Plans for a Canadian-run open-pit gold mine on the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula are drawing criticism in no small part on account of the project’s location: in a biosphere reserve. Canadian-owned Vista Gold says it expects the Paredones Amarillos mine, slated for the Sierra de la Laguna biosphere, to produce at least 1.2 million ounces of gold over a 9.3-year period. Fred Earnest, Vista Gold’s president and chief operations officer, says the US$190 million investment will create 400 construction jobs and 300 mining jobs. Vista Gold intends to establish a foundation to support local health care and education, according to Earnest. “We want to be a responsible corporate citizen in Baja California Sur,” he says. The project is...
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A British court last month froze more than US$8 million in assets belonging to London-based Monterrico Metals after a lawsuit was filed on behalf of a group of Peruvian farmers who claim they were tortured in the wake of a protest against the company in 2005. The farmers had marched to the mine, where they say police or security guards detained 31 demonstrators, including two women whom the farmers say were sexually assaulted. One farmer, Melanio García, was shot during the protest and later died. A local journalist received photographs allegedly showing the protesters blindfolded and with their hands tied. In a non-binding referendum in 2007, communities in the districts of Huancabamba and Ayabaca, in the department of Piura near the border...
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A Chilean government investigation of eight activists in connection with a May 4 fire at the Puerto Montt offices of SalmonChile, a national salmon-farming industry association, is being condemned by critics as an attempt to stifle environmental and labor opposition to industrial salmon farming. Invoking a controversial anti-terrorism law, the government investigated activists including two labor union leaders and biologist Hector Kol of the Aysén Small Fishermen’s Association, a grouping of artisanal fishermen in northern Patagonia who are critical of industrialized salmon farming. Chilean Senator Alejandro Navarro, former head of the Senate’s environmental commission and a recent presidential candidate, says the government has “little evidence” and is violating international labor codes by its “persecution” of salmon labor leaders. “They [the Chilean government] are...
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Sensing a thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations, scientists from the two nations and from Mexico have drafted plans for collaboration in the Gulf of Mexico on issues including fisheries management and the protection of coral reefs and coastal ecosystems. The agreement came last month during a marine sciences conference in Havana organized by the Cuban Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment (Citma) and 1planet1- ocean, a U.S. nonprofit. Dan Whittle, a lawyer with the U.S.-based Environmental Defense Fund and a participant in the Havana meeting, says that because Cuba and the United States share many ecological resources, yet manage them in different ways, greater exchange is needed among academics, scientists and conservation groups. “We can address the growing threats to coral reefs, ocean...
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