Mountains or Mines?

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Jed reflects on destructive mining practices and the right of Indigenous communities to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent before any mining project takes place on Indigenous lands.

Dear friends,

At almost 16,000 feet above sea level, a massive carved out pit sits where a mountaintop once stood. The mountain known as Toromocho was home to a community called Morococha. Today, in its place is a mining project – one of 86 copper mines in Peru. For the people of Morococha, the lagoons that surround Toromocho are critical for life, providing drinking water and irrigation for miles around. For the mining company, the copper they extract from around those lagoons is critical for energy, providing electrical wiring around the world. Today those lagoons are green with contamination. The people of Morococha have been relocated about six miles down the road, along with their sheep and alpaca.

The company and the government will say they gave the people of Morococha a fair deal. The accounts of the community tell a different story: of some being physically forced to move and of others being paid large sums of money from the company to obey. In effect, they tell the ancient tale of divide-and-conquer.

[ngg src="galleries" ids="1236" display="thumbnail" thumbnail_crop="0"]It was divide-and-conquer tactics that allowed the Spanish conquistadores to wrest control of the Andes from the Incan Empire. Back then it was the abundance of gold in the mountains that lured the Spanish. Today it is copper and other minerals deemed “critical” by the biggest energy consuming countries in the world. Centuries ago the church rationalized the tactics of the conquistadores and colonizers through the infamous “Doctrine of Discovery” that justified the European domination of foreign lands in the interest of growing Christendom. While we repudiate such doctrine today, I sometimes wonder if we are unwittingly participating in the repetition of past evils.

While the pursuit of global Christendom is far from our stated mission, the mitigating of global warming is very much at the heart of our gospel work today. Climate change puts us all at risk, most especially peoples in the global south such as the community of Morococha. Both intense dry seasons followed by intense rainy seasons make it difficult for the soil to retain water, meaning the pastures die, livestock starve, and children go hungry. So, indeed, we must try to stop global warming and help others adapt to its impacts.

The question is, how do we do that? Perhaps the most logical response is to transition away from fossil fuels and transition towards renewable energies. But whether one agrees with that logic or not, the fact of the matter is that this transition is happening anyway. We will run out of oil one day, and we will need an alternative source of energy. And so, the race has begun.

For many of us in the church, the transition away from fossil fuels is a moral imperative in the interest of mitigating global warming. What we may fail to see though is that the transition towards renewable energies is not without consequences. It will require massive amounts of minerals for the development of new infrastructure - minerals like the copper found underneath the old Morococha where the people had no choice but to get up and leave.

It is this question of choice that we in the church must grapple with. Should not the people of Morococha have had a real choice in whether they be displaced or not?

This summer at the 226th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the church will take a look at this very issue. Recognizing that more than half of the “critical” minerals needed for the energy transition are located on Indigenous lands around the world, a study paper from the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy will call the church’s attention to the Indigenous Right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent. This right means that Indigenous communities must be given all information about a proposed mining project and the power to de-authorize the project if they choose to do so.

I wonder what the community of Morococha would be like today had they been allowed to exercise their right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent. Would they still be on their land? Would they have forced greater environmental protections to be enacted? Or, maybe there would be more investment in the community to help them adapt to climate change.

I am grateful to be part of a church that is willing to grapple with its own complicity in the unjust systems that impact Indigenous lands in the interest of protecting a “way of life” in more industrialized lands. And I look forward to the day when we can reconcile our respective “ways of life” to ensure equitable and harmonious living for all.

Thank you for being part of that church! Thank you for supporting this church! Thank you for prayerfully joining with us as we walk with global partners who call our attention to the unjust realities of this world! We are so very grateful!

Grace and Peace,

Jed (on behalf of Jenny)