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There's gold in them thar hills

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    There's gold in them thar hills

    This is a fairly long story so bear with me.

    In Transylvania, Romania, in the Apuseni mountains, an area of stunning national beauty, there is a small village called Rosia Montana. it is a village built on mining, where mining - for gold mostly - has been ging on since Roman times. Indeed under the village there are excelently preserved Roman mines, which (I'm told) are some of the best preserved Roman remains of any kind in Europe.

    The village has been at the centre of mining operations ever since, though mostly on a very small scale. 14 years ago a Canadian company called Gabriel Resources acquired the rights to develop the mines and mine the gold. Since then there has been an incredibly long and convoluted process to finally get this mining under way. Gabriel's plan was basically to relocate the villagers to nearby town Alba Iulia, and knock down 4 mountains in the largest open cast mine in Europe. It's a massive operation. they bought up much of the land, with the majority of the villagers - desperate for work - happy to go along with the plan and to be employed. Some, of course , did not go along and held out, refusing to sell their land.

    The enviromental movement is also, obviously up in arms, since not only does this plan pretty much trash a massive area of extremely beautiful countryside, but it also involves the extensive use of cyanide. Cyanide is used in gold mining as standard, and the plan would create a large toxic lake of cyanide which would pretty much stay there for ever. 20? 15? years ago in northern Romania, a much smaller cyanide lake burst its banks and entered the river system, killing fish all the way down the Tisza and eventually the Danube in Hungary. GR argues that they have modern methods and there is absolutely no danger of this happening again, and that even ins environmentally conscious countries like Finland this kind of thing goes on. (This conveniently ignores the fact that in the whole of Europe there are 1000 tons of cyanide used per year in mining operations. Rosia Montana will be using 13,000 tons per year.)

    Then of course there is the ever present suspicion of corruption. Nobody in Romania trusts any politician not to be on the take. And in the case a huge multinational corporation trying to make a bunch of money, there is widespread (universal) assumption that there are some dodgy dealings in the background.

    So, the whole project has been tied up for years in legal and political arguments, with successive governments trying to push through laws to make the whole project start (like forcing people to sell up etc). The President has been in favour for years, and the last government (of the same party as the President) doing the same. But they couldn't get it through in time, before they got voted out last year. The new prime minister ws on record in opposition as being against it, so it seemed like it might be finished. Last month however, his government put forward draft legislation to approve it (he claimed that as an MP he was opposed,but as the leader of the country he was for. The best flip-flop argument ever).

    This brought people on to the streets in protest and all major cities, especially Bucharest, have seen ongoing demonstrations since that date (Aug 27th). Yesterday the PM flip flopped again saying he would vote against the legislation as would most of his government. The project is assumed to be dead in the water and the Gabriel share price has dropped like a stone (amid threats from Canada to launch legal action).

    I suspect this is not finished yet, but it does look like there may be a small victory for some offshoot of the Occupy-style movements.

    Anyway, I'm giving it a cautiously optimistic fist-pumping "yes".

    #2
    There's gold in them thar hills

    Marvellous. The former leader of the opposition's shift in position would be absurdly funny if it wasn't so utterly predictable.

    So who actually owns the land now?

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      #3
      There's gold in them thar hills

      "Rosia Montana Gold Corporation" owns the land. That's a company owned 81% by Gabriel Resources and 19% by the Romanian state. Well they own most of it. The rest is owned by it's original owners. (One of the curious features of Romania is that there are very very few large land owners - after communism the collective farms basically got divided up into very small packets and given to the people who worked the land. So nearly everyone owns some land, but nobody owns very much)

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        #4
        There's gold in them thar hills

        Not gonna happen, it seems.

        http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/11/11/huge_canadian_mining_project_to_be_rejected_by_rom ania.html

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          #5
          There's gold in them thar hills

          I'm not sure yet, there have been so many twists and turns that I suspect the fat lady has merely cleared her throat. But it is looking like good news.

          Now to see if GR sues Romania for daring to put the environment before their profits

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            #6
            This case finally was concluded this week with the ICSID (the international court for arbitration of these type of things, based in Washington DC) finding in favour of Romania and against Gabriel Resources, which I believe now means it is all done and dusted, the environmental destruction will not happen, and Romania will not have to pay vast amounts of money to the mining company (the share price of which has now gone through the floor, and hit some hedge funds too. The heart bleeds)

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              #7
              That's excellent news. I'm weirdly drawn to occassionally watching a couple of those gold hunters programmes on the tv - as much in horror as anything. And the damage they manage to do vast tracts of wilderness without even using chemical stripping is astonishing. I can't imagine what damage industrial level stripping would do.

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                #8
                Great outcome.

                the international court for arbitration of these type of things
                needs more prominence, funding and an acronym.

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by Sits View Post
                  Great outcome.

                  needs more prominence, funding and an acronym.
                  ICATTT??

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                    #10
                    ICSID is part of the World Bank, thus the Washington headquarters.

                    Though the arbitrations themselves can be held anywhere, and these seem to have been primarily/exclusively done remotely.

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