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British actress Vanessa Redgrave used the platform of a Romanian film festival to protest against a proposed open-air gold mine in central Romania, saying it would damage the environment.
"Saving this area is not only a local problem, it is a European problem and one of the entire world," Redgrave said this weekend at a film festival in central-western city of Cluj.
"Our planet is dying and we have no right to destroy an ecosystem," she said.
The actress, honored for her entire film career, dedicated her award to members of the Alburnus Maior association, which for several years has been fighting against the plans of the Canadian Gabriel Resources firm for an open-air gold mining project in the Rosia Montana region.
Building the mine would require the destruction of half the city -- including its churches and cemeteries -- and force the relocation of some 2,000 people, opponents say.
Redgrave "has promised to come next to Rosia Montana, along with her son, who wants to do a film there," Stephanie Roth, a spokeswoman for Alburnus Maior told AFP.
The British film star's support "gives impetus to our project," said the association's president, Eugen David, who added that the actress had accepted the symbolic offer of a square-meter of land at Rosia Montana.
In 2002, some 600 archeologists and historians from around the world called on the Romanian authorities to prevent the destruction of an archeological site at Rosia Montana, unique in Europe, where a vast network of Roman mining tunnels, dating from the second century, have still not been completely explored.
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AFP 121059 GMT 06 06
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