19/06/2014 (Agence Europe) - Joint call to save Virunga Natioonal Park. On 18 June, European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs and Belgium's Minister for Cooperation Jean Pascal Labille made a joint call for the defence of Virunga National Park. The park, which is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site and is home to mountain gorillas, is threatened by the oil exploration activities of British company Soco International. Piebalgs and Labille “call on the shareholders of Soco (…) and the competent national authorities that all necessary action might be undertaken as quickly as possible” in the respect of current international standards. They “will be particularly attentive to the scope of the draft Congolese law on hydrocarbons”, says a joint statement published by their spokespersons (our translation). The statement was published at the end of Piebalgs' and Labille's visit to the park, on which they were accompanied by the park's director, Emmanuel de Merode. They had been alerted to the threat to the park by an article in British newspaper The Guardian on 4 March. (AN)