Sheltered from the pouring rain, Eugen David looks out from the porch of his small farmhouse over the Transylvanian town of Rosia Montana (below) and the huge crater that lies carved into the mountain behind it. Somewhere beneath the earth lies the gold that has been drawing foreigners to the area for two millennia. Now, the area has been targeted for what would be Europe’s largest cyanide goldmine, and the destruction of everything he can see: the town, the mountains that surround it and the ancient Roman mining galleries that burrow beneath it.
The issue of the mine resonates throughout Romania. The opposition group Alburnus Maior, which was started in David’s house 15 years ago, has spread across the country, mobilizing hundreds of thousands and spawning the Save Rosia Montana campaign, the biggest protest movement since the bloody revolution of 1989. Over 15 years of protests, petitions and legal battles, they have stopped the mine at every turn.
