In a week...

In a week, I have seen things I could not have imagined.

Mounds of earth weeping blood-red sulfuric acid into streams that children play by. Pebbles cemented into a metallic pavement by the iron that washes over them. Clear rivers that have lost all biodiversity, void of life for kilometres. Millions of tonnes of mine waste, enough to form a new delta as the river meets the sea - slowly releasing acid and metal into the ocean for thousands of years to come.

I have waded past acid bogs that could be mined for the metals they have accumated. Stood in the freezing rain, measuring the water table along a river. Climbed sand dunes, walked through a lunar landscape of waste rock, and pushed through tree-ferns to find a rainforest waterfall.

( More of the story, and a few photos... )