Topic: The Environmental Impact of Mining
Country: Greece
Delegate Name: Cyrus Bishop
School: Vicksburg High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Greece position papers GLIMUN 2017 committees
Mining is an important and valuable industry for Greece and for the World. However, there are many environmental issues involved, such as polluting the air, water, and valuable farming soil. While mining is important to Greece, the land, and water that could be damaged by toxic runoff from mines are even more so, as fishing and agriculture are the most profitable businesses. Companies such as the Eldorado Mining company have started debates about environmentally minded parts of the Greek Mining Code, such as, is it strict enough, by mining in areas with a high arsenic content and potentially damaging the nearby ecosystems, polluting the air and lowering groundwater levels in order to be able to mine for more material, while materials explosive in nature, such as dynamite and AMFO destroy the ground and mountains where plants such as chickpeas, lentils, olives, and grapes are grown. Common mining practices also ruin tourism locations, a prime source of money for Greece.Greece has attempted to solve these problems with The Mining Code, passed 1973, and updated in 1976, '77, and '84, which, while improving mining practices and regulating them, did not have as large as an effect as was hoped for. Greece hopes to solve these problems by tightening restrictions on unsafe mining practices, increasing penalties on breaking regulations, and update mining regulations to better control the destructive effect mining has on the land, water and air of Greece. And finally, Greece is looking forward to working with the EU, US, Italy, France, and Bulgaria.
