Duterte cited the Mount Diwalwal gold rush site in Compostela, eastern Mindanao. There the river is pristine at the source, but only a kilometer away where dozens of processing backyards are the water is black. (I’ve been there thrice and saw it myself.) In cement open ponds, banned acid and mercury are used to separate the gold from the rocks. The poison is ejected to the river, which with mud from tunnels cascades to the rice and fruit plantations below and onto the sea. From the hillside, the sea view is brown for many kilometers away, until it mixes with the blue Pacific. No fish to be caught there; the corals long have choked to death. From dawn to dusk around the hills can be heard dynamite blasts by tunnel diggers. The stench in the air is permanent. Diwalwal is no wilderness; half a million people have been living there since the 1980s.
read more... http://www.philstar.com/opinion/2017/07/26/1721527/dutertes-2nd-bout-dirty-miners
No comments:
Post a Comment