Fw: RAINFOREST ALERT: Last Chance to Stop Great Ugandan Mabira Rainforest Give-Away

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ACTION ALERT UPDATE PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!

 

Last Chance to Stop Great Ugandan Mabira Rainforest Give-Away

 

By Rainforest Portal, a project of Ecological Internet, Inc.

http://www.RainforestPortal.org/

March 28, 2007

 

TAKE ACTION

Let the Ugandan Parliament know rainforests and their ecological

services including water, climate and biodiversity are more

important than sugar which can be grown elsewhere

 

http://www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp?id=uganda

 

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni continues to pursue legally

dubious plans to destroy large areas of Uganda's last important

intact and protected rainforests. Some one-third of Mabira

Forest Reserve, about 7,000 hectares of an area which has been

protected since 1932, will lose its protection for sugar cane

production by the Mehta Group. Ecological Internet was the first

to bring a thriving Ugandan rainforest protection and protest

movement to an international audience. Since that time many more

local and international groups have joined the campaign. Uganda

has long been facing a deforestation crisis, with forests

covering 20 percent of Uganda 40 years ago, but now just

covering seven percent. Deforestation has been directly

responsible for declining levels of waters in Lake Victoria,

River Nile and other rivers resulting in a scarcity of drinking

water and reduction in hydroelectric energy production.

Continued destruction of Uganda's surviving forests will have

further grave ecological consequences -- threatening ecotourism

revenues, rare species, sparking soil erosion and water

pollution. Already the movement for sustainable rainforest use

and development in Uganda has won. Maintaining and expanding

rainforest protection has been established as a critical pillar

of climate change mitigation, water availability and national

ecological sustainability for Uganda's future. Please contact

the entire Ugandan parliament, Ugandan ministries and embassies

and insist that the Mabira sugar cane project be abandoned, and

Uganda's remaining rainforest strictly protected. Take Action!

 

http://www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp?id=uganda

 

 

 

 

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