Mining of coal and uranium destroys basis of existence of native peoples

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) calls out together with 80 other member organisations of the Climate Alliance to the Worldwide Climate Campaign Day on 8th December 2007. „The native peoples are those most hard hit by the climate change. For them a clear course in the UN negotiation process in Bali is an existential question”, said Kerstin Veigt of the Department for Indigenous Peoples at the GfbV on Friday. In the framework of the Climate Alliance the human rights organisation criticises the planning of many new coal power stations by the German government because this energy policy has adverse affects for the indigenous peoples. Through the increase of carbon dioxide it is not only the climate change which is accelerated. The native peoples fear too that on their land also more coal will be mined than in the past – all with negative effects.

In the search for alternative fuels a new boom has begun with the mining of uranium. This is documented by the GfbV in a background paper „Atomic power is no alternative. Uranium cycle at the expense of indigenous peoples” for the Climate Campaign Day and the Climate Conference in Bali . „The use of atomic power brings for native peoples the destruction of their basis of existence. For they are immediately affected by the mining of the uranium needed”, explained Yvonne Bangert of the Department for Indigenous Peoples at the GfbV.

Some 70% of the uranium reserves are on the land of indigenous peoples like the Indians and Inuit in Canada and the USA , the Adivasi in India , the aborigines in Australia and the Tuareg in Niger . Radioactive waste material is deposited on their land. On the land of the Western Shoshone in Nevada in the USA , of the aborigines in Maralinga in Australia and on the Moruroa Atoll in the Pacific atom weapons have been tested.

In many cases native peoples are employed as mine-workers. However the safety-standards in mining and in the storage of the deposits which remain in the mining process are extremely low. Air, earth and ground-water are heavily contaminated by radioactive material. Many workers in the mines and people living nearby get cancer and children are born with deformities. In Niger the uranium mining fans the flames of the conflict between the Tuareg and the central government. In the USA the search for terminal storage for radioactive waste and fuel elements has led for years to legal battles between the Western Shoshone and the state, for the holy Yucca mountain lies on their traditional land.

„This fatal uranium vicious circle, which has caused so much suffering and destruction over this nation, must not begin again”, is the demand made by Bangert. „For this reason we welcome the policy of the German government to nuclear phaseout. Neither should any new power-stations be built in Germany .”