Colombia rainforest to be razed for gold mining

By Jeremy Hance Serrania de San Luca is a rainforest-covered massif rising to 2,300 meters (7,500 feet) in northern Colombia. Despite being little-explored and containing several endangered species, the forest is threatened by industrial gold mining operations, according to the local conservation group ProAves. Already the forest has been reduced to 10 percent of its original 2.5 million acres due to agriculture, small-scale mining, and other human impacts. Now, the Colombian government has granted large concessions to AngloGold Ashanti, a gold mining company out of South Africa which has been criticized by the Human Rights Watch for allegedly aligning itself with locally armed gangs in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “To hand over the Serranía de San Lucas to mining companies is not only irresponsible but represents a potential catastrophe to Colombia and the planet,” ProAves writes in an announcement related to the gold-mining concessions. “Serranía de san Lucas is a biodiversity treasure that Colombia and the world should be proud of. Unfortunately, none of the mining companies support the protection of biodiversity and sadly, not a single hectare of the San Lucas massif is protected for biodiversity conservation.” The only survey done on the Serrania de San Lucas massif was conducted by ProAves from 1999-2001. The organization recorded 374 bird species, eleven of which are considered threatened by the IUCN, including the Critically Endangered blue-knobbed currasow (see list at the end of the article). They also found endangered mammals, including the spectacled bear, the silverybrown bare-face tamarin, and the white-fronted capuchin monkey, all classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN. Jaguars, considered Near Threatened, were also present. Due to the nature of the survey, the researchers did not look at bats or rodents, the most diverse mammals in the rainforest. In addition, the group found a new species of frog that is awaiting formal description. …

Largely unexplored rainforest slated to be leveled for gold mining in Colombia