MINING IN COLOMBIA

MINING IN COLOMBIA

1. CHARACTERISTICS

   • Mining is practiced in badlands. This badlands represent the 2% of the country but provide water to the 70% of colombians.
   • Some groups practice it in indigenous territory using small-scale exploitations to obtain gold in Chocó.
   • Some methods for gold extraction are dredging rivers or excavating lands using heavymachinery.

2. SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS

   • Many people has been exposed to the chemicals used in mining, and this causes skin problems and sometimes women have babies with deformities
   • Many women have been victims of sexual violations. These guys control their lives in every aspect.
   • Forced displacement is another implication. Many people has to leave their communities so mining groups can practice their processes no matter what people have in those places.

3. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATIONS

   • Dredging rivers is a method of mining, these dry rivers and finish water resource and the life of many fishes or organisms that live in the river.
   • Mining groups sometimes change the riverbed, these is a big problem because floods that makes changes in the ecosystem and also generate crop losses that affect communities.
   • The use of mercury is also an implication because it kills all the life in the area and life can't reborn there for many years.

4. MINING AREAS

   • Many of these minings are done in rural areas, near to little communities that usually come from indigenous or afro-decendents groups.