Alessandra Korap Munduruku says “We need to be heard” as she explained why she and her people not only travelled for three days by bus and river boat to join COP30 in Belem, Brazil, but also stormed into meetings where the future of their home, and the world’s natural resources and climate change, were being debated.
Other Amazon Indigenous peoples and local communities who attended also found their invitation tokenistic in nature; they were visible but not empowered. The actual interest in their views and experiences as inhabitants of the Amazon accounted for little advance in meaningful participation, despite the many threats to their lives and way of life. This is a trend not only in Amazon regions but around the globe; while powerful corporations and governments approve exploitation, the communities inhabiting resource-rich areas are silenced. There is an inclination to create the illusion of participation, rather than adopting urgent measures even when these are based on scientific findings about the state of the planet.
Alessandra’s voice, like many others, does not guarantee that anyone is listening. When it comes to environmental issues, governments continue to apply “selective hearing”; something that South American countries are replicating, particularly as a response to the growing mining industry for precious metals and minerals.
Water and mining: an unfair exchange
Back in November this year, Argentina’s president Javier Milei confirmed support to proposals for international and private ventures aiming to increase Argentina’s copper and gold mining in the Andes. Large protests and rallies from people directly affected by these proposals in the Province of Mendoza, failed to stop the changes to Law 7722, which in 2007 had limited mining in the area establishing the importance of avoiding contamination of water sources for human consumption. With the new approved amendments, the original ban on the use of cyanide and sulfuric acid is lifted, allowing private mining companies to exploit the Argentinean Andes’ mineral resources, not without impacting water coming directly from these same mountains. Fragile ecosystems face further danger as scientific reports suggest that mining will threat water availability, impacting glaciers that nurture an extensive region already experiencing droughts.
The concerning environmental destruction and misinformed decisions in Latin America include several historical events where mining has been the main protagonist, often involving individual interests favoured over collective welfare. Protests of Chilean Indigenous peoples (Lickanantay, Quechua, Aymara, and Colla) against the threat posed by lithium exploitation in salt flats in Atacama and Antofagasta, were poorly addressed by the Estrategia Nacional del Litio (National Lithium Strategy). In the view of many scientists, this strategy was poorly informed. They criticised the fact that salt flats have not been studied enough to understand and classify the potential vulnerability of these fragile ecosystems, nor has the social impact of lithium exploitation for Indigenous peoples in the region.
Resources to live v. resources for profit
A distorted view of economic growth lies at the core of many environmental disputes around the world against exploration and exploitation projects. Continuous, permanent growth is unsustainable, and there are changes to be implemented in daily lives as much as the changes in a culture of uncontrolled consumerism. Without a change in perspective, initiatives from corporations and industry will continue to antagonise the way of life of others who have lived sustainably for centuries, let alone those who can see the imminent destruction of the planet.
Irene Velez Torres, the Colombian Minister of the Environment and Sustainable Development, declared during COP30 a hands-off policy for the Colombian Amazon territory (7% of its total and around 48 million hectares), in spite of pressure from hydrocarbon blocks and more than 300 existing applications for mining in the area. Velez Torres’ declaration included a call for collaboration with all Amazon countries, saying that the Amazon forest is one: rivers have no borders and neither does nature. But hunger for resources has no borders either; the financialization of nature will continue to be polemic while nations take separate paths, ignoring the fact that the imaginary borders created by humans are invisible when it comes to the dangers we all face as a planet.
Last minute update
At the time of writing this article, attacks by the American government have materialised in the capture of the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro. It is impossible not to question if this threat to take over a South American country with immense natural resources, may include a hidden agenda that suits the interests of the same powers that benefit from the economic exploitation of the environment.
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