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Colombia - Death and destruction in their weight in gold

A multinational company wants to turn mine in an ecosystem typical of Latin America, which holds the entire water supply of two million people. Who oppose the project.

The Páramo is a neotropical ecosystem , located in the high seas, the forests that form more than three thousand meters above sea level and the snowy peaks of five thousand meters. To constitute are valleys and plains with lots of lakes, bogs and wet grasslands, dotted with shrubs and patches of forest. About 57 percent of this ecosystem is particularly concentrated in Colombia. Among these, there is Páramo of Santurbán , which produces and regulates water supply for two million human beings urban areas of Bucaramanga and Cucuta and other 21 municipalities, all located in the departments of Santander and Norte de Santander. A true ecological treasure , on which he is laying his claws a multinational mining is already looking forward to extract the huge hiding wealth, beginning with gold. This is the Greystar Resources, which has already been approved by the government Santos for his mining project Angostura. But the thousands of people who will suffer the devastating consequences are there, and took to the streets in Bogota , opposite the Ministry of Environment to scream in the face of their rulers dissent.
"The Páramo is un'ecoregione very strategic not only for the department of Santander, but the government has decided to continue to perpetrate the policy to convert Colombia into a country- mine," the complaint para la Corporación Autónoma Defensa de la Meseta de Bucaramanga (Cdmb). In Narino Palace only affects attract foreign capital by providing them with huge benefits through tax exemptions, contracts, legal stability, free zones and special regime of investment culminating in the payment of gratuities that even come close to repairing the adverse environmental damage, economic and social caused by opencast mining .
exemptions reserved for mining companies in 2009 are the 51 percent of the rent paid to the State , a figure that rises to 86 percent when it comes to gold. As the blame Greystar Resources? It is estimated that recoverable reserves of gold in that heavenly ecosystem was estimated at 9 million ounces (255 tonnes), while the silver talking about 59 million ounces (1835 tonnes). And if you think that the gifts that the multinational be paid to the country amounted to 14.9 million dollars a year, for a total of 224milioni in 15 years, while the sale of gold and silver at the current price the will pocket the beauty of 14.252 million, the accounts are taken facts. Who cares if it comes out páramo or destroyed, without water and looted of its minerals. And who cares if work the mine will produce 1200 tons of sodium cyanide per month for almeno 180 mesi. Si tratta di veleno che verrà deposto in piscine di lisciavizione, le quali - a quanto dichiarato dalla medesima Greystar nella documentazione sull'impatto ambientale presentato a aprile 2010 -  non sono totalmente invulnerabili a contingenze sismiche o geologiche. E se questo succederà, rimediare i danni sarà impossibile". 

E gli incidenti capitano e anche di frequente. Nel mondo , nel 2010 , si sono registrate enormi catastrofi ambientali legate all' attività minerario-energetica : da quanto accaduto sul Danubio in Ungheria, al golfo del Messico, al mar Giallo in Cina, fino ai minatori cileni. If these already high probability is the fact that the multinational in question has no experience in mining country, fears of the inhabitants are more than plausible. and created the Committee for the Defence of Páramo de Santurbán , which includes trade unions, students, social organizations, professional associations and even political fields everywhere. The strong opposition to the project has created a petition that now has collected 50 thousand signatures and the response from the Attorney General, who called it "unworkable." A movement that will stop at nothing even stronger the support of the Colombian Red Frente a la Gran Minería Transnacional, that claim to prevent other projects just as harmful to the Colombians like La Coloso in Tolima, Caldas and marble Mandé Norte in Chocó.

From: Peace Reporter