Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Gold Mining Begins

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

GUATEMALA CITY, Jan 5 2004 (IPS) - The Montana Exploradora mining company, a subsidiary of the Canadian Glamis Gold, will begin extracting gold in late January in the eastern Guatemalan department of San Marcos, despite the opposition of environmentalists. The Ministry of Energy and Mining authorized the company to begin the Marlin I project in San Miguel Ixtahuacán and Concepción Tatuapa, 300 km west of the capital, the ministry's assistant director for mining, Rodolfo Calzia, told Tierramérica.

The area is estimated to hold four million ounces of gold. Each ounce is worth 350 dollars, says Calzia.

The mining project will create some 500 jobs and the nation's coffers will receive one percent of the export price.

“This project is a bad idea because the country will not gain a thing, and runs the risk of massive contamination,” environmental activists Magalí Rey Sosa, of the MadreSelva Collective, told Tierramérica.

But Calzia says that to prevent contamination from the chemicals used in processing gold ore, it will be handled outside of Guatemala.