Environmental Risks
Human rights cannot be enjoyed without a healthy environment. Haitians have a right to a safe, clean, and healthy environment for themselves and for future generations. Haiti’s constitution recognizes that “[l]'environnement étant le cadre naturel de vie de la population” - the environment is the natural framework of the life of the people - and strictly forbids activities that disrupt the country’s environmental equilibrium. Mining threatens the fulfillment of the environmental rights of Haitians.
Mining is a dangerous activity, given both the historical environmental damage that Haiti has faced and the significant environmental risks that mining poses. Haiti sits on a high-risk fault line, and its environment is arguably the most degraded in the hemisphere, due in large part to its history of colonialism and extraction. Earthquakes, even minor ones, have triggered tailings dam collapses, which in other communities, have killed hundreds of people, destroyed entire ecosystems, and displaced nearby communities. The environmental damage that mining often causes also threatens the Haitian people’s rights to water, land, and health.
See below to learn more about how mining threatens to exacerbate the already-drastic consequences of climate change in Haiti, how mining both increases the likelihood of earthquakes and how Haiti’s earthquake-prone environment greatly increases the risk of harm caused by mining, and how metal mining poses catastrophic risks to the environment.
Climate Disaster
Haiti is one of the five countries in the world most affected by climate change. In recent years, Haiti has suffered a series of “natural” disasters—hurricanes, heavy storms, earthquakes, floods, and droughts. The country’s vulnerability to climate impacts is not, however, natural. The environmental history of Haiti is marked by foreign exploitation and extraction. In recent years, mining has caused environmental disasters around the world, including in countries with strong regulatory frameworks such as Brazil and Canada. A mining related accident in Haiti could be a blow that would be very difficult to recover from.
Earthquakes
Located on a fault line, Haiti experiences a significant number of earthquakes, including some of the most deadly and damaging in modern history. In other parts of the world, even minor earthquakes have triggered failures of tailings dams, meant to store the toxic waste byproduct of mining, devastating the environment and nearby communities. Mining is also the most frequent producer of human-induced earthquakes. If an earthquake were to occur where a mining company was operating, the consequences could be devastating.
Environmental Risks of Metal Mining
Metal mining poses unique and catastrophic risks to the environment. All phases of mining, from exploration to mineral processing, place Haiti’s land and water at risk of irreversible damage. Mining requires the flattening of Haiti’s hills and mountains, extensive excavation of soil which can release toxic substances contained in the bedrock, and cyanide spraying in order to extract gold from the rock. There is a significant risk of failure of tailings dams, used to store cyanide and other mining waste. Tailings dam failures in other countries have caused devastation of rivers and land, destruction of nearby communities, and more than two thousand deaths since 1950.
Tailings Dam Disaster in Brazil: The tailings dam collapsed, killing 270 people and releasing metals and toxins into the local rivers. Brazil, 2019. Ibama from Brasil, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
We the undersigned—farmer organizations, workers, and citizens of the North Department, especially from Morne Pele—raise our voices to denounce gold and other metal mining in the North, particularly in Morne Pele, Quartier Morin.