Extracting Histories: Mining, Workers, and Environment

ow ~ Uo.*, Salur-., €c}iW, Va^, VoM'V. -.131 Histories Myrna Santiago Extracting Histories: Mining, Workers, and Environment "Can we live without mining?" asks a colleague ntviewing this text on the last two centuries of mineral extraction in l.atin America. Mining and oil companies, foreign and domestic, are convinced we cannot and have ushered a new rush in petroleum, minerals, and metals—the building blocks of modem soeiely. Ttie "boom" is the latest reincarnation of a colonial era business that intensified with industrialization in the ^o\Z I nineteenth century. The continuities in the practice are as striking as the breaks are remarkable. The technologies of extraction have changed dramatically. Yet in keeping with historical trends, the industry has provoked Intense social eonllict due to its im pact on nature, workers' bodies, and local communiiies—the elements that prompted my colleague's question. Let us examine, ilien. the history of mining and oil in contem porary l.atin America to understand his concern and answer his query. Gold and silver, what sixtccnih-ceniury Europeans considered "specie," are the pre cursors of contemporary Latin American mining, for three hundred years, mining fu eled colonialism, nourishing Europe's rise to global prominence and Chinese imperial coffers. Testament to the richness of Latin America's subsoil is the extravagant display of silver and gold in European and Latin American colonial churches that astonish the most jaded tourist. Invisible but ensconced in that architecture and precious art are the millions of indigenous and African workers whose bodies and health were undermined to retrieve such treasure. Mercury poisoning, respiratory insufficiency, and maiming accidents were their fate throughout the empire, rorgotlen also are the scarred landscapes left in erslwhile famous colonial mining sites such as Zacalccas and San Luis Polosi IMexico), Polosi (Bolivia), or Huancavelica (Peru). Today both labor and nature are obscured in the cool shadows and bright artifacts of imposing European cathedrals. The same is not altogether tine of the nineteenth century. The Colony ended by the 1820s for the mainland but mining recovered haiiingly due to political and economic instability. The impetus for renewed mining was the nascent industrialization of Europe. Minerals, metals, and previously ignored natural products suddenly acquired value and created high demand. Latin American iiaiiire and labor provided. Peruvian guano, piled in small mountains by millions of birds over millennia. I'ew Mistoi-^es for instance, nourished English agriculture beginning in ihe 1840s until the organic matter was close to depletion by the 187Gs. Likewise and for the same reason, Chilean and Bolivian magnates hired thousands of workers to mine for nitrates in il\e desert ecologies shared by Bolivia, Peru, and Chile. Work in the deserts was physically de manding, harsh, and exhausting. Fed by South American fertilizers and the bodily ex ertion of its workers, the industriaiization of Western agriculture proceeded apace and spurred Latin American elites inlo a resource war. The War of the Pacific(1879-1883) was fought by Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. Chile won. increasing its territory by a third, ' b 1, h" h ^ * leaving Bolivia landlocked. Nitrate mining, however, ended in the early twentieth cen tury as nature's bounty lost value to synthetic fertilizers. Keeping pace with Ihe acceleration of European and US industriaiization, mining ex panded in more countries in the late nineteenth century. Latin American elites con als, metals, oi' oil. In tiie best case see- vinced that the export economy paved the way for progress liberalized laws to wel nario, such as Mexico, nationalization of come foreign investment, opening up tlieir ecosystems to exploitation and procuring oi! meant the government possessed an ^ the labor necessary to respond to demand from abroad. Bolivian tin became a prized commodity for canned foods and other uses. Local capital invested in new mines, at tracting thousands of men to the desert in the process. Siiiccsis suffocated them and cave-ins entombed them. Survivors became highly politicized union men, the back bone of revolution by 1952. in Mexico, meanwhile, innovative technology coupled with 1890s Liberal economic policies and legislation that courted foreign investment structure, schools), yet tlic damaging environmental elTects of extraction went unmitigated. Despite environmental protection