Yanacocha Reserve
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Yanacocha (
Cajamarca Quechua Cajamarca Quechua is a variety of Quechua spoken in the districts of Chetilla, Baños del Inca and Cajamarca ( Porcón) in the Peruvian province of Cajamarca, along the northwest coast of Peru. It was never spoken throughout the Cajamarca Dep ...
: ''yana'' = "black, dark", ''qucha'' = "lake, puddle, pond, lagoon") is a
gold mine Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to more comple ...
in the
Cajamarca region Cajamarca (; ; ) is a department and region in Peru. The capital is the city of Cajamarca. It is located in the north part of the country and shares a border with Ecuador. The city has an elevation of above sea level in the Andes Mountain Ran ...
of the Northern Highlands of Peru. Considered to be the fourth largest gold mine in the world, it produced 0.97 million ounces of gold in 2014.Vladimir Basov (16 June 2015
The world’s top 10 gold mines
Gold mining.com
The 251-square kilometer open pit mine is situated about 30 kilometers (14 km straight line) north of
Cajamarca Cajamarca (), also known by the Quechua name, ''Kashamarka'', is the capital and largest city of the Cajamarca Region as well as an important cultural and commercial center in the northern Andes. It is located in the northern highlands of Per ...
, in high pampa, straddling the watershed. The operation is a joint venture between
Newmont Goldcorp Newmont Corporation is an American gold mining company based in Greenwood Village, Colorado. It is the world's largest gold mining corporation. Incorporated in 1921, it holds ownership of gold mines in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Do ...
(51.35% ownership), Compañia de Minas Buenaventura (43.65%) and the
International Finance Corporation The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution headquartered in Washington, D.C. and a member of the World Bank Group that offers investment, advisory, and asset-management services to encourage private ...
(5%). Mercury spilled by the mining company has poisoned hundreds of people living near the mine and contaminated local water sources. Thousands of local residents have protested the mine in an
environmental conflict Environmental conflicts, socio-environmental conflict or ecological distribution conflicts (EDCs) are social conflicts caused by environmental degradation or by Environmental justice, unequal distribution of environmental resources. The Environm ...
that also includes ongoing lawsuits against the mining companies.
Environmental defender Environmental defenders or environmental human rights defenders are individuals or collectives who protect the environment from harms resulting from resource extraction, hazardous waste disposal, infrastructure projects, land appropriation, or o ...
s opposing the mine have been killed and others have received death threats.


Overview, background

Yanacocha gold mine is located in the province and department of
Cajamarca Region Cajamarca (; ; ) is a department and region in Peru. The capital is the city of Cajamarca. It is located in the north part of the country and shares a border with Ecuador. The city has an elevation of above sea level in the Andes Mountain Ran ...
, about 800 kilometers northeast of Lima, Peru in the Northern highlands at 3,500 and 4,100 meters above sea level. It operates in four primary basins and is the largest gold mine in South America. Since 1999 it is a joint venture between Colorado-based
Newmont Mining Corporation Newmont Corporation is an American gold mining company based in Greenwood Village, Colorado. It is the world's largest gold mining corporation. Incorporated in 1921, it holds ownership of gold mines in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Do ...
(51%), Buenaventura (44%) and the World Bank Group's
International Finance Corporation The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution headquartered in Washington, D.C. and a member of the World Bank Group that offers investment, advisory, and asset-management services to encourage private ...
(5%).


