Our mountains of gold shall be green: The fight to protect Romania’s Rosia Montana
- Written by Miriam Țepeș-Handaric
- Illustration by Shari Avendaño
- Edited by Tina Lee
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Key strategy: Conservation
Conservation relates to political advocacy, organizing and lobbying to preserve nature or natural resources and protect them from extraction or exploitation by humans.
Key strategy: Environmental Justice
Advocates for environmental justice organize around the right to a clean and healthy environment, free from pollution and construction that harms humans, animals and plants. They often emphasize the rights of communities forced to live, work, or go to school alongside hazardous environmental conditions.
Key strategy: Strategic litigation
Strategic litigation (or impact litigation) refers to legal actions used to bring about broader social change. A lawsuit targets a policy or practice, forcing courts to rule on whether it is lawful, and so setting precedent for all those affected by the policy/practice.
Key tactic: Heritage politics
Tapping into historical cultural identity when seeking to influence political policy is an example of heritage politics, which attempts to frame political questions in terms of preserving aspects of cultural heritage.
Key tactic: Protest Art
To mobilize the public, raise awareness, and provide imagery for protest actions, political movements often utilize posters, logos, and stylized slogans. These can themselves utilize humor, mockery, grief, or other tools in the artistic arsenal.
“Some moments feel like they’re from Netflix."
“We used to joke that there is an energy, a spirit of Roșia Montană,” says Roxana Pencea. A petite woman with piercing blue eyes, she speaks calmly and softly of the years she spent fighting to defend the site from a colossal mining project. But there is no mistaking the intensity of her feelings for Roșia Montană. “Once it gets hold of you, there is no escape,” she says. “I wasn’t the only one who experienced this transformation. Many others lived this too.”
Nestled in Transylvania’s Apuseni Mountains, the architecture of Roșia Montană’s houses and churches are testament to a richly multiethnic past. But there are other riches hidden beneath the village. First recorded as a Roman mining settlement in 131AD, the area is riddled with ancient mining galleries. Gold – as well as silver and copper – were mined here throughout the Middle Ages, under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and up until the early 2000s, before Romania joined the EU.
A destination for centuries of prospectors, it is little wonder Roșia Montană has its share of superstitions – the best-known being of vâlve, spirits said to change into human form and lure miners toward unbelievable luck or doom.
Roxana, who now works for the NGO Declic, was first lured to Roșia Montană in the summer of 2002 by news of villagers calling for support in the fight against a new mining development.
Gold Corporation Roșia Montană (RMGC, or GOLD) promised the mine would bring tens of thousands of jobs. But it would also erase four mountains and displace 2,000 people to make way for a giant decantation lake, where cyanide would be used to extract gold. Canadian mining company Gabriel Resources, RMGC’s largest investor, said the site had reserves of 330 tons of gold and 1,600 tons silver and the project would be Europe’s biggest open pit mine.
But it came up against what would grow into Romania’s biggest resistance movement since the fall of the communist regime. Roxana was a student in the city of Cluj-Napoca when she answered the call from locals defending their land. And she was far from alone. Fellow students joined her, and they found themselves taking part in a meeting of people from all over the country, which was later considered the inauguration of the Salvați Roșia Montană – Save Roșia Montană – movement.
Over the next two decades, Save Roșia Montană would spread their message around the world, be endorsed by Hollywood celebrities, and face their foe in the toughest of international courts. “Some moments feel like they’re from Netflix,” says Mihai Goțiu, a former Save Romania Union politician who joined and documented the struggle.
For love nor money
Arriving in Roșia Montană, Roxana was moved by both the beauty of the landscape and the determination of the locals defending it. The company was aggressively pushing residents to sell their homes. Everywhere you looked you saw GOLD signs. But just as visible were the signs declaring “We don’t want cyanide.”
Two years earlier, three hundred local families who refused to leave their homes had come together to found The Alburnus Maior Goldsmiths’ Association. Among them was Sorin Jurcă, who comes from a long line of miners. Sorin’s grandfather used to own a private gallery right in his backyard. His father died in a mining accident when Sorin was just a baby, leaving him to be raised by his uncle. For almost 22 years, Sorin worked for the state mining company as a geologist. But RMGC’s project was on a scale unlike anything Roșia Montană had seen in centuries of mining.
