Abstract

SILVA ONTIVEROS, Leticia Odeth  and  SANCHEZ SALAZAR, María Teresa. Mine Close Down and Abandonment of Mining Sites in México: A “Normal” process? References to Northern Mexico. Invest. Geog [online]. 2021, n.106, e60426.  Epub June 06, 2022. ISSN 2448-7279.  https://doi.org/10.14350/rig.60426.

Mining is an activity with more than 500 years of Mexican history that in the different stages of its evolution has left a distinctive mark on the structure and organization of its territory, and in particular, this activity was the one for the emergence of a large number of settlements in the country. However, in the recognition of landscapes where mining activities were developed in the past, it is common to find uninhabited sites, "ghost towns" in ruins or with stories of abandonment that we do not fully understand; on other occasions, these are sites with few inhabitants compared to the times of peak mining activity. But the common thing in both cases is that, despite the country’s long mining tradition and the abundant cases of economic and social decline at the end of mining operations in the places, these continue to be considered, along with the environmental liabilities they leave behind. companies, as “normal” processes and conditions, immanent in mining, without so far a clear policy has been promoted by the authorities in collaboration with the companies so that the closure of mining activities is an orderly process and planned to consider social, economic and environmental actions that provide options for local inhabitants to avoid abandoning these sites.

These processes have become more conspicuous in the last thirty years, when the country transitions to the neoliberal phase of capitalism with the entry into force of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and “mega-mining” enters the scene. , with the deep territorial transformations that it causes and that include new environmental and social impacts in the communities surrounding the mines. The useful life times of a mining unit are shortened by the intense rates of mineral extraction and the mining history of the places usually culminates with the traces left in the spaces and their inhabitants by the abandonment of the mining sites once the mining It concludes its activities Important mining ventures that created and grew towns promising stability, in the end they left deserted places as their inheritance and with great ecological damage without repairing.

The objective of this work is to contribute to the understanding of the social effects linked to mining from the analysis of what we call "naturalization" of the process of abandonment of mining sites, through which it has been systematically left to the fate of its inhabitants the survival and, therefore, the authorities and mining companies have neglected the problem of the future of these places from an economic, social and environmental point of view. From critical geography and its methodology applied to landscape analysis, elements are provided to examine the process of closure of mining activities in the Mexican case, exemplified in some towns of Zacatecas and Sonora in northern Mexico, which have stood out for the importance of its mining production nationwide.

For this, an approach is made to the understanding of the habituality with which the abandonment of mining sites occurs, normalizing or naturalizing the social effects caused by the completion of the mining activity and the environmental damages associated with it from the concepts of closure of mining activities and abandonment of mining sites, and of the phenomena that are observed around it, such as the emergence of "ghost towns", or what some authors call "zombie mining" and "sacrificial territories", terms that are observed may refer to many of the cases of mining sites in Mexico.

To address the cases that served to exemplify these processes in Latin America and Mexico, first the way in which Mexican legislation and public policies contemplate the closure and abandonment of mining sites was reviewed, and later, interviews were conducted with government officials. researchers and experts on the subject.

As findings, different approaches to what could be considered a mine closure situation were identified, even when inconsistencies and contradictions in the information disclosed are the common denominator. Finally, it concludes with a reflection on the non-existence of planning for the closure of mines in Mexico, which perpetuates the lack of regulation in this regard and leaves the survival of the inhabitants of the sites where mining activities ended instead of to their fate. that through joint collaboration between the State, companies and communities, they are endowed with capacities to preserve their right to a healthy environment and to co-create with them economic alternatives that allow their survival at the end of mining operations .

Keywords : Mexican mining; mine closure; mining abandonment; social impacts of mining; randomness of mining activities.

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