A test of whether big mining is socially sustainable
The wealth of the Andes
Deep in a valley, at 3,500 metres in the Andes near Moquegua in southern Peru, giant terraces are being carved from the mountainside. Diggers load loose rock into 320-tonne driverless trucks which carry it to a conveyor belt. They pass by a dam built to hold back the Asana river in case it overflows the tunnel which carries it for almost eight kilometres beneath Quellaveco. This is a new $5.5bn copper mine operated by Anglo American, a London-listed multinational mining company, and part-owned by Mitsubishi of Japan.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “The wealth of the Andes”
From the May 28th 2022 edition
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