Dear Mrs Kuchma

Let us be among the first to congratulate you on your appointment as an UNESCO Ambassador. We are confident that you will invest this important international office with your proven responsibility, competence and concern for your country and others.

For a start we would urge you to inform yourself of the impending threat to the UNESCO Man and Biosphere project the bilateral Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve.

The plans to dredge a channel through the core area of the most important wetland site in Europe threatens irreversible destruction of important global, European and national natural resources as well as traditional Ukrainian culture, skills and way of life. There are better options - as UNESCO has pointed out in a recent report to the government of the Ukraine.

In the hope that you will use your considerable influence, and the influence of your new appointment, to stop this disastrous plan immediately we remain,

yours sincerely,

(Name and address)