The Palmer Project is now owned by DOWA Holdings, Japan, Ltd.—a massive multi-billion-dollar corporation headquartered in Tokyo.
Their shiny, whitewashed website is full of vague corporate platitudes. They say their mission is “creating an affluent, recycling-oriented society through our business activities worldwide.” DOWA has thousands of employees in offices all over the world. So what is it that they actually do?
Make money for investors. According to their corporate statement, they “strengthen business foundations by aggressively investing management resources under basic policies described in the plan of expanding business in growth markets.”
Confused? That’s the point. If you changed the batteries in your B.S. detector recently, it should be going off. It’s corporate-ese for “feed the shareholders.”
We’re not the shareholders.
They have two mines in Mexico. Perhaps that’s where their “affluent, recycling-oriented society” is? Or maybe it’s at their mine in British Columbia that they put in over the protests of the local Tsilhqot’in Nation, where they are currently piping mine waste directly into the Fraser River.
20,000 letters to DOWA were met with total silence. DOWA is not Constantine; they clearly have no interest in dialogue.
What happens when this distant corporation’s interests overshadow all other concerns—Haines’ economy, Haines’ fishermen and the health of our valley? Why should we trust them with the future of our fish, which is to say the future of our town?
Supporting Palmer is supporting economic development—in Tokyo.
Joe Aultman-Moore