“I am not happy with the destruction of the environment. I may not get even 200,000 dinars ($137) from the miners. I don't want [the quarry] anymore, so this beautiful nature doesn't disappear,” said Younis Rahim, 64, from the village of Hanai Dn, which has lost many of its old trees in the decade that the nearby quarry has been operating.
“The quarries have been here for years. Specifically, they have destroyed the natural landscape of the village. Go and look at the nature, you'll see how completely it has been destroyed,” said another villager, Zendin Salih.
Ali Haji Mohammed owns one of the quarrying companies. “Every day, we mine 7 to 10 trucks of stones and export them to Sulaimani, Erbil and Baghdad for building construction, after cutting and shaping,” he said.
He said they pay the government for a mining license. They also pay the villagers and help fund infrastructure improvements.
“We get permission from the government and it costs us 10 million dinars. We pay 25,000 to 40,000 dinars per truck of stones to the villagers. We help the villages with roads and other basic service projects,” he said.
He acknowledged they do cut some trees, saying it’s in order to expand the road for their trucks and they pay a fine to the forestry police for each tree they chop.
He said nearly 10,000 families from Hawraman, Said Sadiq, Darbandikhan, and Kalar depend on the mining for their livelihoods and the sector faces competition from cheaper Iranian imports.
The local government and forestry police issue the mining permits. Officials from the environment department say they are not consulted and would not approve quarrying in forested areas.
“We don’t allow stone mining in the forests at all. This can be done in barren areas as long as there is no forest nearby. Giving permission to quarry companies there is fine,” said Subhan Hussein, spokesperson for Sulaimani’s environment department.
Additional reporting by Peshawa Bakhtyar
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