Latin America Update
Published by MAC on 2006-06-16
Latin America Update
16th June 2006
While the Chilean National Environment Commission approved Barrick Gold's controversial Pascua Lama project, sustaining only 2 of the 46 objections that had been filed against it, environmental and indigenous rights advocates in Chile and Argentina have vowed to continue their opposition.
In Catamarca (Argentina), another spill in the mineral pipeline between Xstrata´s Bajo La Alumbrera copper mine and a treatment plant in Tucumán province caused alarm and indignation.
Marches, forums and community meetings were part of the Central American Week of Resistance Against Mining Activities, during which environmental activists sought to pressure their governments in order to stop the metal extraction operations. Activities and demonstrations were carried out in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
In Perú, sadly a bus accident on the road from Uchucchacu (a complex of a mill and three underground silver-lead-zinc mines) to the nearby town of Oyon, took the lives of 28 employees of company Minas Buenaventura and injured 17 others.