Business, Environment, Lima, Mining, Politics, Provinces

National Water March Arrives In Lima

Participants in a national water march, which is aimed mainly at rejecting Newmont Mining’s Minas Conga copper-gold project, began to approach Lima on Thursday, the head of the march’s organizing committee said.

Environmentalist Marco Arana told Ideeleradio that over 2,000 participants are beginning to arrive in Peru’s capital eight days after the march began in the northern region of Cajamarca.   The leaders of the march have planned a rally in the Plaza San Martin and will present a bill to Congress to protect the headwaters of  river basins and “highly vulnerable ecosystems.”

The participants have passed through Cajamarca, Lambayeque, La Libertad and Ancash regions, Arana said. They have been travelling in buses, trucks and other vehicles, and walking through parts of each town.

“More of my companions from Cajamarca are coming and I understand that from the highlands of Lima they will also come to march with us,” Arana said.

Arana said the participants have been well-received in the towns that they have passed through. “Families come out to applaud and provide food and in some cases to give money to buy tickets or the fare on combis [local buses] to allow us to move from one town to another.”

Arana, a former priest and the head of the Tierra y Libertad party, supported protests last year against Minas Conga. Opponents of the $4.8 billion project are concerned it will harm the local water supply since the project requires the draining of at least three lakes and the channeling of the water to reservoirs further downstream.

2 Comments

  1. Ever notice that “Environmentalists” SELDOM, IF EVER, have degrees or formal education in Geology, Chemistry, Engineering, etc.?

    They mostly seem to have either NO post-secondary education, or degrees in Philosophy, Literature, Education, Religion, Basket Weaving, or some non-‘solid’ vocation, but are EXPERTS at telling other people what they MUST do.

    Few, if any, knew that the space Layer that they all say is full of C02 and causing “global warming”….is 98% WATER VAPOR.

    Mankind has about as much control over this as it has over Volcanic eruptions and Earthquakes. “Climate Change” is a natural phenomenon, with long, short and medium cycles, depending upon many things, among them the earth’s orbit, sun spots..(yeah, when the sun gets hotter, so does the Earth…BIG surprise, right?)

    The temperature (world average) has actually DROPPED over the past 15 years or so, as we are in a short/medium COOLING cycle. (ask the people in Europe)

    The El Nino and La Nina Pacific currents control weather over North and South America…..Environmentalists….should try to change THOSE….Buena Suerte.

    • Steve Abnormal

      Joe-you talk about climate on the one hand, and then finish with a statement about the weather. Anyone who has studied the subject will know that climatology and meteorology are two different things. I guess you are not a Scientist either!

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