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Paradise Forests of Asia Pacific | |
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-- crew biography --
My name is Sandra, I'm 29 years old and a forest campaigner working for Greenpeace Germany. My passion is the tropical forests - so far I've been mainly working to protect the last ancient forests in Africa and the Amazon. This trip is very exciting for me, since it's my first visit to Southeast-Asia. Working for Greenpeace I've travelled quite a bit during the last years to do research on illegal logging. Even though most people don't think about it when they buy paper or a new wooden shelf - the destruction of the last ancient forests is still a huge problem! In Brazil up to 80% of the timber is being logged illegally, in Indonesia sometimes even more. No matter where you go the story is almost the same: big companies, sometimes even European ones, log as much as they can and make out very nicely. They build big roads into the dense forests to cut the most valuable trees, and to transport the timber out of the forest. Often farmers follow, using the timber roads to get into the opened up forests, searching for agricultural land. At this point, the days of the forest are numbered. With the loss of the forest, thousand of animals are also lost. The orang-utan population has declined by 50% in the last ten years. Due to the destruction of the forests, millions of people are also losing their livelihoods. The native communities of the Amazon rainforest, as well as the Pygmies in Central Africa, and the Penan in Sarawak - they all depend on intact forests. If you listen to the people who depend on these forests, you will hear how frightened they are about their future, how they fear that the timber industry will destroy their forests as well. You can get really angry. That's why I fight for saving the forests, and for more forests to be managed in an environmentally friendly and socially acceptable way - just like under the certification system of the Forest Stewardship Council. Timber is not a bad resource at all, but when managing a forest you need to respect strict ecological criteria. The people who live in the forest must also be included in decision making processes. I'm happy to be on board the Rainbow Warrior and to be able to support this international campaign. My role on board? I will try to make the scandal of the ancient forest destruction known in Germany. |
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