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deutsche Version: Regenwald und Bergkaribus in Kanada vor dem Aus - ROBIN WOOD übergibt der kanadischen Botschaft rund 4.500 Protestbriefe Berlin, Germany, 1/31/08 The Old-growth Inland Rainforest and the mountain caribou are facing extinction ROBIN WOOD is handing in 4,500 protest letters to the Canadian Embassy ROBIN WOOD activists are protesting today in front of the Canadian Embassy in Berlin against the destruction of the Inland Rainforest in the Canadian Province of British Columbia. The environmentalists took two life-sized caribous with them and extended a banner with the message "Save the Inland Rainforest of Canada". They gave around 4,500 signatures to representatives of the embassy. They had collected these signatures in the past two months for a protest letter to the Prime Minister of the Province of British Columbia. ROBIN WOOD is demanding an immediate stop to the cutting in all stands in the region's rainforest that are over 140 years old. Canada is the fourth largest pulp supplier to the German paper industry. In the past, tens of thousands of mountain caribou roamed the area to the west of the Rocky Mountains. Today, the number of these creatures, which live exclusively in British Columbia has dwindled to around 1,800. The main cause of their threatened extinction is the destruction of the rainforest in the mountain valleys. Twice a year the herds of mountain caribou stay in these unique forest regions with their giant trees, some of which are over eighty meters high and over a thousand years old. Only here can they find food and shelter in the weeks before and after the winter. In October 2007, the Government of the Province of British Columbia announced a plan for the protection of the mountain caribou. The plan would create a large amount of "no logging areas" in mountain caribou forest. None of this new protection will be in the form of new parks. Admittedly most of the new protection - is located in areas in which the timber industry has no interest at all. A maximum of just one percent of the economically usable forests - and these are first and foremost rainforests - are to be saved from clear cutting in future; destroying the remaining 99 percent is still allowed. "A plan for the protection of mountain caribou that doesn't stop the destruction of forests is useless," says Rudolf Fenner, who is responsible for forests at ROBIN WOOD. "We expect the Provincial Government of British Columbia to put the last original rainforest areas in its region under protection, thus saving their unique plants and animals." If this doesn't happen, not only will the last mountain caribous die out. The same fate will befall numerous plants - above all the lichens - in these forests with their extraordinary high diversity of species. Kontakt: Rudolf Fenner, responsible for forests, phone 49 (0)40 / 380 892 11, wald@robinwood.de Ute Bertrand, press spokeswoman, phone 49 (0)40 / 380 892 22, presse@robinwood.de A copy of the protest letter and extensive background information can be found at: www.robinwood.de Fotos: Stephan Röhl