March 13, 2010 – Tudcum Argentina. While the Argentine Secretary for Mining and dozens of provincial mining authorities projected images of a mining-intensive and mining-friendly investment climate at the 9th Annual International Convention and Trade Show of Prospectors and Developers in Toronto, Canada, yet another so called Self-Convened Assembly of local residents (this time of Tudcum Argentina) sat on the road at the entry of Barrick Gold’s Pascua Lama and Veladero projects, debating strategies and actions of widespread social opposition to make Veladero and Pascua Lama leave Argentina.
Local community uprisings, protests, road blocks, self-convened assemblies, social movements, calls for anti-mining plebiscites and other modalities of opposition to large scale mining are flourishing in a country that just ten years ago, was considered to be the global haven for fantastic profit from mining investments. With growing understanding of the large scale impacts mining produces in local communities, ranging from water contamination, air pollution, natural resource destruction, dust, as well as problems with local economies (which don’t necessarily participate in the bonanza reaped by foreign investors), Argentina’s favorable climate toward mining is changing despite what public officials would have foreign investors believe.
This time the target was Barrick Gold’s Veladero and Pascua Lama projects, in Tudcum, San Juan Province, near the Chilean border. Assembly members from localities across the region joined Tudcum residents setting up a road block on the highway leading to the Veladero and Pascua Lama projects. A day before this convening, the Local Council in Andalgalá Catamarca, pressured by anti-mining protestors, passed a bill calling for a plebiscite to decide whether the locality should ban mining altogether. Such a bill would present serious complications to projects like Yamana’s Agua Rica, or new mining prospects by BHP Billiton.
Activists from across the region, including Andalgala where Yamana Gold operates Mina la Alumbrera and soon Agua Rica, as well as other mining affected communities across the country, showed up to Tudcum’s display of rejection to Pascua Lama.
The UAC (the Union of Self-Convened Assemblies against mining investments), is now an entrenched player in civil society anti-mining advocacy, and goes from assembly to assembly across Argentina, mobilizing people and fostering anti-mining sentiment. The UAC meets every three months and is a driving force of the growing anti-mining position that is beginning to be heard in Argentina. Their next national meeting will take place next month in San Juan Province, where local authorities, such as Governor Gioja, are set on making Argentina the primary mining country in the world.
It is unclear whether growing anti-mining sentiment in Argentina will derail national plans to deepen mining investments. What is clear is that the new national anti-mining campaign posits a serious contention to what has been an outwardly unified position to promoting profitable mining.
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