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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Please Help if you can. Oppose PASCUA LAMA in Chile
  • Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 13:10:59 -0400

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [SANET-MG] Please Help if you can.
Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 10:54:33 -0400
From: jcummins <jcummins@UWO.CA>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

Hi Wtze and Kim.

I am enclosing below an article on the project undertaken by Barrick
Gold. I also included an article on the Indonesian Busang gold project
that turned out to be a huge fraud. I understand that many small
investors lost everything but Barrick did not lose on the fraud. cheers,joe

Barrick Gold Strikes Opposition in South America
by Glenn Walker, Special to CorpWatch
June 20th, 2005

“Barrick! Listen! Chile will not surrender!, No to Pascua Lama!,” roared
a crowd of protestors as they paraded through the streets of Santiago,
Chile. The crowd was addressing Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold, in
response to the company's proposed bi-national “Pascua Lama” open-pit
mine on the border of Chile and Argentina.

In what has so far been the climax of a campaign that is quickly gaining
momentum, the protestors gathered on June 4th in both Santiago, Chile's
capital city, and in the northern city of Vallenar, near the Pascua Lama
site. Each protest drew an estimated 2,000 people in a lively atmosphere
of carnival and traditional dance and ritual. The groups condemned
Barrick Gold’s plans as greedy, heavy-handed, and called the proposed
mine an environmental and social nightmare, shouting, “We are not a
North American colony!”

Barrick Gold, a powerful multinational already notorious for its
dealings in North America, Australia and Africa, plans to extract an
estimated 500,000 kilograms of gold (along with silver, copper and
mercury) from the site over a 20 year period. Before doing so, however,
the company will relocate significant parts of the Toro 1, Toro 2 and
Esperanza, three giant Andean glaciers. Barrick hopes to transfer the
three glaciers to an area with similar surface characteristics and
elevation by merging the three into the larger Guanaco glacier.

The anticipated environmental impact, coupled with the removal of a
major source of water for surrounding communities, has local Chileans up
in arms. But Barrick Gold appears un-phased by the opposition. After
all, Pascua Lama is one of the largest foreign investments in Chile in
recent years, totaling US$1.5 billion.

As with many gold mines, the Pasuca Lama mine would employ cyanide
leaching for on-site processing of the ore. Cyanide is a chemical
compound which, even in very small quantities, is extremely toxic to
humans and other life forms. If leaked from a mine site or spilt during
transportation, it can quickly cause massive toxicity problems for an
entire ecosystem, while mobilizing other persistent and toxic heavy
metals, as well.

For this reason the people of the Huasco Valley – the area where the
headwaters of the mine site flow – are extremely anxious about the risk
of poisoning their water source, along with the significant problem of
large dust plumes released by mining activity.

“The air we breathe, the water we drink and the land we cultivate have
more value than the gold coveted by multinationals,” wrote the people of
the Huasco valley and a number of environmentalists recently in a letter
to the Chilean president that pleaded for a halt to the project.

Barrick's plans to “relocate” three glaciers – 816,000 cubic meters of
ice – by means of bulldozers and controlled blasting, is seen by
mine-opponents as symbolic of the company's utter insensitivity to the
environment. As headwaters for a water basin in an arid region receiving
very little rainfall, many opponents are gravely concerned for the ice.
They say the mechanical action involved in moving the glaciers will
irreversibly melt much of it, jeopardising a delicate ecological balance
further downstream.

“A glacier isn’t just a chunk of ice you can pick up and move,” says
Lucio Cuenco, from Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts
(OLCA). “It’s part of a water basin, and if you move it, you’ll disrupt
that ecosystem”.

The three glaciers also constitute a precious source of environmental
knowledge. Ice is a natural preservative and glaciers this large
undoubtedly carry information on the flora and fauna of the area and the
history of many thousands of years of the South Andes.

There are also severe occupational health and safety issues with the
mine. According to Cesar Padilla, also of OLCA, several deaths have
already been reported as part of the initial construction.

