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GOLD IN THE NEWS
Mongolia Gold Rush Destroying Rivers Part2
Article # : gold131
Continued From: Mongolia Gold Rush Destroying Rivers Part1
Future Mining Boom
But now the battle could intensify as a new pro-mining government settles in after a June 2008 parliamentary election.
More than twice the size of Texas, Mongolia is the world's least densely populated country, with less than 3 million people. But it has some of the Earth's largest untapped gold, copper, and uranium reserves
.
Worth an estimated U.S. $660 million per year, the mining industry makes up two-thirds of Mongolia's export revenues, with most of the gold going to neighboring China, according to Mongolian government officials.
Mining industry experts say the mineral extraction business in Mongolia is at a nascent stage.
"Mining to date has been relatively small-scale," said Layton Croft, an executive with Ivanhoe Mines, a Canadian company with a massive copper and gold mine development project in southern Mongolia.
"The boom really hasn't yet started," Croft said. "The prospect of mining is what's on everyone's mind."
Mining rights took center stage during the election, as politicians from both leading parties supported amending laws to encourage more mineral extraction and therefore more national income.
The country is still recovering from the loss of Soviet support, which disappeared in the early 1990s after the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
D. Zorigt, Mongolia's new Minister of Minerals and Energy—a position created by the new government—told the press last month that one of his first tasks would be asking parliament to amend the minerals law and establish a legal framework to approve major mining deals.
According to local media, Mongolia's federal government is now busy drafting revised mining laws that will compensate Mongolians and assist displaced locals. Little has been said about the environment. The draft law is expected in mid-November.
No Enforcement
While environmentalists welcome new laws, it is enforcement that is the issue, they say.
"The biggest problem is that the mining companies largely disregard the mining laws that exist," Munkhbayar said. According to existing Mongolian law, mining operations cannot take place within 656 feet (200 meters) of a river's floodline.
However, just a few miles south of the central Mongolian town of Zaamar, the Tuul River has been completely altered from years of dredging by a Russian-Mongolian joint mining venture called Shizhir.
"The mining here has changed the direction of the river, which is in clear violation of the law," said Enkhtör, who leads Toson Zaamar, a local environmental group.
Source: Nationalgeographic.com