miércoles, 9 de julio de 2014

PUBLIC STATEMENT REGARDING THE ANNOUNCEMENTS ABOUT GRANTING NATIONAL PARKS


PUBLIC STATEMENT
REGARDING THE ANNOUNCEMENTS ABOUT GRANTING NATIONAL PARKS

1. Regarding the announcement of the Ministery of Public Works about the will to handle the granting the Chilean National Parks to private entities, the Kawésqar community presents their astonishment and disbelief about this announcement.

2. This news comes from a Chilean Government entity that is truly not concerned about Environment and Culture Protection --it claims itself the right of setting the availability of our National Parks in the future by dismissing the Chilean Government management of them--. This reminds us the most perturbing precedents of privatization ever set in Chile.

3. Let’s see the case of the National Parks in Magallanes. There, private entities have tried multiple approaches in order to get to manage them, this to change the way they are managed and turn them into spaces suitable for private business.

4. We oppose those intentions. The people from Magallanes have not been asked about those decisions, and have ancestral rights on those lands, inalienable and eternal rights on these lands. Thus, it calls out the attention that the spokesman of the Ministry of Public Works chooses a newspaper from Santiago to announce their unwise intentions.

5. We recommend Mr. Galilea that he should remember the predation of natural resources is mostly by private interests. The fish, woods, and waters of these lands have been invariably affected by the same people that Mr. Galilea pretends to benefit when he grant them our lands; a formula otherwise aged that is no longer needed in a world that seeks new and better forms of managing the legacy of our ancestors.

6. From this very moment, we announce that we will coordinate our opposition together along other ethnic groups from the Magallanes region and from the entire country. We will get together to stop this new attempt against the natural and cultural heritage that affects us directly. We will insist about this in the presence of all national and international entities, if the government continues their intent on not to acknowledge our rights over our ancient lands. The Government of Chile must finish these practices, because they disregard the international commitments, which only discredit, annoy, and complicate relations between the native people and the authorities of this Government.

PUERTO EDEN KAWESQAR COMUNITY
aswakiar@gmail.com