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 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 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

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