21 May
2009 - Kathmandu, Nepal – World record mountaineer
Apa Sherpa reached the top of the Mount
Everest today for the record 19th time and
placed a WWF banner urging the world to
take action against climate change.
The banner which he
brought to the top of the world at around
0800 local time calls to "Stop Climate
Change - Let the Himalayas Live!"
The expedition reminds
world leaders of their responsibility towards
preserving the Himalayas as a global heritage,
and calls on them to strike a global deal
to fight climate change at the Copenhagen
Climate Summit this December.
"Climate change
is already wreaking havoc in the Himalayas
-- glaciers are in retreat across the range”,
said James Leape, Director General at WWF
International.
“Some scientists predict
that if climate change is not controlled,
the glaciers could be gone in just 25 years.
This and many other climate change impacts
are threatening not only the lives of people
and rich biodiversity of the region, but
also the development aspirations of hundreds
of millions of people downstream."
At the summit, Apa also
installed a Bumpa (sacred vase) personally
blessed by the Venerable Rinpoche of Tengboche
(Buddhist spiritual leader), containing
400 different sacred ingredients intended
to restore the sanctity of the Himalayan
beyul (sacred valleys) against negative
impacts of rapid environmental changes.
Congratulating WWF and
Apa, Mr. Ganesh Sah, Nepal's Minister for
Environment, Science and Technology said:
"The well-being of the Himalayas is
crucial for economic development in Nepal.
It's only by coming together that we can
deliver this message emphatically to the
world."
Apa Sherpa has experienced
dangerous impacts firsthand, witnessing
the changing landscapes of the Himalayas
in the wake of climate change during his
decades of mountaineering experience, and
having been a victim personally of its disastrous
consequences.
Apa carried the WWF Banner during the Eco
Everest Expedition, which is led by two-time
Everest Summiteer Dawa Steven Sherpa, a
passionate advocate of climate change issues
and also a WWF Climate Witness.
"WWF salutes the
efforts of Apa and Dawa for taking the climate
change message to the top of the world and
being ambassadors for WWF's Climate for
Life campaign", said Mr. Anil Manandhar,
WWF Nepal Country Representative. "Now
the time has come for the world to redirect
its attention towards the Himalayas."
+ More
Pulp giant APP set to
assault Sumatra orangutan sanctuary
18 May 2009 - Jambi,
INDONESIA: A massive logging operation planned
by Asian Pulp & Paper and the Sinar
Mas Group (APP/SMG) and associated companies
is to include large portions of the only
areas that Sumatran orangutans have ever
successfully been re-introduced into the
wild, conservation groups active in Jambi
province have learned.
Also threatened in natural
forest areas around the Bukit Tigapuluh
National Park are a quarter of the last
critically endangered Sumatran tigers left
in the wild, the Talang Mamak and Orang
Rimba indigenous peoples and a significant
population of endangered Sumatran elephants.
Conservation groups
WARSI, the Sumatran Tiger Conservation and
Protection Foundation, the Frankfurt Zoological
Society, the Zoological Society of London
and WWF-Indonesia learned last week that
an APP/SMG joint venture had acquired the
largest of the former and inactive ex PT
IPA selective logging concessions in the
Bukit Tigapuluh forest area - covering the
orangutan reintroduction area and areas
recording the most frequent sightings of
tigers.
The groups have been
highly critical of an APP/SMG environmental
impact assessment for the neighbouring and
also critically important PT Dalek Hutani
Esa concession, saying it takes no account
of key wildlife and indigenous peoples’
needs and should be rejected.
APP/SMG pushed a legally
questionable logging road through both areas
last year, opening up access for rampant
illegal logging and clearing linked with
increased fatalities as tigers are driven
into closer contact with humans.
With the latest acquisition,
APP/SMG now holds the majority of the buffer
areas to the national park , including large
areas the Forestry Service of Jambi and
the National Park management authority agreed
in 2008 to designate as the Bukit Tigapuluh
Ecosystem which would be sustainably managed
as natural forest.
Less than one third
of the 2007 forest cover is within the National
Park, with the areas most preferred by animals
and indigenous peoples lying in the surrounding
lowland forests now vulnerable to clearing.
“It took scientists
decades to discover how to successfully
reintroduce critically endangered orangutans
from captivity into the wild. It could take
APP just months to destroy an important
part of their new habitat,” said Peter Pratje
of the Frankfurt Zoological Society.
“These lowland forests
are excellent habitat for orangutans, which
is why we got government permission to release
them here beginning in 2002. The apes are
thriving now, breeding and establishing
new family groups.”
Between 1985 and 2007,
Sumatra island lost 12 million hectares
of natural forest, a 48 percent loss in
22 years, with the accelerating rampage
provoking international concern over the
loss of biodiversity, smoke hazards from
forest fires and peat swamp and soil degradation
from clearing that made Indonesia one of
the largest sources of the emissions causing
climate change.
The Indonesian Ministries
of Forestry, Environment, Public Works and
Interior, as well as the governors of all
10 Sumatran provinces, including Jambi,
announced at the World Conservation Congress
in Spain last year that they were committed
to protecting areas of the island with “high
conservation values.”
The Bukit Tigapuluh
landscape is widely regarded as one of Indonesia’s
key areas of biodiversity..
“These NGOs are ready
to support the Jambi governor to implement
his public commitment to protecting Sumatra’s
high conservation value areas and halt APP/SMG’s
plan and identify alternative financing
that would provide money and still save
the forests, such as credits in the emerging
forest carbon market,” said Ian Kosasih
of WWF Indonesia.
“Bukit Tigapuluh’s forest
have great potential for earning avoided
deforestation credits, due to the high co-benefits
of biodiversity and an indigenous community,
as well as high avoidable emissions.”
