Pressure mounts on Barrick Gold’s ‘destructive’ mining in PNG
PACIFIC SCOOP Friends of the Earth International has backed calls from communities around the world for a halt to the Canadian mining company Barrick Gold’s “destructive practices” in Papua New Guinea and other countries. Campaigners were present at the company’s annual general meeting and joined a protest rally outside the meeting venue in Toronto. Barrick Gold, the largest gold miner in the world, has been the subject of many documented studies of human rights abuses and environmental devastation globally, including in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines and Tanzania. Friends of the Earth International calls in to question the necessity of the Canadian-owned corporation’s gold mining operations. With the vast majority of gold used for jewellery, Barrick’s gold mines on average use more water than the entire bottle water industry in Canada, and this water is polluted with mining waste products such as cyanide, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, selenium, and sulphides. Romel de Vera, coo