Mining menace

Mining menace

Nicole Smith

(LETTER TO THE EDITOR)

Some of you are already familiar with me and the issues I am raising concerning a community in the Philippines. For those of you who are familiar, thank you for your attention and continuing support. For those of you who are not I have provided a brief introduction.

I am a United Church of Canadian intern living in the Philippines. I arrived in the country in January, 2008 and started my 10 month permanent placement with the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance (CHRA)in March. The CHRA is the human rights monitoring group of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA), the networking organization of the indigenous peoples’ organizations in the Cordillera region. I am working closely with the CPA in its work with indigenous communities that are facing issues related to large scale mining, in particular those that relate to Canadian companies operating or applying to operate in the region.

My particular focus is on the municipality of Baay-Licuan. The people of this community are being threatened by Olympus Pacific Minerals, a gold mining company based in Toronto. I am interested in spreading information about the campaign being launched by the people of Baay-Licuan to protect their land, resources and way of life. The CPA has already spearheaded a letter writing campaign and will soon be initiating a postcard campaign to show the Canadian and Filipino governments the solidarity of the international community with the people of Baay-Licuan.

I am writing to ask for your help in disseminating this primer on the situation and the CPA Letter of Concern within your organization and to your networks. Please help the people of Baay-Licuan by asking others to fill out the Letter of Concern and sending it to the indicated members of the Canadian and Filipino governments.

More information about the struggle of the indigenous people of Baay-Licuan can be found on the CPA website http://www.cpaphils.org/. Information about my time with the people of Baay-Licuan and more about the first half of my internship can be found on my blog at www.mytb.org/ncolsmith.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Nicole Smith