Salvadoran cardinal urges 'resistance' to metal mining as matter of life and death
BY RHINA GUIDOS
Chalatenango, El Salvador — January 6, 2025
El Salvador's Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez told fellow Salvadorans to resist a new law that reverses the country's ban on metal mining, saying that preventing contamination of the country's water supply is a matter of life and death.
"We have to be prophets of hope" and prevent water contamination due to mining, "including physically, if necessary," Rosa Chávez said Dec. 28 in a homily at the Cathedral of Chalatenango, one of the areas in northern El Salvador in the path of a proposed gold and silver mining project.
"This region provides water for the entire country. If it becomes contaminated, we all die," said Rosa Chávez, retired auxiliary bishop of San Salvador.
In 2017, El Salvador made international headlines when it became the first country in the world to ban metal mining, including in the vast "gold belt" in the country's northern regions. Along with gold, metal mining extracts from the Earth's crust other precious metals like silver and platinum, and substances like copper, zinc and iron-rich elements often used in building.
More:
https://www.ncronline.org/earthbeat/politics/salvadoran-cardinal-urges-resistance-metal-mining-matter-life-and-death