Avatar the 2009 movie? A real mining company would have gone through local government and just have set up an underground mine, and tunneled under the tree-thin

Avatar the 2009 movie? A real mining company would have gone through local government and just have set up an underground mine, and tunneled under the tree-thing. Maybe done a study or two to assess the impact of mining tree roots. A project that big would go through quite some effort to appease the locals - otherwise the mine (basically inevitably) gets written off.