|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
My Role
by Laura Fletcher
In the Barrio San José, Panamá, the houses are made with thick black plastic that shelters the shacks from the tropical rains. It's very sturdy roof and walls were looted from the gold mine up the hill when they "postponed" operations. Those dark roofs are durable, but leak toxins into the unventilated one room homes.
The environmental engineer for the Cortez Gold Mine, Stephanie, passed around cyanide pool liner samples, the thick durable plastic was stiff and sharp in my hands. Thanks for showing those samples, Stephanie. I have seen that heavy-duty plastic that double lines your artificial cyanide pond before. I myself am too tall for the shacks made of plastic and I have to bend to avoid the squarching heat radiating from the toxic black roof inches above my head. I know the diseases it brings to little girls with scabs that never seem to heal. Women wash in your waste because there is no other water source. The barrio faucet that runs 2 hours every day to serve this community of 75 squatters is available, but only if you can find some money to contribute to the $5 a month payment, but make sure you do not over-crowd or hog it.
No outhouses can be built in the toxic soil. The soil and water gets more and more contaminated but there is no one to see or act. No one can see, no permanent fixtures are allowed this illegal land. It is a toxic squatter community. Toxins created by the gold mine located up stream. I can feel myself being engulfed by the sense of powerlessness.
I distrust your color glossy Sustainability Report that includes Placerdome's sustainable international mining and community support. I trust the lines I see on Mary and Carrie's worn faces. These Shoshone women have been fighting your intrusion. It is interesting that their picture is nowhere to be seen in your color brochures. Their pain gets deeper with your company's gradual encroachment. Sometimes I simply don't understand. I do understand the baby's malnutrition although it leaves me helpless. I can fit my fingers around his upper arm where the skin is badly irritated. After two cyanide spills into the river that passes through the Barrio San José, I would hope you would have enough sense to postpone your operations and get out quick before you have to test out and see what your newly trained 200 security guards are actually trained to do. The community is just displaced indigenous, don't worry about the regulations, they don't apply here.
Why are you here? Panama, Nevada, Papua New Guinea and other places, many developing countries that can't afford to keep you out. The 18% profit cut that you promised Panama was cut down to only 2%. Funny how neither the town of Cañazas nor the Barrio San José saw any of that money.
I see the destruction of the planet from logging, mining, cattle, water, a native nation and bunch grasses. There is a lot of treading and wear on our planet. I find myself looking for something or someone to blame for this horrible destruction to the natural beauty and wealth of this planet. The United States is not able to keep our portion of the planet in a balanced condition and we destroy land and water outside our borders. I shutter at the impact of our consumption on developing countries that have even less environmental regulations to encourage industries that would not be economically profitable elsewhere. I search for a place to put blame for this catastrophe we have created. It is easy to blame the government, especially the Bush administration and corporations that only seek the bottom line.
Problem is, I feel the responsibility. I am responsible, me, the consumer and citizen. Me, because I have the power of my actions that can effect a larger whole. I am partially responsible for the destruction of the planet, of the west, but this time I feel empowered enough to make a change. Here in the west I have seen issues that are being addressed by organizations, defense projects, and pro-bono lawyers. Internationally, I felt support by a couple community development trainings and the community itself. The combination of sense of community that I have seen internationally and with the organizations that we have met along the way is a powerful tool. I am moved by the power of an organization and person to create change. I want to involve more people in civic and community involvement in the United States.
We live in a country that people focus exclusively on their own needs, which is vital when you have to put food on the table, but what if ones needs become everyone's responsibility? When do we stop being self-centered and start caring about other people and other species? How do we get rid of selfish notions to foster the sense of social responsibility? We live in a great nation that allows me to hold corporations responsible; I just have to know how to do it and who to involve.
Civic involvement, the nourishment and growth of a civic-minded population could ensure the balance of our world for future generations. Politicians don't address what their constituents don't know about. On this trek through the interior western United States I feel the importance to get involved in my own community and country. I have been filled with a sort of patriotism, a desire to make change in my country. In the past, my pull to work and volunteer has been international, now I feel the push home. Paint me red white and blue, I want to make this a better country, from the inside out.
The belief that environmentalists and politicians have to be wealthy frustrates me. To some extent I agree, politicians have to be able to dedicate time and environmentalists have to have a lack of direct economic dependence on natural resources to focus so much energy on the conservation of resources and our planet. I would like to change that assumption and bring together divisions. The promotion of community and conservation should go hand in hand. Civic involvement should be easy and accessible. It should be our collective responsibility.
I have felt times in my work abroad that I was limited in what I could do and that I was there to work and support communities, but mostly to learn. The greatest thing I have seen from working on international efforts is the power of community. At the same time in foreign country I am only a visitor. Now I want to be involved in my backyard, especially my hometown, promoting the sense of community to generate transformation. It is time to create a community that is empowered to make a change.