Thai Villagers Protest Against Canadian Mining Project by Phairath Khampha 26 December 2002 Villagers in Thailand's Udon Thani Province held a traditional rice-harvesting ceremony on December 22, 2002 as part of a protest against a mining project proposed by Asia Pacific Resources Ltd (APR), a Canadian mining corporation. Laura Millay, a member of the non-governmental organisation Education Network for Global and Grassroots Exchange, said in a statement that thousands of villagers gathered to protest the potash project. APR planned to dig to a depth less than 350 metres beneath houses and farms of local residents in a 2,500-hectare area to extract potash, or potassium-containing ore. The potassium is used primarily as an ingredient in commercial fertilisers. Villagers became concerned that the project would damage the local environment, and that the potash-refining process may cause water shortages in local villages and salt contamination of farmland, forests and water sources, Millay said. The mine itself would cause land subsidence, possibly damaging roads, the railroad and private land, she said. This has been observed elsewhere with similar potash-mining projects. Underground mining operations of this scale are new to Thailand, she said, and they only became possible in November 2002 with the passing of an amended mineral bill, making it legal for corporations to mine beneath private land without having to ask permission from landowners. The amendments were challenged in the Constitutional Court without success by a group of senators, as the amendments seemed to favour the country's economic and political elite in their mining ventures with foreign mining companies and could bring harm to local people living in the vicinity of proposed mines.