Central Plateau region of Chubut
According to exit delay
The exploratory results obtained by the Christmas silver project in the heart of the plateau Chubut, sowing hope among its people, to reverse the continuing population decline and procrastination.
ECONOMIC E4
| Sunday October 10, 2010
The region of the central plateau of Chubut is an institutional space consists of four departments, which include a handful of municipalities and rural communes.
Since the middle of last century, the population of the vast region -33% of the province, has been decreasing at the same rate it has sheep production, and without this structure, so far, a plan of development of their productive potential that allows you to reverse this deterioration.
In mid 1980, there was a project that excited the people of Gastre (one of the main towns in the region), making them excited about a change of perspective: the National Atomic Energy Commission announced the decision to build on their near a radioactive waste reservoir to deposit there the remnants of the country's nuclear activity, but the initial enthusiasm of its inhabitants was soon overshadowed by the strong opposition movement, especially in the media and through awareness campaigns, who carried out the inhabitants of the cities of the Chubut, the coast, and the major capitals of Argentina.
Strong pressure was unleashed to close the project and the community continued to attend its slow but relentless decline, with the secret conviction that the project and it goes off, had been decided without their participation or decision.
Now, with the progress of exploration work on the Navidad project, one of the prospects of silver in the world, the illusions grow back, this time found the leaders and people, in the light of past experience with decision in what eventually happens in Gastre, Gan Gan and Telsen must be because they so choose, and not because the rest of the province-with successful economic development thanks to oil, fisheries and tourism-opine should continue to languish because it does not fit its strategic vision.
As part of the tasks to meet the Region of the Central Plateau since its inception in 2005, by municipalities and rural communities that comprise it, it goes in conjunction with the government of the province in search of a model for their development finally sustainable. It is in this framework through schedules of meetings and regular contact between community leaders, have been looking for results that are beneficial to each of the communities that make up the region.
Currently working in the joint production of a matrix, with different areas of development - developed by the provincial program "of what is going to live my people" - which at this stage is getting the input and participation of residents, officials and institutions that are settled in the Meseta.
The mining challenge
After the situation occurred in Esquel, in the early 2000s, which led to a plebiscite against mining in the area, Chubut progress in laws that suspended the permits to exploit ores, and every movement is detected exploratory is immediately confronted by anti-mining activists in major cities in Chubut.
With the advance of the Christmas project, and the tacit or implied shown by authorities and residents of the Shire, "Social Environment Forum members Patagonia, have visited the locations in the region, expressing their opposition to mining by acts and marches have been less than enthusiastic about the communities, despite extensive media coverage given to Trelew, Rawson and Comodoro Rivadavia.
Quartermasters, community presidents and leaders of the populations concerned, seem to have begun to tire of this constant foreign interference, mounted on a cutting environmental discourse that neither is responsible for the shortcomings, and raises serious alternatives for the future. "To develop we have to use what we have. It is as if the rest of Chubut Comodoro would prohibit get oil or Puerto Madryn Aluar exploitation, "said a village chairman at the last meeting of the Shire in Altars, in which there was a document which, among other things, states that "the need to reactivate the process initiated since the establishment of the Shire, is imposed to successfully promote this process the debate, agreement and sustained implementation of the main lines of action to confirm the specifics of production, employment and at the same time define what should be the new matrix production in the Central Plateau. "
The owners of the communities of the Shire, defined in this document, nine points according to frame the productive matrix:
- Taking care of water and environment improvement and its potential for productive use traditional and new production or mining activities throughout the region.
- The strengthening of the livestock sector with particular emphasis on smallholder production.
- The development and utilization of wind energy.
- The development of the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbon resources.
- The exploration and exploitation of minerals from first, second and third category.
- The development and exploitation of energy resources.
- The development of a comprehensive tourism plan.
- Strengthening the employment and trade opportunities.
- The interaction between regions and regions of the province and neighboring provinces.
The right to decide
The leaders and people of the region of the central plateau of Chubut, are, well, standing in a difficult position of equilibrium.
Know-or at least they sense "that the development opportunity that gives mining today is perhaps the last opportunity to change the history of setbacks that have lived their communities, and will not miss that opportunity, and less by influence of third parties that do not even live among them. And at the same time, seek to ensure that the project is not a venture Christmas arrives, and the return of the years leave without having left nothing but a short time in which to live on the plateau was good and profitable .
In other words, they want to ensure that what could be a simple production site, to become the engine that takes the path of social development and community they crave.
And above all things, this may not want others to decide for them.
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AIMSA - by Roberto Mendoza.
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