Catholic Church's Role in Keeping Gold Mining out of El Salvador

Rachel Nadelman, a doctoral student at the American University, School of International Service, has a terrific report on the role of the Catholic Church in leading the anti-mining charge in El Salvador with "Let Us Care for Everyone's Home": The Catholic Church's Role in Keeping Gold Mining out of El Salvador. Here's the executive summary:

El Salvador’s refusal to allow industrial gold mining within its borders sets it apart from most other Latin American countries. Since 2007, three successive presidents from opposing parties have maintained a de facto moratorium that prevents all mining firms – international and Salvadoran, public and private – from accessing El Salvador’s estimated 1.4 million ounces of gold deposits. A majority of Salvadoran citizens and political leaders alike are opposed to mining, citing the country’s environmental degradation, population density, and limited water resources.

Yet opposition to industrial gold mining has not always been the majority position in El Salvador. As recently as the early 2000s, the Salvadoran government, with support from international donors and creditors, pursued metals mining as an opportunity for economic growth. The story of how El Salvador diverged from this extractivist path is multi-faceted. A key element has been the strategic involvement of the Salvadoran Catholic Church. This working paper explores the Church’s influence on the Salvadoran government’s decision to suspend all metals mining. The analysis examines the theological and practical motivations for the Church’s stance on mining. It also describes the strategic actions taken by the Church to promote its position. Ultimately, the involvement of the Catholic Church served to strengthen the grassroots anti-mining movement, to shape the public debate, and to sway the electorate, which proved decisive in the suspension of all industrial metals mining in this country.

At individual and organizational levels, the Salvadoran Church has taken great interest in the anti-mining agenda of the last decade. It's unclear whether they would have been successful had not other political and economic actors across the political spectrum not been opposed to mining as well. Whose mind did they change?  

It also interesting to read how the Salvadoran Church's position was justified primarily on scientific grounds with a little bit of theology sprinkled in (okay, maybe that's not exactly fair). Archbishop Fernando Sáenz Lacalle is a trained chemist. In a way, it reminded me of Laudato Si', as well it should ( You should read this too. I read it a few weeks ago and one can incorporate all or some of it into undergraduate classes.)

Another interesting approach by the Church and other Salvadoran actors was its focus on mining's threat to water. El Salvador is a small country with limited fresh water supplies. Mining, even under the best of conditions, is likely to contaminate that limited supply. This argument won the support of people across the political, economic, and religious divide. Pro-mining arguments during the Funes and Sanchez Ceren governments that even Venezuela and Cuba do it fell on deaf ears.

When I was in El Salvador last summer, some US people I spoke with did not entirely believe the principled commitment against mining on environmental grounds as it seemed to be the only environmental issue in which citizens were active. If there is such a principled commitment to protecting the environment, why don't we see that level of engagement elsewhere? I don't think that's entirely fair, but I'm not sure that we have yet to witness serious societal efforts at conservation.