Earthlife Namibia appealed to the government to stop plans of uranium mining at Langer Heinrich in the Eron-go region. The intended uranium mining in the Namib Naukluft Park contains by far too many dangerous risks to be proceeded, " said Earthlife chair-person Bertchen Kohrs. If the Austra-lian company Paladin Resources would start its operations now, enormous damages would be irreversible like severe impacts on water and biodiversity as well as dangers through transport and storing of radioactive material. Tourism in the Naukluft Park, a prime tourism area, would also be very seriously affected.

Earthlife considers the draft Environ-mental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the mining project 80 km east of Swakopmund insufficient. While environmental consultants are supposed to be independent, the South African Company SOFTCHEM, hired by the Australian mining enterprise Paladin Resources, had a record of working for the nuclear industry. "In Earthlife’s view SOFTCHEM is not sufficiently independent to offer unbiased judgement on such a far-reaching matter", Kohrs said in a statement.

Water contamination as one of the serious issues had not been properly addressed in the draft EIA as large amounts of uranium oxide will be left in sludge or wastewater. A thorough chemical analysis of the uranium ore is missing. It could contain a number of other potentially toxic materials such as vanadium, a highly toxic heavy metal.

The new uranium mining site would require at least one million cubic meters of water per annum which is roughly the domestic water consumption of 15 000 additional inhabitants of Swakopmund. The Australian company intends to take the water from the Swakopmund terminal reservoir and build pipelines that will partly run above ground. The huge drain of already scarce water can be seen as one of the major drawbacks of the entire scheme. The creation of just 100 new jobs could never outweigh these serious threats to the environment, said Earthlife.