Human-Environment Relations: A Case Study of Donana National Park, Andalucia, Spain and the Los Frailes Mine Toxic Spill of 1998
Stephen P. Broker
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In pursuing the Donana National Park/Los Frailes mining accident as a case study, I have my students read and analyse the news releases (listed under Student reading) at three different stages in time. The first set of news releases comes from the period late April to mid-May 1998, when the spill was announced and the initial government response to the disaster took place. The second set dates to the summer and fall of 1998 (spanning the time that I was in Andalucia, Spain), when various opinions were expressed about the spill and assessments had been made about its severity. The third set comes from the period January 1999, when the Donana National Park management board and the WWF recommended the permanent closing of the mine, to April 1999, when Boliden sought to reopen the mine and subsequently did so, and to the most recent past, including the latest information available about the spill. I summarize the first set of news releases above. I have summaries of the main aspects of the second and third time periods, although they are not published here.