Representatives of a dozen environmental organisations, united in the Roundtable Against Metal Mining in El Salvador, speak out against Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele’s goal to reopen this industry, banned by law since 2017. Credit: Roundtable Against Metal Mining in El Salvador
By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR, Dec 10 2024 – Metal mining has a renewed momentum in Central America, encouraged by populist rulers who, in order to soften environmental damage, claim they can develop it in harmony with nature, which is hard to believe
Thus, they seek to win the approval of a majority that seems to follow them blindly, but not environmentalists or other social sectors, activists told IPS.
“The mere popularity of President Bukele is not enough to say that the mine will not contaminate the country,” Rodolfo Calles, an activist with the Association of Salvadoran Community Promoters, told IPS, referring to the interest shown by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in reactivating metal mining, which has been banned for seven years.“The mere popularity of President Bukele is not enough to say that the mine will not contaminate the country”: Rodolfo Calles.
Central America, an isthmus of six nations and 64 million inhabitants, is one of the most environmentally vulnerable regions, where activists and social defenders have been warning for decades about the negative impacts the metal mining industry has had on their ecosystems.
As a result of these struggles, a law banning all forms of metal mining was passed in El Salvador in March 2017, the first measure of its kind in the world and considered a historic milestone.
Costa Rica had done the same in 2010, but only for open-pit mining, and other countries have halted specific projects, such as in Guatemala and Honduras, and Panama last year.
Central America is a region rich in biodiversity and natural resources. It has abundant water and forests as well as mineral resources. With the exception of Belize, the only country without significant mineral deposits, significant quantities of metals such as gold, silver or zinc, as well as nickel, copper and other minerals can be found in all territories.
But several studies indicate that the mining industry’s economic contribution is minimal in the area, and in the case of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, it has not exceeded 1% of their gross domestic product (GDP). GDP per capita in the region is around US$6,000.
Guatemala is the Central American country with the greatest mineral wealth, metallic and non-metallic, while Panama and El Salvador have much lower concentrations of mineral elements of interest, according to a study.
Panama saw its largest protests in three decades, against the largest copper mine in Central America. As a result, in November 2023, a law established an indefinite moratorium on mining. Credit: Luis Mendoza / Mongabay
Going backwards
Now El Salvador and Costa Rica, ruled by leaders labelled as populist, are taking steps backwards.
“Bukele launches the issue because he relies on the credibility he claims to have as president and people’s misinformation,” Calles stressed.
Despite his authoritarian nature, the president continues to enjoy broad popular support, according to all opinion polls.
Meanwhile, Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves announced on 27 November that he had submitted a bill to the unicameral National Assembly to reverse the ban on open-pit mining, setting off alarm bells in a country renowned for its efforts to preserve the environment.
The intention is to finally give the green light to a gold mine that had already won a concession but was cancelled when the 2010 ban came into force, based on the constitutional premise that citizens have the right to live in a healthy environment.
The mine is located in the town of Crucitas, in the province of Alajuela, in the north of the country. It is owned by the Canadian consortium Infinito Gold.
But President Chaves wants to reverse the ban.
“Right now we are just seeing how we are going to counteract what is coming,” Erlinda Quesada, a Costa Rican environmentalist with the National Front of Sectors Affected by Pineapple Production, an organisation that, among other things, seeks to protect water sources from intensive monoculture production, told IPS.
In a telephone conversation from the town of Guácimo, in the province of Limón, in the northwest of the country, Quesada added: “It is no secret to anyone that we have a populist government that… is ingratiating itself with these humble sectors, the poorest in the country, and holding them in its hands” when it wants to approve the proposal.
Meanwhile, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega intensified his relationship with China by granting, also on 27 November, the fifth concession to Xinjiang Xinxin Mining Industry.
The new 1,500-hectare mining project is located between the municipalities of Santo Domingo and La Libertad, in central Nicaragua. In all, the consortium’s operations cover 43,000 hectares.
These concessions granted by Ortega’s dictatorial regime would appear to be, in addition to the economic benefit, a move to tighten links with China and annoy the United States, which is seeking to curb the Asian power on the world geopolitical stage.
In September 2022, the people of Asunción Mita in eastern Guatemala voted against the Cerro Blanco mining project owned by Elevar Resources, a subsidiary of Canada’s Bluestone Resources. The ‘no’ won. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Bukele’s economic hope
Out of the blue, Bukele posted a message on the social network X on 27 November showing his interest in the country’s return to the extractive industry, arousing concern among social sectors that, after a long struggle, had succeeded in getting the Legislative Assembly to ban mining in March 2017.
