No other industrial activity is as devastating as open-pit mining due to:

• The amount of terrain affected
• This terrain may be rainforest, mountainous or agricultural or contain important water tables.
• The procedures use enormous quantities of chemicals and toxic materials. As part of the extraction process, the contaminating waste products are dumped back into the environment.
• It provokes the collapse of agricultural economies and produces social impacts such as: population displacement and the loss of community, territorial and environmental rights.
• Throughout, open-pit mining generates millions of tons of waste and poisonous material which are subsequently abandoned on the land.

By definition, mining is a non-sustainable industry as it uses resources to exhaustion. Sub-surface mining used to exploit rich underground veins of ore but miners working with shovel and pick-axe are things of the past, today mining uses modern machinery to reach mineral deposits scattered over large areas of land. Every study and piece of serious research agrees that no industrial activity is as environmentally, socially and culturally aggressive as open-pit mining.

Amongst the principal environmental impacts, the following must be underlined: damage to the general eco-system, air pollution, the contamination of surface and subterranean water supplies, damage to the soil, harmful impacts upon the flora and fauna, alterations to the local micro-climate and visual ramifications after the mining is complete.