FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The United Nations(UN), has called on millions of people who on April 22 will celebrate Earth Day 2014 to focus on celebrating Green Cities to achieve a healthy and sustainable environment.

This effort is meaningless if we consider that extractive projects, such as metal mining, destroy our planet every second of the 365 days of year with the consent, permission or omission of governments of countries tied to neoliberal capitalism that makes life a commodity.

In Latin America, in particular, battles are being waged by indigenous communities against voracious corporations that try to impose their dominion over territories, foretelling the future extermination of indigenous communities, the loss of cultural diversity and the destruction of nature itself.

 

El Salvador is a country with one of the highest rates of deforestation in the continent with only 1.98 % of the natural forests remaining after human, agricultural and industrial activity has exerted a damaging ecological footprint in urban and rural ecosystems.  In 2010, El Salvador ranked as one of the most vulnerable countries in the world by the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) with 95% of the population living in areas of high environmental risk.  This problem has become aggravated by the economic development model that has prevailed over the past 20 years and that perpetuate itself with the continuity of public policies and economic development projects such as the second phase of the Millenium Fund that intends to exploit the coastal and marine resources for industrial scale tourism while forcibly evicting communities and people who have historical claims to those territories.  In the north, the planned construction of hydro electrical dams such as El Cimarron, El Tigre and El Chaparral coupled with the menace of industrial scale metal mining represent a threat to the right life nationwide.

For that reason the National Roundtable against Metallic Mining would expect the current and the newly elected government and the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador to honor the celebration of Earth Day worldwide by promoting concrete actions such as the adoption of the General Water law, the Law to Prohibit Metallic Mining, and the constitutional reforms that recognize the Human Rights to Food and Water.

It is time to act NOW! and it is time to generate the true conditions to make Another World Possible for present and future generations.

National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining