黄德部落格 Wong Tack Blog
Lynas says govt conditions ‘unachievable’,
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Lynas says govt conditions ‘unachievable’, may close plant in 6 months | The Malaysian Insight
The Australian reports company CEO as saying challenges are due to 'small minority' of politicians, activists.
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NGO wants MB to keep promise to close Lynas
Published on: Monday, May 20, 2013
Kota Kinabalu: Pahang Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Adnan Yaakob should honour his promise to shut down the controversial Lynas plant at Gebeng in Pahang, said environmental organisation Himpunan Hijau.
Its President, Wong Tack, said Adnan had said prior to the 13th General Election that the election results should be used as a referendum for the Lynas rare earth project.
With the election over now and the results showing the vote majority siding with the opposition candidates, he said it is clear that the people in Kuantan rejected Lynas.
“So, as a gentleman and politician, Adnan should keep his promise and close down Lynas,” he told reporters after visiting the Sabah Environmental Protection Association (Sepa) booth during the Youth Day celebration at the Likas Sports Complex, here, Sunday.
However, Wong foresees the shutting down of the world’s largest rare earth processing plant will not be plain smooth.
“But no matter what, we will do whatever we can to interrupt the operations of Lynas and make sure it will not stay in Malaysia,” he said.
The Lynas plant is operated by an Australian mining company and yet, despite announcing to the international media that it has started production, the Government has yet to provide any data or information on how it has been monitoring or managing the pollution, radioactive and toxic waste.
Previously, the Government proposed to turn the waste into road-building and construction material as well as fertiliser.
Himpunan Hijau described such proposal as “irresponsible and unacceptable.”
To this, Wong said the organisation would do whatever means possible to see to that the plant is shut down. Until today, he said, nobody knows exactly what is going on with the Lynas plant, which is very sad.
“It has been in operations since January but nobody knows what is going on. The entire operations are not transparent and we have been promised by the authorities and people in power that they are constantly and closely monitoring the operations.
“But until today, we have not seen even a single (EIA) report,” he said.
He said even the oil palm mills have to produce an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report every month, but that Lynas plant until today has not produced even one.
Because of this, he said the new Human Resources and Environment Minister, Datuk Seri G. Palanivel, should come out and tell the people what is going on in Lynas plant.
“(And) I hope this time, everyone will know who the environmental minister is (because) in the last five years, nobody knows who is our environmental minister. I ask this across the nation, who is this (Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Datuk) Douglas Uggah (Embas), but nobody knows him.
“Hence, this time around, (we hope) the new environmental minister will do something about it for the sake of environment,” he said.
By not producing EIA report, he said, it means that the mining company is operating under the “black box”.
On other developments, Wong is happy to see that Sepa is still in strong spirit and continue to participate in environmental issues.
“I always say that as long as we are still alive, there is always hope, and when there is hope, we dare to dream. And when we dare to dream, something will happen eventually,” he said.
And Sabah is a place, he said, that can influence the country and the world as well in terms of environmental protection and conservation.
Sepa is headed by its new President, Lanash Thanda, who is a policy analyst and previously worked with the WWF.
The organisation also, for the very first time, is made up of an all-women committee, which Wong described as very special and dynamic.
He said women’s motherly love for the nature is a very strong power and that under this power, Sepa could bring positive changes to the society.
“A new era has just started and we would like to see such struggle to continue in environmental protection and conservation.
“I also believe under the leadership of Lanash Thanda, Sepa and Sabah would be in good hands,” he said, adding that he sees positive things coming from Sabah and across the nation.