Ecobreves – CUBA: Recovering Ecosystem Hurt by Copper Mining

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

HAVANA, Jan 26 2004 (IPS) - Cuban experts are working a project to recuperate an ecosystem damaged by several centuries of copper exploitation in Santiago de Cuba, 900 km east of Havana. The plan entrusted to the firm Geominera Oriente entails soil clean-up, landscape modification and reforestation around El Cobre mine, which was discovered in 1540 and shut down by the government in 2001.

According to the Law on Mining, it is obligatory to restore and rehabilitate the environment after the definitive closing of a mine.