business & economy

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The Veraguas teachers' union, the Asociacion de Educadores Veraguenses, participates in a demonstration against proposed mining in Sora district

Petaquilla fences off long-existing communities to exclude environmentalists and reporters

Mining disputes heat up in three provinces

by Eric Jackson

Mining, Panama's archaeological record shows, is an ancient activity here. Ore was extracted, after all, to make all those precolumbian golden ornaments.

As a more modern industry, mining is more controversial. Toxic chemicals are used to extract the metal from the ore, and in Panama there has been a long record of disregard for the consequences of that. If it's true that mining companies are not allowed to directly dump cyanide used to get gold out of rocks into rivers, it's an oft-told story of the retaining pond full of cyanide water that gets washed into the river at the height of rainy season. Mining companies are also not known to spend the money to mitigate the runoff from the roads and pits they make to get at the ores they want, and those activities, too, will silt up streams upon which the neighbors depend for household, agricultural and fishing purposes.

Thus there are no mining operations in Panama that don't count on their neighbors' opposition and haven't been for a very long time, notwithstanding the endorsements of "responsible community spokesmen" that the mining promoters create.

Opposition to mining has intensified of late in northern Cocle and western Colon provinces, where promoter Richard Fifer and his Petaquilla Minerals plan to begin gold mining, and in Sona, where another company plans to go looking for gold and other minerals.

Fifer, who has been charged with embezzling public funds when he was governor of Cocle under the Moscoso administration, is a lightning rod for opposition in any case. Petaquilla's construction of mining roads and felling of trees without the proper environmental permits, which neighbors complain has silted nearby streams, has led to administrative proceedings with the National Environmental Authority (ANAM). The dispute has set members of the local Catholic parishes and liberation theology advocates, who opposed Fifer, against the Roman Catholic hierarchy, which supports him.

The latest chapter in the Petaquilla dispute is that the company has erected a gate on the road and put its security guards to patrolling other entrances to the area, barring access to several long-existing communities to all but residents of those areas and people approved by the company. The first people excluded at the company gate were a delegation from the National Association for the Conservation of Nature (ANCON), a moderate environmentalist group. Area residents are mounting a legal challenge to the company's attempt to restrict access to their communities.

In the wake of that bad publicity, Petaquilla has declared that it will go to court against several small wildcat mining operations, which it claims are the ones who are silting the local streams. With respect to the gold mine it plans to open, the company said that the only toxic chemical it will be using will be cyanide, and it will do so safely by retaining the cyanide-laced waters in retaining ponds.

Meanwhile in Veraguas, the representantes in Sona have voted to declare their municipality free of mining. There have been protest marches and various declarations to express community opposition to mining.

However, Oro Gold Resource, a multinational mining company, has a 9,000-hectare concession from the national government to explore for gold and by law the local authorities have no say in mineral extraction matters. As this is only an exploration permit, there would be a long series of legal and political battles before any actual gold mining would begin in Sona district.

SUNTRACS goes to the mat over job safety, company unions
PTP wins a big early court round over Bocas oil spill but the argument isn't over
Environmentalists, historic preservationists gain the upper hand over Clayton woods

Mining companies prompt protests in three provinces

Taboga up in arms about oil pipeline and refinery proposals

The Panama News readership in July
Business & Economy Briefs