Start: 26.08.2010
Around the globe, some seventy-five percent of uranium mining takes place on the lands of indigenous peoples. The largest uranium reserves are found in Canada and Australia; uranium is also mined throughout Latin America and in Kazakhstan, Niger, Russia, Namibia and Uzbekistan. Exploration for further uranium ore bodies is presently underway in Tanzania, Mali, and the Amazon region of Brazil.
The identities of indigenous peoples are strongly tied to their surroundings. Uranium mining upsets indigenous cultures by defiling sacred sites, by contaminating local sources of subsistence, and by threatening the health of coming generations. Open pit uranium mining regularly contaminates water tables; tailings retain up to 80% of the original ore body’s radioactivity. The most common fatal consequence is lung cancer (attributable to the radon released into the atmosphere during the mining and onsite milling processes). Nonrespiratory carcinogenic outcomes include leukemia, stomach cancer, liver cancer, cancer of the intestines, kidney cancer, and skin cancer. Regions hosting uranium mining exhibit collateral spikes of psychic disorders and genetic damage.
Though the consequences of uranium mining add up to a glaring violation of human rights, authorities and the media fail to take any serious notice.
This conference will offer representatives of indigenous peoples endangered by uranium mining a distinguished European venue to tell their stories. They will have the opportunity to strengthen their action networks by meeting with politicians, members of NGOs, and, from around the globe, people struggling to end uranium mining exactly as themselves.
A „Talking Stick“ will help make palpable the far-flung cultural diversity of the conference speakers. Whoever holds the stick has our ears, our attention. The conference will be structured like a journey around the globe – Germany – Canada – USA – India– Africa – South America – Russia... Experts will act as interpretive stewards along our travels by supplementing eyewitness accounts with results from the most recent scientific studies impacting the conference’s complex of themes: uranium, radiation, health.
Indigenous speakers and resource experts asked to attend include:
Michael Beleites, regarding uranium mining in East Germany (Wismut); Gordon Edwards and Robert Del Tredici from Canada; Manuel Pino (Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico) and Charmaine White Face (Lakota Nation, South Dakota) from the USA; Rebecca Wingfield-Bear (Kupa Pita Kungka Tjuta) and Yvonne Margarula (Kakadu Nation) from Australia; as well as Chris Busby und Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake. We are still working to find representatives from Africa, Kazakhstan, and India.
Conference language: English
Location:
University Basel
[IPPNW Schweiz] [IPPNW Deutschland] [Nuclear Free Future Award]