Nataneal Vivanco, an organic farmer from the Huasco Valley, also voices
deep worries about the safety of the mine workers.

“They say they are a “responsible” company but I don’t know to what
level because right now, although they haven’t even started to work
fully, there’s been 15 deaths,” Vivanco says.

Vivanco’s claim is echoed by activist groups campaigning against the
mine, who allege that at least 15 workers have been lost. But details of
exactly how the deaths occurred are unclear and the municipal councillor
who is said to have an official list of the deaths was unavailable for
comment.

Barrick Gold did not wish to comment on the issue to CorpWatch, but has
consistently denied the potential scale of their effect on the Huasco
Valley and its inhabitants. They maintain that the project is good for
the region in that it will generate thousands of local jobs, that safety
standards are high, and that the environmental effects of the mine are
negligible.

“The impact on water quantity is minimal, the impact of water is none,”
claimed Vince Borg, Barrick Gold’s vice president of communications last
month in a statement to the Dow Jones Newswire.

“We're not surprised at all by a number of activists coming out and
offering their view and distorting some facts rather than focusing on
reality,” he added.

Despite the company's claims, the regional environmental commission
CONEMA, in a recent report, has expressed concern that the company has
shown little consideration for the possibility of down-stream pollution
and that there is “inconsistency” in their related figures.

The CONEMA report has called for the glacial relocation plans to be
scrapped and for the mine to instead be downsized or established
underground so as to lessen potential environmental impacts. Barrick
Gold is still compiling a response.

In the meantime, in an effort to stymie the growing opposition to the
project, Barrick Gold has released a major TV ad campaign championing
“responsible mining.” The company has also offered US$10 million to fund
local educational and cultural community projects.

The fund has been dismissed as an attempt to buy silence by
mine-opponents who claim the money offered is miniscule in comparison to
the profits that will be made and the damage that will be done.

Indeed, as the world’s second biggest gold producer with 13 major mine
operations worldwide, and another five in development, Barrick Gold is
certainly not short on cash. What’s more, they are not required under
Chilean law to pay taxes on their takings and have so far avoided having
to pay a bond as insurance if something were to go terribly wrong.

These fierce accusations of corporate irresponsibility and greed are
certainly not the first the massive mining company has had to handle. In
the past they have been accused of burying alive 50 miners in Tanzania
(through a company they now own), of playing a heavy-handed role in
attempting to silence opposition through expensive libel cases, and of
blatantly disregarding community and environmental concerns all over,
from the US, to Latin America, Africa and Australia.

George W Bush Sr. also appears in the long list of grievances about the
company. From 1995 to 1999 he was the "Honorary Chairman" of Barrick's
"International Advisory Board," during which time he was said to have
forced laws favourable to the company.

Barrick Gold expects to have full approval for their Pascua Lama project
by the end of the year. Meanwhile opposition continues to swell.

Nataneal Vivanco says that on top of the safety problems and potential
contamination to water (which he worries could ruin his chance at
organic certification), Barrick's presence has caused another kind of
contamination.

“The conflict that we are having -- one against the other, those in
favor and those against the mine -- is a type of contamination, a social
contamination."
BARRICK AND BRE-X AGREE ON PLAN FOR BUSANG GOLD

Article Tools Sponsored By
Published: December 17, 1996 ny times

The fate of one of the world's most glittering gold finds landed back in
the hands of the Indonesian Government yesterday, after two Canadian
mining concerns said they had finally agreed on a plan of joint
development. The Barrick Gold Corporation and Bre-X Minerals Ltd. ended
weeks of speculation about whether they could work together when they
submitted a plan to develop the huge Busang deposit, which has at least
57 million ounces of gold. Neither company would disclose the terms or
structure of the proposed deal. In November, the Indonesian Government
told the companies to form a joint venture, with Barrick gaining 75
percent and Bre-X keeping 25 percent. The Government twice extended
their deadline.






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