PGGM embroiled in conflict with Mexican wind farm
26 July 2013 | www.dutchnews.nl
Health service pension fund PGGM is embroiled in an investment in a wind farm project in Mexico that has turned sour, the Volkskrant reports.
PGGM has a 33% interest in Mareña Renovables, a project set to be the biggest wind farm in Latin America with 132 turbines on a peninsula in the south of Mexico.
The rest of the project, valued at €840m, is in the hands of the Japanese Mitsubishi company and Australian investment group Macquarie.
The wind farm was due to be in operation this autumn but building has not yet begun bcause of a conflict with the locals who want the project cancelled.
Barricaded
Local leaders have pocketed the investors’ money and fishermen worried about their livelihood have barricaded the building site with tree trunks and rocks.
Construction has been held up for nearly a year and protests have turned violent, with several people injured.
Local media has already reported that Mareña Renovables has been cancelled, but PGGM refutes this, says the Volkskrant. ‘We have legal permission to build. Cancellation is not an option,’ PGGM’s senior investment manager Dennis van Alphen told the paper.
He is convinced the local population will benefit from the project and says it is up to the Mexican government to find a solution. ‘It is not the responsibility of the investors to develop the whole region.’
He would not comment on losses caused by the delay.
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/07/26/pggm-embroiled-in-conflict-with-mexican-wind-farm/