Chile Rejects Major Industrial Port Mining Project That Threatened Penguins, Whales and Fragile Habitat - Oceana

Victory | August 21, 2017

Chile Rejects Major Industrial Port Mining Project That Threatened Penguins, Whales and Fragile Habitat

Following pressure from Oceana and its allies, Chile’s Ministerial Committee made major national news by confirming the rejection of port mining project Dominga in August 2017. The Andes Iron project had already been rejected by the Environmental Assessment Commission of Coquimbo in March 2017, but the mining company appealed the decision, causing the final verdict to fall on the Ministerial Committee. Dominga’s environmental impact assessment was strongly questioned by scientists, Oceana and its allies because it didn’t include basic required scientific information and didn’t gauge the impacts that two open pit mines and a mega port would have on the marine ecosystem and the world renowned Humboldt Penguin National Reserve.