Fishing Village Fights Iron Mine in Northern Chile
Fishing Village Fights Iron Mine in Northern Chile
By Orlando Milesi
LA HIGUERA, Chile, Apr 11 2017 (IPS) - In Punta de Choros, a hidden cove on Chile’s Pacific coast, some 900 fishers do not yet dare celebrate the decision by regional authorities to deny the Dominga port mining project a permit due to environmental reasons.
The fishers, from the northern region of Coquimbo, are afraid that the government will unblock the project, in which the Chilean company Andes Iron planned to invest 2.5 billion dollars for the extraction of iron ore, promising 9,800 jobs in the building phase and 1,400 in the production phase.
The project would affect several nature reserves, and the local fishers also question the effects from the traffic of cargo ships and from a desalination plant.
And as they said in interviews with IPS, they also doubt that the cabinet of ministers will uphold the decision by the regional environmental authorities, who rejected the plan for the Dominga mine, controlled by the Délano family.
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http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/04/fishing-village-fights-iron-mine-in-northern-chile/