Andalgalá is the polemic town that recently hit the news after thousand of poeple manifested against Yamana Gold and Agua Rica project. Gold is being extracted from nearby Mina La Alumbrera for a decade already. Now, new projects menace the region, already hitted by draught, water pollution and social tensions. In the pictures, you can see how the offices of Yamana Gold looked like the morning after citizens smashed windows in a justified protest.
Urbano Cardozo doesn´t smash windows, but has been working hard for years to rise awareness of the matter. He had people from the mine visiting his house with a blank check, inviting him to pen an ammount, and choose the number of zeros... Loyal to the cause, he kept working and organizing citizen awareness.
This woman came every day to my "office" (a room Urbano had lent me in order to carry one my investigation) and offered me quince jelly she prepares herself in her patio....
Foto de una foto. Operarios de la mina retiran como pueden del río los minerales pesados derramados.
All across Andalgalá area, six licks in the mine mineral pipelines that transports heavy metals have already been confirmed. Five of them in Villa Vil and one in Ampujaco. In the picture you can see a lick in Villa Lola, Tucumán Province. The mine payed unqualified workers to just collect the hazardous metals in plastic bags, as if they were handling mud...
Foxes around La Alumbrera mine are reported to loose their skin...
The Algarrobo Assembly, where people gather to exchange advise on how to keep the struggle against such powerful companies. While the mine have their sociologists and experts working in their Canada and Anrgentina based headquarters, poeple gather under a tree. What could bee more genuine and coherent? The Assembly also doubles as roadblock for mining trucks to enter the are of Agua Rica project.
Andalgalá town hall, parcially burned by the manifesting crowed. Absolutely deserved by a major who has nicked enviromentalists as "hippies" as if this alone would be threatening. Medieval thought still prevails across political class in Catamarca, it seems.
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