DW-World.de
Deutsche Welle

Yanacocha in northern Peru is the biggest gold mine in Latin America. It produces ninety tons of the precious metal every year. But over the last thirteen years more than one thousand farming families have lost their land, selling it for a pittance to the American mining concern Newmont and the Peruvian company Minera Yanacocha. Ninety per cent of the profits from the mine go abroad. So the Cajamarca region where the mine is located benefits little from it. In fact, the mining operations cause immense ecological damage. This is because the gold is separated from the soil with a highly toxic cyanide solution that contaminates rivers and the groundwater. Even a low concentration of the compound in water can prove fatal to man and animals. And that is not the only problem: the mine consumes so much water that little is left for the farmers’ fields. In some places all the channels have dried up. So the villagers only supply now comes from water tankers.

For the last seven years Marco Arana and "Grufides", the human rights organization he founded, have been fighting for the rights of the indigenous population in the area around the mine. The Catholic priest, who in 2004 was awarded Peru’s human rights prize, was even offered eight thousand dollars by the Yanacocha gold mining company to change sides. These days, it is not offers to switch allegiance he receives, but anonymous death threats. But Marco Arana refuses to be intimidated. He and his colleagues work tirelessly, advising farmers and telling them everything they should know about the ecological consequences of gold mining. They are the only people farmers affected by mining operations can turn to. But how much longer will Marco Arana be able to continue his work? In the last two years alone three farmers’ representatives in the mining region have been murdered.