Hearing on gold mines delayed
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VILLAGERS SAY TALKS JUST A FORMALITY THAT ALLOW MINING FIRMS TO EXPLOIT THEM
THE PRIMARY Industries and Mines Department (DPIM) has postponed a public hearing on gold mines’ concessions in 12 provinces because it says local communities still have insufficient information.
The original date for the public hearing was September 15 at Phichit’s Tambon Khaojedluk Administrative Organisation and the second public hearing was intended to be at Lop Buri’s Tambon Khok Tum Administrative Organisation on September 18.
They were to hear local opinions on the next round of gold mine concessions in 12 provinces – Pichit, Phetchabun, Phitsanulok, Lop Buri, Loei, Nakhon Sawan, Sara Buri, Rayong, Chanthaburi, Surat Thani, Sa Kaew and Satun.
However, the new official letter from DPIM released on Tuesday announced a delay of the two public hearings until further notice.
DPIM Strategy Administration Division chief Wisanu Tubtieng said this delay announcement was mainly because of massive public opposition to the gold mine concession.
Wisanu said the public hearings were the third step to passing the concession proposal to the Cabinet, while the academics forum and operators’ forum on the concessions had already passed successfully, the public hearing forum faced many objections from locals because they did not know the details.
“The information dissemination was done poorly on the local level. We let the Tambon Administrative
Organisations in the area of the gold mine proposal inform locals about the concessions, but we don’t know how well each Tambon Administrative Organisation publicised the information,” he said.
“Hence, public hearings have to be stalled until we improve communication with the locals.”
The locals and academics said the public hearing processes were ugly and just a formality to allow mining companies to exploit the country’s natural resources freely. They were not really listening to the peoples’ voices.
Thiwa Tang-on from Chanthaburi stated that he had just realised his province was included in the 12 provinces on the next gold mine concession proposal earlier this month.
They only had a chance to discuss with other locals about the concession plan on Monday.
“We totally had no idea that the gold mine will operate in our province too, because we only heard the news about the gold mine from the Northern and North Eastern Region where the locals there were suffering from the gold mine pollution,” Thiwa disclosed.
“We don’t want the polluted mine to open in our province because Chanthaburi is based on agriculture and we don’t want to suffer from the heavy metal leakage like in Phichit and Loei, so we are going to oppose the plan,” he stated.
Mahasarakham University’s environmental expert Chainarong Sretthachaua also pointed out that these public hearings were very ugly because the intention was to represent public voices in 12 provinces in just two forums. The people affected were not even invited to the hearings.
“These public hearings are just a stamp to pass the concession proposal, so they were held as quietly as possible and those who were to attend these forums were selected by the authorities,” he said.
He said there were many lessons from cases where the people around the gold mine in Loei and Phichit suffered very much from the pollution. The authorities also turned a blind eye to their problems and further more suppressed the opposition in order to protect the gold mine interest.
“If the government really wanted to open the new gold mines, they should better solve the existing problems of the locals in Phichit and Loei, who were first to suffer from the gold mines,” he said.
