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Effects of the Discharge of Iron Ore Tailings
the south of Ecuador. The rest of the region has moderate indices, the main
threads for biodiversity being fisheries, pollution, urban development, mine
exploitation, oil industries, aquaculture, marine transport, invasive species,
and climate change.
From a world perspective, Latin America has occupied for long time an
intermediate position, with a lower level of urbanization than Europe, North
America, and Oceania but a higher level than Asia and Africa (Browning,
1958). The Latin American population, with ca. 380 million people, is
concentrated in cities close to the coast whose development has been accompanied by increasing human activities and an exponential demand of
infrastructure, industrialization, and tourism (Barragán, 2001). The model
replicates what has been already experienced in the developed world with
bad consequences: investors looking for fast benefits, without consideration
for social development and environmental protection, and without considering scientific knowledge (Dias et al., 2012).
Habitat disruption because of expanding aquaculture, agriculture, and other activities, such as the discharge of wastewaters, are among the most common environmental effects on South American coasts, degrading mangroves,
estuaries, and coral reefs (Campuzano et al., 2011). While the development
of the fisheries, aquaculture, and industrialization is relatively low, tourism
on the coasts has become one of the most dynamic activities in Latin America (Fayissa, Nsiach, and Tadesse, 2009; Lionetti and González, 2012). This
diagnosis coincides with what was reported 10 years earlier by the Global
Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from
Land-based Activities from the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP), which highlighted the main environmental problems for South
America: (a) inappropriate discharge of urban wastewater; (b) pollution by
industrial discharge; (c) degradation of aquatic environments because of urban expansion; (d) inadequate disposal of solid waste; (e) activities related to
the extraction, transport, and storage of oil and its derivates (Marcovecchio,
2000). Mining activities, especially, including the oil industry, generate important impacts on coastal zones, as in the case of coal in Brazil, aluminum
in Surinam and Guyana, copper in Chile and Panamá, oil in Venezuela,

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and gold in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala, with additional effects
through the expansion or construction of ports necessary for the export of
their products (Barragań, 2001; Escobar, 2002).
Nevertheless, in Latin America the ca. 700 protected marine areas, which
cover more than 300,000 km2, representing 1.5% of the coastal and continental waters (Guarderas, Hacker, and Lubchenco, 2008), are evidence of
a coastal zone with a rich biodiversity, comprising 27 ecoregions (Chatwin
and Rybock, 2007; Spalding et al., 2006; Sullivan-Sealy and Bustamante,
1999).
Diverse regional inventories, developed for the southeastern Pacific (Chile,
Perú, Ecuador, Colombia, and Panamá) during the last decade by the Permanent Commission for the Southern Pacific and others (DIRECTEMAR,
2007; see CPPS, 2012, for review) are evidence of a coast affected by domestic and industrial wastewater discharges, especially in Perú and Chile (Sanchez and Orozco, 1996). In the region, industrial activity contributes, with
discharges of high organic content coming mainly from processing plants
and canneries of fishery products, followed by the food industry, as well as
extraction, exploitation, and construction involving soil movement (agriculture, forestry, and mining; GESAMP, 2001), with many contaminants
reaching the sea through more than 100 rivers. The mining industry contributes in the region with inert sediments that can be very stable in chemical terms and grain size varying from silt to fine sands, as well as heavy metals, quicksilver, cyanide, acid waters, sulfates, and carbonates. Once these
pollutants are disposed of in the sea, they alter the temperature and pH, thus
altering biological cycles and the entire ecosystem (Escobar, 2002).
In Chile, increasing urbanization along the coast has produced an increase
in direct and indirect discharge of waste into the sea that, according to the
CPPS, is the highest among the countries of the South American Pacific
(DIRECTEMAR, 2007). Along the Chilean coast, more than 300 industrial plants affect the marine environment, with those generating the greatest
effects in the mining industry in the north, cellulose industry in the south,
and fishery industries in the center and south (Andrade et al., 2010; OCDE,
2005; Sanchez and Orozco, 1996). Additionally, the Chilean coast is full

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