Of Natural Resources and Authority

So the Natural Resources Authority finally got their way! Copper mining is a’comin, having been blocked successfully for the previous decade by the RSCN, concerned about the environmental threats that copper mining presents to the land, the natural environment and the people that live around Wadi Dana, Feinan and beyond. The NRA has just launched a tender for the extraction of copper just outside the nature reserves of Dana and Feinan …. must be one inch outside the boundary then?

So what of geological tourism so proudly announced on their website … ? Well, we just can’t compete with world markets and world demands these days … our country is being tapped into, carved up and potholed because of the need for uranium, shale oil and now copper … all finite resources peaking everywhere around the world.

Hope the NRA lives up to the need for an environmental impact study required by Jordanian law; unlike what happened to the Wadi Ma’in when the Ministry of Public Works decided to build a road from one side of the valley to the other …. in the process destroying the little water streams that I loved to watch trickle their way down to the Dead Sea, and damaging geo-thermal wells that were used by the hotel in an agricultural pilot project for generating energy. Such carelessness and disregard for this ancient land and precious environment in the name of development, is mind boggling!



There is alternative technology out there … but where and when are we going to find the courage to use it?? J