Just over a year ago, LMN member group Colombia Solidarity Campaign published a report on AngloGold Ashanti’s efforts to open a huge new open pit gold mine at La Colosa in the Colombian province of Tolima.
Local people are still worried about the project’s potential impacts, and still protesting, as the two articles below demonstrate.
Mining for smartphone minerals is eating up farmland
Doima, a small farming town, lies in the heart of central Colombia’s agricultural land.a proposed gold mine threatens to change this fertile landscape forever. The mine, operated by AngloGold Ashanti (AGA), would sit in a steep mountainous area, but the proposed area for processing the mined rocks and building the tailings dam needed for storing the toxic wastewater would be the flat land around Doima, which is currently farmland.
Why Did 22 Afro-Colombian Women Occupy the Colombian Interior Ministry for Five Days?
In recent years, with the economic crisis pushing the international dollar price of gold high, La Toma has attracted the gaze of transnational corporations, such as London-listed South African company Anglo Gold Ashanti.