Mining Injustice Solidarity Network

Agriculture is Sustainable, So NO to Mining!

For nearly two decades, the Indigenous community of Didipio in the Philippines has been fighting to stop a gold and copper mine that threatens their environment, farmlands, and families. The mining company and government have responded with violence and intimidation and ignored the people’s rights. But now there is real chance to stop this mine once and for all. In August, the United Nations’ Committee for the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) found the Philippines out of compliance with its own laws and with international conventions on Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Now, during the one year before it reports back to CERD, the government must show that it is enforcing Indigenous rights laws.

This is a moment when international pressure counts. Your letter can help the Indigenous Peoples of Didipio stop the violation of their rights and the destruction of their sustainable economy. Please join us. Stand with the Didipio people by sending a letter to the President of the Philippines today.

Learn about the Didipio community’s struggle to save their homes and their valley from destructive mining.

Youth Action: Help the Didipio Protect their Lands, Homes, and Rivers.

This Cultural Survival/Global Response action alert is issued at the request of and with information provided by the Didipio Earth Savers Multi-Purpose Association (DESAMA), Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center-Kasama sa Kalikasan/Friends of the Earth-Philippines, and Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links.

For more information about Indigenous Peoples and mining in the Philippines, see www.piplinks.org andhttp://www.oxfam.org.au/resources/filestore/originals/OAus-MiningOmbudsmanDidipioPhilippines-0907.pdf

For the CERD report, see:http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/co/CERD.C.PHL.CO.20.doc

For information about the impacts of gold mining, seewww.nodirtygold.org/dirty_golds_impacts.cfm

Special thanks to Oxfam Australia and LRC-KsK/FoE Phils for use of their photos and to Julien Katchinoff for creating the map.

Queens Park / Sunday September 27, 2009,
2:00-4pm

Anti-uranium rally at Queen’s Park, south lawn, organized by Cottagers against Uranium Mining and Exploration. The message is clear: Stop the uranium mining industry from staking further claims, and protect all Ontarians by giving them what residents of British Columbia already enjoy—a ban on uranium mining and exploration.

Radioactive fallout and washout from uranium mining sites is carried for up to 400 kms, resulting in a significant increase of cancer fatalities in a wide area.
Kueppers 1994

“Wherever uranium is mined, it contaminates the land, air and water. Yet the province of Ontario is allowing multi-national companies to strip our local cottage-country forests and drill near our source waters in search of uranium. Most of which, is destined for export. And what they’re planning here are open-pit mines,” says Susanne Lauten, founder of Cottagers against Uranium Mining and Exploration. “British Columbia has a ban on uranium mining, Nova Scotia and Labrador have a moratorium, New Brunswick has strict regulations, but Ontario’s a free-for-all.”

Just 2 hours northeast of Toronto, south of Algonquin Park, an American mining company has bulldozed 20 hectares of mature forest, scraping the earth to bedrock. Followed by 40 test drills each 100 metres deep. All without environmental assessment. This took place in the Trent Severn watershed, source water to tens of thousands of residents.

Uranium has not been mined in Ontario since 1996, when the mines at Elliot Lake were closed, and the rich reserves in Northern Saskatchewan—the largest in the world—became Canada’s primary source. And now, just ten years later, the Ontario government is opening the door to uranium mining again. But this time, it’s open-pit mining, and it’s right on Toronto’s doorstep.

Speakers include:

Bruce Cox, Executive Director, Greenpeace Canada

Robert Lovelace, Retired Chief of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, and Queen’s University professor, imprisoned for 101 days for resisting uranium prospectors on aboriginal land

Terry Rees, Executive Director, Federation of Ontario Cottagers’ Associations, FOCA

Lorraine Rekmans, Author, and witness to World Uranium Congress, Salzburg

Email: cottagers.vs.mining@sympatico.ca

*There will be road closures downtown that day due to Toronto Waterfront Marathon, and the Word on the Street.