Water vs Gold

I don’t know how many of you had seen some of the articles I posted on facebook in the past month but during that time Cajamarca (the region in which I live) has been at the forefront of Peruvian news. From Thanksgiving for almost 2 weeks Cajamarca was on strike. No working and roads completely blocked to all transportation in and out of our little mountain region. The strike ended when President Ollanta decided to put the provinces directly involved in the conflict under a state of emergency (one of these provinces being Contumaza).
Well what happed that threw Cajamarca into such turmoil? Well that all comes down to the issuet of gold vs. water. Cajamarca is home to the largest gold mine in the world, Yanacocha Mine (aka the Newmont Mining Co. of Denver, Colorado) and mining is the largest industry in the region followed by cattle raising which produces Cajamarca’s famous milk and cheese, and then agriculture. Gold mining is a dirty business and the process of cleaning gold produces incredibly dangerous and toxic waste. This process also requires large amounts of water. Water is not something in abundance in a region which receives the majority of its water during a 3-4 month rainy season. This water collects in lagoons and rivers where it’s collected the rest of the year and absolutely necessary to the survival of local farmers whose entire livelihood depends on its fields and animals. Recently Yanacocha announced expansion plans in the eastern province of Celendin where it planned to begin a new excavation project. This is where the conflict started. Basically the locals argued that this new project would contaminate local water sources and the environmental impact study done by the mine was insufficient. After the 2 sides were unable to come to an agreement locals quickly backed by the regional government and thus the rest of the region went on strike to force a resolution from the national government hoping Yanacocha would abandon its billion dollar project.
Well after nearly 2 weeks of protesting, as I said early, the President stepped in to end the strike putting certain participating provinces in a state of emergency thus under government control. Currently all parties are in talks to come to some sort of resolution (the next meeting to take place here) which will most likely include some sort of international unbiased body to come in and perform its own environmental impact study. It hasn’t affected daily life to terribly much here in Contumaza. There was no transport to Cajamarca but since my town has another road to use to get to the coast food and people could move freely. Part of the Cajamarca-Coast highway is in my province and was roadblocked during the strike which is why we were one of the provinces put under a state of emergency.
Yanacocha has a pretty controversial history here and if you’re interested in learning more check out this frontline piece, it’s really interesting. If you watch keep in mind gold now is $1600 an ounce.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OdJ9eRv_LY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjtwrBJwVVg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pklvtvq5g8g&feature=related

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