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25 February 2006

Bart van Opzeeland, campaigner, Greenpeace International

Bart
Bart van Opzeeland
Hello my name is Bart and I usually work for Greenpeace Netherlands as a toxics campaigner – a job I have had for the last 5 years. I took my holidays to come to Papua New Guinea to assist local landowners to protect their forests from destruction. In the end we hope to protect all the ancient Paradise Forests remaining in this region.

Thirty-five years ago, I was born in Amsterdam, the city I returned to 20 years later to study biology. I recently moved to a beautiful apartment in a very quiet neighbourhood 15 minutes from the Greenpeace office by bike. I am living there with my girlfriend.

I am a member of a volunteer organisation called RAVON, which researchs reptiles, amphibians and fish in the Netherlands. I am involved in research on grass snakes around the city of Amsterdam.

Before I joined Greenpeace my experience at RAVON got me a job at UNESCO. This job was in Madagascar where I investigated reptiles and amphibians in a 30.000 hectare tropical rainforest reserve. This experience made me fall in love with the tropical rainforest. I will do whatever I can to protect the rainforest or to visit one.

I am really interested in this Paradise Forests project, because it was initiated by the landowners themselves. They want to protect their forest against illegal logging and introduce ecologically sustainable forestry. Meaning that they will keep the forest intact and log selectively without destroying the forest. This sounds like a very prosperous solution to me. It will lead to the protection of the forest so that future generations of the people of Papua can still enjoy and use their forests.

   

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Comments

Hi

I guess we met some years ago. I am keen to know whether you have published your inventory at Mananara and if you collected any specimen. This i because I am interested to check those specimens and/or presence

Sincerely

Franco Andreone

Posted by: Franco Andreone at June 15, 2006 2:35 PM