Conservationist offers cash to save shrine

Press, 17 January 1979, Page 8

Conservationist offers cash to save shrine

j NZPA-Reuter ■> Montreux (Switzerland)! [ A Swiss conservationist, I Franz Weber, offered yester-j day to buy off a firm plan[ning to set up an aluminium! plant near the ancient Greek shrine of Delphi. j ( Mr Weber said his “Save. Delphi” movement sent an ■ offer to the Greek Prime Minister (Mr Constantine,; Karamanlis) proposing to buy the Camotissa Bay site , from the Boxipar Company a Greek firm under United States control. He asked the Prime Minister to pass on;' the suggestion to Boxipar. ' Mr Weber, president of;

,the movement and active in ! conservationist causes such I as the anti-seal hunting camIpaign in Canada, said he i planned to raise the funds I for the site purchase 'through three charity galas : later this year in Paris, Genieva. and Munich. He said in a statement that the bauxite factory would have catastrophic i consequences for the olive groves and the archeological site. A spokesman for the Greek mining firm, Bauxites Parnasse. which owns vast bauxite deposits near the ancient site said yesterday: “It iis to say the least, insulting

t [for a foreigner to believe he hi cares more about an ancient -1 Greek shrine than the ;[Greeks. One is inclined to ('question his motivations.” si He said that four bauxite i | mining companies were - [working in the area. i Bauxites Parnasse and the tiS ta t e-controlled Hellenic; /[industrial and Mining Inti vestment Company have announced plans to establish a IJSUS3OOM plant to produce: 600.000 tonnes of aluminium s a vear. 5 The Bauxites Parnasse t spokesman said t’ne plant - would not. be visible from t the archaeological site and ; there would be no pollution.