Several groups protested in front of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) national office Tuesday to call for the stoppage of operations of two large scale mining corporations in Nueva Vizcaya.
According to environmental group Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE), a newly approved environmental ordinance banning the use of open-pit mining in the province was “not retroactive and did not cover the existing operations that include FCF Minerals and Oceanagold.”
Oceanagold operates a gold mining operation in Brgy. Didipio, Kasibu while UK based FCF is developing a large-scale mining in Brgy. Runruno, Quezon both in Nueva Vizcaya province.
Oceanagold and FCF Minerals are Australian and British mining companies, respectively, both operating under Financial and Technical Assistance Agreements (FTAA) issued by the national government.
Clemente Bautista, national coordinator of Kalikasan said “Oceana Gold has been in the extraction phase for over a year while FCF Minerals has been in the construction phase since 2012.”
However, recent scientific studies, according to Bautista, said that the operations of the two corporations “have resulted in the clear pollution of different freshwater ecosystems, biodiversity loss within mine operations and its adjacent environments, and the socio-economic and cultural dislocation of different affected communities.”
