Guadualito (Ecuador), 5 Dec (EFE).-the rivers pollution allegedly caused by mining and the palmicultura threaten the lives of the awá, an indigenous people of about 4,000 members living in the rich region of the forest of Choco, in the North of Ecuador, surrounded by intense extractive activity.
“Here have headaches stomach and spots on the skin, such as fungi, that they have been spreading” among the population for drinking water, said EfE Professor Efrén Alvarez of Guadualito, a community of about 130 inhabitants six kilometers from Colombia whose perimeter is surrounded by more than 60% of crops in palma.
Evidenced by Diego, 4 years, that lifted the shirt to teach a few white spots on his chest, which soon spread around the torso, arms and forehead.
“There are children with grains, including abuse of say to purchase bottled water I have taken.” It is a herpes that is spreading in the skin. “And children are infected each other,” explained the Cook of the school, Ludibia Ramirez, a Colombian refugee in his country was promoter of health.
The inhabitants of Guadualito used they el a contiguous river water for drinking, cooking, washing clothes and bathing, but complain of being dirty since the expansion of the cultivation of Palm in the area at the end of the 1990s, because companies wash equipment in el flow and spray up the margins of the River.
Appeared in November floating dozens of fish dead, supposedly because a plantation workers used chemicals to fish, according to several members of the community.
“I am concerned because the water week was poisoned, and the other river is very far away,” stressed Santacruz Llanocati, 18, while giving the chest his daughter from four months to the door of his house, a humble construction of wood from a single piece of about thirty square meters.
Similar stories are repeated in many settlements in the provinces of Esmeraldas and the Carchi, in the North of the country, is abundant where the illegal exploitation of gold.
The President of the mining Chamber of Ecuador, Santiago Yépez, acknowledged that “in these rivers running from fuel at mercury, arsenic and other quantities of chemicals that you simply serve to separate the gold or ore is extracted from the rock”.
Yépez clarified that it blames illegal mining, which is not part of your organization, and that he have machines “of thousands of dollars” and “dragan rivers and create pools where chemicals spilled”.
The Government negotiates currently the introduction of mining on a large scale in Ecuador and emphasizes that these companies respect the ecosystem, unlike operations illegal.
Guadualito, located in one of the most biodiverse in the world, is one of the 7 affected or seriously threatened by water pollution, awá communities stressed the President of the Federation of centres Awá of the Ecuador (FCAE), Manuel Taicus.
“Always there have been problems with timber and now mining.” We are pressing and want to put an end to our waters. Has already passed the community below, where the River is pure guarapo (dirt) “, said Juvencio Nastajuaz, leader of the community of Pambilar.
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River, the TululbÃ, supplied to the afroecuatoriana of old mines, which is adjacent to Pambilar and community which allowed mining to enter its territory. Today its inhabitants must drink bottled water and the river flows thick and dark, while the Government a few months ago stopped exploitation.
“No you can not swim, low with too many chemicals.” We give workshops to people so that they do not use water, because it brings diseases. “If fish they have left spots, worse with a human being”, said Leonardo Arroyo, President of the peasant safe of the Ricaurte parish, which includes various villages affected by the mining.
While the awá believe that all the elements of nature, such as water or a stone, are alive and must be respected, the easy money tempts some of them.
Enterprises “they buy them consciousness and they convince others, causing a fraction in the community and against mining, ruled Taicus.
Photograph of several indigenous children in the town of Pambilar (Ecuador). The rivers pollution allegedly caused by mining and the palmicultura threaten the life of the awá, an indigenous people of about 4,000 members living in the rich region of the forest of Choco, in the North of Ecuador, surrounded by an intense activity. EFE
picture of indigenous housing in the town of Guaudualito (Ecuador). The rivers pollution allegedly caused by mining and the palmicultura threaten the life of the awá, an indigenous people of about 4,000 members living in the rich region of the forest of Choco, in the North of Ecuador, surrounded by an intense activity. EFE
