Mexico: Twelve Little Reasons To Oppose Mega-Mining

La Jornada: Gilberto López y Rivas*

Since this past February, a citizens' movement against toxic mining has developed in the state of Morelos, with anti-mining committees in Alpuyeca, Miacatlán, El Rodeo, Mazatepec, Cuentepec, Xochicalco, Coatetelco, La Toma and Cuernavaca that hope to prevent Canadian company La Esperanza Silver from establishing an open pit mine on a hill in Jumil, in the municipality of Temixco and near the archaeological site of Xochicalco, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Center.

Recently, the movement has sent letters to various politicians, government officials, and members of academic institutions warning about the varied, harmful consequences that are objectively predictable and that the authorization of mining activity would bring about, in a region just twelve straight kilometers from the center of the state capital. I'll briefly highlight some.

1. Major groundwater pollution resulting from the industrial processes associated with the mining of precious metals using highly toxic chemicals.
2. Excessive consumption of water and energy in an area where indigenous and mestizo [mixed race] communities, settled in both rural and urban parts of the region, do not have sufficient access to these already limited and diminishing resources.
3. Emission by the company of powder containing diverse, toxic particulate matter, including unknown metals that the wind will inevitably disperse far beyond the specific mining area.
4. Radical destruction of the habitat and damage to the biodiversity of the area, intensifying the deforestation process in the region. The deciduous forest cannot be replaced in a couple of years, as La Esperanza Silver suggested publicly, among the other lies that it has been spreading.
5. The process of destruction of fertile soil that up until now has been suitable for agricultural use. This process is irreversible.
6. Accumulation of toxic waste in future years, aggravating environmental degradation and damaging the quality of life for locals and the conditions that can sustain life in the short, medium and long terms.
7. The open pit mine will change the landscape for the worse, which, along with these other blows, will damage tourism and the lives of those who depend upon it.
8. Direct and indirect damage to the heath of neighboring indigenous and mestizo populations, in an area that covers and extends past the communities located in the designated area and immediately adjoining it. The environmental impact statement does not contain a specific section regarding damage to health, which, predictably, has not been recognized by the company or any state or federal health authority.
9. The strategies that the mining company has already put in place to win community support in Tetlama and other villages has sown discord and created intra- and inter-community conflicts that were previously non-existent, and also include bribing local authorities to further their interests. As in other parts of the country and Latin America, company operators have created conflicts to confuse and oppose the public.
10. La Esperanza Silver has already created and implemented a deliberate strategy of systematic disinformation and concealment and distortion of information about the harmful effects of open pit mining. This systematic disinformation has a counterpart, which is the absolute absence of objective information directed to the surrounding communities on the part of government agencies at the federal, state and local levels. They are silent accomplices, benefiting the foreign interest, whether deliberately or as a product of open negligence. Neither the universities in Morelos nor the environmental, educational, cultural, or social development authorities have warned citizens about the objectively predictable harmful effects of mining operations of this type, even to be aware of them and the enterprise. The silence shared by several government offices, both state and federal, is disturbing and indicative of a gross lack of responsibility, a loss of institutional and national identity and a sense of nationality, and disdain toward the local population. This "omission" works in favor of toxic megamining operations.
11. The company and its supporters, either open or covert, have created an atmosphere of confrontation and discrimination against the citizens and social movements that oppose the mining initiative. No legal or punitive actions have been taken in the face of the violations that the Canadian company has already incurred toward our country.
12. The polygon surrounding the Xochicalco archaeological zone is explicitly included in the concessions granted the mining company, which opens the possibility that both the subsoil and the archaeological area will be tapped. Mining itself damages the structures and pre-Hispanic ruins that are part of the historical system of Xochicalco and that exist in the same operating area granted to the company. As the licensed area extends over 15,000 hectares [37,065.8 acres], the natural landscape that lends visual and geographic meaning to the pre-Hispanic settlement will disappear.

So, do we need more arguments or what? No to mining, yes to life. Spanish original

*Gilberto Lopez y Rivas is an anthropologist and researcher for Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History in the state of Morelos, where this site is located. He holds a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Utah.