In Australia, as elsewhere, the main business of mining companies is to find and seize opportunities to mine profitably. In order to proceed, they must also persuade governments that their proposals are in the national interest. Here, governments will be interested in the economic benefits of mining, as well as potential social and environmental impacts.
Although these requirements and processes are often lacking in rigour, large mining companies themselves recognise the importance of meeting them. The damage to their reputations caused by taking short cuts and alienating significant sections of the population can be far more costly than the profit made by particular mines.
But what is true of their behavior at home often does not hold true for the overseas operations of Australian mining companies. The recent visit to Australia of Vidalina Morales, who belongs to a community in El Salvador that oppose proposals to mine for gold by a company (Pacific Rim Mining) whose majority shareholder is Australia based miner OceanaGold, shows how the welfare of people is often jeopardised in the quest for profit.
The gold deposits that are to be mined by Pacific Rim are low grade, and so involve processing large quantities of ore. This requires a great deal of water and the use of cyanide to treat the gold. In El Salvador this process has many difficulties.
El Salvador is a small, largely agricultural society with one of the highest population densities in the world. It is mountainous, has five active volcanos and is subject to periodic earthquakes and violent storms. The areas suitable for mining are surrounded by small settlements which already lack a reliable source of water. The River Lempa into which the local rivers drain is the source of water for San Salvador, the capital with over a million inhabitants.
The effects of large scale mining are predictable and catastrophic. The mines will take much of the water from the aquifers and streams on which the local population depends. They will also be affected by the dust from mines. The soil is rich in sulphur, so that when exposed to water it becomes acidic and reacts with other elements to pollute soil and water. Even if the cyanide is held in tailing dams, the geological and climatic risks are high.
Finally, the mountains in which mining is proposed were centres of resistance to military and economic repression in the 1980s. Mining risks reopening social unrest amongst a