FSUE Conservation initiative, take 2

[nickwilliams]

There appears to be some sort of corruption in the original thread on this topic so I have been unable to add to it over an extended period, using both IE on Windows and Safari on MacOS. I'm therefore starting a new thread - if the moderators can untangle the original one and combine the two, then please do so.

Nick.

 

[nickwilliams]

Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:32:29 +0200
From: "Christiane Grebe" <address withheld - PM nickwilliams for details>
To: <FSUE Mailing list>
Subject: [deleg] Help the caves and karst in Europe!
Status: U

Help the caves and karst in Europe!

Please support the declaration for cave protection in the European Parliament.

Until 4th of December 2008 deputies of the European Parliament can sign a declaration for cave protection. Every speleological federation in Europe supports the declaration. This mail is send to all of them across Europe.

From November 11th to 12th 2008 an information stand will be in front of the plenary hall in Brussels. And a media conference will be held on the 11th. Only if the majority of deputies signs, we can establish cave protection all over Europe.


Therefore we need your help:

  1. Look for your deputy in the European Parliament.
      Check out the link http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/public.do?language=en and click on your country to see the names and the contact details of your national deputies.

  2. Please contact them and ask him/her to sign declaration "WD 66" for cave protection in Europe latest till December, 4th. You can translate the e-mail in the attachment for this purpose. Tell them about our information stand in Brussels from November 11th to 12th 2008. At www.cavedeclaration.eu  you can download the declaration in all 20 languages of the European Union to send them with your e-mail.

      It would be even better, if you additionally call your deputy and write a personal letter (the deputies will answer to letters but not categorical to mails), in which you explain the problems in your national karst areas or maybe invite them to visit the caves in your region.

  3. Forward this e-mail to all speleo clubs, NGOs, speleologists, etc. and ask them to support this campaign. The more people become active, the more likely will we succeed! More information and downloads you can find at www.cavedeclaration.eu.

The declaration "WD 66" for the protection of caves as cultural, natural and environmental heritage is also available at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sidesSearch/search.do?type=WDECL&term=6&author=28233&language=EN&startValue=0

We printed postcards with four different motives for the stand in Brussels. If you are interested, you can order them at www.cavedeclaration.eu from the beginning of November.

In addition, we can offer you the opportunity to visit the information stand in Brussels. On the 11th and 12th November each day up to 50 people can visit the stand for 3 hours. Interested persons have to send an e-mail with full address and date of birth to protection@eurospeleo.org. If we receive too many requests, we will take into account the different countries proportionally.

With pleasure we will hand out information material and little presents (like calendars) at our stand. If somebody would like to contribute something, contact us at protection@eurospeleo.org till latest October 30th. Sponsors and supporters could be mentioned and a link set up at www.cavedeclaration.eu.

If you have further questions, don't hesitate to contact us.

Thanks a lot for your help and best speleo wishes,

Christiane Grebe, Head of European Cave Protection Commission / FSE
Jean Pierre Bartholeyns, President of the Department of Protection and Management / UIS




--
Christiane Grebe
European Cave Protection Commission
Federation Speleologique Europenne (FSE)
web: http://protection.eurospeleo.org

 

[nickwilliams]

Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:09:10 +0100
From: "Christiane Grebe" <address withheld - PM nickwilliams for details>
To: <FSUE Mailing List>
Subject: [deleg] efforts for Brussels WD 66
Status: U

Dear caving friends,

short summary on our efforts for Brussels WD66:

- 53 signatures - we need more 340 - so please contact the deputies and
ask for support

- we are still working on the homepage www.cavedeclaration.eu

- if you need postcards from the campaign, let us know.

- information stand 11th and 12th of November 2008 in the parliament in
Brussels

We need...
- 6-8 cavers from 10th to 13th November to help at the stand and a professional photographer to take pictures at the stand, at the conferences, etc.
- information material from your federation


We want to have as many different countries with us as possible - please
contact protection@eurospeleo.org.

Thanks for your help,
Cavers in expert groups !

Best speleo wishes

Christiane and Baerbel

--
Christiane Grebe
European Cave Protection Commission
Federation Speleologique Europeenne (FSE)
web: http://protection.eurospeleo.org

 

[nickwilliams]

Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:53:30 +0100
From: "Christiane Grebe" <address witheld - PM nickwilliams for details>
To: <FSUE mailing list>
Subject: [europe.s2v8] press conference in Brussels / conf?rence de presse ? Bruxelles

Dear caving friends, Chers Amis Sp?l?o,

after a mistake in the last mail appeared, please find enclosed the press release for our press conference in the European Parliament next week! Please take a look on a our homepage to find the latest news: www.cavedeclaration.eu.

