environment

Mining rights granted in protected national park

LA PRENSA

sold: A concession to explore for minerals within the Parque Nacional Chagres is being criticized by environmentalists.1098702

The Ministerio de Comercio e Industria (MICI) has given the green light to a mining group to explore for manganese and other ores within the Parque Nacional Chagres.

The coordinates of the concession were printed in the government's Official Gazette in its Sept. 17 edition.

The 1,597 hectares that MICI granted to the Minera Cañazas company is located near the communities of Nombre de Dios and Viento Frío in the province of Colón. Most of the concession is located inside the park, whose forests produce just over 40 percent of the water required by the Panama Canal and a large part of the drinking water for Panama City and Colón, according to information from the Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente (Anam).

The company would form an exclusive contract for extraction “if a mineral is discovered that can be produced in commercial quantities,” the concession states.

For environmentalists, the concession is the latest in a long line of potentially disastrous deals that the government has made with mining companies.

Raisa Banfield, director of the Centro de Incidencia Ambiental (Ciam), expressed her concern over the issue, saying that the park is crucial for the operation of the Panama Canal.

The government has granted concessions to mining companies totaling 126,669 hectares, an area the size of the provinces of Chiriquí and Bocas del Toro.

“Not only have concessions been granted in protected areas, but also in ones that are populated as well,” Banfield said.

Ariel Rodríguez, of the Alianza para la Conservación y el Desarrollo, said the concessions have shown little regard for the environmental health of the country.

“The government does not seem to understand why protected areas exist,” Rodríguez said. “We are swimming in a sea of ignorance on the one hand and corruption on the other. The government is satisfying its appetite by exploiting the resources of all Panamanians, by giving them away to the friends of the government of the day.”

By awarding concessions in protected areas, the government is contradicting the letter and spirit of the nation's conservation laws and international conventions that protect the natural and cultural values of these areas, Rodríguez said.

The concession awarded to Minera Cañazas was approved without any environmental study. This is because the request was submitted before the 2006 law went into force requiring Anam to sign off on these deals.

Anam official Bolívar Zambrano, however, said that the company must submit an impact statement before it can begin its explorations.

Zambrano also said that there is a ban on mining projects within the national park. MICI officials declined to comment on this matter, and instead referred questions to the Dirección de Minería.