Latin America: Report deepens understanding of socio-environmental conflicts caused by mining in the region
[Excerpt translation from Spanish provided by Business and Human Rights Resource Centre]
The sustained international pressure for minerals continues to affect Latin America. Not only vulnerable ecosystems and local communities, but also, at the same time, social structures, norms and systems of national coexistence. Sectors of society at whatever cost, dream of an elusive and many times misunderstood development, defending discourses and practices many times distanced from ethics and the common good. The deepening of the global productive model of goods, now infinitely expanded with the participation of China, puts a check on the supply of commodities that must sustain a production and a consumption that is highly unsustainable. The technological changes of the global North lock their eyes onto the mineral resources of the global South, and Latin America is a pole of concentration for this trend…Lithium and cobalt are among others, necessary minerals for this process…Wherever we look, we will see the socio-environmental unrest caused by the expansion of the extraction mining model, that tend to increase. Furthermore, we see that the processes of conflict manifest in an earlier form and those of longer data and apparently unprofiled, can reactivate, putting a check on the apparent institutional, corporate and community stability…The report mentions the following companies: Pluspetrol, Glaxy Resources, Jujuy Energía y Minería Sociedad del Estado (JEMSE), AIS Resources, Belo Sun, Vale, Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Samarco, CBA (Companhia Brasileira de Aluminio), Newmont, Rio Tinto, Barrick Gold, Antofagasta, Fortescue Metals Group, INV Minerals, Lundin Gold, Corriente Resources, Ecuacorriente, Explorcobres, EXSA, Codelco, Junefield Mining Resources, Southern Copper, Goldcorp, Minera Frisco, Grupo México, Empresa Nicaragüense de Minas (Eniminas), B2Gold, Hemco, Condor Gold, Triton Energy, Zijin, Candente Copper, Argosy Minerals Ltd., Hydro, Equinox Gold, Newcrest, Cornerstone Capital Resources, Aurelian Ecuador SA, Calibre Mining Corp.