A Struggle for Clean Canadian Mining in Costa Rica BY ANA ISLA "Sayyes~. to life, no to mining'?was- the farms and placed it in the hands of slogan of a protest against the Cana- the government in order to promote O pe n-p m g dian firm Vanessa Ventures Ltd in biological corridors in the conserva- Costa Rica uses the Costa Rica on March 22, 2002. tionareas. extremely toxic Thousands of Costa Ricans took to In 1991, theworld Wildlife Fund- the streets in Ciudad Quesada to Canada (WF-C) and MINAE drafted cyanide Iixiviation battle the decision of their national the first step of a management plan, technique, which government to grant a permit for El Plan General de Uso de La Tierra open-pit gold mining to another (The General Land Use Plan) for the has led to severe Canadian mining corporation. Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area pollution and Why are Costa Ricans fighting (ACA).This plan regulated land ac- Canadian mining firms?The answer cess and use. According to the WF- consequently to - involves forests, pollution, debt, wa- c's Canadian director, Claude organized resistance ter, local livelihoods, and globaliza- Tremblay, the LandPlan in ACA was among local tion-related national policy changes. based on the characteristics of the Women are central in the mining territory and its biophysical potenti- communities. protests, both as leaders and as those alities, and it identified the limits of whose lives are most affected. acceptable human intervention for Two periods built the Costa Rican the sustainability of the area. The Depuis I99I, lorsqu 'on a instaurk la resistance: the globalization of the area is called "Costa Rica's gold belt" politique du diveloppement durable debt crisis, in the 1980s, that brought due to fairly large deposits of buried au Costa Rica, dans le parr de conser- International Monetary Fund (IMF) alluvial gold that are found there. vation de llArinal et de ses environs, and World Bank (WB) policies The gold belt includes the towns of une avalanche de compagnies minieres (stabilization and structural adjust- Montes del Aguacate and Cordillera canadiennes intiresskes ri l'exploitation ment) to Costa Rica's doorstep to de Tilaran, in the mining district of des mines d'or Li ciel ouvert ont alarmi facilitate entry of foreign investment; Abangares. The towns of Libano, les $mmes et les hommes des com- and the globalization ofthe environ- Miramar and Montes del Aguacate munautks locales parce qtre ces rigions mental crisis, in the early 1990s, that also belong to this district. n hvaient jamais connu dbpkrations brought corporate environmental The Arenal-Tilaran Conservation minitres. Nous lisons ici au sujet de la NGOS to Costa Rica's forest to expe- Area extends over 250,561.5 hec- bataille desfemmespour de l'eaupure dite enclosure. tares (ha) of land. Out of this total, et de leur rksistance It l'exploitation de Costa Rica-which has one of the the Land Plan document recom- lbrpar les Canadiens, un iliment du highest per-capita debts in Latin mended protecting 1 16,690.2 ha for programme de diveloppement / America-has been experimenting sustainable development, including mondialisation durable. with sustainable development in the a research program, ecotourism and form of conservation areas as part of global air market (selling CO,). But I want you to tell Canadians its overall strategy of retiring foreign by 1993, a large part of these territo- that here [Costa Rica] there is a debt through debt-for-nature swaps ries had been designated for mineral town (Miramar) that struggles (Isla). The Sistema Nacionalde Areas exploration (Plan General de Uso de against the big powers, that we de Conservacion (SINAC)has divided la Tierra, Vol. 11, 1993). A .pamphlet . are fighting desperately to eradi- the country into eleven Conserva- entitled, "Description of the Arenal- cate Canadian powers from our tion Areas under the supervision of Tilaran Conservation Area" (made lands. the Ministry of Environment and available by ~c~-Tilaran'scentral -Alexander FloresAguero Energy (MINAE). MINAE has taken the offices), clearly underlines this con- (1999, Traditional Popular right to land ownership away from tradiction: the pamphlet decries the Culture National Award) owners of small- and medium-sized destruction ofthe rain forest but also 148 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIESILES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME Water and Livelihood in the Era of Globalization encourages transnational corporation ready in operation: been created in the area: (TNCS)investments in farming, wood 1) Las Lilas Mining Project in and forest activities, environmental Quebrada Grande de Liberia, owner *The displacement from tradi- services, and the extraction of earth of the subsidiary Tierra Colorada tional ways of life and liveli- minerals in ACA. By 1998, at least S.A. of Barrick Gold; hood to give space to mining. eight