Salvadorans looks for mining ban

Edgardo Ayala provides an update on Rural Communities Push El Salvador Towards Ban on Mining for IPS.

In this Central American country of 6.2 million, there were 18 gold and silver mines in 2004, some of them operated by local and foreign companies under concessions.

Since 2008 no new concessions have been granted, but 74 requests are still pending.

The mining industry accounts for 0.8 percent of El Salvador’s GDP, according to the report “Metals, mining, and sustainable development in Central America” published by Oxfam in 2008.

But business sectors represented by the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), which governed the country from 1989 to 2009, argue that a suspension of mining activity would send out a negative signal to foreign investors.

El Salvador has had an effective ban on mining for the last six or seven years but environmentalists are hoping that a more permanent ban, however unlikely, might come out of the next congress. ARENA is right. A ban would send out a negative signal to foreign investors. However, a ban still might be a worthwhile policy.