Forwarded with permission from Christine Howes: 300 SPANISH ENVIRONMENTALIST GROUPS CONDEMN UNESCO DECISION THE FOLLOWING PRESS RELEASE WAS RELEASED IN MADRID SPAIN BY ECOLOGISTAS EN ACCION, A COALITION OF 300 SPANISH ENVIRONMENT GROUPS ON 13 JULY. Madrid, Spain 13 July 1999 Ecologistas en Acción, the federation of 300 environmentalist action groups around Spain, has denounced in harsh terms the decision by the Word Heritage Committee to reject the recommendation by its own advisory bodies to include the Kakadu National Park in the "Endangered" list, despite the on-going construction of a uranium mine 3 Km from the most important rock art gallery in the Park. "This decision by UNESCO is a humiliating capitulation to political pressure by the Australian Government, which has spent more than 100 million pesetas (AUS$1 million) to buy approval for a uranium mine in an area of incomparable cultural and ecological wealth. It is as if UNESCO had authorised a mine in the heart of Doñana National Park in Spain (southern Europe's largest migratory bird preserve) or at the gates of the Altamira caves. The decision has made it perfectly clear that the World Heritage Convention is not worth the paper it is written on," declared Ecologistas en Acción representative Jaime Benyei. Kakadu National Park contains one of the largest collections of cave paintings in the world, and more bird species than any other single part of Australia. In addition to the Jabiluka mine, there are 29 further mining exploration permits in force in the Park. The World Heritage Scientific Committee, the Australian Senate, the IUCN and the most prestigious independent scientific bodies in the country all recommended inclusion in the "Endangered" list at the Kyoto meeting last November, and gave the Australian Government 6 months to stop work on Jabiluka and present its allegations. The Government's reaction was to accelerate works and spend more than one million dollars (105 million pesetas) on a campaign which directly pressured the individual members of the World Heritage Committee to change their vote. According to Ecologistas en Acción, "The independence and impartiality of the Committee has now clearly been placed in doubt. The decision taken on July 12 is a precedent that places the entire World Heritage system at risk to any sort of government-backed development." In June, the UNESCO Racial Equality Committee catalogued the Australian Government alongside the Ruandan and Milosevic regimes due to its racist policies (minimising the indigenous population's right to reclaim traditional lands, elimination of bilingual education, first sentence jailing, the latter policy resulting in indigenous people forming 80% of prisoners in northern Australian jails, despite their comprising 25% of the region's population. Más información: Jamie Benyei 918 47 12 74 -- Ecologistas en Accion Marques de Leganes 12 - 28004 Madrid Telefono: +34-91-5312739 Fax: +34-91-5312611 http://www.nodo50.org/ecologistas/ e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Contact: John Hallam, Nuclear Campaigner, Friends of the Earth Sydney, 9517-3903 ------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/
