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First steps of Access Pan America

Access Pan America's inaugural meeting was held August 12 -16th, in Squamish, British Columbia.

Seven countries participated: US ACCESS FUND, Canadian Access Societies, UIAA Access Commission, Spanish Mountaineering and Climbing Federation, as well as several climbers of Colombia, Honduras and Peru. According to Armando Menocal the aim of this meeting has been reached: "We accomplished our objective of bringing together a core of access activists, who in the end unanimously agreed to form an access organization to be called Access PanAm / Acceso PanAm. We created a steering committee of a dozen climbers in Latin America, the U.S., and even Spain”.

The mission of this new group will be to keep climbing areas open and protect the mountain environment. Concretely, Acces PanAm will help in the creation and support of local, regional and national organizations of climbers through all the Latin America, as well as in search of adapted solutions.

Access PanAm also initiated its first campaign: to save one of Latin America's the most important of rock climbing site, Cochamó. Situated in Chilean Patagonia and legally unprotected, Cochamó is at risk of being damed and flooded. Public utilities propose the construction of several hydraulic dams there. One of the residents of the Cochamó valley, Peter Seeliger, an initiator of the Access PanAm, will be one of those leading the campaign.

It is thus a first step for this organization which leans on the model of Access Fund, well known in United States for similar actions.

picto plus For more info: www.accesspanam.com