‘Displacemen; photographs from the shadow of the Tomislawice Mine’:
In January 2010 the ‘Konin’
mine opened in central western Poland. A series of open pits scattered across the area it is run by the State owned company Konin Mine, which extracts brown
coal to be used by power engineering industry.
Lignite or ‘brown coal’
supplies 93 percent of Poland’s energy and three nearby power stations burn
materials from the Konin mines. The initial impact of open cast mining is very
physical, with local lakes disappearing, forests drying up water supplies
dwindling. Local residents and Greenpeace activists argue
that open-cast mining, which sucks up water within a several-kilometre radius,
will rapidly drain the shallow Lake Goplo within few years.
I
documented and interviewed the families who have been left on the edge of The Tomislawice
Stripmine, both those that have stayed and those that have received new housing through compulsory displacement or voluntary
relocation packages.
all images © Ula Wiznerowicz