Please distribute this press release to your national press agencies and press contacts. Thanks a lot for all your help!

--------------------------

Save the hole world - Protection of caves as a cultural, natural and environmental heritage in the European Union

*When: Tuesday 11 November at 11h00*
*Where: European Parliament Press Briefing Room PHS0A50, Brussels*
*Who: Mikel Irujo (Eusko Alkartasuna), Christiane Grebe (European Cave Protection Commission), Alexey Zhalov (European Speleological Federation), Ioana Meleg (Biospeleologist), Jean Pierre Bartholeyns (International Union of Speleology)

MEP Mikel Irujo, the European cave Protection Commission and invited experts will be campaigning for two days in the European Parliament to gain signatures for the Written Declaration on Cave Protection which they launched in September. Entitled 'Written Declaration on Protection of caves as a cultural, natural and environmental heritage' the document was launched by MEP Mikel Irujo, MEP Rebecca Harms, MEP Csaba S?ndor Tabajdi and they hope to obtain more than a half of the signatures of all MEPs (785) in order to make this declaration pass.

Within the two day campaign, there are several actions planned;

 Meeting with the European Commission to talk about the necessity of a European law on the matter
 Information Stand at the Parliament
 Publicity campaign to sign Written Declaration 66
 Projection of some documentary films about caves

 

[nickwilliams]

Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:56:09 +0100
From: "Christiane Grebe" <>
To: <fsce mailng list>
Subject: [deleg] cave maccaroni & co at the EU parliament


Dear caving friends,

some news for you from Brussels and our stand at the European parliament!

From November 10th to 13th our campaign team stayed in Brussels in order to promote WD 66 for cave protection. We had a meeting with a responsible of DG Environment of EU commission on the 10th, a press conference on the 11th and at the our information stand in front of the plenar hall in EU parliament.

Our information stand in Brussels on the 11th and 12th November was a real success. We had lots of interested visitors from many different countries.
In 2 days we distributed 2000 postcards, 1000 packages of maccaroni with a cave picture on it saying "these are also breakable - maccaroni! save the hole world by signing WD 66" and 1000 flyer. In the end you saw everywhere in the parliament people with our maccaroni and flyers. If you want to get an impression how these days were, take a look on http://picasaweb.google.com/christianegrebe/SaveTheHoleWorldCampaignForWrittenDeclaration66OnCaveProtection# .

We found out that the maccaroni as present were a very good idea as it attracted attention of many people. In addition, we had a stalagmite at the stand lent by the German Cave Museum and Dechenhoehle Iserlohn
(www.dechenhoehle.de) as example for caves as archive for sciences and the new book of cave photographies by Max Wisshak "Inside Mother Earth" (http://www.editionreuss.de/pages/english.html) and a presentation of pictures from it. These were really two eyecatcher to sensitize the people and especially the deputies for the cave and karst protection.

BUT..... above all... I would like to thank the fantastic team of speleologists, who came to Brussels to pack 1000 packes of maccaroni,to help at the stand and convince the people in a multi-lingual way, to visit the deputies directly in their offices and ask them to sign, to render expert opinion during the meeting with the EU commission and the press conference etc.. Many thanks to Prof Paolo Forti, Herman de Swart, Wietske
van der Berge, Pierrot Clemens, Jean-Pierre Bartholeyns, Kasia Biernacka, Ferdinando Didonna, Rainer Fohlert, B?rbel Vogel, Ioana Meleg, Viorel Lascu, Alexey Zhalov, Dirk van Daerme. And I would like to thank all the speleologists and federations in Europe, who contacted their deputies. We still have some time till 4th December, so if you didn't contact your national deputies so far, please do it now. Everything you need for this,
you find on our homepage www.cavedeclaration.eu.

So what will be our next steps? - specialists on GIS and hydrology are needed

During the meeting with EU commission we agreed on working together in the future and Mr Ladislav Miko askes us to prepare GIS map for all karst areas in Europe in order to compare it with the existing protected areas. We are planing to prepare a first map for the commission with less details and some regional examples. In a second step we will do it with more details, as this is connected with much more work and time. So what we need now is a group of interested GIS-speleos, who would like to work on this project for the EU commission and collect all data from the European federations. The first interested people mailed to us. It is also planed that next September/October this GIS group will also present their results in front of the EU commission in a workshop for the new EU commission.

