Dominican Sisters Accompany, Advocate for Displaced Farmers in the Dominican Republic
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About three years ago, farmers in the western part of the Dominican Republic were displaced from their homes and land with the arrival of a sugar corporation. "Every day the media brought news of the mistreatments [the farmers] had suffered at the hands of the landowner, who with his economic power and influence had evicted them from, and destroyed their plantations," said Adrian Dominican Sister Luisa Campos, OP, a native of the Dominican Republic who ministers at Centro Antonio Montesino in Santo Domingo. She added that 12-year-old Carlos Rojas Peguero was killed during conflicts over the land.
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Sister Mary Ellen Leciejewski, OP, System Vice President of Environmental Sustainability for CommonSpirit Health, was one of 70 leaders to participate in the 2019 Laudato Si' Challenge.
The event, which was December 3-5, 2019, in Rome, takes its inspiration from the 2015 encyclical by Pope Francis on the environmental dangers the world is facing and the devastation that climate change is causing to all, especially vulnerable people.
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Corporate Responsibility: Tailings Dams and Mining
The mining of metals results in significant changes in the environment. Mines can be as large as two miles wide by two miles long and ¾ mile deep, bringing about a significant change in the landscape. In addition, the mining process requires a great amount of water to separate minerals from the ore, leaving behind a large amount of waste rock with the consistency of sand. This material, referred to as "tailings," is placed in a pond.
On January 25, 2019, in Brumadinho, Brazil, a tailings dam
collapsed, spilling more than 3.1 billion gallons of waste and causing the death of more than 270 people.
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