Last week, Gabriel Resources' plans to tear up a sizable section of the Carpathians in Romania was set back yet again, when the Supreme Court annulled the company's archaeological "discharge" permit. The Rosia Montana project, in which Canada-based Gabriel is the principle investor, is located in the area of Europe's oldest gold minds: ruins from Roman period mining activities are still to be found and must be thoroughly excavated and catalogued before Rosia Montana can go forward. The news has driven down Gabriel's stock by 18%, though the company apparently sees this as another setback in a project which eventually will reap them billions of euros. Cyanide extraction has already caused a fair amount of damage to Romanians and others, i.e. those living in the Carpathian Basin watershed, and much of that has been from stripping tailings. Gabriel is going to use mountaintop removal open cast pits, and if i remember correctly, expect to extract about 1 ounce of gold and silver for every 1-2 tonnes of ore.
Tibor Kocsis made an excellent documentary about this in 2002, New Eldorado: The Curse of Rosia Montana, and later followed it up with Gold Futures, which received an apparently powerful rebuttal from industry backers. (An interesting controversy, worth looking into if i could manage to get hold of both films.) The Carpathians are the LAST EUROPEAN WILDERNESS and the ecological health of its numerous watersheds (feeding at least 5 countries directly) depend on development being sound and sustainable. The Rosia Montana project is going to create havoc, no matter how much integrity the company may have relative to following its own environmental parameters.
Anyone still busy with the xmas shopping, pls take a moment to consider that most gold extraction is at serious odds with fragile environments and human cultures, and that the majority of new gold 'produced' is used for jewelry. Buy something else, i'm sure there are better options.
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