SITIO DALICNO, Philippines — Domeng Laita, 64, stands on a mountain ledge outside his home, looking down with worry on his face. Below him stands the embankment of the San Roque dam, stretching more than a kilometer (0.6 miles) along the Agno River. In 2012, a spill from a gold mine upstream sent millions of tons of waste into the river system. With a looming increase in mining activity, Laita says he dreads a repeat of the incident. Laita looks back at his home, casting another shrug then grinding his teeth. More mining means the old tunnels under his house will likely deepen. He tries not to think about the ground swallowing up his entire family. “There will be digging underneath. My house could fall into the softened ground. When the mining starts again, there’s no telling how bad it will hurt the land,” he says, walking along the mountain ridge. It wouldn’t be the first time that a mining disaster hit the town. Laita lives in Sitio Dalicno, part of Ampucao village inside the municipality of Itogon in Benguet province, in the northern Philippines. Dubbed a “gold haven” for its massive deposits of the precious metal, the region has drawn miners to the mountains for centuries. The town is part of the northern Cordillera range in the Philippines, known for its resource-rich mountains and the Igorot, the region’s majority Indigenous population. The municipality of Itogon in Benguet province, in the northern Philippines has been dubbed a “gold haven” for…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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