You can learn a lot from a little protesting...

By Lindsay Gibb, Youth Journalist

June 9, 1997--Outside of the Royal York Hotel, where all of the excitement is taking place, protesters showed up at the start of the Ministerial Conference. Approximately fifty people walked around in the sun trying to attract the attention of the passers-by with their flyers and creative signs.

Being the only paper we had touched in the past three days, all of the flyers really caught our (the youth journalists) attention. Most of the arguments were against APEC and free trade, but one of the protesters we spoke to had a completely different cause she was fighting for.

Catherine is an anthropologist who at one time found herself in Calancan Bay in the Philippines, where she discovered a horrible environmental tragedy. It seems that a mining company was getting rid of their waste by dumping it into the bay. Catherine just stumbled upon this discovery in her time there but has since become devoted to the cause.

She believes that half of the problem is awareness. Since there is no publicity for this problem, no one even knows that it exists. Therefore, no one can help to make a difference. The people of Calancan Bay have tried to have the guilty corporation stop dumping their waste into the bay for 16 years, but to no avail. What shocked me most was that the corporation never even asked the people of the town or any authority figure how they felt about their plans, and therefore had no permission from anyone to do what they did.

I realize that we hear about tragedies like these every once-in-a-while, but these problems are happening everyday, and sometimes nothing is being done about it. What is needed is more people like Catherine, who take it upon themselves to try and solve the problem through awareness and support from others.

You may think, like I used to, that things like this are only happening in other parts of the world and barely ever occur in your own home, but this is not so. New York City's method of garbage removal is to put all of the garbage onto a huge barge and dumping it into the water, which means that their garbage is polluting the Atlantic Ocean. I found this out while touring New York and I was just astonished that someone in the position to make a decision such as this would knowledgeably decide to do something so harmful to our environment. I guess it always seems to mean a little more when it's closer to home.

Back to List of Articles
De retour ý la liste des reportages

Back to Youth Forum Main Page
De retour au dÈbut du Forum jeunesse