Cerro de Pasco: A City Disappearing Due to Mining

What happens when streets, squares and buildings start to disappear in a city?

This is the case of Cerro de Pasco, capital of the district of Chaupimarca and at the same time of the province of Pasco, located at 4380 m.a.s.l. in the highlands of the Peruvian Andes. It is in this place that the constant expansion of the “open-pit” mining method has devoured the urban fabric, resulting in permanent damage to the territory as its public spaces, heritage buildings and, consequently, its history, disappear.

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The city of Cerro de Pasco is an emblematic case, as it shows the consequences of the uncontrolled growth of mining activity in the territory, causing the marginalisation of inhabited areas, severe contamination of water resources, loss of natural areas, among other catastrophes. Consequently, in 2008, the relocation of the city was declared “of public necessity and national interest”, which to date has not been carried out.

Faced with this particular scenario, in his article “Cerro de Pasco and the Paradox of Development: Imagining a transition to post-extractivism for a territory in extractive dependence” published by the Iberoamerican Social platform, architect Flavio Vila presents a possible scenario in which the participation of the regional administration together with the population is achieved in order to generate a just and habitable city, without the need to relocate it.

To this end, the article analyses the case using various theoretical and conceptual tools, which are divided into three main sections, thus achieving a complete diagnosis. The first section focuses on a chronological analysis of the mine located in the middle of the city, studying the events from colonial times to the republican era.

As a second section, the city of Cerro de Pasco is studied under the concept of the “new rurality“, highlighting how the “open pit” has caused diverse groups of the population, along with the collective memory of the city, to be negatively affected. Subsequently, the third section invites us to imagine the city in a post-development context, ending with a proposal to re-imagine Cerro de Pasco “towards a horizon of socio-environmental justice and biodiversity conservation”.

The article seeks not only to raise awareness of the consequences of the lack of regulation in cities where aggressive mining expansion rules their destiny but also to show how proposals can be made in which the population can coexist in harmony with the extractive technique.

This is why the publication concludes with a mention of various topics of debate for future regulatory agendas and policy initiatives. On the other hand, it is stressed that although Cerro de Pasco is a peculiar case, the scenario of urban expansion around an open-pit mine has already started to be replicated, as is the case of the Colquijirca CCPP, located 8km south of the mine.

In conclusion, the author mentions: “I believe that our territories must remain, evolve, be inhabited by worlds and be the space where living and non-living beings relate symmetrically. They must be imperishable, welcome us like our Mothers, who were there before our births, and let us go because we are the ephemeral ones”.

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