Post #350

Guinean Pride [ Cost of Greed ] ⚙️ Guinea-Conakry’s flagship industrial project may put its real treasure at risk 🥇 The railway from the Simandou iron ore project to a port on the Atlantic Ocean runs almost across the whole of Guinea, which has become a source of pride for the local authorities, some local patriots and the foreign beneficiaries of Simandou. However, many forget that the land on which the tracks lie did not belong to them alone. 🏷 A smidgen of background information: 🔴Simandou is Guinea’s flagship high grade iron ore project in the country’s southeast, the largest of its kind in the world. 🔴Simandou is so huge that it is being developed by two mining companies at once, the Chinese Winning Consortium and the Anglo-Australian Rio Tinto. 🔴The infrastructure backbone is its 600 km railway, where Rio Tinto and Winning each hold 42.5% and the Guinean state - the remaining 15% stake. The corridor includes a new railway running across Guinea, plus new coastal port facilities around the Moribaya estuary near Senguelen. 🛑 A railway this long inevitably disrupts animal migration routes, including those of forest elephants, of which only about 60-140 remain in Guinea at all. Both the railway and the deposit itself have already led to a reduction in the natural habitats of rare species. In the area of the deposit alone, at least 4 protected monkey species live – or already used to. 🧬 Beyond the fact that elephants will no longer be able to walk back and forth, there are also problems that affect peopledirectly. Animals that can no longer find food in the forest now constantly come out onto farms and plantations, destroying crops. As a result, Guinea is losing not only its iron ore, but also its native inhabitants, who lived there long before rails were ever invented. #CostOfGreed ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow