In Transylvanian town, gold pits protectors of heritage against developers promising riches

Gold mine project goes too far

Published on 21 August 2011

Author(s): Washington Post/AP

Type:  News

This is fairy tale land and there’s even a pot of gold buried beneath it. But not everyone’s happy.

With the precious metal at an all-time high, a Canadian company is eager to start blasting out mountains and demolishing parts of the ancient Romanian town of Rosia Montana to build an open-cast mine where 300 tons of gold and 1,600 tons of silver are buried.

The plan, which would use cyanide in the extraction process, faces fierce opposition from ecologists and many locals who want to preserve the region’s unique heritage.

Transylvania, best known as the home of the Dracula legend, is a land of majestic mountains, never-ending forests, and meadows dotted with cones of hay, horse-drawn carts and medieval churches — scenes straight out of Grimms’ fairy tales.

Supporters of this rural paradise are battling to preserve an ancient way of life, even as Romania’s economy lingers in the doldrums.

But the lures of gold and cash-generating asphalt are reeling in hungry developers to a region beloved — among others — by Britain’s Prince Charles, who hails Transylvania as a “national treasure” and Romania’s “best export.”

Canada’s Rosia Montana Gold Corp., set up by a consortium of investors specifically to exploit the gold, says it will be careful to preserve the environment, and is committed to paying villagers compensation and investing in the restoration of historical monuments, including Roman galleries.

“The worst thing that could happen would be that one of the biggest opportunities that would give (locals) a chance for the future would be not to go ahead,” said Catalin Hosu, the company’s regional communications manager.

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Portrait Vlad III Prince of Wallachia, better known as Dracula

It says it has invested $400 million in the mine, in which the Romanian state has a 20 percent stake. The operation is estimated to create more than 2,000 jobs while the mine is built and keep about 150 people employed once it is running.

The town of about 4,000 has about 80 percent unemployment, although some residents, technically jobless, live off proceeds from small farms, while many are retirees.

Indrei Ratiu, a British-Romanian co-founder of Pro-Patrimonium, Romania’s national heritage society, says juggling past and future is the key to Transylvania’s prosperity.

“You have to get the balance right between conservation and development,” he says in an interview from Petresti village, his family’s ancestral home.

But he says the gold mine project goes too far.

“I think the shareholders of Rosia Montana all over the world have no idea what is happening here and I’d like to inform them,” he said. Like others he believes less invasive mining methods combined with tourism is the best way forward.

Transylvania is also under threat further north after Romanian authorities granted a permit for a controversial highway that could destroy one of Europe’s last areas of intact forest outside Russia and Finland, according to the World Wildlife Fund Danube Carpathian Program.

In Rosia Montana, tensions run high between supporters and opponents of the proposed gold mine.

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