At its peak in the early 17th century, , native Peruvians, African slaves and Spanish settlers lived in Potosí. Illustration: Dea Picture.
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Once the news was out about this mountain full of minerals, very quickly a chain reaction of events followed! But the existence of this word and its meaning is not clear. But also those words are hard to proof. The fame of Cerro Rico quickly spread over South America and into Europe, encouraging many different people to travel the long and hazardous route into the dry and harsh landscape of the Andean Alti Plano, in search of a wealthy and better life.
In their excitement at having found so much silver, the new colonists had never taken it upon themselves to carry out the official city foundation ritual. Toledo organized the town as best as he could, not being able to follow the customary Spanish designs. But water was scarce… Therefore, Viceroy Toledo decided to take advantage of the springs that ran from the Qari-Qari mountain range which surround the city.
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Toledo built enormous dikes and dams to redirect the spring- and rainwater from the mountains toward five huge artificial lagoons and over a hundred ore mills. An impressive accomplishment of hydro engineering and architecture! Over time Viceroy Toledo constructed a total of 32 lakes.
- The New Zealand Rabbit;
- Looking For Solutions To Latin America’s Resource Curse?
- The introduction of Potosí;
- My Weird School #11: Mrs. Kormel Is Not Normal! (My Weird School series);
- History of Potosí and its silver mines?
Some of these still exist and are known collectively as the Qari-Qari Lagoons. The population was an interesting mix of all types of people: These churches were followed by several others until finally there were a total of 36 highly decorated churches and temples. Convents and seminaries were also built as were great mansions for noblemen and their families, gaming houses, and dance halls for the entertainment of the Spaniards and creoles.
No one else was allowed to enter them. The most notable building of this period became a Spanish Mint, called Casa de la Moneda. Together these were the only three Mints that were built in the Americas during this period. The purpose of these Mints was so the raw silver that was found could be processed on site into coins or bars, which were easier to send to Spain. In Spain the royal seal would be imprinted upon them.
Years later the Spanish managed to extract so much silver from Cerro Rico, that the original Casa de la Moneda became too small. The King of Spain then ordered another Mint to be built, using the taxes contributed by the miners to do so.
El Tío - Wikipedia
The construction of the new Casa de la Moneda started in and was completed in This enormous complex is built in the Mestizo Baroque style. It covers over 15, square meters and has rooms! The new Casa de la Moneda operated as the Spanish Mint for over two hundred years until it was converted into a museum in It is still a very recommendable museum to visit. Maybe it is even to the contrary…. They were given the back-breaking task of carrying the daily quota of 25 bags of silver ore, each weighing around 45kg, to the surface.
On top, the temperature and humidity differences between the depths of the mine and the surface meant also that pneumonia and respiratory infections were rife. So it's not a political issue in terms of right or left and you're either for extraction or against it. There are some differences in terms of how it's done, but the differences are relatively minor for the most part. There are some exceptions, and Venezuela is a big one.
Where the devil plays mine host
But for the most part, it's not a political issue. And so yes, extraction is happening. So then you can say, "Should it happen? How will it happen? There's no question whatsoever that extractive industries — so not just mining but oil and gas and timber harvesting and a range of others — create tremendous wealth.
Whether they create development and what kind of development depends a lot on the institutional framework that's in place. And this varies tremendously from country to country and within countries. And so I think this is where David, I'm sure, would agree with me and argue that this is where the industry is working hard to create an institutional framework that will foster that. The other side of that, of course, is the state themselves and what kind of institutional framework exists within the central government and then to a certain extent within subnational governments as well and when rents are distributed to, say, departments or provinces or municipalities, what happens to those funds.
And this varies quite a lot. And what I mean by that is that a lot of the indigenous communities and frontier communities that are affected by extractive industries and development at the frontier have been marginalized from society historically — in terms of economic authority, political power, access to the things that people who live in the more urban areas take for granted whether it's education, medical care, access to infrastructure whether its telecommunications, roads, power.
And part of the transformative and sustainable development that can come out of investment, in my view, is to readjust that power imbalance that has been historic. And when I have worked, we've gone about this with the idea from the ground-up. And so you begin to work with the local communities — not tell them what you're going to do for them, not throw a bunch of money into a school and say "good luck with that," but help the local communities develop the capacity to make intelligent decisions about what they see their future being.
One of the topics that's important that has been in great debate in the industry over the past five or six years is the concept of free, prior, and informed consent. And I don't think that is anathema to the industry at all. In fact, I think it creates the best value out of converting, as you said, these resources in the ground that have no value, into products that are salable in the international market. And, as Tom pointed out, the question is how does that conversion process result in meaningful development for the people who live and reside in the areas where the extraction takes place.
Well we're here to talk about the relationship between mining and extraction of resources and environmental circumstances or conditions or outcomes of that. And, Tom, I'd like to begin with you to maybe give us a little historical perspective about the history of mining and some of the problems we've seen historically, and how that perhaps has changed throughout time.
- Mit Planungsinseln zur lernenden Organisation: Konzept, Praxiserfahrung, Einführungsstrategie (Germa?
- ¿Se puede vivir así? (Spanish Edition).
- The Shiloh Campaign (Archive Arts American Civil War Book 3).
- Potosi, Bolivia | Travel guide | Where the devil plays mine host.
- Potosí, the most important American City! - Fairtravel4u?
The work that you've done in Bolivia, for example, in the past and some of the criticisms that have emerged, and then kind of where we are today. So there's a long, deep history of mining not just there, but in Mexico, in Peru, in Chile, in Colombia. And one of the issues around this is that it has left a big environmental legacy of that because a lot of the historical mines are leaching what's called acidic mine drainage from tailings or mineral that has been worked in the past.
As water flows through that as precipitation, it oxidizes, and then what flows out from the bottom of that is acidic. And so even tailings that are very, very old can produce acidic runoff that can affect waterways and what not. So there's a long historical legacy of mining in many places.
In the area where I work in Bolivia, the mining isn't as old as that, but it does go back about years.
The Curse of Potosi by Keith Brennan
And so this is one of the major problems and the Bolivian state hasn't had, I would say, the political will or much technical capacity to really deal with that. And so a lot of the state-run mines — well there's one state-run mine now — a lot of the mines that are run by these mining cooperatives are done with minimal or no environmental safeguards.
And so, not just acid mine drainage, but a lot of the chemicals that are used in processing mines, a lot of heavy metals that are used in processing mines — like mercury, cadmium, the list goes on — are sometimes discharged directly into waterways. And so this creates a huge problem for environments and for people that live downstream. So it's important to understand that there isn't a single mining industry or a single type of mining in Latin America. From sort of very large-scale, highly capitalized, very modern mines to these very small-scale artisanal mines, some state-run mines.
And so there's a whole range of things, and so there isn't going to be a one-size-fits-all solution to dealing with some of the problems. Clearly there's that potential negative relationship between the mining and the environmental consequences. So David, I want to turn to you, because you're working in this industry, in the gold mining industry, also in Latin America.
So tell us about what your industry is doing to help mitigate some of these potential consequences, these potential negative consequences. There are a variety of things that the mining industry is doing around the world. There are organizations that are based at the national level, like the Mining Association of Canada. There's also a larger organization called the ICMM — the International Council of Mining and Minerals — which is not just gold mining, but a variety of leading mining companies in the world.
And these industry organizations have developed standards that apply to a lot of the legacy issues that Tom mentioned, and they deal with environmental issues, labor issues, interactions with communities.