How U.S. Groups can Help Stop Jabiluka Uranium Mine in Australia
John Hallam
Friends of the Earth Sydney,
Suite 15,
1st Floor, 104 Bathurst Street,
Sydney, NSW, 2000.
Fax(61)(2)9283-2005 ph(61)(2)9283-2006.
nonukes@foesyd.org.au http://www.peg.apc.org/~foesydney/
Dear US Antinuclear groups,
As you probably know, antinuclear groups all around Australia are engaged in
a fight against the proposal to build the second- largest uranium mine in
the world in the middle of the World Heritage Kakadu National Park, the
premier national park in the country.
Mining uranium in Kakadu would be like mining in the middle of Yellowstone.
We are lobbying the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO in Paris furiously,
to get them to list Kakadu as 'World Heritage in Danger'. The list of 'World
Heritage in Danger' now includes Angkor Wat, Dubrovnik, Yellowstone and
Everglades national parks, and other wonderful places that are in the
process of being destroyed.
The World heritage Committee is sendimng a high- level inspection team to
Kakadu this month - october 25th. it will be headed by the chairperson of
the WHC, professor Francesco Francioni, and the Director of the World
heritage Centre, Berndt Von droste and will include people from IUCN,
ICOMOS, etc.
The US is represented on the World Heritage Committee. Its representative
is:
John J. Reynolds
Deputy Director
National Park Service
18th & C Streets, NW
PO Box 37127
Washington, DC 20013-7127
ph 202-208-3818
fax 202-208-7889
the e-mail address for John Reynolds is john_reynolds@nps.gov
We are trying to get people to do the following:
1) Fax, and/or e-mail your WHC rep (John reynolds) to ask him to vote in kyoto in November/December to place kakadu national Park on the World Heritage in Danger List.
2)Lobby your Secretary for the Environment to ask him to instruct John Reynolds to do this.
3)Fax the chairperson of the World Heritage Committee and the Director of the World Heritage Centre, Professor Francesco Francioni and Berndt Von Droste, at +33-1-456-85570, +33-1-430-66035, to ask the WHC to place Kakadu on the World Heritage in danger list.
I am enclosing a 'Guide to Writing to the World Heritage Committee' which tells what to say.
3) GUIDE TO WRITING TO WHC.
GUIDE TO WRITING TO THE WorLD HERITAGE COMMITTEE.
Who To Write to:
Professor Francesco Francioni, Chairperson, World Heritage Committee Mr Berndt Von Droste, Director, World Heritage Centre, [.....name to be !QI!ed....]., World Heritage Bureau
All Members of the World Heritage Committee and Bureau
Unesco, 7 Place de Fontenoy, Paris, France, 07sp.
(Fax numbers +33-1-456-85570, +33-1-430-66035 +41-22-999-025)
It is best, if your organisation is based in any of those countries, to find out exactly who your representative is and to fax them directly, or else to fax them c/o the World Heritage Centre in Paris.
If your country is represented on the Committee or on the Bureau, (and especially if you are represented on the Bureau) please ask your Minister for the Environment to instruct your representatives, when the commttee meets in Kyoto in November/December to discuss this matter, to vote for Kakadu to be placed on the list of 'World Heritage in Danger'. Benin, Ecuador, Italy, Japan, Morocco, and the US have representatives on the Bureau.
We are not giving you a 'model letter' as such, since we feel it is important that individualised letters be sent. However, you should make the following points. More detail can be found in the long sample letter from Friends of the Earth Sydney that follows. We urge you to crib from, and to use the material from, this letter, but do not just copy it. if you have home - grown examples you can use, please do so.
Points To Make:
1)The value of Kakadu National Park. Most World Heritage sites are listed for either natural heritage values, or for cultural heritage values. Kakadu is one of only 19 sites worldwide that are listed under both criteria. In fact, Kakadu is listed under two cultural criteria and three natural criteria, making it 'five times' World Heritage. It isn't 'merely' Word Heritage, exalted as that already is. It is extra-super-special World Heritage.
2) The mining leasesare enclaves which have been arbitarily excised from the park, but actually contain much of what makes the park World Heritage. For example, the Jabiluka mining lease contains Australian Heritage Commission areas in which there are some 196 sacred art sites dating back to at least 10,000BC. Mining are adversely affecting these, and makes them less accessible to the Traditional owners, who are their custodians.
3)The cultural values of Kakadu are incorporated in a LIVING tradition dating back to time immemorial, (40-60,000BC), whose living representatives are the traditional owners. The Traditional Owners feel that mining at Jabiluka will adversely affect their culture, and their judgement in this matter should be regarded as decisive.
4)Mining will create an ultra-long lived impact from seepage and 20 million tonnes of millling waste (tailings), which will be radioactive for hundreds of millenia. Technical means to contain these for up to 300,000 years simply do not exist, and even more modest targets of confinement for 1-10,000 years
are doubtful.
5)Mining at Ranger is making an impact now, with a northward- moving plume of contaminated water containing elevated levels of sulphate and uranium seeping from the tailings dam there. ERA insists that this is not significant.
In addition, the visual impact of the Ranger operation is considerable.
6)Mining and milling at Jabiluka will create significant visual impacts in immediate proximity to areas of extremely high heritage significance.
7)The Australian Federal government has tried to 'fast track' development of the Jabiluka project by using a level of environmental assessment that is too low (A Public Environmental Report (PER) instead of an EIS), and by commencing construction based on a previous and now obsolete EIS for a version of the project that has been vetoed by the Traditional Owners.
John Hallam
Friends of the Earth Sydney,
Suite 15,
1st Floor, 104 Bathurst Street,
Sydney, NSW, 2000.
Fax(61)(2)9283-2005 ph(61)(2)9283-2006.
nonukes@foesyd.org.au http://www.peg.apc.org/~foesydney/
-30-
< Return to Previous Page
|
