WILD in action
Penan native Mutang Tu's with environmental folk singer Raffi in Vancouver
Left to right Dr. David Suzuki with Penan - Voice for the Borneo Rainforest coauthors Thom Henley and Dr. Wade Davis at the book launch press conference Photo credit: J.P. LeFRANK
Helping the Penan
In August of 1989, Thorn Henley, a Canadian environmentalist with whom WCWC had worked for years, walked into the WILD office, in anguish. He explained the plight of the Penan, a gentle nomadic people whom he had just visited in Sarawak. Their survival, both physical and cultural, was being threatened by the logging of their homeland--a remnant of one of the world's oldest and most complex rainforests.
With Henley's help, within a month, WILD published a newspaper and trilingual poster about Sarawak and held a large public event to launch the Penan Emergency Relief Fund. WILD raised $24,000 for the Penan over the following seven months.
Part of these funds were delivered to Sarawak by WCWC directors Ken Lay and Dr.Ron Aspinall in November of 1989. While Aspinall conducted a medical assessment of conditions in a number of Penan "relocation" camps, Lay photographed active logging in the Penan's territory and helped directly distribute the relief funds to those who needed them the most.
Under the direction of WCWC's publications coordinator, Paul George, and WILD's graphic artist, Sue Fox Gregory, WILD produced the book, Penan: Voice for the Borneo Rainforest. Published in the fall of 1990, the 100-page,full-color book features the translated words of a young Penan hunter, Dawat Lupung, remarkable photos by Henley and others, and the lyrical writings of both Henley and ethno- botanist Dr. Wade Davis. The extended photo captions by Dr. Davis provide a detailed commentary on the rich cultural traditions and threats to the Penan.
On each of his trips into Borneo, Henley was asked by the Penan to help them take the message of their plight directly to the world. Responding to their plea, in the fall of 1990, Henley, assisted by WILD, began organizing a world tour : Voices for the Borneo Rainforest. Two Penan and a Kelabit native (another Daytak tribe also affected by the logging) began their tour in late October. Bruno Manser, the Swiss artist who had emerged from six years of living with the Penan just before speaking at the WILD conference in Hawaii in June, accompanied them on tour.
The tour covered 28 cities in 14 different countries, from Australia to Canada to Germany to Japan, during last October and November. The tour group met with Prince Bernhard, Madame Mitterand, Maurice Strong, Noel Brown, US Senator AL Gore and representatives of UNESCO, the International Human Rights Commission, the International Red Cross and the World Council of Churches, to try to find ecologically and socially-just solutions to the problems of Sarawak. One solution favored by the Penan is the creation of a large United Nations Biosphere Reserve.
Ongoing communications with Penan support groups and fundraising to commission a Biosphere Reserve study in Sarawak are being coordinated by WILD's director of campaigns, Sue Fox Gregory. Tour hosts and major donors to the Sarawak campaign will be receiving Sue's 100-page tour report within a month. For $10 to cover costs, WILD will send you a copy,
Mapping Greek Nature
During the summer of 1990, WILD sponsored research by Stamatis Zogaris, a University of British Columbia biology student, to map Greek nature. in conjunction with other experts in Greece, he completed a field survey of Greece's remaining natural areas, noting many "hotspots" where the survival of relatively unmodified "natural" ecosystems is threatened.
Adriane Carr, WILD Executive Director, with researcher Stamatis Zogaris Nelli Zogaris
Photo credit: Ben Hallmann
Greece is located at a biological crossroads between Europe, Asia and Africa. An amazing diversity of flora and fauna is found in this small Mediterranean country, the birthplace of democracy. Its natural habitats range from Creatan palm groves and rock-rose scrub-lands to Norway spruce forests and alpine bogs. Over 760 species of plants are endemic to Greece; they grow nowhere else on earth. Greece has more wildflower species than the whole of Canada.
Stamatis has just completed his report on the mapping project. His detailed map of Greece, with natural ecosystems classified by significance and threat, represents the pilot WILD map. WILD will be publishing a summary of his work in an eight page tabloid newspaper in April of this year, urging the international conservation community to support more preservation in Greece. All those on the WILD mailing list will be receiving a copy.
Threatened Coigne-lenga Magellanic temperae rainforest in Southern Chile Photo credit: Alex Frid
Saving Chile's temperate rainforest
Near the tip of South America, pristine old-growth temperate forest is made scrubby by the Magellanic winds. Here gusts commonly reach 120 km/hour in the spring. Now the Tierra del Fuego Ciogne-lenga (broadleafed beech species) forests are slated to be logged for the Japanese wood chip industry.
Several British Columbia-based logging companies are involved. During September of 1990, Canadian conservationist Alex Frid, whose work in Chile was partially sponsored by WILD found evidence that the endangered huemul deer used one of the forests which are slated to be logged.
Official documentation of this fact by Frid led the Premier of the Magallanes Region to unofficially state that no logging would take place where huemul are found.
