Which is the Effect on Biodiversity?
Colombia is a very fortunate country, because of its biodiversity. Colombia has the 10% of the biodiversity in the whole word, with 479 types of mammals, 1.889 bird species, 571 amphibians, 262 palms, 3.274 butterflies and 398 bees. But at the same time, it is a mining country. Actually it is one of the most important in the mining industry. Mining in Colombia started in the XVI century when Spanish conquerors got into the streams that natives showed them to extract metals. In 1825, Europeans engineers came to Colombia to update the mining in the country, and in 1886 the first national mine regulation called "El antiguo código de minas del estado soberano de Antioquia". Colombia mining sector yields have increased steadily in recent years, and it is the main base for our economy, according to the site www.colombia.co. Based on www.latinlawyer.com, Colombia is the larger producer of nickel in South-America and the largest producer of coal in Latin-America. But bad mining methods and excessive mining can damage the environment around us.
One of the possible ways in which mining can hurt the biodiversity is due to coal fires. The first step on coal life cycle is coal mining, coal mining releases methane, which combined with mining accidents or wrong mining techniques, can possibly start a fire. Underground coal fires can burn for centuries, emitting gasses such as Carbon-Monoxide (CO), Carbon-Dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), Sulphure-dioxide (SO2), and Nitrous- oxides. These gasses fill the atmosphere, increase the surface temperature and pollute the underwater, soil and air. In addition according to www.greenpeace.org, coal burning is responsible for one third of carbon dioxide pollution, and according to -Stern report- the possible dealing with climate change would be caused by CO2 in a 20%. Coal burning creates thousands of tons of waste products that contain toxic levels of minerals and heavy metal, not to mention that coal is the principal source of contamination, and burning it contributes to climate change, since the gasses it emits stay in the atmosphere, where they trap the heat and make the Earth warmer. Mining can cause heavy metal contamination, when metals such as copper, silver and zinc get in contact with water, they are not longer important, and are useless, so they are thrown down the streams causing contamination on water bodies.