Expansion is driven by growing speculation, new exploitation technologies as well as some new markets. Computer aided mapping, along with advances in geochemistry and geophysics, take some of the guesswork out of the geologists trade. Cyanide heap-leaching was developed three decades ago by the U.S. Bureau of Mines and first commercialized by Newmont Corporation in the United States. Clearly this practice has undesirable pollution risks and, even if the cyanide is contained, represents a long-term toxic contamination source. 8 Demand for gold remains strong so long as middle-classes convert their affluence into the wearing of jewelry a phenomenon the gold industry is banking on continuing.
China is also a substantial and growing market.
Disturbingly one out of five of these gold prospects was on indigenous territory or lands claimed by indigenous peoples . As was the case in California in the 1840s and just as Freeport has directly affected five different indigenous groups, these trends may mean that a claim to mine will become the license for cultural genocide. At the very least it will set the stage for community dislocation, cultural erosion and environmental degradation which is well documented in academic and indigenous literature as a consequence of major mines. These local impacts are often excused as the price of economic development. Many countries are bowing down to the inertia of this conventional wisdom despite growing evidence that exploitation of mineral wealth does not necessarily convert to national pr ogress.