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Published: Thursday, 14 January 2021 13:52
Water is life. Countless communities across the world, from Flint, Michigan to the Standing Rock Reservation to the Gualcarque River in Honduras, have used this phrase as a rallying cry against powerful corporations that value profits over the environment and the health of local communities. In 2002, a small group of citizens in El Salvador joined this global community of water defenders when representatives from multinational mining company Pac Rim appeared in their home province of Cabañas. This ignited a people’s fight against corporate power that would last for over a decade. In The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved A Country from Corporate Greed, Robin Broad and John Cavanagh tell the harrowing, inspiring saga of El Salvador’s fight – and historic victory – to save their water, and their communities, from Big Gold.
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Published: Thursday, 26 December 2019 02:45
Gloria Silvia Orellana - Co Latino
"Two years after the Law on the Prohibition of Metal Mining was passed, its application is yet to be implemented," expressed Rodolfo Calles from CRIPDES / ACAFREMIN. Along with a group of environmental organizations, Calles demanded the government of President Nayib Bukele, to resume actions in this matter and give protection to the population affected by the metal mining industry.
Among the specific requests of the organizations, UNES, ADES, CRIPDES and ACAFREMIN, there is the allocation of sufficient economic resources to execute various actions related to mine closures and for transforming the economic activities of artisanal miners (güiriceros). Finally, the organizations requested the drafting of regulations to apply the Law of Prohibition of Metallic Mining through different government institutions.
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Published: Wednesday, 18 September 2019 14:45
by Eduardo Barahona / Karla Rodas: Vanguardia
El Salvador is the first country in the world to ban metal mining in its entirety, in March, 2017; but who were the precursors of this victory?
It could be said that one of the biggest environmental victories in the world was won in a small country, which for many decades was classified as one of the environmentally worst, not knowing that within its lands there was a struggle to make it better. In 2017, the “pulgarcito”, as El Salvador is called, was recognized in every corner of the world for beating a large mining company, Oceana Gold / Pacific Rim.
Everything in this world has its genesis, and though it is true that the fight for the environment was a collective effort, we must recognize the heroes and heroines who gave their lives at a time of great threat, of metal mining, for our country. This journalistic writing is to remember Dora Sorto, Juan Durán, Ramiro Rivera, and Gustavo Marcelo Rivera, who were the first front line defenders in the department of Cabañas, El Salvador to plant the seeds for our fight and environmental defense.
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Published: Wednesday, 18 September 2019 13:30
by Marvin Diaz: Gato Encerrado
The Law that prohibits mining in El Salvador was approved more than two years ago. Along with the law, key measures that needed to be implemented, such as the technical closures of the abandoned mines and remediation measures for environmental damage, remain absent. The government of the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) had two years to enact these measures and it failed to do so. As such, the Roundtable against Metal Mining has asked the new government of Nayib Bukele to resume the actions still pending from the approval of the Metallic Mining Ban.
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