Help Stop Mining Exploration in Ecuador Reserve
10/2/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Help Stop Mining Exploration in Ecuador Reserve
Source: Rainforest Information Centre, Australia & DECOIN Ecuador
Status: Distribute freely with credit given to source
Date: October 2, 1999
Byline: John Seed
Dear Friends,
We urgently need your help to protect one of the most fragile and
threatened (supposedly) protected wilderness areas on Earth - the
Cotacachi Cayapas Ecological Reserve in Ecuador. As you will read in
the letter below, mining prospectors have recently entered the
reserve and if valuable minerals are found it will mean an end to the
ecological integrity of the area.
Please sign this letter as an organisation or individual and send it
to the World Bank and on to your own lists too. If you would like any
further information about the campaign please contact: decoin@hoy.net
(in English or Spanish). Please send them a copy of your fax or
email. Appol ogies for cross postings.
for the Earth - John Seed
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To the President, World Bank, James Wolfensohn fax 202-522-3031 /
522-0355, cunit3@worldbank.org
Executive Director World Bank, N. Hyden fax: 202 477-2007,
nhyden@worldbank.org
Dear
It has come to our attention that a serious transgression of World
Bank and international environmental protocol is currently taking
place in Ecuador with the mining survey of the Cotacachi Cayapas
Ecological reserve.
A World Bank financed mining project, PRODEMINCA (Proyecto de
Desarrollo Minero y Control Ambiental), is carrying out prospect
activities well within the boundaries of the Cotacachi Caya pas
Ecological reserve in North-West Ecuador.
We are frankly shocked that the World Bank could consider financing
such a project when we understand that mining activities are
prohibited in protected areas in Ecuador under the current Forestry
and Wildlife law and the current and proposed new mining law.
We call upon the World Bank to immediately withdraw funding from
these mining activities, and to ensure that it supports no future
financing of mining activities in any of the world's protected areas.
The social and ecological impacts of mining in tropical forests in
developing countries are well known. The World Bank must be aware
that any exploration and disclosure of mineral resources opens the
way not only for industrial exploitation but uncontrolled mining by
small operators. In this case, given the ecological significance of
the reserve in question, it is also guaranteed infringement of World
Bank promises for the care and protection of global biodiversity.
The Cotacachi Cayapas Ecological reserve is a scant remaining intact
remnant of the Western Ecuadorian Forests, an area regarded as one of
the world's ten most threatened biological 'hot spots' (N. Myers,
1992, E. O. Wilson, 1995). Due to commercial logging, oil palm
plantations, cattle ranching, and other economic activities, these
forests have been reduced to only seven percent of their original
area (A.Gentry, and C. Dodson in: Biological Extinction of Western
Ecuador).
The forests where the prospecting is being carried out at present
have one of the world's highest rates of endemic species. They harbor
dozens of mammal and bird species severely threatened by extinction,
including Spectacled Bears, Jaguars, Ocelots, Mountain Tapirs, brown
headed spider Monkeys and white throated Capuchin Monkeys. Bird
species include the Plate-billed mountain Toucan, Esmeraldas
Woodstar, Great Green Macaw, Crested Eagle, Harpy Eagle and the
Andean Condor.
We anticipate your immediate and conclusive action by directing an
immediate halt to World Bank participation in the PRODEMINCA project
and safeguarding the protection of the Cotacachi Cayapas Ecological
Reserve. We believe it is vital that any geological information
already gathered in the area remain out of public view in order to
avoid invasion by small miners.
We would also like to encourage the World Bank's changing trend in
development policies to support the multiple options for ecologically
and socially benign projects. Continued support of such unsustainable
activities such as mining in areas of extreme environmental
importance puts this shift in severe jeopardy.
We look forward to hearing your prompt and positive response to this
issue in order to remain consistent to your own policies.
Yours sincerely,
PLEASE SIGN HERE