Anti-Gold Mining Movements in Argentina (Esquel)
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Anti-gold mining movements in Argentina (Esquel) and Chile (Pascua-Lama) Titulo Walter, Mariana - Autor/a; Urkidi, Leire - Autor/a; Autor(es) Lugar ENGOV Working Paper Series Editorial/Editor 2014 Fecha ENGOV Working Paper Series no. 11 Colección Resource extraction; Environmental conflicts; Environmental justice; Gold mines; Temas Argentina; Chile; Doc. de trabajo / Informes Tipo de documento "http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/engov/20140526092424/WorkingPaperENGOV11_WalterandUrkidi.pdf" URL Reconocimiento-No Comercial CC BY-NC Licencia http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.es Segui buscando en la Red de Bibliotecas Virtuales de CLACSO http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO) Conselho Latino-americano de Ciências Sociais (CLACSO) Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) www.clacso.edu.ar ENGOV Working Paper ENGOV Working paper No. 11, 2014 Series Anti‐gold mining movements in Argentina (Esquel) ENGOV ‐ Environmental and Chile (Pascua‐Lama)1 Governance in Latin America and the Caribbean: 2 Authors: Mariana Walter and Leire Urkidi (ICTA‐UAB) Developing Frameworks for Sustainable and Equitable Natural Resource Use ‐ is a collaborative research project between Latin American and European researchers funded by the European Union (SSH‐CT‐2010‐266710). For more information: Para mayor información: Para mais informações: www.engov.eu The ENGOV working paper series serves to communicate the first results of ongoing ENGOV research, with the aim to stimulate the exchange of ideas and debate at different levels. Inclusion of a paper in the ENGOV Working Paper Series does not constitute publication and should not limit publication in any other venue. Copyright remains with the authors. 1 Paper based on a previous version of a paper submitted for publication to Geoforum. 2 Both authors have contributed equally to this paper. ENGOV Working Paper Series Published by the Collaborative Research Project ENGOV ‐ Environmental Governance in Latin America and the Caribbean: Developing Frameworks for Sustainable and Equitable Natural Resource Use ‐ Copyright for this edition: Mariana Walter and Leire Urkidi ENGOV ‐ Environmental Governance in Latin America and the Caribbean: Developing Frameworks for Sustainable and Equitable Natural Resource Use ‐ cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in this Working Paper; the views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author or authors and do not necessarily reflect those of ENGOV. All working papers are available free of charge on our website www.engov.eu. Biographical notes Mariana Walter is a researcher at ICTA‐UAB. She holds a PhD on Environmental Sciences. Her research addresses extractive conflicts in Latin America. She has participated in research projects in Argentina (UNGS) and Europe (ALARM, CEECEC, ENGOV, EJOLT). Leire Urkidi is a researcher and assistant professor at the University of the Basque country. She is a member of the research group EKOPOL. She holds a PhD on Environmental Sciences. Her research addresses large‐scale gold mining conflicts in Latin America. 2 ENGOV Working paper No. 11, 2014 Anti‐gold mining movements in Argentina (Esquel) and Chile (Pascua‐Lama) Mariana Walter and Leire Urkidi Abstract The present article examines two Latin American gold mining conflicts, one in the city of Esquel (Patagonia in Argentina) and the other in Pascua‐Lama (Chilean border with Argentina). We identify the emergence and deployment of three dimensions of environmental justice (distribution, recognition, participation) in the anti‐mining movements of these two cases. Keywords Environmental justice; resource extraction conflicts; participation; recognition; jumping scales. 3 Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 5 1. Environmental Justice ......................................................................................................................... 6 1.1 Recognition and participation in EJ ............................................................................................... 7 1.2 Politics of scale in EJ ...................................................................................................................... 9 1.3 Environmental Justice Movements in Latin America .................................................................... 9 2. Case studies ...................................................................................................................................... 11 2.1 Pascua‐Lama project and Huasco Valley ..................................................................................... 13 2.2 Esquel .......................................................................................................................................... 18 3. Discussion .......................................................................................................................................... 22 3.1 Recognition and Participation ..................................................................................................... 22 3.2 Distribution ................................................................................................................................. 24 4. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 25 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 27 4 Introduction From 1990 to 2001, 12 of the world’s 25 largest investments in mining were made in Latin America: two in Peru, nine in Chile and one in Argentina (Bridge, 2004). In fact, according to the 7th International Gold Symposium (May 2008, Lima) ‘Latin America is the region where most gold prospecting took place in the world in the 1990s and 2000s, and this is set to continue’. This is partly due to the restrictions in Canada and the US, and the political instability in the former Soviet Union, Asia and Africa (Butterman and Amey, 2005). Furthermore, regulatory reforms promoting mining undertaken in Latin America since the 1990s, added to sky rocketed ore prices and new technologies are fostering this shift of the international geography of mining investment towards Latin America (Bridge, 2004). According to the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States, hard‐rock mining generates more toxic waste than any other economic sector. In 2008, mining activities emitted 80% of the arsenic, 89% of mercury and 86% of the lead released in the US (EPA, 2009). Since the 1990s, more efficient although risky technologies (i.e. cyanide leaching in gold mining), made technically feasible and profitable the exploitation of low grade ore deposits. Such technologies, however, imply high environmental and social impacts (Moran, 2007) and greater environmental impacts per unit of gold (Mudd, 2007). Mining activities have generated environmental conflicts all around the world (Martinez‐Alier, 2001). The Latin American Observatory of Mining Conflicts reports more than 100 active mining conflicts in the region, most of which started in the 2000s (OCMAL, 2010). Conspicuous human rights violations have taken and still take place in many communities opposing mining projects, as exemplified by the murder of activists like Godofredo García Baca (Tambogrande, Peru, March 2001), the recent murders of Mariano Abarca Roblero and Betty Cariño in Mexico (Chiapas and Oaxaca, November 2009 and April 2010), the tortures suffered by peasants in the Peruvian Rio Blanco mining project in 2005 (Red Muqui, 2009), or the repression suffered by Guatemalan peasants in Sololá in 2005 (Castagnino, 2006). As a response to mining projects, dozens of communities are mobilizing and conducting popular referendums or consultations about mining (OCMAL, 2010). Just in Guatemala, more than 40 municipalities organized referendums rejecting mining projects ‐in line with ILO Convention 169 on indigenous people’s rights‐ (Prensa Libre, various dates). Tambogrande (Peru, 2002) and Esquel (Argentina, 2003) are emblematic cases as their vote led to the cancellation of the mining projects. As mining conflicts multiply in the region, scholarly research on anti‐mining movements is expanding. Studies address a diversity of issues, which include the institutional frameworks (decision‐making processes, participatory inclusions and exclusions, and regulatory schemes) and territorial transformations fostered by these movements, their strategies and demands, the constructions of narratives across scales and the valuation languages deployed (Bebbington et al., 2008, Bury, 2005, De Echave et al., 2009, Haarstad and Floysand, 2007, Muradian et al. 2003, Svampa and Antonelli, 2009, Walter and Martinez‐Alier, 2010). During the last decades national and regional environmental justice networks have emerged in Latin America (Acselrad, 2008, Carruthers, 2008), in which mining concerns and anti‐mining movements have a central place. However, little research has explicitly focused on how environmental justice ‐EJ‐ dimensions and demands are 5 framed and articulated in Latin American mining conflicts (Carruthers, 2008, Matinez‐Alier, 2001, Pulido, 1996). In this vein, the present paper studies the connections between Latin American anti‐mining movements and the