10372 - The Gold of Thrace is Thrace

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Athena Kehagias

The Gold of Thrace is not the gold but Thrace. If we do not realize that, we will fall into the trap of the market, which is trying to buy everything without paying attention to the environment and our people. As a committee we were invited by the highest-level members of politics in Greece, to take a stand on the issue of the exploitation of rare earths.
After we pointed out that there are now rare earths at sea as well, after the Japan’s discovery of minerals in the Pacific in 2011, we analyzed the mining methodology of recent technologies and concluded that, at this stage of technology, there is no method that does not destroy the environment permanently and this in worldwide level.
Indeed, so that our analysis would be more practical , we compared it with the data we know from other countries as well,regarding the extraction of gold with cyanidation.
The conversion of a rich area to a lunar landscape is not only unacceptable to the current society because of the pollution it produces but also for the future results due to its definitive character. So we can not, at this stage, get started on this process because it is a crime against the Greek environment. And this conclusion is not going to change, if there is no change in the mining method and there is no development in the technology of the sector. We all want for our Greece to have a economic growth and for this reason we are fighting so vigorously for its Exclusive Economic Zone.
Simply, we just always keep our country in mind, and not on an unfit approach of the economy . We will not sacrifice our Greece and the Greece of the future to solve local economic problems with a few job positions. All of us rent our land to our children and we have no right to destroy their property. The technology and the economy should help our people and not violate their rights to a future. In other words we can not plunder our Thrace because of its gold. For centuries we are finding gold in so many ways, so there is no reason to accept a chemical process that destroys everything, neither for gold nor for rare earths. And if the advocates of gold insist with their brutality, they will receive a counter attack against them by all of the Hellenism. We never gave to any barbarian to remain in our land, and we will not start doing so now by ourselves, because they assume us small.