"Jamaica’s ‘Cockpit Country’ Faces Growing Threats from Mining Interests", 21 November 2022

...[I]n 2021, Jamaica’s minister of Transport and Mining, Robert Montague announced that the government had revised the Special Mining Lease 71 governing the lands in Cockpit Country open to mineral extraction — specifically the lands available for the mining company Noranda Jamaica Bauxite Partners. Noranda specializes in mining and exporting a metal ore called bauxite which creates aluminum.

The Maroons of Accompong, a village nestled in Cockpit Country, refute this new definition of the boundaries and insist that it encroaches on the established boundaries of their ancestral lands...Beyond Indigenous land rights, Cockpit Country is a hotspot of biodiversity...

...Cockpit Country sits at the mouth of water aquifers of six major rivers. Should mining accidents occur here, it could poison and contaminate the water supply of four parishes, endangering the health of hundreds of thousands of people...

The Maroon people have filed a lawsuit against the Jamaican government for violating the 1738 treaty by opening Cockpit Country to mining interests...[T]he Government of Jamaica has refused to address the lawsuit. The case was scheduled to appear before Jamaica’s supreme court on October 4, but the Jamaica government did not show up for the hearing. The judge issued a new court date for October 19, which was later rescheduled for December 9th after government representatives failed to appear before it yet again...