Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
from Davos Notebook:
Even in crisis, NGOs pull no punches in Davos
Though a financial crisis and global recession have left many of the world's biggest companies uncharacteristically humbled, that didn't stop NGOs from taking shots at a few of them at the World Economic Forum.
U.S. gold company Newmont Mining and Swiss utility Bernische Kraftwerke picked up a couple of pretty dubious honors from Greenpeace Switzerland and the Berne Declaration.
Newmont received two awards -- the Global Award and People's Award -- for its mining project in eastern Ghana. According to the NGOs, Newmont "is ignoring the environmental and social damage" the planned mine will create.
"If the project goes ahead, 10,000 farmers will lose their land and livelihood and cyanide, used to extract the gold, will poison the soil, water and wildlife," they said in a statement.
