La Colosa Gold Mine, Colombia

Jo and Ixent, pictured, are Brighton residents. Jo is Colombian, originally from the Tolima area. Ixent is British but has lived and worked in Tolima.

• La Colosa is a proposed open cast gold mining project in the beautiful mountains of Tolima, Colombia. Located in an area of lush, tropical cloudforest, it has an invaluable ecosystem with rich biodiversity. The mountains in the area also provide meltwater for irrigation for large areas of the country. Local communities are concerned about the track record of environmental devastation caused by large-scale gold mining elsewhere, an activity which involves the use of dynamite and cyanide. They fear that their rivers will become contaminated, and food security put at risk, so are campaigning to stop this project from going ahead.

  To learn more watch these three videos; Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3.

• At the Green Centre in Brighton we are organizing a photo petition to show our solidarity with the people of Tolima. We feel that this is a way of raising awareness about the social and environmental impacts of gold mining in general, and also of offering our support for the communities campaigning against La Colosa, so that their voices are heard further afield. Check out our FLICKR page. We already have pictures from Colombia, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong, Lithuania, Peru, Philippines, Portugal and Spain.

• We have selected a series of photographs from our friends in Tolima and gathered information about gold mining to bring to you an exhibition to raise awareness of the campaign. This will be launched at our Open Day on Saturday 25th July 2015.