Abandonment Issues: Producing Industrial Heritage Landscapes at the São Domingos Mine

Abstract

From 1867–1966, miners at the São Domingos Mine in Beja Province, Portugal, extracted copper ore from an open pit and produced sulfur at an adjacent roasting complex. Like many post-industrial landscapes, the mine was never remediated after closure—the working enterprise is survived only by industrial ruins, a pit filled with acidic water, and a desiccated landscape where almost nothing can grow. Yet out of these ruins, a new economy has been built on the social, geological, and environmental heritage of the landscapes left behind. Environmental historians should consider the historiographical possibilities that emerge out of the claims to environmental, economic, and social “potential” produced in the creation of an industrial heritage tourism economy amidst the post-industrial landscape of the São Domingos Mine.