Canadian mining firms were 2) Mining Rio Chiquito de "We were expelled from Rio operating more than 12 gold mines Tilaran, owned by Corporation Min- Chiquito in Tilaran to make in the Arenal area. erals Mallon S.A, a subsidiary of the room for mining, because they Canadian Mallon Minerals. claimed that we were causing Costa Rica's Gold Belt Newmont Mining was also involved damage to flora and fauna, wa- in exploring the property (Mining ter and soil"; Open-pit mining in Costa Rica now Magazine 179) ; *The suffering of women, men uses the extremely toxic cyanide 3) Mining La Union, in La Union and children when water con- lixiviation technique, which has led of Montes de Oro, owned by tamination forces them to emi- to severe pollution and consequently Minerales La Union S. A., a Cana- grate; to organized resistance among local dian subsidiary; *The grief and hardship due to communities. Women and men are 4) Mining Beta Vargas in La Pita the openings of hollows in the concerned that an increase in strip de Chomes, Puntareanas and San soil where their cattle fall and mining can further destroy local riv- Juan of Abangares-Guanacaste, die; ers and lakes. The resistance to min- owned by the subsidary Novontar *The disruption to their culture ingis therefore astruggle not only for S.A of Lyon Lake Mines of Canada; and relationship with nature by clean water but also for the preserva- 5)Ariel Resources Ltd, in La Junta the elimination of recreation tion of livelihoods. The government de Abangares, the oldest Canadian spaces; consequently, drug ad- has tried to sell sustainable develop- mine in Costa Rica, extracts gold diction, alcoholism and prosti- ment as "environmental preserva- through three subsidiaries: tution become more significant. tion" in the name of ecological con- a) Mining Tres Hermanos, oper- servation. However, communities in ated by el Valiente Ascari; The Position Paper concludes the "gold belt" understand that the b) Mining San Martin, operated "national" government cannot pro- by Mining of Sierra Alta S. A., and, tect their interests and their liveli- C) Mining El Recio, operated by Women and men hoods, because it cannot protect their Minera Silencio S. A.. are concerned environment. For instance, on the Ariel Resources Ltd has been oper- Pacific coast, MINAE granted 20 con- ating in the area since 1986. In No- that an increase cessions to transnational miningcor- vember 2000, it disappeared from in strip mining porations that exploit 1 1,697 ha. of Costa Rica, leaving debts with the can further land, while a further eleven conces- Costa Rican Hydro Institute (ICE) sions are still under negotiation. The and with its workers, who presented destroy local rivers indebted Costa Ricangovernmentls comp~aintsat ~aiias~ribunalagainst and lakes. The abandonment ofland to mining cor- one of Ariel Resources subsidiaries porations has led to the expropria- (Torres). resistance to mining. - tion of 16,097 hectares of land from Women and men in the areawrote is a a struqqle for local communities. In many cases, a Position Paper (1999), in which clean water and communities have been forcibly they highlighted their concern with evicted (Isla). the inadequacies of MINAE. The pa- the preservation On the Pacific coast, the following per describes their distress with min- of livelihoods. Canadian mining companies are al- ing and with the problems that have VOLUMES 21/22, NUMBERS 411 149 with incredulity about the promise Wewelcome investments, ifthey land, biodiversity, scenery, water, air of job creation and mistrust that respect our identity as agricul- quality, and human health, and in- MINAE and its partners can confront tural people and our wish to live cluded evidence rhat underground the ecological crisis while simulta- in peace and harmony with na- water was also being contaminated. neously supporting the mining in- ture. But we won't accept Despite the analysis, the Health Min- dustries. Community members' ex- projects we have not asked for; ister declared there was no contami- perience has shown that the only we do not want them. If foreign nation. Torres stated that the local outcomes are destruction and illu- investors want to invest here, river also contains 800 times more sory benefits that disappear imme- they must accept people's par- iron than normal. ticipatory processes, because we As we stood outside ofthe "Cuatro won't accept projects that con- Vientos" mine, whichwas abandoned "We won't accept spire against our well-being even by a Canadian company, we viewed if they were accepted by the the one main street of the town of projects we have "national" government. We al- Las Juntas de Abangares. It is still not asked for; ready have our own develop- covered with rocks and yellow water ment based on land, clean water that leaked from a chemical dump we do not want and air, community, and soli- site. Torres stated that in addition to them ...