Today, multi-nationals such as Barrick Gold and Newmont are the primary producers, who through advances in amalgamation and truck tire design (of all things) are able to mine ores previously not considered commercially viable, and on a massive scale. Open pit mining and cyanide leaching are the primary methods. Pits over 250 square kilometres large are carved into the earth. Ore is excavated, crushed, and mixed with cyanide to extract the gold. In their wake is left tens of millions of tonnes of waste rock; 95 per cent to 99.9995 per cent of mined and processed ore ends up as waste product.
What then are the effects of this kind of mining on local environments and communities? Over the past two and a half years I have studied the effects of Canadian mining on (mostly indigenous) communities in Latin America as part of the McGill Research Collective for the Investigation of Canadian Mining in Latin America (MICLA) – a research collective that looks at the social costs of Canadian mining, observing what happens when the exploitative logic of the mining industry collides with a radically different set of values
No comments:
Post a Comment