And now for something different

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Something which has come to my attention over the past few days is that there is a very active and vocal environmental movement in CR. Since we are going to Monte Verde tomorrow, I thought that I could check out a few things on Google and La Nacion.

The story started about six years ago when a Canadian mining company obtained a concession from the CR government to begin an open pit mine in the north of the country. The location of the mine is about two miles from the San Juan River. The river is the international border between Nicaragua and CR.

The Mining company proposes to use a type of cyanide extraction process to bring the gold out of the raw ore. Environmentalists and the Nicaraguan government has objected to the mine based on the pollution byproducts the extraction would produce. A holding pond at the mine's location is supposedly built upon an earthquake fault, and has the potential for polluting the river should the dam collapse.

The previous CR President, Oscar Arrias lifted a 6 year ban on open pit mining in April of '08.

Laura Chincilla the new president as of June of this year reinstated the ban on open pit gold mining. She signed a decree to that effect within hours of her swearing in. This did not affect the San Juan/Las Crucitas project, but serves to show that this sort of mining is controversial.

Earlier this year, the supreme court of CR ruled that Las Crucitas did not violate any provision of the CR constitution. And since the mining company had obtained a permit many years ago, the project began again.

Enter another CR court. The Contentions Administrative Court in San Jose has stepped in and agreed to hear the case. This stopped the mine again. So back and forth it goes. Stay tuned.

Monte Verde has a bearing on all of this because it is a preserve in the north of CR, just to the west of the volcano Arenal. It was established by the government to protect one of the last untouched original rain forests in CR. Even today the roads to get to the location are unpaved and are quite rough. This should be interesting.

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