Beside this we are now represented in the groundwater working group in Brussels and looking for a group of hydrology experts, who can assisst this working group for the new papers for the groundwater framework.

If you are interested in the GIS or groundwater project, please mail to protection@eurospeleo.org. More information in the next mail!

Best speleo wishes
Christiane Grebe






--
****************
Christiane Grebe
European Cave Protection Commission
F?d?ration Sp?l?ologique Europ?enne (FSE)
web: http://protection.eurospeleo.org

 

[cap n chris]

Has anyone on this forum read WD66?

"the establishment of a legislative framework to guarantee (cave) protection, and
measures to ensure that new buildings and industrial activities are compatible with the
nearby environmental and archaeological heritage"

Assuming Written Declaration 66 becomes a new piece of European Legislation, and assuming that (say) someone wished to build a property like the Belfry, or the Hunters Lodge Inn, who or what agency would undertake a survey to ensure that the proposed development would be "compatible with the nearby cave(s)*".

* Which may even be, as yet, undiscovered?

Methinks a legislative can of worms resulting in the employment of (yet) another layer of bureaucrats may unwittingly result from this otherwise well meant lobbying.

 

[nickwilliams]

In practice, the UK already has a structure for environmental impact assessments and I don't doubt that any legislation resulting from this initiative would simply result in this being another responsibility of the existing bureaucracy. Which is not to say that I'm necessarily for or against what is being proposed - I've simply been posting these messages in order to try to keep people informed.

May I make a plea that any debate on this thread should focus on the issue of whether or not a legislated structure for the preservation of caves is a good or bad idea rather than have it descend into yet another 'eurocrats are ruining the UK' thread?

Nick.

 

[Peter Burgess]

If the presence of caves is take into account in the existing frameworks for environmental impact of development, then I can't see anything to be concerned about. Why limit environmental impact to the surface only?

 

[cap n chris]

I've simply been posting these messages in order to try to keep people informed.

And much appreciated it is, too. One wonders whether cavers would be approached, a la climbing technical advisers, or whether instead archive searches would suffice for any EIS.

 

[whitelackington]

Has anyone on this forum read WD66?

"the establishment of a legislative framework to guarantee (cave) protection, and
measures to ensure that new buildings and industrial activities are compatible with the
nearby environmental and archaeological heritage"

Assuming Written Declaration 66 becomes a new piece of European Legislation, and assuming that (say) someone wished to build a property like the Belfry, or the Hunters Lodge Inn, who or what agency would undertake a survey to ensure that the proposed development would be "compatible with the nearby cave(s)*".

* Which may even be, as yet, undiscovered?

Methinks a legislative can of worms resulting in the employment of (yet) another layer of bureaucrats may unwittingly result from this otherwise well meant lobbying.

Wot about flesh houses next to The Belfry?

 

[graham]

Wot about flesh houses next to The Belfry?

Sounds like a good idea. 

 

[nickwilliams]

Dear caving friends,

Finally we lost...

The signatures for written declaration Nr.66 were not enough to let it pass. We got 140 signatures so it lapsed, because 393 would have been the minimum for a success. On <http://cavedeclaration.eu/news.php>http://cavedeclaration.eu/news.php you can find a table with all detailed results.

In this e-mail we would like to give you a short overview of the campaign and what will be next steps. Because one thing is sure for us all, we will continue our work in Brussels.

Looking back... what went wrong?

it was not possible to support the declaration from its beginning of the signing period on 1st September. We received the 1st information about it at the end of August!
the time to organise the whole public campaign was extremely short. In only 6 weeks posters, postcards, slogan, homepage, looking for sponsorship, finding a team for Brussels and many things more were done.
too less time to involve all European Speleo Federations deeply in this project before (!) it was brought up.
it was not possible to win big supporters from other NGOs


Good news are...

many speleo clubs, speleologists and federations took part in this campaign -Thanks to every federation and every caver, who helped us. It was amazing to see the European wide engagement and so many caver worked hard to convince their deputies.
the information stand in the parliament was great success too, many interrested people visited us, who wanted to know more about the underground. These can be used for future projects. We could see that we are an "underground topic", but the interest is growing.
in the meeting with Mr.Miko from the European Commission asked for cooperation in a GIS project and a workshop for the new commission after the elections in summer 2009
the declaration got 140 signatures- so there are many people who support the idea of cave protection in the Parliament and we have a good starting point to continue our lobby work on a long-term basis


