German company destroys wildlife to help the climate!

The Flora Eco Power Company, headquartered in Munich, Germany operates in Ethiopia, Italy, China and Israel and claims to have a social and environmental agenda – production of biofuels in Ethiopia will not only save the climate but will create jobs… sound good? According to the Ethipian newspaper The Daily Monitor on June 2nd 2007, the company has signed a contract with the Ethipian government to operate in the Oromia region to put up an oil mill and to cultivate 10,000 hectares of castor. It has a 5 year farming contract with East Oromia State administration and the farmer’s association - 700 farmers have signed up to the project, The company says it is committed to managing land resources in an environmentally sensitive manner.

However, the site in question is adjacent to and includes part of the Babile Elephant Sanctuary - home to the only surviving elephant population in the farthest Horn of Africa. This ecologically unique population is being studied by Ethiopian scientists and they know that there are only 300 elephants here and their continued survival is threatened by EcoPower’s activities.
 Though no EIA was conducted, the company started clearing land in June using bulldozers in an area that was earmarked for the elephants migration. 

Now environmentalists and concerned individuals are asking the federal and regional governments to intervene in to stop further clearing and how this apparently illegal action has taken place. They claim that “the regional administrations have violated the county’s wildlife and forest decree and international conventions in cooperating to give the land to the company without making environmental assessments and putting the wildlife in the area in danger”. Read more on the Daily Kos dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/12/23326/0137

Wildlife thrives in southern Sudan

Despite decades of civil war in Sudan, more than a million animals, including elephants, buffaloes, ostriches, lions, giraffes and a rare type of stork, have been unexpectedly seen living and migrating across Southern Sudan.


The first survey in 25 years conducted by Michael Fay of Natinal Geographics 'Megatransect' fame surprised everyrone except Maj. Gen. Alfred Akwoch, undersecretary of the Ministry of the Environment, Wildlife Conservation and Tourism for the government of Southern Sudan who has been telling people that wildlife was still present in southern Sudan. But conflict isn't good news for wildlife everywhere - infact the Janjaweed who have been so successful in killing humans in Darfur, are just as abad for buffalos and elephants. So the question now is - are we going to do something about saving these spectacular populations?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,281700,00.html#

Politics threatens African wildlife

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora (CITES) conference ended with alot of speculation as to the future of this important convention. Despite the fact that every country sends scientific experts to provide technical back up for proposals, there was a heavy role of politics as the 171-nation CITES met to review its lists of tens of thousands of threatened species. The elephant ivory trade debate has always divided African states, this year the deadlock was solved with the first ministerial-level meeting at a CITES conference.The ministers were credited with breaking an 18-year deadlock over the sale of ivory by southern African countries, and allowed a one-time sale of accumulated tusks to Japan, the only authorized buyer. They brokered a compromise, In exchange for the sale it was also agreed that elephant and ivory issues would be taken off the CITES agenda for nine years. Hardly worth celebrating as a victory for elephants, 9 years is only one fifth of an elephants life time. One only has to wonder what the ministers were actually trading in the closed door negotiations.

The conference ended in disappointment for environmentalists. Conservationists said trade considerations overwhelmed scientific criteria in many instances, with countries still voting in favor of short-term economic growth.
USA and Japan were less powerful this year which is good, but China, an importer of tropical timber and a major investor in Africa, was at the center of several contentious issues, but its record was mixed. In one of the more significant showdowns, it failed to block a resolution urging it to maintain a 1993 ban on the sale of tiger parts for traditional medicine and warning it to rein in its program of breeding tigers. Check out more on

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/16/europe/EU-GEN-Netherlands-Endangered-Species.php
http://www.cites.org/