Source has been working on the case of Cerro de Pasco since 2009. In these 9 years we have been able to observe how the national and international media have been interested in the case.
From Poland to Peru, from "National Geographic" to "Mining.com", from "The World Bank" to "Latin Times".
An explosion of articles describing the very serious situation in which 70,000 people live around a crater that spits out poisons and steals soil underfoot.
Our studies confirm this continuously: the first blood tests carried out in 2009 provided overwhelming proof of the relationship between cause and effect of mine-diseases. And the last study of 2016, in which we extended the analysis to 100 samples of children, was the straw that broke the camel's back.
We found 17 heavy metals in the hair of the sample of children. The hair is an excretory tissue and is used in many environmental analyzes because it provides a wider time window than blood tests. Having found these substances contaminants in the hair, means that these metals are present in the human body due to the constant exposure to very high levels of poisons in liquid, gaseous and solid form.
From tap water, to eggs, to the dust that accumulates in the house to the vapors that stagnate on the city.
With the results in hand we have informed the inhabitants of Pasco and together with the local organizations we have begun to work on the case: tables of negotiation between community and government, demonstrations, meetings, press conferences and meetings with the deputies.
2017 was an intense year of activity on the Peruvian front and finally something is moving beyond Italy: the government is committed to monitoring the health of the population and periodically checking the environmental quality. And above all, he committed to closing down the mining waste deposit sites.
We are only at the beginning of this long process of conflict resolution and environmental remediation.
2018 has just begun and we will continue to talk about the case and work to give these people a future!
