Mountain of Troubles
by Sinziana Demian
10 September 2008
Source: www.tol.cz
Small business could aid a Romanian village’s recovery from a crippling dispute over mining.
ROSIA MONTANA, Romania | Last month 22-year-old Andrei Gruber decided it was time to write a new page in the history of this Transylvanian mountain village and open its first guesthouse.
Gruber converted part of his home into a hostel with six bunk beds and a kitchen. He charges 12 euros a night per person and has already started seeing interest from tourists attracted by the scenery, natural reserves and preserved Roman mining tunnels.
Anywhere else in Romania, now flooded with small guesthouses, Gruber's opening would go largely unnoticed. But it seems monumentally important in Rosia Montana, which for the last decade has been center stage in a fierce battle between a Canadian mining company and a few hundred locals backed by environmentalists. The conflict has brought life to a virtual halt in Rosia Montana, blocking development and devastating the village's economy.
At stake for the mining company, Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (RMGC), 80 percent owned by Gabriel Resources of Canada, are 330 tons of gold and 1,400 tons of silver, which it wants to extract using cyanide in what would be Europe’s largest open-pit gold mine. For locals such as Gruber, who've watched their town and standard of living deteriorate in the standoff with RMGC, on the line is the very future of this long-time mining town, which they believe is in tourism, not mineral extraction.
DEMOLISHING A VILLAGE TO SAVE IT
“I had the guts to start this against all odds because I was tired of just waiting around for bigger forces to decide my life,” Gruber said. “I want to build a future here, in this village, and opening this small hostel is a very good first step. Mining defined Rosia Montana in the past, tourism can be its future."
To extract the precious metals, RMGC needs to buy out every property in the village and help the locals relocate. Some took the money and left years ago, but people like Gruber decided to stay on and fight “The Company.”
In 2000 several locals joined to form Alburnus Maior, an association which bears the Latin name for the town from the days when the Romans themselves mined for gold here. The group, now representing more than 300 families, gained international visibility when people like environmentalist Teddy Goldsmith, actress Vanessa Redgrave and billionaire philanthropist George Soros decided to support its cause.
Daily life in the village has nevertheless remained insecure as the battle with RMGC continued.
“Not knowing what would happen the next day or week has been extremely disturbing," said Zeno Cornea, one of the most prominent anti-mining activists. "We had no idea what we could count on.”
The uncertainty has been compounded by high unemployment following the downsizing and eventual closure of Rosia Montana's old state-run mine, in 2006. The job losses were only partially offset by RMGC’s hiring 325 full-time workers, most from the village, for the initial stages of the mine project. And entrepreneurship – in tourism-related areas, for instance – hasn't been an option because a development plan adopted by the local government in 2002 to support RMGC changed Rosia Montana from a residential to an industrial area, which meant virtually no one could get a building permit, even for their own property.
While thousands of Romanians and foreigners began visiting the village, no guesthouses or restaurants were to be found anywhere.
“This order has crippled us and left no room for any private initiative here,” said another local, Sorin Jurca. “This is how Rosia Montana, despite its nationally and internationally high profile, has been unable to develop in any way.”
CYANIDE MEMORIES
In the meantime, RMGC seemed to have everything going its way – until autumn 2007, that is, when the Environment Ministry rejected the company's environmental impact evaluation report, following a similar decision by a court in Cluj-Napoca.
With the mining project now on hold, RMGC laid off more than two-thirds of its employees and stopped buying property in the village in February. RMGC claims that 77 percent of the locals who have not yet sold their houses have promised to do so when and if the company receives new authorization permits.
Alburnus Maior contests this figure, arguing that RMGC is using an inflated number to pressure locals into selling because, theoretically, one person could thwart the project by refusing to move, as home ownership is a constitutional right in Romania. Many residents, however, complain that RMGC's buyout offers, averaging around 200,000 lei (56,000 euros), are too low to relocate to any of the neighboring towns.
While RMGC waits to see whether its environmental report will be approved, it's facing yet another potential hurdle in a new proposal by a consortium of civil society groups to ban the use of cyanide in mining. Parliament is expected to debate a bill on the matter in its autumn session. The proposal is a reaction to a 2000 cyanide spill at a gold mine in Baia Mare, a town in northern Transylvania, that has been called the biggest ecological disaster in Europe since Chernobyl.
Thousands of tons of fish died then in the Tisza and Danube rivers, and the drinking water for more than 2 million people in Romania and bordering countries was contaminated. Cyanide mining has since been the subject of much debate in Romania, with a recent poll showing that 67 percent of Romanians oppose it.
Nevertheless, RMGC isn't giving up. The company has already sunk more than 200 million euros into what it estimates will be a 1.8-billion-euro project.
"We are confident that despite all this hostility our project will eventually be successful," said Mihai Kiss, coordinator of the company's information center. "Responsible mining, such as we are planning here, is the only viable solution for this region."
Gruber disagrees. Conceding that the business climate isn't ideal at the moment, he remains hopeful that the early interest he's seen from tourists will blossom. Gruber also said he hopes his guesthouse, which did not violate the development plan because he didn't build any new structures, will give other locals the courage to start their own businesses.
“We need to get things moving here on a larger scale. Many people believe in the tourism potential of Rosia Montana, so I hope they will take on this challenge and go into business just like I did,” he said.
SMALL SIGNS OF CHANGE
There are signs that they just might. Several dozen villagers are participating in a Soros-sponsored course on operating an agro-tourism business. However, some lack the money to start a business, and others are still hesitant about investing in such insecure times. Most believe they need a tourism association to support and protect their investment.
“Taking part in this course has renewed my hope that things at Rosia can change for the better and that we’ll finally have a viable alternative to live decent lives here,” said 58-year-old Miti Cornea, who said she will never leave the village.
Fellow villager Radu Dandea, a former miner who is now unemployed, is also trying to expand his options for the future. He has driving permits for all vehicle classes, certification as a bricklayer and a diploma from a home restoration course he hopes to use if a comprehensive renovation project ever begins here. Dozens of old houses have been left to crumble alongside the village's roads, as some owners sold and left while others have been wary of investing anything in their homes for years.
“The situation is becoming untenable for me and my family,” Dandea said. “We have done everything in our power to resist moving away, but something must change here soon. I need to be able to feed my children.”
Like Gruber, Dandea strongly believes the area’s tourism potential is a real alternative to mining. By sticking together, local people hope to access European Union rural development funds and invigorate life in the village.
Locals are also eager to see what the new mayor, Eugen Furdui, is really all about. He defeated the incumbent, Virgil Narita, who used to be known as “The Company’s man,” in June.
For now Furdui is sticking to diplomacy when it comes to RMGC. He says Rosia Montana's mining tradition must continue but declined to comment on the use of cyanide.
“There’s a rich gold reserve here that we must extract one way or the other, as it is not worth anything if it’s left where it lies right now,” Furdui said in a telephone interview.
Sinziana Demian is a writer for Formula AS magazine in Bucharest.
