Help Protect Cloud Forest From Mining
6/25/97
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Cloud forest in Ecuador needs help
Source: Mary Ellen Fieweger
Casilla 211
Otavalo - Imbabura
ECUADOR
Date: 6/25/97
Author: Dwight Call
405 Baldwin Avenue
Milledgeville, GA 31061 USA
Tel: (1) 912-453-0286
I'm writing on behalf of my friend, Mary Ellen Fieweger, who lives
near a settlement called Junin in the cloud forest of Ecuador. She and
her neighbors inhabit one of the most wildly diverse ecosystems on the
planet, one that is todayamong the most vulnerable because the Bishimetal
Exploration Company, a subsidiary of Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation, plans
to begin open pit copper mining there. With the complicity of government
authorities, who benefit financially, mining company officials have
initiated illegal activities. No environmental impact study has been
made. Forests are being logged, and raw sewage discharged. The people
have developed skin rashes, and far animals have died. During the five-
year exploration period, the residents of Junin were never informed of the
nature of the company's activities, as required by law. As the company
prepares to begin its mining, toxic substances will be brought to the
surface, more than one hundred families will be displaced, massive
deforestation will affect the climate, the watershed will be contaminated,
the irreplaceable "mega-biodiverse" cloud forest will be destroyed, and
the habitats of 18 animal species known to be in danger of extinction will
be affected.
Through Defensa y Conservacion Ecologica de Intag (DECOIN), a local
grassroots organization, the local residents have begun to resist!
The organization's goals include developing sustainable agricultural
techniques, providing environmental education, encouraging the
formation of crafts cooperatives and other sustainable economic
alternatives for area residents, and organizing to stop mining in the
cloud forest. Local residents have decided to stop the miners and to
protect biodiversity. To do so, they recently dismantled the illegal
mining camp and burned the building. The government threatens action
against the peasants, and especially wants the "foreign subversives,"
including Mary Ellen and her Cuban neighbor, to go to jail, Latin American
jails being among the worst in the world.
The government of Ecuador is now more determined than ever to start an
open pit copper mine in one of the most spectacular and endangered
ecosystems in the world, a project that will mean the end of that
ecosystem. Forever!
I'm asking you to write to the people listed below, saying that you
are aghast at the prospect of an open pit copper mine in such a unique and
irreplaceable cloud forest. Question how anyone could even consider
such a crime what with the tropical forests disappearing all over the
world, a situation which will literally, sooner or later, be the end of us
all. You might mention that you are also appalled that the government
should be going after peasants and environmentalists.
Your letter should be addressed to Dr. Baca Carbo, with copies to the
others on the list, including a copy to Mary Ellen herself. Please
also send Mary Ellen copies of any responses you receive. I encourage you
to forward this message to your own friends on the internet,
asking them to do likewise. Hopefully, we can save this one small
mega-biodiverse cloud forest! Thanks for your help!
ADDRESS LETTER TO:
Dr. Raul Baca Carbo
Minister of Energy and Mines of Ecuador
Santa Prisca 223 y 215
Quito, ECUADOR
COPIES TO:
General Manager
Mitsubishi Materials Corp. (Japan)
5-1 Ohtemachi 1-chome, Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 100, JAPAN
Jorge Burgos, Lawyer
Chilean Ambassador to Ecuador
Juan Pablo Sanz 3617 y Av. Amazonas
Ed. Xerox 4to piso
Quito, ECUADOR
Sr. Marcos Lima Aravena
Executive President
CODELCO
Huerfanos 1270
Santiago, CHILE
Sr. Tetsuo Hanawa
Japanese Ambassador to Ecuador
Juan Leon Mera 130 y Patria
Quito, ECUADOR
DECOIN
Casilla 144
Otavalo - Imbabura
ECUADOR