INCLUDES LETTER TO UNESCO D/G FEDERICO MAJOR,
LETTER TO US INTERIOR SECRETARY BRUCE BABBITT
Dear People,
After the events of last week at Jabiluka, which resulted in a number of
letters to Unesco Director-General Federico Major and World Heritage
Committee Chair His Excellency Ambassador Koichoro Matsuura of Japan, we'd
like people to concentrate on faxing Federico Major and Matsuura with
something like the below.
People in the US should however, keep faxing their interior secretary Bruce
Babbitt. If you are in the US and you've already faxed Babbitt, and want to
do more, then do this one, but fax Babbitt first.
If you are in Japan we'd like you to fax this letter or something a bit
like it to Matsuura *IN JAPANESE* with a copy to the Japanese WHC rep, in
Paris and Japan.
Federico Major's fax number is: + 33 1 45 68 55 54
Matsuura is faxable on +33-1-42-27-50-81
Japan's WHC rep in Paris is on +33-1-47-34-46-70, in Japan 81-3-3591-3228.
Bruce Babbitt's number is 202-208-5048.
The US WHC rep, John Reynolds is on 202-208-7889.
If you've alredy sent other letters that's just fine no problem.
If you have not yet sent anything, use the texts below for Major/Matsuura
and Babbitt.
It is also important if you are in a country that is on the WHC, to fax
your Ministers for the environment and/or foreign affairs, to ask them to
instruct your WHC rep to not only vote for Kakadu to be put on the 'in
Danger' list, but to actively lobby for that. The WHC includes the US,
Japan, France, Finland, Italy, Canada, Benin, Brasil, Ecuador, Greece,
Morocco and Cuba.
MODEL LETTERS FOLLOW
MODEL LETTER TO MAJOR (UNESCO) AND WHC CHAIR AMBASSADOR MATSUURA.
FEDERICO MAJOR,
DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF UNESCO,
+33-1-45-68-55-54
HIS EXCELLENCY,
AMBASSADOR KOICHIRO MATSUURA,
CHAIRMAN,
WORLD HERITAGE COMMITTEE,
+33-1-42-27-50-81
cc
M. Bouchenaki, Director, World Heritage Centre Paris,
+33-1-456-85570.
Dear Director-General Fedrico Major and Ambassador Matsuura,
I am writing to express our concern over the fate of the World Heritage
Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory of Australia, and to convey
to you the extreme urgency of this matter.
Last year in December, the IUCN and ICOMOS strongly recommended that Kakadu
National Park be immediately listed as 'in danger' on account of the threat
to World Heritage values posed by the construction of a large uranium mine
at Jabiluka, in the heart of the National Park.
In a joint statement, both bodies said that failure to list Kakadu as 'In
Danger' immediately would compromise the integrity and standing of the
World Heritage Convention.
However, in deference to the extreme opposition to an 'In Danger' listing
expressed by the Australian delegation (but emphatically not by Australian
NGOs), Australia was allowed a further six months to prepare a case against
an 'in Danger' listing.
Australia was asked to cease construction operations at Jabiluka.
It did not do so.
This means that for the past six months, construction, and therefore damage
to the World Heritage values of Kakadu has been proceeding on a 24 hour a
day basis.
IUCN and ICOMOS (as well as the NGO community) have now dismissed the
Australian government case as not credible, and IUCN and ICOMOS have
re-emphasised the necessity of listing Kakadu as 'In Danger'.
The extreme urgency of taking action on this matter is underlined by the
fact that as I write, Energy Resources of Australia is resuming
construction activities on a tunnel which will desecrate the Boyweg-Almudj
sacred site, thereby severely compromising World Heritage values.
It is also emphasised by the refusal of the Australian government to listen
to any of the warnings on this matter that have been sounded by the
European Parliament, by our own Senate, and now by the World Heritage
Committee..
Any further delay in placing Kakadu on the list of sites that are in
danger, and any ambiguity in its being placed in that list, will lead to
further damage to the site and the further destruction of World Heritage
values.
We call on you to act immediately to ensure positively that Kakadu will be
listed as 'in Danger' when the World Heritage Committee meets in Paris on
July 12, and to convey to the Australian government the extreme gravity of
its actions in failing to cease construction as demanded by the World
Heritage Committee last December in Kyoto.
Yours respectfully,
(SIGNED).
LETTER TO US SECRETARY FOR THE INTERIOR BRUCE BABBITT
ATTN
US SECRETARY FOR THE INTERIOR
BRUCE BABBITT
+1-202-208-5048
cc
John Reynolds, US WHC Delegate,
202-208-7889.
Dear Bruce Babbitt,
I am writing to you to urge the US delegation to the World Heritage
Committee to adopt a clear and unequivocal position in defence of the
World Heritage Convention, when it meets in Paris on July 12 1999, to
discuss the question of whether to place Kakadu National Park on the list
of properties that are 'World Heritage in Danger'.
We would like the US delegation not only to vote for but to actively lobby
for, an 'In Danger' listing for Kakadu National Park.
The listing of Kakadu as 'World Heritage in Danger' was strongly
recommended at the Kyoto meeting of the World Heritage Committee, and
concerns were raised at that time by the IUCN and others that if Kakadu was
not so listed, damage would be done to the credibility of the entire World
Heritage Convention and Regime.
This is in our view a key consideration.
Should development of the Jabiluka uranium mine in Kakadu (which is
surrounded on all sides by World Heritage National Park and is therefore in
every meaningful sense 'inside' the National Park) take place, there will
obviously be extremely adverse site-specific impacts.
However, if this is allowed to occur without Kakadu being placed
immediately and unequivocally on the 'in Danger' list, the World Heritage
Convention as a whole will be undermined, which will leave us all, -all
over the planet- poorer.
Your government did what was clearly the right and only reasonable thing,
in having Yellowstone National Park listed as 'in Danger, in the light not
only of large impacts as a result of mass tourism and other problems, but
of a major gold mining development two km outside the external boundary of
the park.
The Jabiluka, Ranger, and Koongarra uranium deposits are within the
external boundaries of Kakadu and surrounded by it on all sides. Much of
the World Heritage values that caused Kakadu to be listed in the first
place are actually on the mining lease.
The environmental leadership that your administration showed in listing
Yellowstone as 'in Danger' should be reflected in the position you take on
matters overseas.
I trust that you will be able to respond positively to the many requests
you are likely to recieve on this matter, both from US and other NGOs, as
your administration did in the case of Yellowstone.
(Signed)
(..name of person and organisation)
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LL:PR: LETTER TO UNESCO D/G, FEDERICO MAJOR, WHC CHAIR MATSUURA
FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign Mon, 24 May 1999 15:52:06 +1000