legislation, Petrdleos Mexicanos(PEMEX)inflicted poitulion, deforestation, sol! degrada tion, and wild life destruction upon every community in whicli ii operated. industrialized mining itself and allowed US companies to return to colonial mining veloped a new extractive industry: petroleum. Coveted as fuel for machines from rail roads to trucks to war tanks and planes, oil became of strategic importance by World Government recognition that oil represented a major commodity in Ihe twentieth cen tury led to another Latin America resource war. This one involved Bolivia and Para guay. With Standard Oil prospecting in the arid ecosystem of Ihe Gran Chaco, both governments sought control over disputed boundaries in anticipation of petroleum riches. Some 100,000 men lost their lives during the three-year conAict (1932-1935). A great number of Bolivians perished from thirst rather than combat, given the Chaco's dryness and isolation from supply lines. Paraguay won the war and Bolivia, once War 1. Mexico and Venezuela were first to experience substantial diilling. Therefore, again, lost territory to a neighbor. sites and dig deeper. In the process a new toxin, cyanide, was thrown into the mix and released into the environment. The health risks for miners and local communities increased as a result. in the early twentieth century, European and US industrial needs promoted and de they were first to witness oil spills, fires, and hydrocarbon pollution. The worst spill and fire in history, in fact, occurred at San Diego de la Mar, Veracruz in 1908. Tlte ex ploded well, "Do.s Bocas," shown in the photo below, became a lake thai contaminates the landscape to this day. Ensuing socioecologicai conflict spurred Mexican oil work ers to agitate successfully for nationalization in 1938. At mid-century, extraction grew. Chile's nitrate cycle was replaced by copper, mined since the dawn of the century. Geography and ecology, however, posed challenges for successful copper mining: high altiiudes, aridity, labor scarcity. Foreign copper companies overcame nature's obstacles through technological innovation, including ^]ew Ffi-itonmenial H:'iories open pit mining via huge machines that could excavate the earth and crush its ore in ever more massive quantities without requiring addiliona! labor. The scarring of the m landscape intensiJied as did the policing of labor, which was confined to company towns in isolated locales. Dangerous and exploitative conditions contributed to work ing class radicalization and, as in Bolivia and Mexico, to revolutionary roles. Chilean miners were key actors in the election of socialist candidate Salvador Allende to the presidency In 1970. Their militancy, too, contributed to the final nationalization of the copper mines during his short three-year tenure In power. Small countries became Involved In mining at mid-century and experienced deleteri ous environmental consequences. Nicaragua, for example, produced enough gold by the 1950s, to be among the largest fifteen producers in the world. Located in tropical rainforests, milling fostered deforestation and heavy metal contamination of soils and water. Jamaica, similarly,joined the extraciion world in the 1950s. Aluminum had be come a valued industrial meia) by then and the tiny Island had one of its main mineral components, bauxite. Excavated in open pits, batixite is blamed for deforestation in central Jamaica, In addition to social conflict due to the forced resettlement of com munities living in areas ideniilied as mineral rich. At centuiy's end, extraction intensified and expanded notably across Latin America. Modern society's dependency on petroleum, added to the rise of the high tech electron ics industjy and the growth of global consumer capitalism, including in Latin America, mm: process often entails the wholesale razing of mountains and their ecosystems. The discarded ore, literally tons of rocks and tailings, gives rise to an allied process, that of "waste" disposal. Carcinogens and environmental pollutants permeate the slag, more drove the demand for extraction exponentially. Ecuador,for instance, yielded oil and en often than not abandoned without remediation. One of the biggest open pit mines in dured intense socloecological conflict as a result. Petroleum mining in the Ecuadorean Amazon subjected indigenous peoples and the environment lo the worst consequences of oil development; deforestation, pollution, and illness. Small mining aclivlty also grew steadily lo satisfy demand for molals like gold. Colombia's small-scale gold miners