di Olivier Vidal
Dear caving friends,
Vercors 2008 and the 1st EuroSpeleo Protection Symposium are over. We had -thanks to the fantastic organisation of the FFS- an unforgetable time in Lans. And during the round tables of the 1st EuroSpeleo Protection Symposium we could discuss diverse topics concerning cave and karst protection and we could really start actions. The 1st year of the European Cave Protection Commission was marked by lots of different activities and second is promising the same.
During the Vercors the participants of the symposium had the opportunity to discuss with Mikel Irujo, Member of the European Parliament, who took over the patronage of our symposium and visited us in Lans-en-Vercors. During the GAM of the FSE Iria Epalza, assisstant of Mikel Irujo, presented the “written declaration on the protection of caves as a cultural, natural and environmental heritage”and why all European cavers can and should help to let this declaration pass. All members of the FSE voted for a support of this declaration.
After Vercors we started to work on a public campaign in order to get the number of signatures we need to let this declaration pass. The state of art is that in the next 1-2 weeks we will finish to prepare the posters, postcards, the homepage, the presentation and the stand in the EU parliament.
As we are financially supported by Mikel Irujo and additionally also by a German publishing company, we could afford to get professional work by a advertising agency, which is run by a speleologist.
Following this link you can read the declaration in the 22 official languages of the European Union: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sidesSearch/search.do?type=WDECL&language=EN&term=6&author=38733
We will have a stand at the European Parliament on the 11th and 12th November 2008 together with our friends from UIS and with support of the IUCN cave and karst task force. For this event we can invite up to 50 people, who can visit the exhibition for 3 hours. So if anyone of you is interested in coming to Brussels, please contact us under protection@eurospeleo.org.
Next week we will send you a basic letter to the EU deputies with the official pictures of the campaign and the link to your national EU deputies on the new homepage of the declaration. We would like to ask to translate it into your national language and send it to all your national EU deputies in order to ask them for signing. It will be a very short mail, so it is not too much work and we ask you to add in 2-3 sentence, why it is important for your country that the deputies sign it. Deadline for signing WD 66 is the 4th December.
It is a very important step for our all aim of protecting our European Speleological Heritage, so we need you and your help to succeed in the end. Please help us and contact your EU deputies after our next mail. If they are living close to you, call them or go caving with them ;-)…..everything will help us. If you have any questions, please contact us under protection@eurospeleo.org.
For the campaign’s flyer we allowed us to add the web-addresses of your national federations in the list of supporting organisations. As the members of the FSE voted for the declaration and the FSE represents all of you, we would thought it is the show the huge European speleological community also as officially.
My very best speleo wishes, Christiane Grebe
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Christiane Grebe
Head of Commission
European Cave Protection Commission
Fédération Spéléologique Européenne (FSE)
e-mail: protection@eurospeleo.org
web: http://protection.eurospeleo.org