In a plea for the safeguarding of their only water source, Kako villagers on Tuesday called for the immediate suspension of mining on the Kako River as well as a banning of future operations upstream from the village during a tense meeting with a government team.
The government team later reported that a working group has been formed to examine the issue in the Region Seven community—one of a number that have pitted Amerindian communities against miners recently.
“What we need here is immediate resolutions to our problems,” Toshao of Kako Mario Hastings said even as he lamented that Minister of Amerindian Affairs Pauline Sukhai and Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment (MNRE) Robert Persaud had not accepted their invitation to the meeting. In their stead, adviser to Sukhai,
