Luis Serrano

Extract gold from a Moorland; at what cost? It’s madness

Santander a city with lush flora and has one of the largest water reserves in the world could suffer one of the biggest environmental disaster from the late years, in the Santurban moorland there is an ambitious mining project that pretend to extract large amount of gold, many foreign mining companies have argued that is possible to extract the gold without causing environmental damage; and obviously this companies have sold the idea that this activity will makes it possible to generate economic benefits for the community.

In past days the majority of people in Santander got out to protest for the concessions given to the company called Minesa in which they could have legal mechanisms to practice the large scale mining in the Santurban Moorland, to be honest, more than 100.000 people marched through the principal streets of the capital against on large scale mining, supposedly, legal mining that promote the development in our city or to be more exactly in the municipalities of Vetas and California; but at what cost?.

Image taken from El Colombiano

In my view, the decision on whether or not to allow Santurban’s moorland to be dug, it would become in one of the biggest challenges that we as citizens of Bucaramanga will have to face up, in order to defend our most precious liquid as is water; since many foreign mining companies offer millions dollars to get a mining titles and worse yet granted by the government with the way of satisfy a personal interest, to be frank, I think that, for profits, rulers would sell until their souls!

To my mind, is illogical destroying a moorland that supplies the drinking water for Bucaramanga and neighboring areas, it is knew that mining companies that want to exploit in the moorland have to create a large water reserve due to immense consumption, moreover these companies have to add certain chemical products to extract the gold, bringing as a consequence poisoning the water; there is no doubt that large scale mining would most likely create unsafe drinking water.

Also it is worth highlighting that in past days Juan Manuel Santos was visiting Abu Dhabi, where it was known that the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikn Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan will donate 45 million dollars for the post-conflict in Colombian as well as will invest 1 billion dollar to the legal mining, supposedly a donation and investment! I consider this is not going to be free, it is going to exist an economic strategy.

It seems to me that the president Juan Manuel Santos is negotiating or worse yet! selling mining titles, from my point of view He is once again delivering our lands, personally, I think the Colombian mining legislation needs to be revised, it must exist laws or even action mechanism that guarantee the life of the moorlands, in fact Santurban’s moorland must be declared the heritage of Colombian.

Feedback

By Astrid Garnica

I totally agree with your point of view about this environmental problem that our region is facing, since water is a fundamental need of humanity, and as the Mayor says it is our gold. Although, , they assure us that the water that flows from the moorland will not be affected, I think that later on the effects on the mountain will start to be seen. Also from my standpoint, we must defend and protest so that this does not happen because those who really will be affected will be our children and grandchildren since these procedures can contaminate and dry the water sources.

By Fabiola Suarez

Luis, I read your essay and I feel more than concerned about this situation in Santurban. In my opinion, the government is always corrupt, and any president, senator or mayor are easily bribed. When there is money in middle of environmental problems the tendency is always to give priority to the interest of who has the money, and as the nature cannot talk the will of the people with the power to take decisions is what prevails.

To be honest I think that we are very weak citizens, we didn’t fight for nothing increment in taxes, environment problems, animal abuse, bad medical services, and the list continue, because we allow these situations, not all of us but the big majority don’t do anything. We don’t have collective awareness as well say Paola in her essay too.

I could not find errors in your essay, I congratulate you because you made a great job with your essay. It is clear, coherent and has a good cohesion.

By Liliana Calambaz

I have saw and heard about it on social networks. To my mind, in all regions of Colombia the interests of politicians always are going to be over opinions of population, I´m going to tell you, In Huila there is a dam called El Quimbo, which went constructed without the consent of huilense population despite leadership, ecologists, people in need etc. protested in several times, but they didn´t get to avoid the construction of the dam. As you wrote in your essay, they deceive the communities with the false idea of progress and economic income.
From my point of view, the negative impact that this type of project leaves is greater than the benefits economics that a community can obtain, therefore we should think of sustainable development as the ability to co-exist in a way that maintains the natural environment, economic well-being, and an equal opportunity for all people on Earth to benefit from a better quality of life now and in the future.

By Paola Mora

In Colombia there are many problems related with the environment conservation, we see how the forestry development increase each year, as you say recently in Santurban want destroy the environment for money. Likewise, in my city the government want build a new dam; but these are no new news, all of us know how the monetary interests overrule the humanity interests, and how it has accentuated the negative aspects of capitalism affecting the natural habitat,  displacing a range of animals, plants and even microbes, forcing them to adapt or perish.

Audio Link

AUDIO BY LUIS SERRANO

References

Morales J. D. & Rodriguez R. S. (2016). A profile of corporate social responsibility for mining companies present in the santurban moorland, Santander, Colombia. Global ecology and

conservation. (6), 25-35. Retrieve from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989415300287#!

English, O. P. (n.d.). Curso de Ingles Gratis Basico OM Personal English, Aprender ingles gratuito multimedia en Internet. Retrieved from: http://www.ompersonal.com.ar/ADVANCED/unit7/page3.htm

The Present Perfect Passive of English Verbs. (2013, May 19). Retrieved from: http://www.linguisticsgirl.com/the-present-perfect-passive-of-english-verbs/