The next steps are...

for the European Parliament: deputies of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety  (from different countries and parties) can be found who support cave protection for a new round table or working group
for the European Commission: GIS project with karst areas of each country in  Europe and the protection status, to show the Commission that more work on that should be done and planing of a workshop for the new elected Commission in September 2009 about how cave protection in Europe can work
for speleology: speleological federations should strengthen their bands towards Europe and work together in an easy way
for speleologists: show up with new ideas and help to protect caves and karst in Europe - just send an e-mail


We need you.....for the EuroSpeleo GIS project

After our last e-mail several caver contacted us, who are interested in the GIS project for the EU commission. After our campaign is now finished, who would like concentrate on this more. As we are not all GIS specialists, we are still looking for of people, who build up this project and especially for one person, who can organise this. If you are interested to prepare this next big step, please contact us under <http://service.gmx.net/de/cgi/g.fcgi/mail/new?CUSTOMERNO=36252383&t=de1907982809.1229331178.1d253da&to=protection%40eurospeleo.org>protection@eurospeleo.org with a little description of your working experience with GIS.  In prior accordance with the ECPC board you will be responsible for the organisation of the group/project in order to be able to produce results till the planed workshop in Brussels end of next summer. You and the EuroSpeleo GIS project group will be asked to present your work for the EU commission.

More news in our next e-mail!
We wish you all a fantastic advent season....


For the European Cave Protection Commission

Christiane Grebe
Head of Commission

 

[nickwilliams]

Dear caving friends,

a year full of new and exciting work for cave protection has come to an end. Beside the 1st EuroSpeleo Protection Symposium and lots of small activities, this year was, of course, especially determined by our work in and for Brussels. And although the declaration didn't get the number of signatures we needed, it was a good step forward in our activities, which we will continue after our little Christmas break.

Once again we would like to thank all cavers and federations, who supported this campaign, special thanks also to our Brussels team at the stand, who did a great job. What we have learned during that time is, that our speleological community is strong and that together we can achieve a lot.

So what comes next?

2009 new and also exciting projects will wait for us and for you, just let us give you some examples. We will continue our work in Brussels and intensify our co-operation with the EU-commission (e. g. EuroSpeleo GIS project...) and for next autumn we plan the "1st European Cave Day", which will be organised under the leadership of Viorel Lascu from Romania, operator for public politics and public campaign in the ECPC-commission board.  Soon you will get more information about it!

One definite event I can announce you also today. The next official meeting of the European Cave Protection Commission, which will be held during the Balkan Caver Camp 2009 from 24th-28th June near Antalia,Turkey. It is planed to organise an open round table about cave protection in the Balkan countries. For our commission it is especially important to know the activities, strategies, problems and needs in the single member countries in order to organise our activities too, so we are looking forward for an interesting meeting.

One important issue

As you might have heard there is a problem of caves destruction in Brazil where President Lula has signed last month a decree authorizing such destruction for any reasons of industrial exploitation (mining, water, rubbish, chemicals, agro-industry, etc). The FEALC is supporting Brazilian cavers in their fight against this decree since this situation might happen soon in other Latin American countries. The FSE  and ECPC strongly support this protest, too, by 3 means for the moment :
1- sending the SBE a political support letter with copy to the EU Commission (this will be done soon)
2- asking to all national federations in Europe to send such a letter
3- asking to all European cavers to sign the online petition

So we ask you to help our Brazilian caving friends as a little christmas present ;-).

All the information on this issue is available,
in Portuguese on :
http://www.sbe.com.br/manifesto.asp
in Spanish on :
http://www.sbe.com.br/manifesto_esp.asp
and in English on :
http://www.sbe.com.br/manifesto_ing.asp

The petition is online on the brazilian website. Here the English version :
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abaixoassinado.org%2Fabaixoassinados%2F2115&sl=pt&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Original version in Portuguese on :
http://www.abaixoassinado.org/abaixoassinados/2115

On the page 2 (when you want to "subscribe" to the petition", read "Number of ID card & origin administration" instead of :
"Num Driver's identity and body dispatcher"

Thank you for your help in advance!

And now we wish you a merry christmas with your families and friends and a successful, joyful, healthy year 2009 with new discoveries and successful caving expeditions and many things more.

For the European Cave Protection Commission

Christiane Grebe
Head of European Cave Protection Commission
F?d?ration Sp?l?ologique Europ?enne (FSE)