Katy Southall provides the latest report on the forgotton island of Marinduque.

Last year, we featured an article titled 'Island Paradise' which revealed the legacy of devastation left on Marinduque Island in the Philippines by the Marcopper mine.

For more than 20 years, the Marcopper mine spewed millions of tonnes of toxic mine waste into Marinduque Island's sea and polluted its rivers. As a result, local people have lost their health, livelihoods and even their lives.

"We lost our means of livelihood. The fish catch went down because the mine waste covered our coral reefs," says Vilma Piguera, a resident of Marinduque Island. "It has affected our health. Our children have rashes and respiratory diseases." Vilma's young daughter suffered from dehabilitating illness caused by metal poisoning, which Vilma blames on the mine-waste polluted sea.

Communities on the island have been calling on Canadian-based multinational mining giant Placer Dome - the part owner of the mine and a company with extensive Australian operations - to take responsibility. The company left the Philippines in 2001 with the clean-up half finished.

Last year, our Mining Ombudsman funded a scientific team to assess the water quality of the Mogpog River. The river was the site of a disaster in 1993, when a wall of toxic mine silt swept down the river after a dam at the mine collapsed, killing two children, destroying homes and smothering farmland. Following the collapse, the dam was rebuilt, but is poorly maintained so that polluted water flows freely into the river. There are fears the dam will collapse again.

The scientific study indicates:

• The Mogpog River is polluted as a result of continual run-off and silt from the mine.
• Pollution will continue indefinitely as thousands of tonnes of mine waste dumped at the top of the river erodes.
• Levels of cadmium, copper, lead, manganese, nickel and sulphate present a hazard to human health.
• Acid and metal levels are high enough to kill most aquatic animals.

Medical studies of Calacan Bay by the Philippines Department of Health and the University of the Philippines indicate that mine waste has poisoned fish eaten by local people as well as the people themselves.¹ Cases of children needing treatment for copper, mercury and cadmium toxicity have been widely documented by the local hospital.² Children have been hospitalized to detoxify their bodies of lead.³ This traumatic process means that the children's blood must be taken from their body and cleansed.

For Ambeth, Marvic and Roden, treatment never came. They all died a slow and painful death from heavy metal poisoning. Roden's story is typical; he died from arsenic poisoning. Earlier, his doctor diagnosed him with severe mental retardation caused by lead and arsenic poisoning that caused skin lesions. These caused skin breaks that eventually led to malformation and secondary bacterial infections that "ate up his fingers."⁴