“This place gave me everything,” Sorin says. “It was the place of my childhood, the people and the area were the apple of my eye. My love for my birthplace couldn’t be measured in money. I couldn’t sell it.”
Not everyone felt that way. Families were split between those ready to take up the company’s promised jobs, remuneration and new houses, and those determined to stay put. Even Sorin’s uncle embraced the project, causing a years-long rift between them. The company also appeared successful at buying off local institutions. Local businesses were shut down to make the area uninhabitable. Villagers saw mayors and prefects in the company of RMGC representatives.
“I was shocked by what I saw in Roșia Montană. I simply couldn’t imagine such widespread corruption,” Goțiu says. “From local and county councilors in Roșia Montană and Alba Iulia, to state secretaries, ministry directors, prime ministers and even presidents. Laws were specifically tailored for Roșia Montană.”
A 2014 Black Sea investigation would eventually sketch out the web of relationships between RMGC directors with past political involvement, including Raphael Girard, former Canadian ambassador to Romania, local politicians and former president Traian Băsescu.
“We cannot pinpoint the exact moment when Traian Băsescu received a money brief from RMGC,” Roxanna says, stressing that this kind of corruption is difficult to prove, “but we know they funded his campaign and paid for consultancy firms and lawyers.”
‘There’s no funky idea we haven’t tried’
Activists recall RMGC’s tactics as “psychological warfare,” which escalated to the point where the company began buying burial grounds and relocating the dead. But with support from across the country and abroad Save Roșia Montană deployed a raft of different tactics to fight back.
Stephanie Roth, a French-Swiss activist and journalist who taught locals how to organize, and who won early victory in the struggle when the World Bank denied Gabriel Resources a major loan, citing the potential destructiveness of the project. Roth (who would later be awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize) was vilified in RMGC promotional videos, as the company clashed with protestors in a battle for public support.
Activists say the Romanian media was captured by the company’s interests. So, they went online to get their own message out. When you googled Roșia Montană, their website, www.rosiamontana.org, was the first search result. Their Facebook groups drew a large following, and while RMGC invested 12 million euros in promotional campaigns, protestors posted incriminating material on Youtube, showing how television channels were manufacturing a reality without any mention of the protesters or political manipulation.
Roxana believes student action was vitally important in drawing attention to their cause: “It has to do with the energy that age brings, with the conviction that you can do anything and that everything is possible.”
When she and her fellow students returned to Cluj, they spread the word through university faculties and student organizations, organizing flashmobs and photobombing televised politicians at every chance they got. “There’s no funky idea we haven’t tried,” she says.
A group of young artists called MindBomb designed a logo that would become familiar around the world – Woody Harrelson was photographed holding it – and designed campaign posters and displayed banners across the country.
Cultural institutions, including The Romanian Academy, got on board too. In 2003, Alburnus Maior and their supporters protested in front of the National Theater in Bucharest. The same year, the first March for Solidarity with Roșia Montană took place, starting from Cluj-Napoca and finishing at the village. In 2004, activists organized Fânfest, a protest festival in the village that became an annual event, with attendance reaching 15,000 in 2006.
Gabriel Resources attempted a cultural counterattack, sponsoring the 2006 Transylvania International Film Festival. But what was supposed to be a golden PR moment took a 180-degree turn when Vanessa Redgrave met with the Save Roșia Montană protesters and dedicated her honorary award to them – prompting an angry ad by RMGC in The Guardian.
“Rosia Montana represents a rare instance where injustice is overcome using the oppressor’s own tactics.”
-Stephanie Roth
Winning at the company’s own game
In August 2013 government of Prime Minister Victor Ponta pushed for a special law approving the expropriation and exploitation of Roșia Montană – which should have allowed RMGC to move forward with the mining operations, bypassing court rulings and local opposition. But by this time, Save Roșia Montană had won Romanian hearts and minds. The country erupted.
Across Romania, an estimated 200,000 people took to the streets, which in turn sparked international protests in what became known as Romanian Autumn. Banners read “Roșia Montană: the Revolution of Our Generation” and “a country’s betrayal is measured in gold.” Following months of protest and 118 arrests, the Romanian government officially withdrew its support for the mine.
