 |
January
26th, 2001
Mr. Juan Villarzu Rohda
Executive President, CODELCO
Huerfanos 1270
Santiago, Chili
Dear Mr. Rohda,
We are watching the fate of the precious primeval forest in Ecuador
with great anxiety from the opposite side of the world - Japan.
It's said that the region where your company and Ecuadorian government
are trying to promote a mining project is one of the 10 greatest
hot spots of this planet vis-a-vis biodiversity. Your mining project
needs about 4,000 hectares of land, very wide roads which dump cars
run along to the site and almost 5,000 immigrant workers and will
leave behind 1,988 pounds of dangerous materials as waste products
to get only 12 poubds of copper (we take these figures from the
EIS by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency). It will destroy
the virgin forest of north- west Ecuador (of which only 7 or 8%
of its original size remains) and exterminate a lot of endangered
species. We can't continue with this kind of developement which
deprives the world of its natural resources.
The result of this reckless developement has begun to affect the
world as seen in recent climate changes. The fate of the animals
and plants which will be exterminated by the mining project is nothing
but that of our own; the humanbeings all over the world.
Have you ever talked about your project with the local people? We
know that the local communities have begun initiatives for alternative
developement, denying such projects that destroy nature and choosing
the sustainable way of life which will preserve nature and their
traditional life style. We can't accept the idea that the national
government can promote this project without the agreement of the
local people who will be directly affected . Couldn't you have more
respect for the human dignity of the local people by giving more
attention to their ideas?
We call on you to stop this mining project, which is so destructive
of the environmment and will benefit only a few people in the short
run. If you don't listen to our call, we'll begin a much bigger
campaign in Japan.
Keibo Oiwa; President of The Sloth Club
Yuta Harago; Director of The Japan Brazil Network
-------------------------------------------------------
also supported by these groups and individuals;
Wind Farm Co.,Ltd.
Organic Coffee, Inc.
World Ecology Network
Jubilee Kyushu on debt and poverty
Red de cooperacion mutua entre Japan y America Latena
Hand of Peace
Friend of the Earth
"aynu" to "sisam" no "ukocaranke"
o zitugensaseru kai
Jabiluka Action Fund
--------------------------------------------------------
Akiyoshi Tanaka, Masami Yokota, Maki Tokuoka, Hideo Sato, Tetsuzo
Takeuchi, Hisaaki Ikuta, Takahiro Kano, Yuki Hisada, Takeshi Yasuma,
Shugo Hama, Takaki Imai, Yutaka Miyazaki,
Mizuho Izu, Takehito Kobayashi, Akisada Suzuki, Tomio Kawase,
Yoshikazu Torizuka, Tokuhiro Maeda, Keisuke Okabe, Yoko Yasui,
Yoshitaka Mochizuki, Susumu Goto, Naoto Shimaue, Terumi Terao,
Toshitaka Kawakita, Shigeru Takaki, Hiroyuki Tiba, Kaori Takise,
Tadashi Matsuda, ChiyonoTakayanagi, Akane Matsumae, KikuyoYamanouchi,
Kimiyasu Imamura, Kohei Ishiguchi,
Kayoko Nakano,Saori Ariyoshi, Mariko Kimura, Misako Kumagai, Masazumi
Horiguchi, Satoru Furuya, Yoshiko Suda, TakeoTamura, Hiroshi Kitamura,
Noriko Kitamura, Mari Hoshikawa, Osami Nomura, Shunsuke Shimada,
Yoshihiro Abe, Yukari Tamura, Akira Sugiura, Goichi Oiwa, Yuri Oiwa,
Akiko Shimada, Isao Okamoto, Yu Tanaka,
Chika Matsushita, Megumi Taniguchi, Tsuyoshi Ishiwata,
Shihoko Niikawa, Tsuneo Tanaka, Ako Takahashi, Shizue Hirota, Yurika
Watanabe, Kanako Fujimoto, Hideaki Kanemoto,
Hiroyuki Ota, Atsushi Yoshioka, Kenji Ago, Kazuyuki Watanabe,
Ken Nishimura, Haruko Ishikawa, Dr.Hosokawa Komei,
Kiyomi Nakamura, Koichi Tsuruta, Kiyoshi Shikikta, Kenichiro Baba,
Shinichiro Ono, Yosuke Ozawa, Ryo Ueyama, Misao Yamagata,
Noa Yamagata, Satomi Nakajima, Yuka Kamiya, Aya Yodhimura, Michiko
Katsuki, Richard J. Basso, Namiko Nanki, Minoru Nishiyama, Kimi
Kobayashi, Miyuki Takizawa, Reiko Takeyama, Tomohiro Ando, Tomoko
Watari, Yoshitake Sokai, Asami Usuda, Tomoko Mizonoe, Misa Kasuga,
Haruka Souya, Fumiko Moriya, Maiko Shibata,
Chiaki Omori, Tomoko Fujiki, Kimiyo Kobayashi, Kazuhiro Yamada,
Atsushi Kato, Namiko Morimoto, Yoshiko Mishima, Shiho Takamura (109people)
--------------------------------------------------------
We'll send you this sentences by ordinal letter, too.
We'll send a copy of this e-mail/letter the people below.
Mr. Pablo Teran
Minister of Energy and Mines
Ms. Jacqueline Saintard Vera
Subsecretary of Mines
MINISTERIO DE MINERIA de Chile
Mr. Carlos Zorrilla
President
DEFENSA Y CONSERVACION ECOLOGICA DE INTAG |