The 500-mile drive across Guinea to the Simandou mountains takes three days. Videographer: Jason Florio for Bloomberg Green Guinea’s Simandou mountains hold the largest untapped iron-ore deposit on the planet. Now a consortium of China-connected companies is moving ahead with a plan that jeopardizes one of the most biologically rich ecosystems in Africa. Photographs and Video by Jason Florio The 500-mile drive across the West African nation of Guinea takes three days. The route traverses forests, mountain ridges, savannas, several rivers, the downtowns of four cities, and hundreds of villages of thatched roundhouse huts. The mostly dirt roads, pocked with craters, are choked by swirling laterite particles kicked up by rumbling vehicles and clouds of black exhaust. Goats and chickens wander among the carcasses of abandoned trucks, which are flipped over like helpless turtles. Yet still the trucks come, transporting heavy equipment. We are all going to Simandou. Our […]