Later, in 2017, investigative journalists revealed that the government had already granted Gabriel Resources a free exploitation license for Roșia Montană, which had been kept secret for 14 years. The Romanian state – which held a 20 percent stake in the project – found itself owing RMGC nearly 40 million dollars. Gabriel Resources, meanwhile, sued the Romanian state for $4.4 billion at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) the World Bank’s arbitration court in Washington.
By this point, a group of lawyers working with Save Roșia Montană had won over 40 cases, most involving illegal or abusive certificates issued by the state to RMGC. But the case in Washington was their biggest and most decisive challenge. The ICSID is notorious for favoring corporate interests over human rights and local interests. Yet in 2024, the court finally ruled in Romania’s favor.
“Rosia Montana represents a rare instance where injustice is overcome using the oppressor’s own tactics,” Roth said in a statement from the European Centre for Constitutional Human Rights.
Sorin Jurcă, who had been at the center of the fight since his community founded The Alburnus Maior, attended the Washington hearings as a representative of the local resistance. Yet when the ruling came, he was alone at home, watching the announcement on the news. Letting his phone ring, call after unanswered call, he sat silently letting the news sink in. “I experienced this victory deep within me,” he says.
Neglected heritage
While the eight-year legal battle in Washington was unfolding, activists’ won an important victory in a political parallel campaign: in 2021 they succeeded in getting Roșia Montană listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Around the world, mining projects are among the most fiercely contested environmental causes and Save Roșia Montană stands out as an exceptional success. Yet at heart, Save Roșia Montană was never an environmental campaign, Mihai Goțiu says. Rather, the mass public support it attracted was for the preservation of a unique part of Romania’s cultural heritage, and as a movement of local solidarity against multinational corporate interests.
“The environmental aspect was not fully grasped and had less impact on the public than the cultural significance and the campaign to include Roșia Montană in UNESCO,” he says.
What elevates Roșia Montană to the level of world heritage is mining itself: “Roșia Montană Mining Landscape contains the most significant, extensive and technically diverse underground Roman gold mining complex currently known in the world,” according the UNESCO website.
Yet the authorities have failed to capitalize on its unique history. Roșia Montană has never recovered from the exodus of people and capital that was supposed to make way for RWGC’s lake of cyanide. Some of those who stayed see tourism as the route to developing the local economy. But for visiting outsiders, beyond the crumbling museum, the few remaining villagers seem to inhabit a ghost town of empty houses and decaying GOLD signs.
“I prefer to say it looks frozen,” Sorin says.
Sorin has also grappled with the village’s frozen bureaucratic process. Two architects, Claudia and Virgil Apostol, have restored several national heritage houses through the Adopt a House strategy, which runs on donations. They also manage a summer school dedicated to preserving architectural traditions. With Claudia and Virgil’s help, Sorin is building a house for his son next to his grandparents’ home, which his uncle sold to RMGC and then later reclaimed.
For Sorin, this is another act of defiance against RMGC. “We’re showing them that not only are we staying, but we’re also building.” But obtaining a permit for the home was complicated by regulations left over from when the village was classified as an industrial area.
The main tourist attraction here is the Roșia Montană Museum of Mining – but isn’t recognized by the Romanian state, leaving it desperately underfunded. Walls hung with historical photographs are cracked, their paint chipping.
Gabriel, a museum guide in his early 30s and with a strong local accent, leads a group of tourists down into the maze of tunnels. The air is mossy, and the stone underfoot slick with mud. Beyond the dimly lit galleries that are open to the public, shadowy tunnels reach deep into the belly of the earth. Our guide explains how slaves and convicts chiseled them out of the volcanic rock at a rate of 20 centimeters a day and extracted gold using fire and water – a technique still used by local miners in the 20th century.
One of the tour group, Marcel, was among the thousands of people from the neighboring Câmpeni town who joined Save Roșia Montană protests in 2013. He asks Gabriel: “So everything we see in Vienna could be made out of our gold?”
“Let me answer differently,” Gabriel says, trying to steer the conversation away from nationalistic undertones, and explains that the Apuseni Mountains were one of the richest reserves Europe knew before they reached the New World. “Many of the buildings that we see in Budapest and Vienna were made out of––”
“Out of our gold,” Marcel interrupts.
“No, out of the gold of Apuseni.”
“I have always said that Roșia Montană will be saved by those who will get involved. But at the same time, Roșia Montană will also save Romania. It will provide a model of civic involvement.”
