FACTORTIERRA

TAMBOGRANDE, Peru – On June 2, 2002, nearly 40,000 people voluntarily participated in a non-binding local referendum to express their opinions on mining activities throughout the Tambogrande District, including the agro-exporting San Lorenzo Valley and the dry forest in the Locuto Community .   98% of the valid votes were against mining, which dealt a blow to Manhattan Minerals Corporation (now Mediterranean Resources), which had the concession to exploit three deposits between the City of Tambogrande and the Community of Locuto, as it evidenced a lack of social license . The Vancouver-based company had repeatedly claimed it had the support of the local population.   The impact of this exercise in democracy was such that it was replicated in Esquel (Argentina), Sipacapa (Guatemala), and three districts in the highlands of Piura (Peru) between 2003 and 2007, with similar results.   In the case of Tambogrande, following the referendum and the boycott b...

Are there mining agents using the same methods for dismissing their debunkers?   by Liliana Alzamora Flores & Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo   SULLANA, Peru – An environmentalist leader denounces attempts against his environment and he doesn’t shut up despite the threats. He’s murdered and his killer leaves many clues to discover him, but by some reason –and there are documents proving it—his closest son in the fight ends becoming the top suspect of a criminal fact.   It’s the case of Arsecio Gonza Castillo but it’s also the same model of another happened in 2001 with the beloved Godofredo Garcia Baca . Was the same script followed up, or is there a criminal involvement for real on behalf of a justice that has been blocked?  Is it a vendetta?  But whose against whom?   Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011, four handmade miners were murdered near a minehole in Pueblo Nuevo de Santa Rosa Town, Suyo District , Ayabaca. It started to awake and the miner...

The social issue caused by the handmade mining.   By Amaya Camacho Patty del Pilar; Mendoza Mondragón Fiorella Paredes Arcelles Grissel; Sandoval Torres Carlos Alberto; Troncos Merino Karina; Vargas Jiménez Blanca Christhel (School of Communication Sciences, UNP)   General Framework Currently in Peru, we see the mining, as well as it’s brought positive consequences for the economy, it’s caused different problems in the mining workers, the population living around, and the environment, because in all those people it’s seen their health affected as this activity is risky, and having no support from the government in any emergency case.   About the social consequences, the miners are going through serious health problems because many teenage workers die or are hospitalized every year due to injuries acquired while working. So, the people react to those problems breaking out demonstrations and strikes which they manifest not only they mistreat the farmer commu...

The routine consists in working, spending, looking like, an waiting for… the next month.   All photographs by Estany Tineo for FACTORTIERRA.    SULLANA, Peru – So near, so far. The towns of Upper Chira Valley’s left bank stand just 20 minutes away Sullana City , and it seems a world aside. So near, so far. The people hold very god TV’s, sound systems, freezers, but what hardly could be found in a house is running water, or, at least, a latrine that guarantees the excrement won’t be anywhere.   So near, so far. Amid the modern furniture, the most houses continue building of pasted mud and mud bricks, so near… so far. The mud is the only one connecting the people of this part of Upper Chira to their ancestors. The archaeologist Daniel Davila , who accompanied us before researching in Malingas Community , suspects tallán people went around looking for agricultural lands, taking Chira River as water source.   The green mantle The archeology is ...