Reopening Silver Mine Could Save Town, But Destroy the Sacred Site of the Huicholes Irina Zhorov - Indian Country Today
go to original August 7, 2012

Wirikuta Real de Catorce at sunset (Irina Zhorov)

The lands that comprise the Wirikuta Reserve in the San Luis de Potosí state of Mexico are full of covetable wonders. On the surface grow the plump peyote plants that the Huichol (or Wixáritari) people depend on for their ceremonies and traditions.

Below the surface, veins of silver snake through rock, tempting anyone keeping up with the high price of silver. And although technically right on the border outside of the reserve, the mountain called the Cerro Quemado - sacred site of the Huicholes, birthplace of the sun - rises up out of the land shrouded by green shrubs and cactuses and towers over the natural marvel that is this landscape.

The Huicholes have been making an annual pilgrimage to the Cerro Quemado from their native lands some 250 miles to the west for as long as anyone can remember. And the miners, too, have been following the tails of the veins here since silver was found in the late 1700s. Real de Catorce, often shortened to Real, one of the bigger towns on the reserve, was built as a mining town. Wirikuta is protected for its biodiversity and cultural importance and has its allies.

“For more than 200 years, the miners, tourists to the town of Real de Catorce, and the Huicholes have lived together and nothing has happened. This situation has always existed,” says a local mining engineer, Ricardo Flores.

The mines have been closed since 1991, however, when silver prices slumped, and the town has come to think of itself as a tourist haven, leaning on its colonial charm and religious pilgrims. Expats opened up hotels, New Agey visitors came for peyote. But with a worldwide recession and heightened fear of travel in Mexico due to narcos, the tourist business is slumping, too. Real’s population is down to just 1,000 residents.

Minera Real Bonanza (MRB), a Mexican subsidiary of Canada’s First Majestic Silver Corp., wants to reopen the old shafts in a venture called the La Luz Silver Project. They have more than 6,000 hectares containing an estimated $1.3 billion worth of silver. But this time the complex relationships of the peoples that use this land are strained.

Read more at Indian Country Today

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