07/06/2024

Second Episode of the Series “Look Around You” – Life and Death of the Golden River on the EU Delegation’s Website in Serbia (VIDEO)

Are the rivers near the mining sites in Bor and Majdanpek condemned to death? We explore the answer to this question in the second episode of the documentary series “Look Around You”.

In March 2021, one of the largest ecological disasters in the past few decades occurred in the Timok region, when uncontrolled discharge of wastewater from an abandoned mining pit in Majdanpek flowed into the Pek River. The volume of toxins released was so great that the Pek changed color up to Kučevo, 50 kilometers from Majdanpek, and the entire fish population in most of the river was destroyed. Water samples from the Mali Pek at three locations were alarming…

Due to the uncontrolled release of enormous amounts of various toxic substances into the Pek, the Regional Institute for Renewable Energy and Environment (RERI) filed a criminal complaint against the mining company Serbia Zijin Copper. The competent court in Negotin applied the principle of opportunity, concluding the matter with a payment of one million dinars for humanitarian purposes.

Unfortunately, this is not the only instance where the Zijin mining company, among other polluters, avoided responsibility or received merely symbolic fines for evident law violations and causing immense environmental damage. It is precisely this “cheap justice,” or the penal policies of the courts, which more often encourage rather than deter violations of laws and regulations, that is the theme of the second part of the episode…

You can watch the second episode of the series “Look Around You” below.

This documentary episode was produced within the project “Environmental response to mining expansion in Timočka Krajina” funded by the European Union, and implemented by the Association “Za Drinking Fountains”, the Association of Young Researchers Bor, Civic Library “Europe” Bor and Children’s Center Zaječar. The content of the documentary episode is entirely responsibility of these associations and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

Source: EU u Srbiji