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Last Update: July 16, 2008
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- Paper Pulp Mills - Uruguay
- Corporate Accountability and Human Rights
- Climate Change and Human Rights
Botnia Publishes Letter to "CEDHA and other NGOs" claiming they do not contaminate and invite CEDHA and others to visit their mills in Finland [see letter below]
A open letter addressed to CEDHA and other NGOs appeared three days ago on Botnia's website, inviting "CEDHA and other interested parties to visit Botnia in Finland to see how they operate". The letter (reprinted below) claims that the information communicated by CEDHA, representing nearly 50,000 local stakeholders which oppose the mills, and other actors about dangers from ECF Pulp Production and subsequent impacts on health and the environment are not truthful.
The communication follows a recent previous exchange between Annala Kaisu, Technical Manager of Botnia and Daniel Taillant, Executive Director of CEDHA, when Kaisu offered to have CEDHA visit Botnia's mills in Finland.
Taillant responded immediately to the invitation, indicating that CEDHA welcomed the invitation to visit a similar mill, however that visiting a Botnia Mill in Finland, which are all substantially smaller than what would be the world's largest pulp mill production scheme in Uruguay, and in a setting in which environmental controls are more laxed (a reason for moving operations to Uruguay which was publicly expressed by the Spanish company ENCE constructing alongside Botnia), would not be an appropriate comparison, and would not cast off doubts and fears of local stakeholders or of CEDHA raised by the many violations perpetrated by Botnia of procedural environmental and social policy that are already showing to local stakeholders what they can expect of Botnia when they operate in a developing country.
Instead, perhaps a more realistic visit, suggested Taillant to Botnia, would be to visit mills operating under similar conditions and with Finnish technologies in Chile, Brazil, and even Argentina, where existing and supposed "first rate mills" are causing serious local concerns, health problems, and environmental disasters. This suggestion by CEDHA remains unanswered by Botnia.
Botnia's open letter published June 17th on its English and Spanish website, highlights is proclaimed "outstanding environmental record" and states that it is using "European Guidelines of best available techniques"and that the mill site location was "carefully analysed from all aspects already before starting the site specific environmental and soci economical impact studies".
On these two issues, CEDHA points to the Hatfield Report contracted by the IFC which suggests that Botnia HAS NOT SHOWN that it is in fact complying with BAT stating that evidence offered to the IFC is "deficient in that it omits bleach filtrate recyle measures to minimize chlorine dioxide use and measures to minimize effluent flows ... going on to say that there is no evidence that actually show that BAT are used. Also, Botnia's own impact study document-a mere 12 pages provided on the IFC website, shows no evidence that environmental or social considerations or alternative sites with lower impacts were reviewed for the site location choice for the mills. In fact, to date, no Botnia, ENCE or IFC documents show evidence of alternate site choices for the mills relative to environmental and social impacts.
Botnia also claims that studies already made demostrate that there are no adverse impacts on the watershed produced by eucalyptus plantations. This in contradiction to information provided on the IFC's website regarding the mills, which indicates in ANNEX B of the Cummulative Impact Studies provided on these projects, acknowledging impacts on streamflows in forest plantations further buttressed by information available to both Botnia and the IFC from local agricultural communities in Mercedes, for example, that they are already having water problems for irrigation due to already existing plantations. These problems exist BEFORE new intense plantations to appear the Botnia and ENCE mills.
Another controversial statement in the open letter is that the projects have considered impacts to tourism. The Hatfield Report suggests otherwise indicating that the Cummulative Impact Study offered by the IFC "does not review the toursim industry from economic terms." Much available technical and environmental cost analysis evidence (such as the Sejenovich Report) suggests that the losses from reduced toursim to be caused by the mills, in addition to other negative economic impacts to the region, outweigh the economic benefits of the mills.
While a vist to a Botnia mill in Finland does not seem likely under Botni's terms, given the lack of comparable circumstances, CEDHA welcomes Botnia's efforts to dialogue, and is open to further discussions to seek an amicable sollution to the conflict. CEDHA will meet with Botnia in August in Finland, at the National Contact Point, in the first hearings following yesterday's admittance of the Specific Instance Complaint filed to the NCP against Botnia in April.
To see impact measurement documentation see:
http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/lac.nsf/Content/Uruguay_PulpMills_Background_Docs
To see the letter please visit:
http://www.metsabotnia.com/en/default.asp?path=204;208;210;211;1097;1301
More Information
For more information contact:
Jorge Daniel Taillant
Center for Human Rights and Environment (CEDHA)
Tel. 54 3541 494 162
Cel. 54 9 351 625 3290
jdtaillant@cedha.org.ar
