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dam-l Letter from Swedish Soc. for Nature Conserv. on Epupa/LS (fwd)
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From owner-irn-safrica@igc.org Fri Sep 3 14:26:53 1999
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Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 11:08:40 -0700
From: lori@irn.org (Lori Pottinger)
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Subject: Letter from Swedish Soc. for Nature Conserv. on Epupa/LS
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The following letter was sent to the new president of the UN General
Assembly, who was Namibia's foreign affairs minister previously.
Stockholm 1999-09-02
His Excellency
Foreign Minister
Theo-Ben Gurirab
Government of Namibia
Your Excellency,
The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation is Sweden's largest NGO in the
field of environment. Our current membership is more than 160 000
and this year we are celebrating our 90th anniversary.
We are deeply concerned by the possible negative impacts of the proposed
Epupa dam in Namibia. Therefore we are among the 40+ signatories of a
recent letter to Mr Getinet Giorgis of the African Development Bank
bringing to his attention the
economical, hydrological, social and ecological drawbacks of the project
as well as discussing sustainable alternatives to the dam before
contemplating loans to NamPower for the Epupa project.
I deeply regret to emphasise, Your Excellency, that northern NGOs will
find it very hard to support our governments allowing financial or
technical support for building Epupa.
However we would to our utmost to lobby for all kinds of the above to
Namibia if an alternative path for producing the required energy services
to your people were followed.
We kindly urge you, Your Excellency, to consider how the vast natural
resources that Namibia possesses can be used for sustainable alternatives
to this project. In addition to the Kudu gas project, already well along in
the planning
process and likely to provide for Namibia's power needs for at least 30
years, smaller-scale renewables should be considered more rigorously by the
government and development agencies. Your great nation's solar and wind
power potential are great, but as long as the focus remains on costly megadams
like Epupa, they stand little chance of being taken seriously.
Renewables like solar and wind are expected to become increasingly
competitive in price over time, making this project very much one that is
"in the wrong place at the wrong time."
The most flexible option of all, and one that is dismissed by the Epupa
Feasibility Study, is increasing efforts at energy efficiency.
We sincerely hope, Your Excellency, that the Namibian government
can use the great intellectual capacity of your research institutions and
NGOs to find bold approaches to the road that leads to a sustainable energy
future for Namibia by combining high-tech renewables with innovative
energy efficiency programs. Succeeding in this you would set a great
example to your neighbours as well as to the energy-wasting countries of
the North.
Yours Faithfully
Göran Ek
International secretary
-----------------------------------------------------
Göran Ek
Internationell sekreterare / International secretary/ Secretario
internacional
Svenska Naturskyddsföreningen
Swedish Society for Nature Conservation
Sociedad Sueca para la Proteccion della Naturaleza
Box 4625
SE-116 91 Stockholm
Sweden
Suecia
tel +46-8-702 65 09 fax +46-8-702 08 55
goran.ek@snf.se
www.snf.se
Du är väl medlem? På vår hemsida www.snf.se/stod/medlem.html kan du bli
det!
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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