Geology

Exploration from 1985 to 1993 determined Yanacocha was an 18 km by 6 km northeast trending belt of gold bearing high
sulfidation Sulfidation (British spelling also sulphidation) is a process of installing sulfide ions in a material or molecule. The process is widely used to convert oxides to sulfides but is also related to corrosion and surface modification. Inorganic, mate ...
outcrop An outcrop or rocky outcrop is a visible exposure of bedrock or ancient superficial deposits on the surface of the Earth and other terrestrial planets. Features Outcrops do not cover the majority of the Earth's land surface because in most p ...
system. Drilling in 1986 confirmed the gold potential. Other deposits discovered during this time include the Carachugo, San Jose, Yanacocha Norte, Maqui Maqui, Yanacocha Sur, Cerro Negro Este, and Cerro Quilish. Production began in 1993. By 2010, 20 hard rock deposits and 2
gravel Gravel () is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally on Earth as a result of sedimentation, sedimentary and erosion, erosive geological processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gr ...
alluvial fan An alluvial fan is an accumulation of sediments that fans outwards from a concentrated source of sediments, such as a narrow canyon emerging from an escarpment. They are characteristic of mountainous terrain in arid to Semi-arid climate, semiar ...
deposits were being developed. The gold deposits are located in
Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...
to
Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...
andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomina ...
host rocks. Gold and copper mineralization is centered around the Yanacocha
diatreme A diatreme, sometimes known as a maar-diatreme volcano, is a volcanic pipe associated with a gaseous explosion. When magma rises up through a crack in Earth's crust and makes contact with a shallow body of groundwater, rapid expansion of heated ...
,
breccia Breccia ( , ; ) is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or Rock (geology), rocks cementation (geology), cemented together by a fine-grained matrix (geology), matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language ...
envelopes, as in Yanacocha Norte and Yanacocha Oeste, or in the
pyroclastic Pyroclast, Pyroclastic or Pyroclastics may refer to: Geology * Pyroclast, or airborne volcanic tephra fragments * Pyroclastic rock, rock fragments produced and ejected by explosive volcanic eruptions * Pyroclastic cone, landform of ejecta fro ...
ignimbrite Ignimbrite is a type of volcanic rock, consisting of hardened tuff. Ignimbrites form from the deposits of pyroclastic flows, which are a hot suspension of particles and gases flowing rapidly from a volcano, driven by being denser than the surrou ...
sequences, as in Yanacocha Sur.
Argillic alteration Argillic alteration is hydrothermal alteration of wall rock which introduces clay minerals including kaolinite, smectite and illite. The process generally occurs at low temperatures and may occur in atmospheric conditions. Argillic alteration is re ...
commenced 11.5 Ma in the southwest part of the district at Cerro Negro Oeste, then proceeded east-northeast to Maqui Maqui in 10.2 Ma, then finally at Yanacocha Norte and Sur in 8.5 Ma. The
epithermal Hydrothermal circulation in its most general sense is the circulation of hot water (Ancient Greek ὕδωρ, ''water'',Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). ''A Greek-English Lexicon. revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones. with th ...
systems were contemporaneous with
porphyry Porphyry (; , ''Porphyrios'' "purple-clad") may refer to: Geology * Porphyry (geology), an igneous rock with large crystals in a fine-grained matrix, often purple, and prestigious Roman sculpture material * Shoksha porphyry, quartzite of purple c ...
intrusion In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...
s.


Production

Production began in 1993. In 2005, Yanacocha's production peaked with 3,316,933 ounces (103,200 kg) of gold (INEI). Since then, production has steadily decreased: * 3.3 million ounces (2005) * 2.6 million ounces (2006) * 1.6 million ounces (2007) * 1.8 million ounces (2008) * 2.1 million ounces (2009) * 1.5 million ounces (2010) * 1.3 million ounces (2011) * 0.97 million ounces (2014) According to Newmont Mining annual reports from 2005 to 2011, local protests did not hinder production apart from a short production stop in 2006 due to a road blockade. Yanacocha said the mine provided 2,300 direct jobs.


