In July 2012, the World Heritage Committee, chaired by Ms. Mitrofanova from Russia, had made a decision to accept the application of the Government of Tanzania for a “minor boundary change” of World Heritage site Selous Game Reserve (SGR), in order to allow a uranium mining project, Mkuju River Project to go ahead under conditions specified by the World Heritage Committee.
Several indications show the Government of Tanzania and interested companies have no interest to comply with the requests of the World Heritage Committee, they intend to open up World Heritage site Selous Game Reserve for further mining and exploitation of resources, and to allow Selous Niassa-Wildlife Corridor to be transformed into an “emerging energy district” – in stark violation of the WHC’s requests.
As we are convinced that
- the decision to accept the so-called “minor boundary change” – and thus to allow uranium mining inside a World Heritage site – was made in faulty way and
- requests made by the World Heritage Committee in its July 2012 decision towards the State Party. i.e. the Government of Tanzania, are not met.
we request that the July 2012 decision and its consequences need to be reconsidered.
Gunter Wippel, Martin Kurz
uranium-network.org
Freiburg, Germany
June 16, 2013
For further substantiation and explanation, please read the PDF.