To the peasant farmers, the campesinos, the cause of the contamination is evident. The hills contain flecks of gold ore, one of the rarest minerals on Earth. And for 22 years, the American company Newmont Mining Corp., with financing from the business-lending arm of the World Bank, has blasted apart hills and used toxic chemicals to get it out.

The gold mine, Yanacocha, is a massive operation, sprawling across hundreds of square miles at elevations as high as 13,000 feet. The International Finance Corp., part of the World Bank Group, provided loans to help build and expand the mine and owns a small stake in it...

The extraction has proved a boon to Peru’s chronically underfunded central government. Yanacocha has contributed $2.75 billion in tax revenue and royalties since operations began, according to the company. But on the farms and in the villages nearest the mine, poverty remains an unsolved scourge and antipathy toward Yanacocha runs high.

[articles includes statements by Yanacocha and IFC]

Yanacocha website