wfn.org | Salvadoran Lutheran Synod's ecological pilgrimage

[FRANK_IMHOFF.parti@ecunet.org (FRANK IMHOFF)]

"San Salvador's last green lung" needs to be protected

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador/GENEVA, 20 August 1998 - About 300 people took
part in an ecological pilgrimage organized by the Salvadoran Lutheran Synod
under the motto "Sembrando Fe y Esperanza" - "Sowing Faith and Hope".
According to the Lutheran bishop Medardo Ernesto Gomez, the focus on the El
Espino plantation - "San Salvador's last green lung" - provides a concrete
example of the church's concern for life.

In April of this year, a road building project was launched, which will
claim about 400 square meters of this forest. The Lutheran Church in El
Salvador, in a press release dated Wednesday, August 12, explained that a
dispute between opponents and proponents of the El Espino plantation's
development has been smoldering for decades.

At the same time, environmental organizations and Christian groups have
availed themselves of a construction ban decreed by the Supreme Court to
plant trees on the cleared area.

*       *       *
Lutheran World Information
Editorial Assistant: Janet Bond-Nash
E-mail: jbn@lutheranworld.org
http://www.lutheranworld.org/