History

Native
Quechua people Quechua people (, ; ) , Quichua people or Kichwa people may refer to any of the Indigenous peoples of South America who speak the Quechua languages, which originated among the Indigenous people of Peru. Although most Quechua speakers are nativ ...
were aware of gold in the area and called the local river ''Corimayo'', or "gold river." During Ramandi's 1859 expedition to Yanacocha, he noted mines "by the name of Carachugo, and they are in a
porous Porosity or void fraction is a measure of the void (i.e. "empty") spaces in a material, and is a fraction of the volume of voids over the total volume, between 0 and 1, or as a percentage between 0% and 100%. Strictly speaking, some tests measure ...
quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...
rock, their tunnels are very long..." In 1962 the Guggenheim Bros.
ASARCO ASARCO (American Smelting and Refining Company) is a mining, smelting, and refining company based in Tucson, Arizona, which mines and processes primarily copper. The company has been a subsidiary of Grupo México since 1999. Its three largest ...
filed three claims following their discovery of the Michiquillay
porphyry copper deposit Porphyry copper deposits are copper ore bodies that are formed from hydrothermal fluids that originate from a voluminous magma chamber several kilometers below the deposit itself. Predating or associated with those fluids are vertical dikes of ...
in 1957. In 1968
Nippon Mining was a Japanese petroleum company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nippon Mining Holdings (now JXTG Holdings, JXTG Nippon Mining & Metals). The petroleum products of Japan Energy Corporation were sold by filling stations under the brand name JOMO ...
drilled 13 exploration wells. From 1970 to 1971, the
British Geological Survey The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a partly publicly funded body which aims to advance Earth science, geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research. ...
included the Yanacocha District in their reconnaissance survey, which showed the district contained a significant silver anomaly. This led CEDIMIN, a joint venture of BRGM and Compania de Minera Buenaventura, to acquire the mineral concessions in the district. Trenching in 1982 confirmed significant silver.
Newmont Mining Corporation Newmont Corporation is an American gold mining company based in Greenwood Village, Colorado. It is the world's largest gold mining corporation. Incorporated in 1921, it holds ownership of gold mines in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Do ...
became the operator of the joint venture in 1985 after a site visit in 1983 and 25 drill holes were made in 1984. In 1993, the IFC lent $23 million to build Yanacocha, which was then co-owned by US based Newmont, the Peruvian mining company Buenaventura and French government owned company
Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières BRGM is France's public reference institution in Earth science, Earth Science applications for the management of surface and Geology, subsurface resources and risks. It also deals with geological surveys of French territory. BRGM was founded in ...
(BRGM). The partnership collapsed in 1994 after BRGM tried to sell part of its shares to an Australian company which was a rival of Newmont. Newmont and Buenaventura would both go to court to challenge the trade.
Larry Kurlander Larry is a masculine given name in English, derived from Lawrence or Laurence. It can be a shortened form of those names. Larry may refer to the following: People Arts and entertainment * Larry D. Alexander, American artist/writer * Larry Bo ...
, then a senior executive at Newmont, claimed the French President
Jacques Chirac Jacques René Chirac (, ; ; 29 November 193226 September 2019) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and 1986 to 1988, as well as Mayor of Pari ...
had sent a letter to then Peruvian President
Alberto Fujimori Alberto Kenji Fujimori Fujimori (26 July 1938 – 11 September 2024) was a Peruvian politician, professor, and engineer who served as the 54th president of Peru from 1990 to 2000.* * * * * * * Born in Lima, Fujimori was the country's fir ...
asking him to intervene in the court case in favor of BRGM, the French owned company. Newmont sent Kurlander to Peru in order to try to get a favorable outcome for Newmont. The legal battle eventually made it to the
Peruvian Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Justice is the highest judicial court in Peru. Its jurisdiction extends over the entire territory of the nation. It is headquartered in the Palace of Justice in Lima. The current president of the Supreme Court is . Structur ...
