Pinoy environment awardee to use P6.4-M prize to protect ancestral domains

Father Edwin Gariguez, the Filipino Catholic priest who recently won the prestigious "Goldman Environmental Prize" for helping tribespeople fight against mining companies, said he will use the $150,000 (around P6.4 million) prize he received to help protect the ancestral domains of indigenous peoples. According to a report of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), Gariguez will use the Goldman prize money he received "to protect the ancestral domains of indigenous peoples in the Philippines."

 

The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world's largest prize honoring grassroots environmentalists. Gariguez, also known as “Father Edu,” is a  pastor of the Mangyan Mission Catholic Church in Mindoro Island and executive secretary of the National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace of the Philippine Catholic Church. The Goldman Prize was established by Richard N. Goldman and his wife, Rhoda H. Goldman in 1989 in order to honor ‘grassroot’ environmental heroes from each inhabited continent who will receive $150,000 each.

Gariguez received the 2012 Goldman Environmental Prize  on April 16 at the San Francisco Opera House, along with five other winners:    

• Ikal Angelei (Kenya) — for fighting the construction of the massive Gibe 3 Dam that would block access to water for indigenous communities around Lake Turkana;

• Caroline Cannon  (United States) -- for helping the Inupiat community in Point Hope keep Arctic waters safe from offshore oil and gas drilling;

• Evgenia Chirikova  (Russia) — for mobilizing her fellow Russian citizens to reroute a highway that would bisect Moscow’s protected Khimki Forest, and

• Sofia Gatica (Argentina) —  after her infant died of pesticide poisoning, she is organizing local women to stop the indiscriminate spraying of toxic agrochemicals in neighboring soy fields.

On Wednesday, in a report on "News To Go" on GMA News TV on Wednesday, Gariguez said, "Isang karangalan ito para sa ating bansa na mayroong magandang pagtatanggol para sa ating kalikasan." "Obligasyon ng lahat ng tao na protektahan ang kalikasan," Gariguez said. He is calling on the Philippine government to stop mining activities especially in protected areas. "Hindi dapat isakripisyo ang mga tao, hindi dapat isakripisyo ang kapaligiran o masisira para lamang sa adhikain ng korporasyon," Gariguez said. Gariguez dedicated his award to the Mangyans of Mindoro, whom, he said, inspired him. According to his profile on the Goldman website, Gariguez was originally from Quezon Province but has lived in Mindoro for decades.  

Goldman noted that Gariguez's fight to protect mother nature in Mindoro started in the late 1990s when Norwegian mining company Intex proposed an open-pit nickel mine in Mindoro.

 

Intex’s mine would use acid leaching to get to the nickel ore, a process that would deposit millions of tons of toxic waste onto the four major rivers of the island. This in turn became hazardous for the animals, plants, and residents of Mindoro.

 

Gariguez thus co-founded the Alliance against Mining (ALAMIN), a group composed of indigenous people, Mindoro residents, and public officials who are all against mining in Mindoro.

 

In 2002, the local government passed a moratorium banning large-scale mining activities but Intex operations continued.

 

Together with a Norwegian nongovernment organization, Gariguez filed a complaint against Intex with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

 

In 2009,Gariguez also staged an 11-day hunger strike at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) which indefinitely revoked Intex’s permit, halting all mining operations in Mindoro. As the issue gained international attention, Intex shareholders slowly started to divest their funds from the company.

 

In 2010, Intex tried to sell the $2.4 billion company but with no success. Its CEO soon resigned within the year. - VVP, GMA News