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...

By Liliana Alzamora Flores and Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo   TAMBOGRANDÉ, Peru – The 1999 scenario was repeating in 2008 with all the elements setting up the same way, without real leaderships that tried not to repeat the same events causing a struggle that wore away a town. The coming of Araci, a low-budget Peruvian mining company, was similar to Manhattan Minerals , what means undermining and promising more than it really could get.   As it’s remembered, the Canadian mining company promised an economic paradise whom already have built their own economic paradise, by using a double rhetoric that ended to insult the intelligence of businesspersons dedicated to agriculture in San Lorenzo Valley .   Although the scenarios seemed to change a little, the direction that each actor moved on was outrageously the same because, despite the evidence, nobody seemed to be intended on making the first step and establishing a firm position to defend what they got after June 2 nd , 20...