. During this period Kurlander acknowledged having met with
Vladimiro Montesinos Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres (; born May 20, 1945) is a Peruvian former intelligence officer and lawyer, most notorious for his role as the head of Peru's National Intelligence Service (SIN) during the presidency of Alberto Fujimor ...
, the Peruvian intelligence chief who has since been found guilty of
embezzlement Embezzlement (from Anglo-Norman, from Old French ''besillier'' ("to torment, etc."), of unknown origin) is a type of financial crime, usually involving theft of money from a business or employer. It often involves a trusted individual taking ...
, illegally assuming his post as intelligence chief, abuse of power,
influence peddling Influence peddling, also called traffic of influence or trading in influence, is the practice of using one's influence in government or connections with authorities to obtain favours or preferential treatment for another, usually in return for ...
and
bribing Bribery is the corrupt solicitation, payment, or Offer and acceptance, acceptance of a private favor (a bribe) in exchange for official action. The purpose of a bribe is to influence the actions of the recipient, a person in charge of an official ...
TV stations. However, Kurlander claimed that he did nothing illegal and that the French government took similar steps to contact Montesinos. The French ambassador to Peru Antoine Blanca denied this, saying that Montesinos was on the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
payroll and thus would side with the U.S-based company. After the fall of Fujimori in 2000, a number of videos Montesinos had taped of himself meeting with several domestic and foreign leaders and offering bribes and accepting them had emerged. In October 2005 '' Frontline'' in co-production with ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' found a February 1998 recording of a telephone conversation between Montesinos and Kurlander. The following is an excerpt from the tape: :''Kurlander:...we have a very serious problem in Peru with our company (Newmont) and Minera Buenaventura so I have enlisted the support of some of my friends from a variety of intelligence communities. I need it especially because the other side (the French government) has been acting quite strangely.'' :''Montesinos (to interpreter): Tell him that I am perfectly aware of the problem he has and the people he represents have with the French, as well as the problem he has with the judiciary.'' :''Kurlander: So now you have a friend for life. I want a friend for life.'' :''Montesinos (to interpreter): I thank you very much for what you have just told me and well you already have a friend. Tell him I'm going to help him with the voting. I would like to know the tricky practices of the French. The French Connection!'' :''Kurlander: The French Connection!'' :''(laughter)'' Along with this telephone conversation, ''Frontline'' and ''The New York Times'' re-broadcast three other videos. One was filmed in April 1998 and shows Montesinos talking to "Don Arabian", the CIA station chief in Peru, in an attempt to get CIA to pressure the U.S. to back Newmont in the case. In the video Montesinos claimed to have found e-mails from Paris to Peru of French officials trying to influence the court to get a decision favorable to France. Another video recorded in May 1998 showed Montesinos meeting with Peruvian Supreme Court Justice and former classmate, Jaime Beltran Quiroga, in which Montesinos said that in the case between Newmont and BRGM state interests are at stake. He told Quiroga that if the decision went to Newmont, the United States would back Peru in its border dispute with
Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...
which had exploded into the
Cenepa War The Cenepa War or Third Ecuadorian-Peruvian War (26 January – 28 February 1995), also known as the Alto Cenepa War, was a brief and localized military conflict between Ecuador and Peru, fought over control of an area in Peruvian territory (i. ...
a few years prior. He also told Quiroga to deny any connection with him to the press. Quiroga later played a crucial role, as his vote was deciding in the Newmont victory. After the video was first broadcast on a Peruvian local television station in 2001, the French Ambassador Antoine Blanca was quoted as saying "Now I know why Newmont won". In July 1999, Montesinos was seen with the then departing CIA station chief "Don Arabian" on the third video, giving him a gift and thanking him for the help he gave Peru stating " hope that when you're back there n Washingtonyou'll remember your friends". The IFC financed Yanacocha's expansion in 1999 for which it received the 5% ownership stake.


