The British-Australian mine of Cerro Matoso has been linked to birth defects, pollution, poverty and paramilitary pay-offs. Daniel Macmillen Voskoboynik investigates.
Amid the arid farmlands of Colombia’s Córdoba province, the grassed earth gives way to bare incisions. Upturned mounds of ochre puncture the landscape. Fuming chimneys spill white smoke. This is Cerro Matoso, one of the largest ferronickel mines and processing facilities in the world.
Owned and part-owned for over 30 years by BHP Billiton, an Anglo-Australian corporation and the largest mining firm in the world, it was recently transferred to South32, a spin-off company.1
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