Itchy Rash Before Strep Throat

Susan Abad from Bogota In his inauguration on August 7, Juan Manuel Santos President was emphatic in ensuring that his government would be five locomotives that would draw to Colombia towards progress: housing, infrastructure, mining, agriculture and innovation. According to environmental experts, in the case of mining, running towards progress is leaving the rails under the environmental and cultural sustainability of the country.

Colombia retains the largest coal reserves in Latin America, in addition to owning gold, silver, platinum, emeralds, nickel, copper, iron, manganese, lead, zinc and titanium.

"This wealth, coupled with favorable laws governing this activity, means that today 40% of the territory is required to make mining concession," says a News Allied Mario Valencia, the Colombian Network front of the big mining Crime (RECLAIM).

Official figures confirm that the exploitation of minerals is big business in Colombia. Trade authorities have revealed that over 85% of foreign investment in the country is in the extraction of minerals and hydrocarbons. Statistics show that between 2002 and 2009 investment in this sector rose from U.S. $ 466 million to $ 3 billion and exports grew from $ 2.8 billion to $ 8.1 billion.

"The only priority economic laws," said Juana Diaz, spokeswoman for the Office of Territories and Biodiversity of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC). "In 2001 was amended by the Mining Code to the law 685 which was very successful for large companies. Is lost then the primacy of state ownership of mining territories and the inclusion of elements of environmental protection and recognition of artisanal mining areas. It also puts some demands can be met only multinational companies in terms of infrastructure, machinery and more serious still, eliminated the requirement for an environmental license for exploration. " Major impacts


However, the economic boom "does not reconcile with the environmental and social and there are many other costs that are difficult to valued. You are extracting non-renewable natural resources causing a major impact on the collective heritage of Colombians. Mining titles are issued without any rigor, without any qualification. System has been plagued by lack of vision and irregularities, "says Juan Mayr, former environment minister and advisor to the Development Programme (UNDP).

TNCs have concessions for more than 43.000 km ². "To cite a single case, the [South African mining] Anglo Gold Ashanti is 690.000 Ha concession Gramalote projects in Antioquia and Tolima in the La Colosa, in round numbers, a vast territory with impact political and economic issues and that explains much of the social conflicts that are living in the world of mining and may well become worse, "says a News Allied Senator Jorge Robledo, the Alternative Democratic Pole.

"People are paying and will pay high costs that can not be valued by the economy," warns Marco Avirama indigenous Senator. "In the process of exploration and mining, and due to machinery, vehicles and technology employees strongly affects the stability of the soil and its fauna, flora and water causing the disappearance of the local ecosystem, with no chance of recovery. In For gold mining requires large amounts of water to separate it from other elements and is also used cyanide and mercury to reach the river becomes a major pollutant. "

According to the Organization of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the excessive gold mining in Colombia has led the country from becoming more contaminated by mercury in the world. Measurements made by the agency last year determined that in the municipality of Segovia, Antioquia department, a former gold mining area, as many as 10 to 20 times the range of 10,000 nanograms of mercury per cubic meter of air permitted by World Health Organization.

Water resources are also seriously threatened by large-scale exploitation. Case in point is the struggle that has maintained the population of the northeastern department of Santander, which requires the government not to issue an environmental permit for the project in which the Canadian company Grey Star aims to draw more than 500,000 ounces of gold a year to exploit the sites located in the Santurbán Paramo, valuable ecosystem protected by the Constitution, where more than 40 lakes, hundreds of streams and varied and abundant vegetation and retaining water scavenger.

"With the operation is put at risk sources aqueduct aquifers that supply the metropolitan cities of Cucuta [in Norte de Santander] and Bucaramanga [Santander], of which 1.6 million people depend, "said Robledo. "It will use 40 tons of cyanide each day, 230 tons of ANFO. It will blow up 1.075 million MT of soil in the first phase, it also carried out in an area of \u200b\u200bwilderness and nature reserve which is forbidden. "

"At the same time that impact the environment also affect our cultural values," says Avirama. "The social and productive structures are altered. The peasant, indigenous or African descent are deprived of water and land several times by their own colleagues who work in informal mining or have 'sold' to big business. Besides bringing investment companies and bring the money they generate customs that are not commensurate with the lifestyle and traditional customs of the people. "

Dispossession and displacement
Another disadvantage to the Allied News interviewed expressed is the presence of illegal armed groups, attracted by the movement of money, settle in the region to extort, or in some cases by serving the transnational.

"It is consolidating a dispossession of land, [while] is establishing a foreign investment, especially in mining and oil palm, which is related to forced displacement, "said Jorge Rojas, director of the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES). "About 32% of the 280,000 people displaced in Colombia occurred in 2010 occurred in areas where these two economic activities has markedly increased."

Within this framework, the government took measures such as initiating surprise visits to the mines, revocation of permission by insecurity, increased amount of fines and provides for the creation of the National Agency for Mineral-to regularize small mining, which it says is the largest polluter, sega more lives by its informality and has become a new source of funding for the illegal groups.

However, Valencia believes that it is a way out of business these miners to give concessions to big business.
"In Colombia there are over 2 million small-scale miners, small-scale, long have survived through this activity, and the government is trying to take away that support and deliver the holding to large mining projects," says . "By putting has been rigged in the same sack of gold mining and illegal, then acquire permission to pursue them equally and paves the way to the big multinationals. -Latinamerica.