Peruvians Want to Save Andean Forests from Mining

Peruvians Want to Save Andean Forests from Mining

October 2007

 After a prolonged struggle 
by local inhabitants to preserve the integrity of the Piuran Andes against 
a mining takeover, on September 16 a popular referendum was organized in 
the three Piuran communities where Rio Blanco proposes to site an open pit 
mine. This was an opportunity for local citizens to express their true 
opinions and desires concerning the heap leach project to mine copper, 
molybdenum and other metals on a massive scale. 
The referendum was organized in Ayabaca, the capitol of the Ayabaca 
municipality, in Pacaipampa in the Ayabaca municipality, and in Carmen de 
la Frontera in the Huancabamba municipality - all in Peru’s Piura state. 
At stake here are the rights of local governments as well as the basic 
human rights to participate in government and private plans affecting 
their future. 
Associated as the Rural Municipalities of Piura, the mayors of 12 
municipalities agreed to support this democratic exercise, which was also 
legalized by the National Council on Human Rights, a branch of the 
Ministry of Justice of Peru.

They later verified the referendum's legitimacy under diverse articles in 
Peru’s National Constitution as well as the Organic Law governing 
municipalities. Article 21.1 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights 
also confirms this right of referendum, as well as Articles 2 and 6 of the 
Interamerican Democratic Letter, the International Pact on Civil Rights, 
policies of the United Nations, and the American Convention on Human 
Rights. 
National laws and international treaties protecting wildlife and their 
habitat, and especially endangered species, also substantiate the claims 
by local residents that these remnant wilderness areas must be preserved. 
Composed of seven district municipalities in the Piuran Andes, the Andean 
Central Community also decisively supported this grassroots democratic 
referendum as did the People’s Ombudsman of Piura. 
The People's Ombudsman had earlier denounced an ecologically damaging 
exploratory invasion committed by the Majaz mining company, the Peruvian 
branch of Monterrico Metals of England. This invasion occurred on land 
governed by the community of Yanta in Ayabaca municipality. 
Thirty volunteers from the Civilian Association for Transparency of Peru 
agreed to observe the referendum as well as 12 invited foreign observers. 
As part of the democratic process, conservationists such as Alejandro 
Zegarra-Pezo with support from the Andean Tapir Fund, prepared to present 
information to the voters concerning what mining would mean for the last 
remaining cloud forests and paramos in Piura. The information details the 
vital services these ecosystems provide, such as clean water, and their 
importance to endangered wildlife, particularly the mountain tapir. The 
presentation explains the threat posed by mining to these values and 
presences. 
These conservationists were attacked by promining factions, including 
employees of the national and state government. Some government officials 
have waged a well-financed campaign to promote mining and to suppress 
those opposed to it, often denouncing them as communists, terrorists, or 
illiterate people. 
Repeated attempts have also been made to bribe those opposed to mining. 
The National Jury of Elections, JNE, and the National Council on the 
Environment, CONAM, among other Peruvian government organizations, took 
the extreme position of declaring the grassroots referendum on mining to 
be illegal and threatened the mayors of the Rural Municipalities of Piura 
with penal sentences for supporting the referendum. 
Using illicit means, JNE, CONAM, and others, sought to prevent the popular 
referendum and, failing this, unsuccessfully tried to seize the voting 
results.

Nonetheless, on Sunday, September 16, the referendum took place in an 
orderly fashion. Many of the campesinos had walked a day or more to 
exercise their right to vote. Social order was maintained by campesino 
“rondas,” appointed committees based on ancient communal tradition, from 
Ayabaca and Huancabamba. 
The Majaz mining company sent hundreds of hired people to disrupt the 
vote. This disruption included incitement to physical violence through 
insults. The Majaz workers organized a big fiesta where alcoholic 
beverages were offered along with meat, turkey and all the trimmings among 
other gifts in order to distract and inebriate the voting public before 
the vote so they would not vote or so they would vote pro-mining. 
In spite of these efforts, observed by Zegarra, the public referendum 
resulted in a resounding rejection of the mining project. 
The communities on whose lands the Rio Blanco mining project is planned 
clearly opted for protecting their remaining vital watersheds and 
wilderness habitats. 
With a substantial majority of eligible voters voting in all three 
communities, the count was about 95 percent opposed to mining in each of 
the three communities. 
This vote may serve to protect the headwaters of vital rivers such as the 
Chinchipe and Quiroz that serve major reservoirs and agricultural areas, 
towns and cities. 
These rivers also supply water to wilderness habitats for endangered 
species such as the mountain tapir, the spectacled bear, the white-winged 
guan, Peruvian cock-of-the-rock, condor, rare and endemic hummingbirds, 
rare orchids, Podocarpus conifers, amphibians, lizards, and insects, that 
have been descriptively listed in detail by the Andean Tapir Fund. 
A sizeable portion of the habitat for many endemic plant and animal 
species associated with the singular Huancabamba Depression occurs in the 
area affected by the Rio Blanco mining project. 
If this project were to go through, several other similar projects would 
be likely to follow, resulting in a devastation of this unique, 
intrinsically valuable evolutionary area. 
Ancient temple ruins that are reported in Andean forests would also be 
affected by the mining project. 
All who participated in this vote were threatened in many and various ways 
by the pro-mining factions, including the most extreme - by death, says 
Zegarra, whose life has been repeatedly threatened. 
Nevertheless, at the polls, the voters chose life. They chose the 
preservation of what remains of the natural world in their home region and 
rejected the massive open-pit, heap leach Rio Blanco mining project. 
Conservationists call this vote a significant turn of events in favor of 
nature and ecological sustainability, and a wise change of course for 
Peru. 

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