Tropical Rainforest Of Borneo

My thanks comes a bit late – I apologize -, but thanks for telling me this. I didn’t know that before. Well then from now on I will know when to use “state” and when to use “country” or “nation”. Thanks a lot! I’m sure that despite having been learning English for almost 14 years now my knowledge of this language still has a lot of flaws, so please keep correcting me. I don’t mind! On the contrary!

If you don’t mind some notes-
“states”- In this context, ‘nations’ is correct, a “state” in most English uses is an administrative section of a nation, like Chihuahua in Mexico, Newfoundland in Canada or Missouri in the USA.
The concept is “reciprocity” and I would have guessed the USA got that idea from the EU!
I agree, if the nation says “don’t export this animal”, it’s appropriate for other nations to say “don’t import this animal”.
The locals know the local situation best I think, when it comes to ecological matters.

The German animal-aid organisation “NABU” says that the island of Borneo is the sole place where you can find a special specimen of lizard. Needless to say this animal is protected on this island and due to this fact in some states – including the USA – it is forbidden to sell or even just import this animal. However it is not on the “CITES”-list, due to not being endangered. Thus a smuggler once he has managed to get this animal out of Borneo can legally sell it in countries that don’t forbid its import – member states of the EU for example. The same goes for many other animals that may be rare, but are not listed by “CITES”. Thus the European Parliament currently discusses whether or not the EU should make it like the USA and illegalize the import and selling of an animal, just because its export from the country it is originating from is illegal.

The January-sample of the magazine “National Geographic” also talked about the struggles of natives living in the rainforest of Borneo: They say that to grow more palm-oil plantations since after all this oil is needed in beauty essentials, chocolate, frozen food, meat and other products, about 90% of Borneo’s rainforest – these natives’ natural habitat – has been destroyed. Don’t they care that this is one of the world’s oldest rainforests still remaining today?
Also illegal logging to sell woods and timber illegally to countries all over the world has attributed to the many problems natives on this island now have to face. Loggers focus on the oldest and biggest trees around as these are the most valuable ones and completely ignore the value a tree of that size – it provides them with shade and places to hide, it houses many of the animals they eat and it partially controls the weather there – has for native tribes.
If indigenous communities living in the rain forest want to build a school for the children, they can’t find the timber to construct it. They frequently don’t have access to clean drinking water because all the rivers have been polluted during the logging-process. It goes without saying that these conditions make it impossible for them to keep up the lifestyle of their ancestors. Most of them already settled down except for a few 300 remaining who just refuse to abandon this life despite the hardships they have faced since the 20th century.

Recent reports about natives like the Guarani in Brazil being chased off their own lands and in some cases even killed to grow soy-fields in Latin-American areas that were once populated by native tribes made many people turn away from anything that has to do with soy – including meat as most animals from feeding-lots are fed food made of soy among some other ingredients. Some however still think that you don’t have to turn away from meat entirely to avoid soy as you can still turn to what is labelled as “maize-fed chicken” in English-speaking countries and “Maishähnchen” in German-speaking countries. “After all judging by this name you would say that this bird was fed nothing but maize throughout its entire life.”
This widely-believed theory now was proven wrong by Mrs.Polinkovska from the German animal-aid organization “Deutsches Tierschutzbüro”. This lady says that according to EU-rules any chicken having had a diet which consisted of maize by 50% only can be labelled as “maize-fed chicken”. What else the peasant or feeding-lot owner is feeding to this animal is up to him to decide. Thus if you buy a “Maishähnchen” or “maize-fed chicken” chances are high that the one you get was fed soy, too, seeing how cheap soy-based food for animals is.