Save Our Sperrins has set up camp with two caravans to halt the development by the American company Dalradian.
Protesters opposed a Sperrin Mountains gold mine in County Tyrone plan to “lie on the road” to stop machinery.
Their two caravans have inspired Northern Irish environmentalists.
Fidelma O’Kane of the Save our Sperrins organization stated that the mining company had requested permission to withdraw “two and a half million gallons of water” per day from the peatland.
She stated, “This area’s peatlands are a huge carbon sink. It will destroy the aquifers, rivers, streams, etc.”
However, Dalradian, a U.S. company that has explored the site for more than a decade, stated that it had spent millions of pounds protecting the environment.
Peter McKenna, manager of community relations at Dalradian, stated, “You can talk to any climate scientist in the world, and I believe they will all agree that we must either drastically reduce or eliminate our reliance on fossil fuels.
“This is only possible with a massive increase in renewables, and if we’re going to buy those installations and build the infrastructure to get that power to the point of use, we’re going to need an entirely new set of mineral and metal resources.”
The untamed West of Europe
In 2017, an industry group named Northern Ireland and the Republic among the top 10 mining company destinations worldwide.
The island has been described as “the wild west of Europe” in terms of environmental regulation, with 25% of the land in Northern Ireland and 27% of the land in the Republic licensed for mining, compared to 0.2% of the land in England.
‘Trumpian’ environmental policies
Since the Troubles, Friends of the Earth Northern Ireland head James Orr says investment has trumped the environment.
Many members of the establishment believe that Northern Ireland is now open for business,” he stated.
It’s as if we had Trumpian economic practises of deregulating environmental protections years before Trump.
Activists from the Standing Rock protest in North Dakota have visited the Sperrins to express their solidarity.
The planning application for the gold mine is currently the focus of a public hearing.
