Three London students were shocked by what they found last winter during a trip to the Dominican Republic. Canadian mining companies, they say, are destroying lives in the country.
“We visited the Barrick Gold mine, and while we were there, we spoke with a woman named Juliana (Rodriguez). She is 82 years old and has lived in the area for all of her life,” Klaire Gain said. “She told us the last four years, which (has seen) Barrick Gold mining in the region, have been the worst years of her life.”
Now, Gain, Claire Morrow and Natasha Jimenez — all recent graduates of the social justice and peace program at King’s University College — are working to show the world what they witnessed. Using their own money, and some brought in through fundraisers, the trio travelled back to the region this summer.
They spent two months living in the area, working on farming co-ops, meeting and talking with as many residents, along with environmental and academic experts, as they could. They also hired former CBC cameraman Mark Visser, and flew him to the region where he filmed more than 100 hours of footage for a documentary expected to be ready by spring 2015.
The mine that’s the focus of their work is located in Pueblo Viejo. It’s 60 per cent owned by Barrick with the remaining 40 per cent owned by Goldcorp, another Canadian mining company.
In 2013, the mine produced 488,000 ounces of gold, making it the largest in Barrick’s operations.
Juliana Rodriguez, the woman the trio met on their first trip, had a clear message she wanted them to bring back to Canada.
“She looked at us, with tears in her eyes and said, we are dying because people in your country want to wear gold rings on their fingers,” Gain recounted.
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