Greenpeace slams decision on Rapu-rapu
First posted 04:57pm (Mla time) June 13, 2006
INQ7.net
http://news.inq7.net/archive_article/index.php?ver=1&index=1&story_id=4729
(UPDATE) An international environmentalist group assailed the government’s decision to allow the Australia’s Lafayette Mining Ltd. to reopen its zinc and copper mine on Rapu-rapu island in Sorsogon even as Malacañang said it was standing behind Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes on the issue.
Greenpeace Southeast Asia called the decision "a virtual admission on the part of the government that long-term damage to the environment and to the marine ecosystem is a justifiable cost of doing business."
Reyes said he would allow Lafayette a 30-day test run on condition the firm put up a P10.7 million escrow deposit. The mine was shut down after two mine tailings spills October last year.
"With this decision, the national government has made sacrificial lambs out of the communities in Rapu Rapu and in the surrounding coastal areas," Greenpeace toxics campaigner Beau Baconguis said in an e-mailed reaction, although she called Reyes’ decision "hardly surprising given the government's unabashed stance in favor of mining interests."
Greenpeace was calling on Pres. Arroyo to "reverse this decision as soon as possible," Baconguis said. "Short term economic gains should not take precedence over the ecological stability of our environment and marine ecosystems in particular, and the lives that these sustain."
Local environmentalists also slammed Reyes’ decision, with Trixie Concepcion of Defend Patrimony, calling it “environmental treason of the highest order. It sacrifices the health and welfare of our people for the interest of foreign mining companies.”
Clemente Bautista, national coordinator of Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment, said the decision showed how the Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources has been “reduced to being a lackey of transnational mining companies.”
“It has been proven that Lafayette's economic contribution is almost negligible while its potential environmental and social impact to Rapu-rapu will run from hundreds of millions to billions of pesos” Bautista said.
But in Malacañang, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is fully backing the decision to allow Lafayette to resume operations "Secretary Reyes enjoys the trust and confidence of the President," Bunye said in a news briefing. "She has given the DENR the leeway to implement what is necessary. I'm sure Secretary Reyes' decision was well within his prerogatives."
With reports from Lira Dalangin-Fernandez and Delfin T. Mallari Jr.
INQ7.net
http://news.inq7.net/archive_article/index.php?ver=1&index=1&story_id=4729
(UPDATE) An international environmentalist group assailed the government’s decision to allow the Australia’s Lafayette Mining Ltd. to reopen its zinc and copper mine on Rapu-rapu island in Sorsogon even as Malacañang said it was standing behind Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes on the issue.
Greenpeace Southeast Asia called the decision "a virtual admission on the part of the government that long-term damage to the environment and to the marine ecosystem is a justifiable cost of doing business."
Reyes said he would allow Lafayette a 30-day test run on condition the firm put up a P10.7 million escrow deposit. The mine was shut down after two mine tailings spills October last year.
"With this decision, the national government has made sacrificial lambs out of the communities in Rapu Rapu and in the surrounding coastal areas," Greenpeace toxics campaigner Beau Baconguis said in an e-mailed reaction, although she called Reyes’ decision "hardly surprising given the government's unabashed stance in favor of mining interests."
Greenpeace was calling on Pres. Arroyo to "reverse this decision as soon as possible," Baconguis said. "Short term economic gains should not take precedence over the ecological stability of our environment and marine ecosystems in particular, and the lives that these sustain."
Local environmentalists also slammed Reyes’ decision, with Trixie Concepcion of Defend Patrimony, calling it “environmental treason of the highest order. It sacrifices the health and welfare of our people for the interest of foreign mining companies.”
Clemente Bautista, national coordinator of Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment, said the decision showed how the Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources has been “reduced to being a lackey of transnational mining companies.”
“It has been proven that Lafayette's economic contribution is almost negligible while its potential environmental and social impact to Rapu-rapu will run from hundreds of millions to billions of pesos” Bautista said.
But in Malacañang, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is fully backing the decision to allow Lafayette to resume operations "Secretary Reyes enjoys the trust and confidence of the President," Bunye said in a news briefing. "She has given the DENR the leeway to implement what is necessary. I'm sure Secretary Reyes' decision was well within his prerogatives."
With reports from Lira Dalangin-Fernandez and Delfin T. Mallari Jr.
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