Colombia: Illegal Gold Mining in Colombia is Destroying the Rainforest

Nov 16, 2016 | Bram Ebus, Newsweek
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Colombia’s 52-year-old civil war has devastated the country’s Pacific coast, so close to 80 percent of the people who voted in the recent referendum supported a peace deal between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The referendum failed to approve the deal, thanks in part to a strong “no campaign” whose organizers proved far savvier than their opponents in manipulating public opinion. Many expect a subsequent peace deal to happen, but few in Chocó believe it will liberate them from the leftist militants and right-wing paramilitaries who keep the illegal gold mining industry humming.