STATEMENT: On World Environment Day, International Allies Spotlight Salvadoran Communities Resisting Reintroduction of Mining in El Salvador
For immediate release
Press contacts below
San Salvador, El Salvador and worldwide — For the past 26 years, El Salvador has marked World Environment Day with an Ecological Walk, organized by the Franciscan Office of Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation. This event unites diverse groups from across the environmental movement that mobilize thousands of people to demand better government policy to address chronic environmental issues affecting the country.
On June 5, in solidarity with the Ecological Walk, organizations and individuals that comprise International Allies against Mining in El Salvador joined the Salvadoran environmental movement in asking mining corporations around the world to reject the invitation from the Salvadoran government to mine in El Salvador.
In particular, International Allies issued the following four demands to international investors and the Salvadoran government:
1. To mining corporations from other countries: Heed the call of the Salvadoran people that there be no mining in El Salvador.
El Salvador led the world in 2017 when its legislature voted unanimously to prohibit all metals mining in the country. Public opinion polls in 2007, 2015, and 2024 showed that over 60 percent of the Salvadoran public oppose mining in their country to save its rivers. Despite that overwhelming public opposition, President Bukele’s legislature passed a new mining law in December 2024 that reopens the country to mining with no environmental or safety protections.
Mining companies should be aware that the public will oppose new mining investments, and that there will be strong pressure on the governments that succeed Bukele to reimpose the prohibition on mining. Civil society organizations and faith leaders in El Salvador, including the Archbishop of San Salvador, have spoken out against mining and have been joined by hundreds of organizations from around the world.
From researchers at the Institute for Policy Studies and Earthworks, here are 15 reasons why El Salvador should once again reject gold mining.
2. To U.S. and other foreign corporations: Do not invest in a country whose government has been accused of torture in its prisons, and which denies its citizens due process of law.
3. To the public in El Salvador and around the world: We salute your determination to continue to fight in defense of your scarce water reserves. We also salute the decision of the Criminal Chamber of San Vicente to reaffirm the dismissal of criminal charges against the Santa Marta 5 Water Defenders, yet we voice concern over the clause in the ruling that allows the pursuit of civil liability against several of the water defenders.
4. To the Salvadoran government: We call for the end to the State of Exception, and for the release of tens of thousands of innocent people in Salvadoran prisons. We also call for the release of political prisoners, including the release of human rights lawyer Ruth Lopez, who led the presentation of a constitutional injunction to stop the 2024 Mining Law and was arrested under false charges a year ago.
Mining in El Salvador would aggravate the conditions of an environmentally vulnerable country with high levels of population density, water scarcity, deforestation and contamination. The impacts of climate change are particularly harsh in El Salvador, and this year the severe heatwaves and drought caused by El Niño are threatening to devastate essential corn and bean harvests, putting the food security of millions of Salvadorans at immediate risk.
If you don’t get others by the end of the day, Olivia, here is one from me:
“Mining companies beware. As they have shown countless times over the past quarter century, the Salvadoran public and its international allies understand that the country’s scarce water resources cannot tolerate toxic mining, and communities will resist any new mines,” said John Cavanagh of the Institute for Policy Studies, and co-author of The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed.
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This statement comes at a time when U.S. officials are pursuing an investment agreement with the government of El Salvador that could impact potential mining projects and critical mineral extraction projects in El Salvador, even as Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has come under intense scrutiny for alleged deals with gang members.
Next week, the U.S. State Department is bringing a group of U.S. investors to El Salvador, and we ask them to weigh the consequences of investing in a country that is mired in increasing environmental conflict, torture, and denial of due process of the law to the tens of thousands of people in its prisons, including environmental and human rights defenders.
Additional Resources:
Water Over Gold: 15 Reasons Why El Salvador Should Again Reject Gold Mining
Statement from 153 faith organizations in 25 countries in support of the Salvadoran people and their religious leaders and institutions as they struggle to preserve El Salvador’s historic, world-leading ban on metals mining.
She Spoke Up for Due Process. Now She’s Detained Without Charges.
Press contacts:
John Cavanagh, Institute for Policy Studies, johnc@ips-dc.org
Pedro Cabezas, Central American Alliance against Mining (ACAFREMIN) and International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador, stopesmining@gmail.com
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