ABSTRACT

This chapter summarizes the uniquely vulnerable environmental conditions of El Salvador that generated concerns on the part of the Salvadoran people related to transnational mining corporations seeking to exploit mid-grade deposits of gold and silver through the late 1990s and 2000s. It also describes, in more general terms, the threat of metallic mining to the environment, especially to increasingly scarce freshwater resources in an increasingly thirsty world. The chapter goes on to analyze and characterize the distinct periods in the seventeen-year struggle against metallic mining and the strategic vision that guided that struggle. It concludes with a detailed analysis of the special role played by the Catholic Church allied with the Jesuit-run Central American University (UCA) and broad-based social movements helping El Salvador, in 2017, to become the first nation in the world to analyze the costs and benefits of metallic mining and exercise its sovereign right to say “no.”