Lutopan, officially known as DAS or Don Andres Soriano (from the name of the founder of the copper mines), is a hilly and well-populated barangay consisting of 21 sitios in Toledo City and is about 44 km from Cebu City, Philippines. In the 1960s through 1980s the place saw progress mainly through the Atlas Mining (ACMDC) operations, which closed down in 1991. It had a hospital facility comparable to those of Cebu City in terms of quality. It also has a La Salle-supervised private school (now Andres Soriano Memorial College) that used to be subsidized by the company. Although the shutting down of mining operations in early 1990s greatly affected the place, it continues to be one of the most populated areas of Toledo. Skilled workers from the mine have found ways to find other jobs, many of them working overseas. At present, rehabilitation is ongoing for the planned reopening of the mining company, whose largest single stockholder at present is Alakor Securities. Taken from wikipilipinas
Hi I am here to discuss to you the environmental hazards of mining activities.
Why are mining activities hazardous?
They can cause sinkholes, erosion, loss of biodiversity and a lot more, but why should you care?
You should care because the reasons I gave out to you can affect you greatly, you can lose your life or your love ones life. Contamination of water is one of the effects of mining activities, meaning if your child drinks from the contaminated water he/she could lead to complications later in life or even death. Now don't get scared because you can stop all this mining activities and act NOW. Act before its too late. Unfortunately for Lutopan, it has been destroyed. But nevertheless, we can still help the place.
Luckily for the environment, we have some laws that will protect them and save them while we still can.
The following laws are from chanrobles
The Republic Act 7942, also known as Philippine mining act of 1995 states that: All mineral resources in public and private lands within the territory and exclusive economic zone of the Republic of the Philippines are owned by the State. It shall be the responsibility of the State to promote rational exploration, development, utilization and conservation through the combined efforts of government and the private sector in order to enhance national growth in a way that effectively safeguards the environment and protect the rights of affected communities.
In human language, the Philippine government owns everything within the land whether private or public land, and it is their sole responsibility to promote developments and also their responsibility to defend the environment from people who are harming it, which is why they created DENR (Department of Natural Resources) to help them save our country.
Next up is the Republic Act of 7076, also known as People small-scale mining act of 1991 which states:
It is hereby declared of the state to promote, develop, protect and rationalize viable small-scale mining activities in order to generate more employment opportunities and provide an equitable sharing of the nation's wealth and natural resources, giving due regard to existing rights as herein provided.
In other terms, it is also the State that can develop the lands so we could have jobs but it is also stated here that they should also protect the land and not overuse it for it is damaging once they overuse it.
The last Philippine law protecting the environment and again taken from chanrobles
The Presidential Decree 1899,
Whereas, the Philippine mining industry has always been dominated by large-scale mining operations; prevailing statues, policies, incentives and financing are generally addressed to the large-scale sector of the industry; and capital intensity with high debt-equity ratio, mechanization and heavy energy requirements characterize such type of operations, whose main attraction is the attainment of economies of scale through low cost but large tonnage operations;
Whereas, the advent of inflation, volatile commodity prices, multiple increases of oil and fuel prices, stringent environmental control measures and high cost of capital proved to be most disastrous for Philippine large-scale mines.
This one I think is self-explanatory.
Next up, I'm going to show you 2 pictures of the effect of the mining in Lutopan (courtesy of google)
The first picture looks normal, but when you look at the second picture, it is devastating as it is. It's sad to know that the State who created all these laws to protect environment have not seen this. But now you did see this, YOU could make a change. How? Spread the news. Tell your friends and family. We can fight this because we're on the right side and we can because we're fighting for the sake of the environment, the biodiversity and most especially our lives. We should start the change within us. Always remember, THE CHANGE BEGINS IN YOU. You are the spark.
Thank you for reading and the sources are already there but I'll repeat it so I won't be in trouble :)
Have a goodnight everybody! :)
