We are now in Krasny Yar, a village of the indigenous Udeghe
people, on the Bikin River, Siberia. We arrived late today to stumble
on a meeting where the Udeghe were making a pact to stop the
Forestry Service from marking trees in the Sikhote Alin Forest
for logging by Hyundai.
The Udeghe will to-morrow attempt to stop the forestry
officers leaving by helicopter. If that fails, some of their
hunters will go to the site of the tree marking, carrying
(lowered) weapons, in order to persuade the Forestry staff not to
mark the trees.
We are hoping for an injunction from Yablokov and Yeltsin to stop
the forestry service from breaking the law - the State
Environmental Ministry issued a report a year ago stating that
the area should be excluded from all logging.
So ... ACTION ALERT! We WILL send out a more
complete alert to forest action groups all over the world, but meanwhile ...
Background:
Hyundai have been given permission by the regional forestry
service, to log in the Bikin River watershed, in eastern Siberia,
500 km north of Vladivostok. The upper Bikin Valley is the
traditional land of the Udeghe people, who are opposed to the
logging, and is the last large habitat of the Siberian Tiger, of
which only two hundred and fifty remain.
The State Forestry Service plan to start marking the forests for
logging tomorrow, Wednesday, August 5. The Udeghe will attempt
to block the marking of the forest using peaceful means.
fax numbers:
Govenor Kusnetsov, Primorsky Krai, fax: 7 4212 22-10-19
Hyundai Vladivostok, fax: 7 4232 26-85-43
Best wishes,
John Seed Bill Pfeiffer, Anatoly Lebedev, Patrick Anderson
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URGENT Update (Wed, 5 Aug 92 04:34:09 PDT):
Dear friends,
The helicopter has taken off to give the order to cut the forest! Please send
your fax now THROUGH GLASNET. Thanks for the Earth,
Bill Patrick John
[ GLASNET service is available only on APC systems, not via Internet or
Bitnet, so the FAX numbers given above will have to be used. --Gary ]