Photo: http://www.sipaz.org
In 2007, the Canadian company Blackfire Exploration Ltd started the construction of the world’s largest barite mine in the municipality of Chicomuselo in Chiapas, Mexico (the state of Chiapas is one of the poorest in the country with one of the largest percentage of indigenous peoples). Even though the mine is still on construction, negative externalities to indigenous peoples’ rights and the natural environment have already taken place. For example, 200 indigenous families have been displaced from their lands and reallocated in faraway wastelands that impede them to continue relying on agriculture as the means of subsistence. Only 25 men of the 200 families that left their lands have been employed in the mine and they are being paid about US $9 a day for working under dangerous conditions. The communities are experiencing severe water shortage and pollution. The trees and vegetation that characterized the community have been cleared out. The promises from the company of building infrastructure have been materialized only in a 8- km road between the mine and the towncenter. (more…)