Environmental conflict

Newmont has been involved in an ongoing conflict over damages resulting from a mercury contamination. On June 2, 2000, 151 kilograms of mercury were spilled when transported by a contracted truck from Yanococha to the Pacific coast, contaminating the town of Choropampa and two neighboring villages. According to government estimates, more than nine hundred people were poisoned. Beyond the poisonings, famers in town lost most of their market due to people being afraid of contaminated food and many people overall moved away, leaving Choropampa much emptier. Local environmental activists have claimed that mining operations, which use large quantities of a dilute
cyanide In chemistry, cyanide () is an inorganic chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Ionic cyanides contain the cyanide anion . This a ...
solution, have contaminated the water sources, leading to the disappearance of fish and frogs, illnesses among cattle, air pollution, and loss of medicinal plants. An environmental audit by the Colombian consultancy firm Ingetec S.A. (Ingenieros Consultores: Auditoría Ambiental y Evaluaciones Ambientales de las Operaciones de la Minera Yanacocha en Cajamarca - Perú 2003) found some water contamination above permitted levels, and recommended improvements to Yanacocha's environmental management practices. However, the study did not examine claims of impacts on wildlife, plants or livestock. Based on an Ingetec review in April 2006, Yanacocha acted on the 309 Ingetec recommendations, fully implementing 137, making progress on 111, and starting to address 45 of the recommendations - representing progress on 90% of the recommendations in advance of the agreed 2007 completion date. In addition to water contamination, the mines also affected water quantity in the surrounding area. Due to the process of
dewatering Dewatering is the removal of water from a location. This may be done by wet classification, centrifugation, filtration, or similar solid-liquid separation processes, such as removal of residual liquid from a filter cake by a filter press as pa ...
taking place across at least six million tons of wetlands, water is not only removed from natural underground caches, but prevented from entering back in through rainfall. This results in less flow in streams and more runoff from mining operations, polluting the water underground with sediments, metals, and acid. This redirection has also resulted in flooding in the Upper Cunas according to locals, ruining highland and alpaca pastures. The mining operations themselves would also result in water loss, such as the Conga expansion of the Yanacocha mine requiring the drainage of four alpine lakes. To mitigate these concerns the mining company has gone on record to say they would return all of the removed water after putting it through a water processing plant. Beyond the environment itself, there have been a decent amount of urban changes as a result of the mine as well. Many of the green spaces within Cajamarca have been developed, substituted for more buildings and paved roadways. This has affected the livelihoods of some women in Cajamarca as growing livestock and agricultural projects required these more open areas of nature to take place. In 2004, more than 10.000 people living in the Cajamarca area protested the expansion of Yanacocha onto nearby ''Cerro Quilish'', a mountain that supplies water to Cajamarca. In response to public outcry, Newmont announced that further exploration would be suspended. At the end of 2004 after losing a three-year fight to keep the lawsuit out of US courts, Newmont announced that it would participate in settlement talks before two retired Colorado judges. But the mediation talks failed to produce a settlement and eleven hundred campesinos, announced they would go ahead with their suit in Denver district court. In 2008, the Peruvian Supreme Court upheld the validity of settlement agreements reached with some of the plaintiffs in the remaining Peruvian lawsuits prior to the filing of those suits. the parties in the Denver cases agreed to binding arbitration and settled. By the beginning of 2010, Newmont reported that claims of approximately 200 plaintiffs remained unsettled. The mercury spill had also led to two separate complaints to the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) of the
International Finance Corporation The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution headquartered in Washington, D.C. and a member of the World Bank Group that offers investment, advisory, and asset-management services to encourage private ...
(IFC)/
Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) is an international financial institution which offers political risk insurance and credit enhancement guarantees. These guarantees help investors protect foreign direct investments against ...
(MIGA). Starting in 2001 the CAO held a series of meetings with local stakeholders who raised concerns regarding the impacts of the mine, and made suggestions for transparent dialogue between the community and Yanacocha. A Mesa (roundtable for dialogue) was formed. The CAO sponsored the 2003 water study, and the water monitoring program until 2006. In February 2006 the CAO concluded its involvement and published an "Exit Report" which included a table summarizing progress made against the original concerns raised by the community in 2001. At the beginning of August 2006, protests broke out against the expansion of the company's Carachugo pit, building a dam (El Azufre) near the village of Combayo. Residents of Combayo blocked the roads leading to the dam, protesting against possible contamination of water supplies and expressed their disappointment in sharing in social and economical benefits of the mining project. The protests ended in clashes between Police and private Yanacocha security guards (FORZA) on the one hand and local farmers on the other. Several people were wounded and Isidro Llanos Canvar, a local farmer, was shot dead. At the end of August 2006, Carachugo II was closed for three days as local farmers blocked the entrance roads to the pit demanding clarification of the death of Isidro. On 2 November 2006, Edmundo Becerra Corina, an environmentalist and opponent of Yanacocha's gold mining project, was shot dead in Yanacanchilla, Cajamarca province. He had received several death threats because of his opposition to the expansion of the mining company's activities in the region. The attack took place days before he was due to meet with representatives from the Ministry of Energy and Mines. The Peruvian NGO GRUFIDES, an environmental organization with a strong anti-mining stance, investigated the killings and provided support for the families of protesters that were injured and killed in the August demonstrations. In November 2006 two members of Grufides, Father Marco Arana and Mirtha Vasquez reported receiving several death threats and were followed and filmed both at work and at home. An investigation by the Peruvian press uncovered that individuals with ties to the security firm FORZA, which Newmont hired to provide security at Yanacocha, were involved in the surveillance of the GRUFIDES staff members. Newmont denied any involvement in the harassment or surveillance. In response to the threats Amnesty International issued an urgent action stating that "their lives, and those of others associated with GRUFIDES, may be in danger". On 15 June 2007, several local farmers, including two minors, were injured and taken into custody by public and private police forces paid by Yanacocha in the village of Totoracocha. The farmers occupied heavy machinery of the mining company as they were protesting against wage withholding for construction work they had been carried out for Yanacocha. After a court ruling was left untouched for twelve years, on August 20, 2024 the High Court in Cajamarca officially ruled that the Conga expansion was too hazardous to be built. This case began in 2012 due to the actions of Father
Marco Arana Marco Antonio Arana Zegarra (born October 20, 1962) is a Peruvian politician, sociologist, professor and former priest, founder and activist of the Movement. He ran unsuccessfully for President in the 2021 elections, placing 16th. Biography A ...
and
Mirtha Vásquez Mirtha Esther Vásquez Chuquilín (born 31 March 1975) is a Peruvian attorney and politician who served as prime minister of Peru from 6 October 2021 to 31 January 2022. Previously, she briefly served in Congress for the complementary term betw ...
, who took the initial legal action against the project. This ruling came as a result of the Conga Project being unable to state all of the potential environmental risks of its operations. This judgment was made in spite of Yanacocha being the first mine to receive a certification for environmental management systems from the International Organization for Standardization in 2008.


