{"id":276696,"date":"2016-12-19T16:38:47","date_gmt":"2016-12-19T12:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/epress.am\/?p=276696"},"modified":"2016-12-19T22:39:05","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T18:39:05","slug":"is-aurora-compatible-with-amulsar-mining-armenian-environmentalists-open-letter-to-aurora-co-founders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2016\/12\/19\/is-aurora-compatible-with-amulsar-mining-armenian-environmentalists-open-letter-to-aurora-co-founders.html","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Is Aurora Compatible with Amulsar Mining?\u2019 Armenian Environmentalists\u2019 Open Letter to Aurora Co-Founders"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pan-Armenian Environmental Front (PAEF) civil initiative has addressed an open letter to the founders of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative and members of Ameriabank\u2019s board of directors Noubar Afeyan and Ruben Vardanyan, expressing its disappointment with the bank\u2019s recent loan agreement<\/a><\/span><\/strong> with Lydian Armenia, providing 24 million USD for gold extraction in Amulsar Mountain and for purchasing equipment for the construction of a heap leach facility.<\/p>\n

The PAEF letter in its entirety below:<\/em><\/p>\n

– This policy of Ameriabank came to strike our expectations and opinion about the bank. Firstly, because the bank advertises itself as responsible towards nature and humans and according to its website, it has an environmental and social risk management policy. Secondly, as members of the Board of Directors of the bank, you have become known in Armenia for your social, ecological, educational and charity projects, including the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative.<\/p>\n

Both of you have lead \u201cArmenia 2020\u201d project, which never envisioned mining for the development of Armenia, nor did the \u201cNational Competitiveness Foundation\u201d established with your participation in 2008 and annulled in 2014, which promoted the strategic direction of \u201cSouthern Corridor Tourism\u201d development, including a long-term tourism development plan for Jermuk. Both the \u201cSouthern Corridor Tourism\u201d development master plan, and \u201cJermuk Town Development\u201d plan continue to be a state policy, which paradoxically are in the perspectives of the WB Development Assistance Agency\u2019s lending policy for Armenia.<\/p>\n

For 5 years environmentalists and independent experts in Armenia ring alarms and present facts regarding the unmanageable risks of gold extraction in Amulsar Mountain and application of sodium cyanide in this process, which can forever poison Vorotan and Arpa rivers, Vayots Dzor region\u2019s agricultural lands and Armenia\u2019s strategic water resource and the largest freshwater reserve in the region \u2013 Lake Sevan. Jermuk health resort town together with its mineral waters will also be under a serious threat.<\/p>\n

Blinded with Ameriabank\u2019s \u201cgreen\u201d image, a few weeks ago our civic initiative also opened a bank account there. However, like many other citizens, we too decided to boycott your bank after seeing that despite the problems raised, the bank continues defending this anti-ecological, anti-human and unethical loan deal. Bank staff members even dared to spread misinformation that the bank may reconsider its policy regarding this deal, or to lie to customers that Lydian is experienced in responsible mining (this company does not have any experience at all, it was established in 2006) and that the project entails no risks or else to stress that this project received loans from EBRD and IFC who have high standards thus this mining operation cannot be dangerous.<\/p>\n

Such claims could be ridiculous and if one would only read the investigative article published by Huffington Post in April 2015 titled \u201cGold Rush. How the World Bank is Financing Environmental Destruction\u201d, they would become aware, that these financial institutions do not apply \u201chigh standards\u201d, that their lending and investment projects in mining in Latin American, African, Asian and former Soviet countries have already led to horrendous and irreparable environmental destruction and physical and economic resettlement of millions of people. Having served on the Economic Advisory Board of the IFC, Ruben Vardanyan must have known and must have made conclusions about this.<\/p>\n

We are puzzled by this controversy in your activities, namely how you can initiate humanitarian projects in Armenia on the one hand and speak about Armenia\u2019s long-term social and economic development, and on the other hand finance such a short-term project that threatens Armenia\u2019s ecology.<\/p>\n

Lydian\u2019s arguments that its project is in line with international standards have long been refuted. It is two years that IFC Compliance Advisory Obmudsman\u2019s office is assessing complaints from Armenia that mining in Amulsar does not comply even with IFC standards. Armenia\u2019s government has no clear answers regarding very basic questions on risk management and has held no real professional assessment of mining in Amulsar Mountain.<\/p>\n

Given the above-mentioned facts, as well as principles declared by projects and institutions led by you in the present and in the past, also given your direct responsibility in the possible exploitation of Amulsar, please explain to us and the general public these contradictions in your actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Given the above-mentioned facts, as well as principles declared by projects and institutions led by you in the present and in the past, also given your direct responsibility in the possible exploitation of Amulsar, please explain…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":276614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[65991],"tags":[66092,66091,18866,11438,66093],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276696"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}