|
|
Close Help | ||||||||||||||
The British Gas environmental reports, recently released to Friends of
the Earth and others are admitted by British Gas themselves to be
superficial in places, especially the anthropology report. They were
done over a period of about ten days AFTER the first wells were
drilled and do not fulfill the requirements of environmental impact
assessments because they make no specific recommendations on how
adverse impacts arising from the production stage are to be avoided.
DTM, the company contracted to do them, has apparently written
similarly inadequate reports for other oil companies. It has also been
denounced by the Indian federations of Ecuador for facilitating the
destruction of archaeological sites by hiring US archaeologists to
collect all the archaeological evidence over a few days from sites
that are "in the way" of development schemes such as oil wells. The
sites are then bulldozed.
Now the same firm is about to be assessed by Shaman Pharmaceuticals
with a view to employing them to exploit Sangre de Drago (Croton
lechleri: Euphorbiaeceae). Shaman Pharmaceuticals has expressed its
wish to "sustainably" exploit traditional knowledge for "new" drugs.
The potential for the sustainable exploitation of Sangre de Drago is
excellent, if it is done through the indigenous organisations of
Ecuador, but unfortunately it seems that DTM does not respect
indigenous organisations. It also appears to believe in cutting down
the tree rather than using the sustainable tapping method used in
Peru, describing that as "too slow". Informants claim that DTM's
director was caught trying to smuggle 30 gallons of Sangre de Drago
latex out of the country.
All these allegations should be fully investigated.
Please write letters urgently to Shaman Pharmaceuticals to ask them
not to use DTM. They are going to Ecuador on September 15th so letters
should be sent by September 1st.
Make the point that in view of all these allegations the credibility
of Shaman Pharmaceuticals will suffer seriously if they work with DTM.
They should approach the Indian Federations CONAIE and CONFENIAE
instead.
Write to:
Dr Stephen King
Shaman Pharmaceuticals Inc
887 Industrial Road
Suite 8
San Carlos
CA 94070 - 3312
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This report was produced by:
LONDON RAINFOREST ACTION GROUP,
9 Cazenove Road, Stoke Newington, London, N16 6PA, UK.
Phone: +4481-806-1561. Fax: +4481-806-5226.
E-Mail gn:jtorrance
______________________________________________________________________
