End of Lafayette test run met with protest-Greenpeace maintains firm spells disaster for Bicol
First posted 04:03pm (Mla time) Aug 10, 2006
By Nonoy EspinaINQ7.net
http://specials.inq7.net/theenvironmentreport/index.php?ver=1&index=1&story_id=14543
ACTIVISITS from the international environmental group Greenpeace scaled the office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Quezon City on Thursday and unfurled a protest banner to mark the end of the 30-day test run granted to controversial Lafayette Mining on Rapu Rapu Island, Albay.
After reaching the roof of the DENR building, the activists unfurled a giant banner carrying the message, "Lafayette Mining: Countdown to an Ocean’s Disaster."
Beau Baconguis, Greenpeace Southeast Asia toxics campaigner, said around 25 activists from their group were held for about two hours by DENR guards but were eventually released around 11 p.m. “after they apparently decided not to file charges against us.”
She said they were hoping to meet Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes but neither he nor “his subordinates were present.”
“The only people who were there were in no position to make decisions or commitments,” said Baconguis.
Greenpeace has been protesting the Lafayette test run, calling it a prelude to the full resumption of the mining firm’s operations, which the group maintains will devastate the rich waters off the Bicol region in southern Luzon.
Lafayette’s operations were suspended late last year after two mine spills released cyanide and other pollutants into the seas around Rapu Rapu, killing marine life.
Despite a Malacañang-appointed fact-finding committee’s recommendation for the cancellation of Lafayette’s environmental clearance, the DENR allowed the test run on July 11.
“We just want to send a message that we don’t agree,” either with the decision to allow the test run or what Greenpeace expects will be the full resumption of mining operations, Baconguis said.
She dismissed the test run as a “tactic to make people accept the eventual full resumption” of Lafayette’s operations.
Baconguis also accused the DENR of a “lack of transparency” during the test run.
“They never disclosed who were with the monitoring team supposed to look at the test run,” she said.
While acknowledging that Reyes invited them to join the monitoring team, “the invitation was never formalized.”
She also cited the detention and questioning of Greenpeace worker David Andrade while he was collecting water samples from an allegedly polluted creek on July 25.
Andrade, who was taken in by police and alleged Lafayette security personnel together with his local guide and a boat man, was investigating a reported fish kill that the mining firm had described as a case of sabotage by its critics.
“Even locals opposed to Lafayette are being harassed,” Baconguis said.
The waters of the Bicol region are famed as the feeding grounds and lie along the migratory route of the whale shark. They are also home to five of seven known marine turtle species.
“Rapu Rapu Island is a dangerous place for a mine,” Greenpeace said. “Not only is it situated along the country’s typhoon belt, but also along a major fault, making it a high-risk area for mining catastrophes.”
By Nonoy EspinaINQ7.net
http://specials.inq7.net/theenvironmentreport/index.php?ver=1&index=1&story_id=14543
ACTIVISITS from the international environmental group Greenpeace scaled the office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Quezon City on Thursday and unfurled a protest banner to mark the end of the 30-day test run granted to controversial Lafayette Mining on Rapu Rapu Island, Albay.
After reaching the roof of the DENR building, the activists unfurled a giant banner carrying the message, "Lafayette Mining: Countdown to an Ocean’s Disaster."
Beau Baconguis, Greenpeace Southeast Asia toxics campaigner, said around 25 activists from their group were held for about two hours by DENR guards but were eventually released around 11 p.m. “after they apparently decided not to file charges against us.”
She said they were hoping to meet Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes but neither he nor “his subordinates were present.”
“The only people who were there were in no position to make decisions or commitments,” said Baconguis.
Greenpeace has been protesting the Lafayette test run, calling it a prelude to the full resumption of the mining firm’s operations, which the group maintains will devastate the rich waters off the Bicol region in southern Luzon.
Lafayette’s operations were suspended late last year after two mine spills released cyanide and other pollutants into the seas around Rapu Rapu, killing marine life.
Despite a Malacañang-appointed fact-finding committee’s recommendation for the cancellation of Lafayette’s environmental clearance, the DENR allowed the test run on July 11.
“We just want to send a message that we don’t agree,” either with the decision to allow the test run or what Greenpeace expects will be the full resumption of mining operations, Baconguis said.
She dismissed the test run as a “tactic to make people accept the eventual full resumption” of Lafayette’s operations.
Baconguis also accused the DENR of a “lack of transparency” during the test run.
“They never disclosed who were with the monitoring team supposed to look at the test run,” she said.
While acknowledging that Reyes invited them to join the monitoring team, “the invitation was never formalized.”
She also cited the detention and questioning of Greenpeace worker David Andrade while he was collecting water samples from an allegedly polluted creek on July 25.
Andrade, who was taken in by police and alleged Lafayette security personnel together with his local guide and a boat man, was investigating a reported fish kill that the mining firm had described as a case of sabotage by its critics.
“Even locals opposed to Lafayette are being harassed,” Baconguis said.
The waters of the Bicol region are famed as the feeding grounds and lie along the migratory route of the whale shark. They are also home to five of seven known marine turtle species.
“Rapu Rapu Island is a dangerous place for a mine,” Greenpeace said. “Not only is it situated along the country’s typhoon belt, but also along a major fault, making it a high-risk area for mining catastrophes.”
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10:34 PM
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