“Have you ever seen what a lead mine does to nature?” Rachid, a new farmer who recently returned to cultivate his family’s land on the heights of Amizour, about twenty kilometres from Béjaïa (230 kilometres east of Algiers), in a move encouraged by the Algerian state, is worried. What will become of this valley of Soummam, which he looks at with emotion, a bucolic setting where fields of orange trees, clementines, olive trees, fig trees and vines stretch out? Rachid’s company has a name: Tala Hamza, a town next to his own. This is where the zinc and lead mining project will begin in two years, an investment considered strategic by Algiers.
As the country seeks to supplement its oil revenues – subject to fluctuations in global hydrocarbon prices – President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the favourite in the elections scheduled for 7 September, regularly insists on the need to speed up the development of the mining industry. Tala Hamza joins a long list of projects ranging from Tébessa (phosphates) to Gara Djebilet (iron), including reserves of rare earths spread across the country. A major economic challenge, since it involves attracting foreign investors, Chinese, Russian or Western.
An internal political issue also due to the possible resistance of the local populations. In this valley of Soummam, they alternate between anger and resignation in the face of authorities determined to impose their point of view. “We still find the best lands in the valley here.Rachid breathes, regretting that a campsite has replaced, in 2023, near his orchard, vines whose management the State had handed over to farmers. As far as I know, the boys [paysans] He did not protest, the situation was already very tense at that time. »
It all started in 2021, when the population of Amizour was informed of the project through a public call for research published by the town hall. The mountain had already been explored for decades and the presence of zinc and lead had been confirmed, even the Algerian press classified the deposit as “among the five largest in the world”However, no mining operations had been started there. This caution is explained by the risks linked to the environment, but also, since 2014, by fears about the ability of the Australian company Terramin to meet its financial commitments, a partner of Algerian public companies in a joint venture. It is this same company, called Western Mediterranean Zinc Spa (WMZ), that is now associated with the Chinese company Sinosteel. The mine, which is no longer “open-air” but “underground” to reduce environmental risks, is planned to operate for nineteen years from 2026.
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