Nuevos conflictos ambientales mineros en Argentina. El caso Esquel (2002-2003)

Since 2003, Argentina is experiencing an increasing amount of environmental conflicts related to mining projects. This article analyses the first mining conflict that started a public debate about gold mining activities and its impacts, in Esquel City (2002-2003). This experience led to the organization of a national network of affected communities. This article studies the environmental conflict cycle: its beginning, stages, actors, viewpoints and languages of valuation, considering the stakes at each stage. The conflict started with a dispute over the information and the risk perceptions that undermined the communities’ trust in the project and its promoters. A local movement was constituted to oppose the centralized and closed evaluation and decision-making scheme. The community developed an autonomous analysis of the project and its impacts, expressing it through a variety of languages of valuation that could not be integrated in the decision making process. Towards the end of the conflict, the structural foundations of the conflict are seen as the lack of local participatory spaces and the unequal distribution of the benefits and burdens of mining activities promoted by the national regulatory framework.