“We are the only country in the world with a total ban on metallic mining, something that no other country applies. Absurd!” the president wrote.
He added that this wealth can be harnessed responsibly to bring “unprecedented” economic and social development to the Salvadoran people.
That development is what he has promised to deliver in his second five-year presidential term, beginning in June 2024, after winning the elections in February amid sharp criticism that the constitution did not allow him to participate in a second, consecutive election.
Then, on 1 December, in a public act, the president tried to justify his extractivist project stating that the country’s mining potential is enough for an accumulated wealth of three trillion dollars, equivalent to 8,800 % of the current Salvadoran GDP.
There are around 50 million ounces of gold in the subsoil, equivalent to 132 billion dollars at current value. But it’s not just gold and silver, he said.
“According to our initial studies, we have found metals of the fourth industrial revolution, such as lithium, cobalt and nickel, which are used to make batteries for electric vehicles and renewable energy storage,” he claimed.
Rare earth minerals, used for advanced electronics, wind turbines and electric vehicle motors, as well as platinum, palladium and iridium to produce hydrogen and catalytic converters, among others, have also been detected, he added.
Bukele said there will always be environmental impacts in any development project, but they can be minimised. As his New Ideas party controls the Legislative Assembly, it would be very easy for him to revive mining in El Salvador.
An anti-mining banner at a church in El Salvador. Social mobilisation against mining projects has been key in trying to stop the operations of these consortiums and prevent soil and water contamination in the communities. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Cheerful accounts
“The president is making happy accounts of the supposed economic benefits that would be obtained, but he is not accounting for the real damage that would be done to the ecosystems,” said Calles, a Salvadoran who has been fighting against the mines for years.
He added that when the ban on mining in the country was being discussed, Bukele was already involved in politics, and knew there were studies showing that the industry was unfeasable in El Salvador because of its negative impacts on water, soil and people’s health.
“I don’t know where he gets the idea that the impacts will be less. What we know is that mining extraction techniques have not changed significantly, and cyanide, for example, is still being used,” he said. This is a chemical compound that, if misused or unintentionally leached into bodies of water, can be lethal.
Central America’s experience with the extractive industry is negative and long-standing, as in other regions of the world.
At a forum organised in 2009 in San José, Costa Rica, by the Latin American Water Tribunal, the regional experiences of open-pit mining in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Peru were analysed and testimonies were heard about the adverse effects in these countries.
These included testimonies from representatives of the Honduran Association of Non-Governmental Organisations and the Environmental Committee of the Siria Valley, where the San Martín mining project, run by Minerales Entre Mares de Honduras, was operating at the time. It was shut down in 2008.
In 2022, the international organisation Oxfam stated that the mine left behind “a trail of complaints about human health (…), as well as reports of contamination and destruction of flora, fauna and local ecosystems; economic, social and cultural damage to the communities”.
Meanwhile, in late 2023, Panama ordered the closure of the largest copper mine in Central America, operated by Minera Panama, a subsidiary of Canada’s First Quantum Minerals. This came after the courts ruled that the concession contract was unconstitutional.
The closure was the result of massive social protests, due to allegations of serious environmental contamination, and led the government to promote a law establishing moratorium on mining activity in the country for an indefinite period of time.
In Guatemala, social mobilization led to court rulings that stopped the country’s main mining projects.
“The most emblematic projects have been suspended by the Constitutional Court, whose members, although corrupt, accepted that the companies never complied with two fundamental requirements: providing information to the community and holding citizen consultations,” Julio González, of the Madreselva Collective, told IPS from Guatemala City.
González added that these include the nickel mine owned by the Solway Investment Group, located in the municipality of El Estor, and El Escobal, owned by the Canadian company Pan American Silver, near San Rafael Las Flores, both in the east of the country.
The Progreso VII Derivada mine, known as La Puya, owned by Exploraciones Mineras de Guatemala, in the central-south department of Guatemala, as well as Cerro Blanco, owned by Canadian Bluestone Resources, located in the vicinity of Asunción Mita, in the eastern department of Jutiapa, have also been added to the list.
González questioned the authenticity of the environmental impact studies carried out by the mining consortiums, as they are based on a specific, very restricted geographical area.
“The biggest lie are these environmental impact studies, carried out in the so-called areas of influence, which is the place where the mine is located and the three or four surrounding villages, but the water, which is going to be contaminated, goes far beyond this area of influence,” he said.
On El Salvador’s backtracking on the possible reactivation of mining, he added: “What I see is Bukele’s alignment with the hegemonic economy, which is not exercised by the US government but by US corporations”.