One woman’s victory against a mining giant in Peru
One woman’s victory against a mining giant in Peru
Published on April 27, 2016 by Sian Cowman |
Web exclusive
Máxima Acuña has just won the Goldman Prize for her resistance against a gold mine – but why are women’s bodies on the frontlines of resistance to extractivism? asks Sian Cowman.
Máxima Acuña, a farmer from Peru’s northern highlands, recently won the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize for her resistance against the mining consortium Yanacocha in Cajamarca, Peru.
At the prize acceptance ceremony in San Francisco on 18 April, in lieu of a speech Máxima sang her story: ‘Because I defend my lakes, they want to take my life.’
Goldman Environmental Prize
Yanacocha is the largest gold mine in Latin America and fourth largest in the world, operating since 1993. The mine is now owned by the US Newmont Mining Corporation, a Peruvian mining company, and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.
Gold mining causes ‘toxic mine drainage’ – when you break up rock that’s been underground for a long time chemical reactions cause it to release toxic metals and acids. And at Yanacocha cyanide-laced water is used to separate the gold from the rock.
Locals have been complaining for years of contaminated water and the disappearance of fish in the rivers, lakes and streams. Reinhard Seifert, an environmental engineer who spent years investigating the effects of the Yanacocha mine on the area’s water quality found traces of lead, arsenic, cyanide and mercury in the drinking water, linked to the rising rates of gastrointestinal cancer amongst residents of Cajamarca.
More:
http://newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2016/04/27/one-womans-victory-against-a-mining-giant-in-peru/
Environment & Energy:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1127100605
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Peru's Goldman Winner Says 'We Are Prisoners' of Mining Company
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A subsistence farmer in Peru’s northern highlands, Maxima Acuña de Chaupe stood up for her right to peacefully live off her own land.
A subsistence farmer in Peru’s northern highlands, Maxima Acuña de Chaupe stood up for her right to peacefully live off her own land. | Photo: 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize
Published 27 April 2016 (5 hours 30 minutes ago)
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One day after her home was shot at, Peru's Goldman Prize winning anti-mining activist Maxima Acuña told teleSUR that the Yanococha mining company was holding her family prisoner in their home, limiting their freedom of movement and constantly intimidating them.
“We are prisoners here, we are not free to go in and out of our property, the mining company bought all the surroundings and have security guards watching the public roads, they check the identity of all the cars and vehicles, and don't let some people come in,” said Acuña.
Acuña won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for stopping Yanococha, a subsidiary of U.S.-based mining giant Newmont, from constructing an open-pit gold mine that threatened to contaminate the water supply and cause shortages for thousands of people living in this agricultural and cattle rearing region.
“They say I am a liar, and they say I am an invader and that I did not deserve the award because I invaded the mining firm's property,” she told teleSUR's correspondent in Peru Rael Mora. “But I am only defending my rights.”
Acuña was one of the few campesinos who refused to sell her land in 2011 in the northern region of Cajamarca as Yanacocha was setting up the largest gold-mining project in South America—Minas Conga. The International Finance Corporation, the lending arm of the World Bank, owns a 5 percent stake in the project. She is still fighting in court for the property rights of her piece of land, although a December 2014 appeals court decision overturned an earlier sentence of three years in prison for her and her husband for allegedly invading Yanacocha's property.
More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Perus-Goldman-Winner-Says-We-Are-Prisoners-of-Mining-Company-20160427-0037.html
