, the new Forestry Commission -set up to make policies on the rainforest's management - is to be headed by none other than the biggest logging contractor to the notorious unsustainable logger WEMPCO (see Summer 2000 edition of Corporate Watch).

The Rainforest Resource and Development Centre urgently needs assistance for media campaigns, production of leaflets and posters, action alerts, court actions, workshops and seminars, letter writing campaigns, video coverage and more.

Act immediately by writing a letter to Donald Duke, the Governor of Cross River State asking him to suspend the clear felling operations and prohibit all commercial logging of primary forest in Cross River State. Ask him to give the State’s forests and many endangered species permanent protection and urge him to revoke WEMPCO’s forest concessions and wood processing permits, currently posing the biggest threat to Cross River’s Rainforest.

Mr Donald Duke
Executive Governor of Cross River State
Office of the Governor
P.M.B. 1070
Calabar
Cross River State
NIGERIA

Fax: Int’l code + 234 87 239191

Write to the ambassadors due to attend the November conference asking them to reconsider their plans to invest in agro-industrial projects in Cross River State. Explain that small-scale sustainable diversified community businesses are much healthier for local economies and that this is what local people want rather than “cut-and-run” export schemes.

Fax numbers of some of the ambassadors due to attend the conference: AUSTRIA, Fax: 01-617639; AUSTRALIA, Fax: 01-2618703; GHANA, Fax: 09-2345192 or 01-2630338; JAPAN, Fax: 01- 2614035; MALAYSIA, Fax: 01- 612741; NETHERLANDS, Fax: 01-617605 or 09-4133791; SWITZERLAND, Fax: 01-2616928 or 01262318.