The Fort Worth Press - President's push to scrap gold mining ban causes outcry in El Salvador

USD -
AED 3.672995
AFN 69.243509
ALL 93.496283
AMD 392.423738
ANG 1.801759
AOA 914.499271
ARS 1016.879026
AUD 1.560939
AWG 1.8
AZN 1.699066
BAM 1.861532
BBD 2.018579
BDT 119.470037
BGN 1.858079
BHD 0.377127
BIF 2954.865606
BMD 1
BND 1.343467
BOB 6.90817
BRL 5.977397
BSD 0.999762
BTN 84.769428
BWP 13.565323
BYN 3.27172
BYR 19600
BZD 2.015133
CAD 1.41413
CDF 2870.000183
CHF 0.888585
CLF 0.035342
CLP 975.202346
CNY 7.266299
CNH 7.268795
COP 4338
CRC 501.694205
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 104.949817
CZK 23.861205
DJF 178.024823
DKK 7.095535
DOP 60.467905
DZD 133.816974
EGP 50.845048
ERN 15
ETB 127.215412
EUR 0.951505
FJD 2.316498
FKP 0.789317
GBP 0.783616
GEL 2.809827
GGP 0.789317
GHS 14.695735
GIP 0.789317
GMD 72.000534
GNF 8624.267113
GTQ 7.702851
GYD 209.091601
HKD 7.775655
HNL 25.348359
HRK 7.133259
HTG 130.947509
HUF 389.283975
IDR 15957.8
ILS 3.58514
IMP 0.789317
INR 84.85405
IQD 1309.690376
IRR 42087.525034
ISK 138.839711
JEP 0.789317
JMD 156.666413
JOD 0.709297
JPY 152.501496
KES 129.230278
KGS 86.804511
KHR 4019.416552
KMF 466.124959
KPW 899.999621
KRW 1431.844996
KWD 0.30758
KYD 0.833119
KZT 522.134338
LAK 21895.434168
LBP 89525.241757
LKR 290.121165
LRD 179.450816
LSL 17.823592
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.877979
MAD 9.966877
MDL 18.28046
MGA 4688.570776
MKD 58.564561
MMK 3247.960992
MNT 3397.999946
MOP 8.003769
MRU 39.638696
MUR 46.960037
MVR 15.404102
MWK 1733.51481
MXN 20.12181
MYR 4.43602
MZN 63.904601
NAD 17.823592
NGN 1548.180346
NIO 36.786926
NOK 11.107655
NPR 135.632567
NZD 1.721778
OMR 0.38502
PAB 0.999676
PEN 3.709453
PGK 4.044202
PHP 58.280502
PKR 278.075916
PLN 4.06795
PYG 7820.947232
QAR 3.644886
RON 4.727197
RSD 111.280994
RUB 104.696513
RWF 1393.150841
SAR 3.758094
SBD 8.383555
SCR 14.094254
SDG 601.502219
SEK 10.95526
SGD 1.34415
SHP 0.789317
SLE 22.798196
SLL 20969.504736
SOS 571.366025
SRD 35.204998
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.748084
SYP 2512.529858
SZL 17.814073
THB 33.8085
TJS 10.926959
TMT 3.51
TND 3.16309
TOP 2.342097
TRY 34.8793
TTD 6.785453
TWD 32.513799
TZS 2375.000217
UAH 41.746745
UGX 3657.770502
UYU 43.735247
UZS 12861.806725
VES 49.425793
VND 25396
VUV 118.722009
WST 2.791591
XAF 624.340402
XAG 0.031057
XAU 0.000368
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.758695
XOF 624.340402
XPF 113.511764
YER 250.375027
ZAR 17.650725
ZMK 9001.200193
ZMW 27.517251
ZWL 321.999592
  • RIO

