Anti-mining demonstrators blockade Peruvian roads

At midnight on May 2, farmers from cities and towns across the northern Peruvian state of Piura began blocking major roads to mining concessions to demand the immediate suspension of all mining projects in some parts of the state and the declaration of a no-mining "red zone" in the Piuran Cordillera. On May 4, the main road between Sullana and Tumbes remained closed and there was a fierce battle between police and demonstrators in which hundreds were hurt. A public prosecutor was taken as a hostage by protesters to exchange for other community protesters in prison. The exchange now has been completed and both the prosecutor and the prisoners have been released, according to eye-witness conservationist Alejandro Zegarra-Pezo. The latest round of protests was triggered by a recent increase in pressure from mining companies, seeking gold, silver, copper and molybdenum, particularly Monterrico Metals of London and its Peruvian branch Majaz, as well as the Peruvian government and President Alan Garcia-Perez. The demonstrators are demanding the immediate suspension of all mining projects in Piura's cloud forests and the treeless Andean alpine plateaus known as paramos. They are also demanding the declaration of a no-mining zone in the Piuran Cordillera, with special protective status given to the habitat of the mountain tapir. The roads to the Piuran towns of Tambogrande, Valle de San Lorenzo, High, Medium and Low Piura, and Valle de Chira de Sullana, among others, remain blocked indefinitely. A legal team is inspecting the area to see how extensive the work done by Majaz has been. The communities remain adamant that they are not letting anyone enter their territories, especially miners. The movement is requesting the immediate presence and attention of the president of the Peruvian National Congress, Mercedes Cabanillas Bustamante, Piuran state ministers and other high government authorities to accommodate its demands. Until these demands are met, all commerce in the agriculturally productive Piuran state will come to a halt, according to Zegarra-Pezo. On May 2, Piuran farmers stopped all work for 24 hours. Apart from demands for higher cotton prices, this strike was a demand to stop proposed open pit mining projects in the cloud forest and paramo headwaters of major river systems serving Piuran farmers, including Monterrico/Majaz's Rio Blanco project. Six people were injured in the protest. As of May 4, protesters were still stopping the entrance of mining vehicles into their concessions. In Ayabaca province, vehicle routes into the mountains are being guarded by locals to prevent mining ingression. The provincial capital of Ayabaca and Huancabamba have already declared their territories to be nature reserves, and many local communities such as Yanta and Segunda y Cajas located in the midst of the mining concession have done likewise. Some of these communities have forbidden mining entrance into their territories for years, blocking roads and maintaining a constant vigilance to prevent strangers from entering. This firm citizen resolve has prompted Peru's President Alan Garcia-Perez to direct his attention to the Huancabamba region. In April, a military contingent entered Ayabaca and marched into the border area with Ecuador, most believe as a way of intimidating the deep rooted resistance to the mining industry's presence in the area. The president came to Piura to promote the mining projects. As expected, both the president and the mining companies offer money and modern progress by means of open pit and cyanide heap leach mining, while maintaining that such projects are environmentally and socially benign. Monterrico Metals is about to complete the environmental and social impact assessment for its Rio Blanco copper molybdenum open pit cyanide heap leach operation mining project. Early site preparation works are scheduled to start in 2008 and the target date for plant start up and commissioning is 2011, according to Monterrico. This mine may be allowed to proceed in the heart of the Piuran Cordillera's last cloud forests and paramos, an area proposed for nature sanctuary designation. If the Rio Blanco mine is permitted, conservationists predict a host of similar mining operations will also be allowed, including an adjacent concession of Newmont-USA, aimed at extracting millions of tons of copper, molybdenum, gold and other mineral ores at what they say would be a devastating ecological and social expense. Peruvian community leader Nicanor Alvarado Carrasco predicted major protests and social disruption if Rio Blanco is allowed to proceed. "The Peruvian High Amazon region is not suited for mining," he said. "With its fragile ecosystem of cloud forests and paramos, and its organic agriculture in the valleys, copper mining at the source of important rivers could have disastrous, long-lasting effects. The development of the Rio Blanco project risks a severe escalation of the mining conflict." The Rio Blanco project site is located in the Huancabamba region of northwestern Peru. Here the more southern and ancient Central Andes meets the younger, more volcanically active Northern Andes, creating diverse climatic regimes and supporting a great variety of species, including many found nowhere else on Earth. In this area, there are 196 species of mammals, 25 of them considered threatened with extinction. They include the endangered mountain tapir, of which only a few hundred still survive in Peru and only a few thousand globally. One of the world's great centers of bird origin and conservation, this region is inhabited by 439 species of birds. Nearly one-quarter of them are considered to be threatened with extinction. Some 580 square miles of the most ecologically intact Andean forest and paramo in the Huancabamba region is proposed by the Andean Tapir Fund as the Cerro Negro Nature Sanctuary. This mid-elevation to high-elevation Huancabamba ecosystem is the headwaters for the Piura and the Chira rivers running to the west and for the Marañon and the Amazon rivers running to the east. Thousands of farming families depend upon this river water to cultivate their crops.