Mihai Goțiu
‘Roșia Montană will also save Romania’
This tension is reflected in Romanian politics, where the narrative around Roșia Montană has been wrought to nationalist agendas.
The two candidates who made it to the last final of the 2025 presidential election – pro-EU Nicușor Dan and the far-right AUR party’s George Simion – had both previously fought against the RMGC project. Now, Simion insists that the problem was not the mining project itself, but that it was captured by foreign capital.
Dan ultimately won the election. But the EU’s position on Roșia Montană has changed even more radically than Simion’s revisionist history. Once a powerful ally of Save Roșia Montană movement, the EU is now intent on securing a foothold in the international race for minerals independent of China and United States. Romania, Germany, Spain and Sweden are among the countries where strategic projects are to contribute to the EU’s demand for raw materials.
Roșia Montană’s current mayor, Eugen Furdui, is keen to supply that demand. In interviews, he repeats RMGC slogans: “Our mountains carry gold, while we beg from door to door.”
Tică Darie, a veteran of the Save Roșia Montană student movement has run for mayor several times – without success. He has other ideas about village’s future. Owner of one of the few businesses here, a tailoring workshop and store that employs about 35 local women, he is now opening the village’s first bistro.
It’s a cold February evening and the bistro’s windows cast a welcoming glow in the village’s historic center. Inside, there is a bustle of activity. Women from the tailoring workshop are here, as are Roxana Pencea Brădățan and Virgil and Claudia Apostol. Sorin Jurcă is sharing a table with a former RMGC representative.
The atmosphere is warm and celebratory. Some guests begin to dance. But Sorin points out how eerie the whole situation is: Tică’s bistro shares the same building as the RMGC’s center and to open it, Tică had to ask them to sign off on several legal documents.
Mining companies remain a threat in Romania, and they appear to have learned from Roșia Montană. In Certej, an area of the Apuseni mountains less than 100 kilometers from Roșia Montană, Eldorado Gold skipped any campaigning for public approval and quietly bought up properties before making their project public at all, Roxana says. If their plans materialize, remaining locals will live in toxic conditions at the margins of the mine.
But Roșia Montană has also taught Romanian civil society something about its power. “I have always said that Roșia Montană will be saved by those who will get involved,” Goțiu says. “But at the same time, Roșia Montană will also save Romania. It will provide a model of civic involvement.”
And as uncertain as the future might feel, Sorin says he has no regrets about giving 25 years of his life to the struggle. “I would choose to do it all over again tomorrow,” he says. “I have strength and determination – though I hope I won’t need it.”
2013: Europa Nostra and the European Investment Bank Institute recognize Roșia Montană as one of Europe’s seven most endangered heritage sites. The Romanian parliament’s UNESCO commission visits the village – and are photographed wearing GOLD uniforms. The minister of culture and UNESCO commission declare support for the mining project and refuse dialogue with the opposition.
2015: Roșia Montană is designated a historic monument of national importance by an order of the Romanian ministry of culture, prohibiting industrial activity in the area.
2016: Roșia Montană is added to Romania’s nomination list for potential inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
2017: Romania makes its first request to UNESCO to include Roșia Montană on the World Heritage list during the final hours of the technocratic government’s term.
Experts from ICOMOS (the International Council on Monuments and Sites) face obstructive GOLD intimidation tactics.
2018: Following ICOMOS’ decision to support Roșia Montană’s inclusion on the UNESCO list, the National Socialist Party-led government temporarily retracts its application, citing concerns over ongoing arbitration initiated by Gabriel Resources.
2019: The National Agency for Mineral Resources secretly extends RMGC’s mining license for another five years, amid the company’s lawsuit with the Romanian state.
2020: Under a National Liberal Party administration, the effort to include Roșia Montană in UNESCO is relaunched.
2021: Roșia Montană is officially added to the UNESCO World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger, preservation and protection from industrial exploitation, as RMGC held a valid mining exploitation license.
2024: The National Agency for Mineral Resources declined to renew RMGC’s mining exploitation license.
About the Author
Miriam Țepeș-Handaric is a freelance journalist based in Romania, focusing on human rights and gender issues. She has written extensively about anti-Roma discrimination and how the community resists and challenges it. Her work has appeared in publications such as openDemocracy, Transitions, Eurozine, and l’Espresso
