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Dirty Gold Campaign
by Howl J. Baggins, Global Justice for Animals and the Environment
Earth Works is doing a campaign to convince jewelers to sign on to their agreement to have “responsible gold sourcing”, called No Dirty Gold. This campaign would involve working with them, protesting outside jewelers that have not signed onto this (notably, Target), and educating people through protests and teach-ins .about how horrible gold mining companies like Barrick Gold are, and all the horrible things they have done, and why we should be careful when mining gold. Or stop mining gold almost all together, as jewelry seems to hardly justify an extractive industry The main goal would be adding more jewelers, with the added benefit of raising some awareness about the horrors of gold mining at a popular store.
About the No Dirty Gold Campaign http://www.earthworksaction.org/20040211_PRintl_NDGlaunch.cfm
About the Campaign Against Target http://www.nodirtygold.org/recent_actions.cfm
One country this camapaign could address, among others, would be Chile: http://www.nodirtygold.org/chileespolon.cfm
Chile would make an excellent new campaign, as two groups (ForestEthics and ProtestBarrick.net) have done extensive work on mining and lumber problems in Chile. Chile is also a perfect subject for an extractive industries campaign, as the nation is overly dependent on them for its growth. It also has some of the highest levels of inequality in the world and a unique economy that arose out of the original site of the (failed) neoliberal experiment in Chile under its dictator Pinochet. A campaign against the exploitation of the resources here could easily fit with campaigns against the high inequality in Chile, and to a condemnation of the history of neoliberal experiments as brutal affairs, and its obvious failure as an experiment (Pinochet himself, after a few years of experimenting with the privatizations recommended by Milton Friedman, his close friend, backtracked when he saw the glaringly obvious poor performance of the experiment). (7) There are also incredibly unique circumstances in Chile's ecosystem that would allow for easy propaganda - from “save the oldest tree”, to “protect the smallest deer”.
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