ATM (the Alliance Against Mining), the largest anti-mining network in the Philippines, has issued a press release reporting that President Benigno Aquino III recently signed an Executive Order on mining. The EO focuses on establishing environmental safeguards and the need for a new revenue-sharing scheme, to maximize the country’s profits from mining. It did not mention other concerns of communities, not only in Palawan, but also in other mining-affected areas, such as social impacts and human rights violations.
Indigenous peoples from Palawan are firm in their decision to not allow mining in their ancestral domains, as they know its devastating impacts on their lands and the threats it will bring not only to them but also to the future generations.
ATM is inviting the public to write to President Aquino III, requesting him to ensure that the entire province of Palawan (a UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve) be considered a no-go mining zone, and to seriously push for a new mining policy that will shift the current development paradigm.
See the full press release at:http://wrm.org.uy/countries/Philippines/campaigning_for_a_total_mining_ban.pdf
