OPEN LETTER IN DEFENSE OF MOOR OF SANTURBAN - COLOMBIA

• by: GRUPO DE DEFENSA DEL PARAMO DE SANTURBAN
• recipient: 

  Thousands of Colombians and international environmentalists know that in the coming days, the national government of the Republic of Colombia %u2013of which you are the head, Mr. President, along with the participation of the Minister of Environment and the Minister of Mines and Energy- will decide whether the reserve of environmental protection and water supply located in the Moor of San Turban (Santander) will be delivered on a platter of gold and silver, to the Canadian multinational Greystar Resources Ltd.
   
  Those of us who subscribe to this public letter, ask you to reject the project. In a number of various public hearings, unions and community sectors, biologists, scientists and environmentalists, have warned of the inconveniences of granting a mining license. The dangers of destruction and pollution are on the table: the winter tragedy that has struck the nation with a high toll of human lives and the devastation of ecosystems are a sad radiography of a country that has ignored the vital principles of balance of man-nature, leaving it at the mercy of consumerism and greed.
   
  Nature takes its toll for the irreparable damage caused to water and land.

  Amid this crisis of environmental sustainability, it is our duty to act with responsibility, intelligence and greatness. The common good is above private interests and the fallacious arguments of "progress" with which most times this type of projects are presented to the citizens and public opinion.
   
  We ask the same criteria as that of the replacement of lands for the environmental reserves. If the agenda of your government includes "healing the wound", it would be contradictory to enact death penalty to the sources of life. 
   
  The heart of the earth can no longer stand this anymore. Openly, it bleeds the poisons man has injected.

   This situation doesn't require band-aid solutions, it requires intensive care. A first preventive measure for the patient Moor of San Turban is to deny the mining license, thereby preventing the foul rivers of mercury and cyanide to run through its belly.
   
  Mr. President, Dr. Juan Manuel Santos, we ask of you and your government team an attitude of commitment to the spirit of the constitution, the protection of the sources of life and the protection of the threatened environmental rights .
  

  We are E-COLOMBIANS... Are you and your team also?