Latin America: Mining Boom Sparks Conflicts

According to the World Bank, nearly one-third of all the new mining projects in the world are in Latin America. But several large projects are stalled due to opposition from the local populations who have refused to be relocated or have the environments they depend upon be altered.

There are currently 155 unresolved conflicts tied to mining in the region, according to the Observatory on Mining Conflicts in Latin America, that monitors the mining activity.

Environmentalists’ main criticism of the industry is that it requires millions of liters of water and uses toxic chemicals, such as cyanide, to extract minerals from the ore. To extract one gram of gold from 1 metric ton of ore, some 400 liters are used.
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