OTTAWA, Jan 5: With zinc sources drying up and demand forecast to surge, resource hungry China is looking to Canada to approve two giant mines and close the gap — but environmentalists and roving caribou stand in the way.

There are rich deposits to be had at the Izok and High lakes in Nunavut, in Canada’s Arctic territory, with companies anxious to build the transport links and infrastructure needed to extract the bluish, grey element and move it out.

An Australian subsidiary of Chinese state-owned Minmetals Resources Ltd has proposed that two multi-billion dollar mines be built and Canada’s government is considering granting regulatory approval for the project.

The plan would involve the partial draining of several lakes to access vast zinc deposits, building dams to divert water, as well as the construction of an airstrip, and a port at Grays Bay on the central Arctic coast. Hundreds of kilometres of roads and more than 60 bridges would complete the project. Ships would access the port through the Northwest Passage.

The scheme is projected to be capable of annually producing 180,000 tons of zinc and another 50,000 tons of copper, over 12 years. At the centre of the proposal, however, are calving grounds for the roving Bathurst caribou herd, a population that has fallen tenfold in recent decades to about 30,000 animals at the last count in 2009.

The animals begin their annual migration south after calving, but return and tend to use the same areas year after year, but a mine would present them with a different challenge altogether. Izok Lake would have five separate underground and open-pit operations producing zinc, lead and copper. High Lake, 300 kilometres northeast, would have another three.

The scale of the mines have attracted concern from environmental groups — MMG, Minmentals’ subsidiary, also wants to build a processing plant on-site to handle 6,000 tons of ore a day, a tank farm to hold 35 million litres of diesel for the operation, and residential camps for hundreds of workers.—AFP