and BrazQ's garimporios led gold production in both countries. Unable to control the disper sal of mercury in the environment, tills group of miners exposed their bodies and com munities lo poisoning wilhoul proper recourse lo prevention or treatment. the continent is Brazil's Carajas complex, the largest iron mine in the world, covering Large scale open pit mining appeared on the landscape as well. An innovative re transportation systems, its computers and ceil phones, and its countless durable and nearly one million square kilometers of Amazonia. Inaugurated in 1985, the project has disrupted local the local ecosystem and, by some accounts, altered the climate al ready. Smaller Brazilian open pit mines such as the bauxite mine alongside the Trorabetas River and the aluminum mines in Para that require damming of the Tucurui River for energy also threaten Amazonian ecosystems. Nevertheless, extraction has been creative. 11 created the modern world, with its rapid sponse to reduced quaiilities of desirable minerals and metals within easy reach, open replaceable consumer goods. For those whose class position denies them access to pit mining requires much less labor than previous technologies as it disturbs greater geographical spaces. As the photograph of Cananea, Mexico, shows, the open pit the modernity that is the fruit of mineral mining—often including workers in the in dustry themselves—there is at least tlie joy of electricity and television sets that at- 26 RCC low remote villages to cheer their favorite soccer teams. Hence my colleague's query Hew Environmentat Histories Selected Sources: about our dependence on mining: it is possible to live a modern life without extrac tion? The answer is definitively no. Alimonda. Hector, ed. 2011. La WaluraJcz.-i Coiotiizada; Hcologia polilica y mineria en Amdrica Latina. Buenos Aires: CLACSO. But exiraction creates in other ways too. Il has generated social critical consciousness and environmental thought and activism in Latin America and beyond. Bolivia, one of the poorest countries with one of the longest histories of mining, has treaded carel'uliy around its lithium deposits, considered among the largest in the world, despite the metal's skyrocketing value for battery manufacturing. Bolivia's historical mining lega cy has inspired new discourses about the meaning of modernity and life in relationship to nature, including the idea that el bucn v/vtr(the good life) need not entail endless consumption. Ecuador tried to challenge the international community to pay for keep ing its petroleum underground as a global environment-friendly gesture, given the connection between burning fossil fuels and climate change. When no one picked up the gauntlet. President Rafael Correa announced that oil extraction would commence again, unleashing a local polemic that has not been resolved. The lawsuit Ecuadorian indigenous people filed against ChevronTexaco in US court in 1993 demonstrates the creativity which communities use to defend their environments and health. The plain tiffs won their multi-million dollar suit in Ecuador, a major accomplishment. A decade later, the case is slit! under appeal with ChevronTexaco countersuing the plaintiffs' legal team and supporters in the United States. The precedent of losing a case on the grounds of ecological damage is unthinkable for extractive industries in general, not just ChevronTexaco, so die legal battle continues. In the meantime, Bolivia, at least has furthered the discourse with a campaign for "Amazonia sin pefrdJeo." The term "extraciivism" has become common to refer to a mentality of depredation, well be yond oil and mining, too. Allies in the Global North, meanwhile,seek pathways to "re sponsible mining" that respect and include local voices and concerns In the process. Discursively, at least, views of extraction have come a long way from the nineteenth century elites' belief that mining meant progress and development. Whether fas venas abiertas do America Latina will heal or even close, however, re mains very much a contested question. Bniwn, Kendall W. 2012. A Histoiy otMining in Latin America:linm the Colonial Era to the Pres ent. Alitiiqucrqtie: Universily of New Mexico Pa-ss. Nasli, June. 1979. We Cat ihc Mines and die Mines Eat Lts. Dependency and E.vpioitalion in Boliv ian Tin Mines. New York: Columbia Universily Press. Nonli, Liisa. Tiniolhy David Clark, and Viviana Patroni, eds. 2006. Commiiii/ty Riffhls and Coiporale Respousibdity; Canadian Mining and Oil Companies in Latin America. Toronto; Between Uie Lines. a;