Hundreds of protesters have battled riot police for hours over plans for a gold mine in northern Greece’s Halkidiki peninsula.

Police fired tear gas to fend off protesters who had gathered in the Skouries area of Halkidiki, northern Greece, on Sunday to protest gold mining activity.

Dozens of residents of the nearby village of Ierissos, as well as protesters who arrived by coaches and cars from Thessaloniki, approached the forest in Skouries, where Hellenic Gold, a subsidiary of Canadian firm Eldorado Gold, has begun mining activity that locals are appealing against.

Protesters accused the police of making heavy use of tear gas, causing a fire in the woods, and of chopping down trees to prevent demonstrators from approaching the mine. Police say protesters threw firebombs at them, setting ablaze a forested area on the site. Either way, the fire has been put out.

There were reports of several people being arrested and detained at Ierissos police station. Several people were also injured, including SYRIZA MP Vangelis Diamantopoulos.

Hellenic Gold has been awarded an area of 26,400 hectares, of which 410 is forest land. Almost all the trees in the forest will be cut down as part of the mining firm’s plan to extract gold. The company says it will replant trees when it finishes its work.

Opponents of the mine argue it would lead to the destruction of the local forest and irreversible damage to the ecosystem.

This is not the first clash over the gold mine.

Owners of tourist lodging are fiercely opposed due to environmental reasons.

Opponents succeeded a decade ago in canceling a multimillion-dollar gold mining project in a nearby area.

Greek police not busy roughing up protesting doctors and nurses shepherded teams of VIPs around the capital’s government offices. They’re looking for any old thing to sell but what’s already on the block has yet to be revealed to the general public, namely; petroleum reserves, surface coal and proven mines with nearly endless minerals.

Our mole at the Greek Ministry of Finance informs us that asset claimants have submitted their wish list and it’s not pretty. Forget the islands, while it may be widely speculated that Hellenic paranoia is running rampant due to the imminent loss of 111 tonnes of gold bars to the IMF, rest assured there’s plenty more, right under their feet.

“The Divine Bounty has bestowed upon us inexhaustible mines of silver, and advantages which we enjoy above all our neighbouring cities, who never yet could discover one vein of silver ore in all their dominions.” XENOPHON

That’s right, they also have unexploited silver reserves as well, which have been mostly restricted from operating due to environmental regulations. The recent blips of reported violence from protesters in Keratea, a stone’s throw from the ancient mines at Laurion are due to the government’s desire to construct a landfill. The broadsheets report the story their way but the real action is on Facebook’s We Are Change Greece.

They don’t buy any of the schemes for a rubbish dump on their doorstep and wonder why it includes approved hazardous waste dumping. Cough, cough, wouldn’t want anyone poking around the site should something precious and shiny surface one day!

Athens could have chosen from hundreds of other sites but somehow prefer the ‘contractor’ to start digging up the ancient El Dorado, how strange. Do the waste management experts have a corporate relationship with any mining interests? Time will surely tell but for now, the world is waiting for the Greeks to set the template in this epoch of turmoil. Politicians who sold the country out when nobody was looking may have to face the music, dance the dance, at the end of a rope by the looks of it.