Indigenous Community in Colima Opposes Mining Project, Despite Threats Camilla Capasso - Latin Correspondent
go to original February 6, 2016

A woman blows a traditional horn as she participates in a protest at the Xochicalco archeological site in the Xochitepec, Mexico. (AP/Tony Rivera)

Esperanza Salazar is a fighter. You can tell by the way she keeps her chin up when she explains why she had to leave Mexico and move to Canada, why she can’t return home.

Esperanza comes from Colima, the fourth smallest province in Mexico. She is the General Coordination of Bios Iguana, a Mexican organization that operates in the city of Zacualpan against the government imposition of a mining concession for the company Gabfer to extract gold on indigenous communal land.

“Gabfer is a small company owned by Tech, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining company Tech Resources,” Esperanza explains. “Since the government opened to concessions, two years ago, Gabfer has been trying to build a gold mine on indigenous land, only 800 meters from Zacualpan.”

Before the project could start, the Nahua indigenous community living in Zacualpan contacted Bios Iguana asking for an analysis of the effects that mining activities would have on their territories. For Esperanza, the situation wasn’t new. Only in Colima, in a territory of 5,5000 square meters, the government had already issued 800 concessions. A total of 27,000 all across Mexico.

In terms of mining investments, the country ranks fourth in the world, and first in Latin America. During the past decade, the Mexican government has given the green light to a growing number of companies, often without any prior consultation with the local communities. While the national government provides the facilities, the federal government in Colima has been trying to change the status of the communal land through the Agrarian Attorney, to make it easier for companies to access the territory at the locals’ expense.

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