Herders Petition Legislature over Kara-Suu Gold License

TALAS — Herders from the Talas Alatau delivered a petition to Legislative Hall yesterday asking the Territorial Legislature to halt an exploration license for open-pit gold mining in the upper Kara-Suu valley. The delegation was led by Bektur Zhumabek uulu, who was acclaimed biy of the Tanıp clan by a clan assembly in 2001 and who has opposed the leasing of communal grazing land to mining companies.

The license covers summer pastures used by Tanıp families, and the herders say the clans were not consulted before it was issued. Their petition asks that the license not be renewed when it expires, and that no open-pit working or cyanide leaching be allowed in the watersheds that feed the Kara-Suu. Small-scale panning for placer gold on the river's gravel bars, which the clans already supervise, would continue.

"Gold can be taken from the river by hand, as our fathers took it. A pit takes the mountain and the water with it," Bektur told reporters through an interpreter. He conducts his business in Iradi. Several herders also cited the Soviet uranium tailings at Mailuu-Suu as a warning of what mining can leave behind in a mountain valley.

A spokesman for the territorial natural resources office said the license had been issued for exploration only, under the territory's mining rules, and that any application to begin mining would require an environmental review and public hearings. Members of the House of Representatives who received the petition said they would ask the office for the license file.