    0.1600

    64.98

    +0.25%

  • BTI

    0.0100

    37.74

    +0.03%

  • CMSC

    0.0100

    24.63

    +0.04%

  • SCS

    0.0400

    13.2

    +0.3%

  • BCC

    0.0500

    142.48

    +0.04%

  • JRI

    -0.0100

    13.3

    -0.08%

  • BP

    0.2300

    30.33

    +0.76%

  • CMSD

    -0.1000

    24.29

    -0.41%

  • RBGPF

    60.9600

    60.96

    +100%

  • RYCEF

    0.0500

    7.33

    +0.68%

  • GSK

    -0.7600

    34.45

    -2.21%

  • NGG

    -0.8700

    60.07

    -1.45%

  • BCE

    -0.4900

    25.97

    -1.89%

  • RELX

    0.2700

    47.34

    +0.57%

  • VOD

    -0.0700

    8.77

    -0.8%

  • AZN

    0.2200

    67.4

    +0.33%

President's push to scrap gold mining ban causes outcry in El Salvador
President's push to scrap gold mining ban causes outcry in El Salvador / Photo: © AFP

President's push to scrap gold mining ban causes outcry in El Salvador

El Salvador's gang-busting strongman President Nayib Bukele has set out on a new mission: to kickstart his country's sputtering economy by inviting back the mining companies that were barred seven years ago.

Text size:

El Salvador was the first country in the world to ban the mining of metals in 2017, warning of the harmful effects of the chemicals used in mining, like cyanide and mercury.

The move by Bukele's predecessor, former left-wing rebel Salvador Sanchez Ceren, reflected the growing rejection of mining by rural communities in central America, devastated by the industry's adverse health and environmental effects.

Costa Rica and Honduras have both banned open-pit mining and Panama declared a moratorium on new mining concessions last year after mass protests over plans for a huge copper mine.

But on November 27, the populist Bukele signaled he wanted to change course.

In a series of posts on the social network X he claimed that El Salvador, a country of 6.6 million people, had "potentially" the largest gold deposits per square kilometer in the world.

"God placed a gigantic treasure underneath our feet," he wrote, arguing that the mining ban was "absurd."

Bukele cited a study -- written by unknown authors and which he did not publish -- that he said showed that mining a mere 4 percent of the country's gold deposits would bring in $131 billion, "equivalent to 380 percent of GDP."

"If we make responsible use of our natural resources, we can change the economy of El Salvador overnight," he added a few days later.

- 'Huge risk' -

Since El Salvador dollarized its remittances-reliant economy in 2001, it has registered annual growth of between just 2 and 3.5 percent.

Twenty-seven percent of Salvadorans live in poverty, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and 70 percent of the workforce operates in the informal sector.

Bukele, in power since 2019, took a huge gamble by investing hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money in bitcoin and making the cryptocurrency legal tender in 2021 -- the first country in the world to do so.

But most Salvadorans have shunned the cryptocurrency. Additionally, the country's adoption of bitcoin hampered Bukele's talks with the International Monetary Fund over a $1.3 billion loan.

He now appears to be pinning his hopes for a recovery on mining.

But he faces a stiff challenge from environmentalists who have won several victories over mining companies.

"It's one thing to put a mine in the Atacama Desert (in Chile) and another thing to open an open-pit mine in Chalatenango," said Pedro Cabezas, leader of the Central American Alliance Against Mining.

Chalatenango is a community north of the capital San Salvador that successfully opposed a gold mine project in 2006.

Antonio Pacheco, of the Association of Economic and Social Development NGO, which has pioneered the fight against mining, said that Bukele's proposal to mine areas along the mighty Lempa River, which supplies water for San Salvador, represented a "tremendous risk" to residents.

- 'Generate employment' -

In the former gold mining town of Santa Rosa de Lima, where US miner Commerce Group had its environmental licence revoked in 2006 over river pollution, Bukele's plan elicited a mixed response.

"I think that this could cause the area to prosper... it would generate employment," Ruben Delgado, a 55-year-old construction worker, told AFP.

Jose Torres, a 72-year-old artisanal miner who extracts gold nuggets from disused mining tunnels by hand, said he feared losing his income to multinationals.

The nearby San Sebastian River was contaminated by industrial mining, and remains polluted to this day as artisanal mining continues.

Economist Carlos Acevedo, former president of the Central Bank of El Salvador, commented that the "spectacular" figures presented by Bukele created the impression that El Salvador "is sitting on a gold mine."

He said that the 50 million ounces of gold touted by Bukele as a fraction of the country's reserves could pay off El Salvador's external debt -- which accounts for 85 percent of GDP -- four times over.

But he added that there was "no recipe for generating growth from one day to the next" and that any boon for El Salvador would depend on how much royalties mining companies paid.

M.T.Smith--TFWP