ABSTRACT
The Impact Assessment and Social and Environmental Action Plan (EAP) prepared by Apex Silver are similarly silent on the fate of llamas displaced by construction of the mine and tailings facility. The EAP includes a generic programme of assistance in llama husbandry. Through each year, carefully selected llamas are sacrificed at the festivals and rituals held in the communities as an offering to Pachamama, the earth goddess. The community had a vision of increasing the production of quinoa on communal lands as a commercial activity, starting with a tractor to plough and seed more ground than had been possible by hand. To this is added the fact that some of the llama herds have been resettled into areas where other herds were already established. As of the end of 2015, llama relocation remained one of the unresolved issues created by the arrival of the mine.
