opinion

Candidate, what is your environmental agenda?
by Raúl Leis R.

Responses to environmental challenges should be a substantive part of the programs of the parties and the candidates at all levels (presidential, legislative, municipal) over the length and breadth of the entire country.

It's inexcusable that someone who aspires to represent us doesn't make forthright stands on sustainable development, the protection and husbandry of our natural resources, and the environment. A lack of definition on this subject shows two things, both of them despicable: that the candidate has opted to be allied with special interests in favor of the depredation and annihilation of the environment, that he or she doesn't know or doesn't care about the subject.

On the other hand, if the citizenry does not demand before, during and after election time a definition of this agenda, it would be complicit by omission, apathy and ignorance in an attack against the environment, which is an attack against our lives.

All over the country there are threats to the environment --- and also solutions --- and thus in many places urban and rural communities, sometimes including local authorities, are taking action to counter the threats. There are municipalities that have declared themselves territories free of open pit mining or opposed to indiscriminate sand extraction, and protests like those of the Red Antiminera Panameña denouncing the damage that open pit mining does and demanding the cessation of projects that operate without environmental impact studies or in non-compliance with ANAM sanctions, as in the case of Petaquilla Gold.

The Colon City Council gathered the civic sentiment and manifested its opposition to the installation or establishment of thermoelectric plants based on coal or petroleum coke, declaring a state of alert and calling for the prohibition of their installation. The generalized rejection, all across the country, of the improper installation of cell phone towers is palpable.

The indigenous nations question the execution of megaprojects in their comarcas and territories without their prior and informed consent. This applies equally to such projects as the construction of hydroelectric dams in Charco las Pavas in the Ngobe-Bugle Comarca and Bonyik in Naso country and to the opening of the Darien Gap via roads and electric lines. They ask for the rescission of protected areas laws and concession contracts in the indigenous comarcas and territories, rejecting them as interference with their traditional institutions. They also ask for ratification of ILO Convention 169, concerning labor standards among indigenous and tribal peoples.

Farmers carry on their struggles to get Rio Cobre declared and recognized as the water reserve for the Veraguas lowlands, in the face of a company that wants to dam it. Forty environmentalist, community and scientific organizations demand that the president keep his word and restore the Pacific exclusion zone that prohibits the use of purse seines for tuna fishing, after he left the zone vulnerable.

Do not hesitate about this. Ask those who ask for your vote: What is your environmental agenda? If you are a member of a political party, demand a plank in its platform. We should demand not only that stands be taken on the environment, but also that mechanisms be established to see that election promises are complied with.