One Peruvian Woman Is Standing Up To A Gold-Mining Goliath
One Peruvian Woman Is Standing Up To A Gold-Mining Goliath
Posted: 02/12/2015 2:12 pm EST Updated: 44 minutes ago
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Máxima Acuña (in middle) outside a market in Cajamarca in 2014. Acuña is fighting Newmont Mining Corp.,
one of the biggest gold mining companies in the world, for control of land she claims she owns. | Ben Hallman
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This story was reported with Roxana Olivera, a Toronto-based investigative journalist living in Peru.
SOROCHUCO, Peru -- On a remote farm deep in the Peruvian Andes, in a region where sheep outnumber people by a comfortable margin, a very small woman is foiling the plans of one of the biggest mining companies in the world.
Máxima Acuña, who stands just over 5 feet tall -- if one includes in the measurement the traditional wide-brimmed hat she almost always wears -- has withstood threats, beatings and legal challenges in her improbable bid to hang on to what she declares is her property: 67 acres of windswept grass framed by rolling hills and several high mountain lakes.
Last week, dozens of private security officers working for Minera Yanacocha, a Peruvian company that is majority owned by Newmont Mining Corp. of Denver, ripped apart the foundation of a new home the family was building as Acuña stood nearby, crying.
The cause of the conflict is the same that has haunted Peru since Spanish conquistadors first landed on its shores 500 years ago. There is gold on Acuña’s land. Or, more accurately, under it: at least 6 million ounces, here and on adjacent property, according to Newmont.
More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/11/newmont-peru_n_6664724.html
