“Approval of mining concession in Indio Maíz Biological Reserve denounced”, 1 August 2025.

The environmental organisation Fundación del Río denounced on Friday, 1 August 2025, that the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo had granted a second mining concession, in less than a week, to the company Thomas Metal S.A., this time within the Indio Maíz Biological Reserve.

The concession for the lot known as La Guinea covers 21,882.30 hectares of land and is located in the municipalities of El Castillo and San Juan de Nicaragua, within the Indio Maíz Biological Reserve, the Rama and Kriol indigenous territory, and the Río San Juan Wildlife Refuge, in the border area with Costa Rica.

“The granting of this concession constitutes a violation of Law 445 (Law on the Communal Property Regime of Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Communities of the Autonomous Regions of the Atlantic Coast), as it was carried out without the due process of free, prior, and informed consultation established by the Rama and Kriol Territorial Government,” the organisation lamented.

On 29 July, the Ortega-Murillo regime granted an open-pit mining concession to the same Chinese company...

The Chinese company Thomas Metal is registered with the Public Property Registry in Managua...

However, concerns were raised about “possible processes of pollution, deforestation, and increased invasions in both protected areas”...

In total, the Sandinista Executive has granted more than 20 mining concessions to Chinese companies over the past two years, covering more than 250,000 hectares...

The CIEDH attempted to contact the company Thomas Metal; however, no public email address was found to do so.