Controversies

One of the largest controversies Newmont has had was the harassment of farmer
Máxima Acuña Máxima Acuña is a Peruvians, Peruvian subsistence farmer and environmentalist, who is known for her fight to remain on land wanted for a new mine, the Conga Project, Conga Mine, enduring years of violent intimidation by Newmont Mining Corporati ...
for her land. From 2011 to 2017 the company used threats over phone call, destruction of property, home invasions, utilization of state police, and legal action to make Màxima give up her land. On May 3, 2017 the attempted legal action against Màxima's family was officially denied by the Supreme Court of Peru, allowing her to remain on her land. On July 3 and 4, 2012 during protests against the Conga expansion of the Yancocha mine, the Peruvian police force came to intercede. As a result five protesters died and forty-five were heavily wounded. Following this event a state of emergency lasting for about two months began, which involved more police violence being done.


See also

*
Cerro de Pasco Cerro de Pasco is a city in central Peru, located at the top of the Andean Mountains. It is the capital of both the Pasco Province and the Department of Pasco, and an important mining center of silver, copper, zinc and lead. At an elevation of ...
*
Toquepala mine The Toquepala mine is a large porphyry copper mine in the Tacna Province, Tacna Department, Peru. The mine is an open-pit mine producing copper, molybdenum, rhenium and silver with minor gold and zinc. The Toquepala mine and the Ilo smelter wer ...


References


External links


Website of "Yanacocha" (Spanish)"Halting the rush against gold"
The ''Economist'', 3 February 2005

''The New York Times'', October 25, 2005

''The New York Times'', October 24, 2005 *[http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Andean-villagers-seek-American-justice-Mercury-2723416.php Andean villagers seek American justice / Mercury contamination near Peru mine leads to legal showdown in Denver court.] Peter Hecht, San Francisco Chronicle, March 14, 2005.
"Ingetec S.A."
Ingetec S.A. Ingenieros Consultores: Auditoría Ambiental y Evaluaciones Ambientales de las Operaciones de la Minera Yanacocha en Cajamarca - Perú 2003 Anaya, R. (2001). "Acute elemental mercury poisoning in three locations of the department of Cajamarca-Peru. In: Toxicology, Volume 164, Issue(1-3): p. 1-266, p. 69. *

Friends of the Earth {{Newmont Mining Corporation Gold mines in Peru Newmont Open-pit mines Surface mines in Peru Environmental justice Environmental disasters in South America Health disasters in South America Health in Peru