In Landslide Vote, Tambogrande, Peru Rejects Mine
By Mary Powers
TAMBOGRANDE, Peru, June 4, 2002 (ENS) - Residents in this northern farming district voted to overwhelmingly reject a Canadian company's plans to develop a rich mineral deposit that lies beneath the town.
Of the 19,996 people who voted Sunday, 98.6 percent cast a no vote when asked if they were in favor of mining in the Tambogrande district. Just 1.4 percent cast a yes vote, electoral committee officials said. Another 26.7 percent stayed away, a percentage slightly higher than the absentee rate in the last national elections.
The failure to vote in such elections, however, carries stiff fines while Sunday's ballot was voluntary.
Johnny Peralta, a national congressman from the region, said that although Peru's mining legislation does not contemplate such a mechanism of consultation, "the government's decisions have to be given validity by and coordinated with the population."
The plans by Manhattan Minerals Corp. of Vancouver, Canada to invest some US$300 million in developing the polymetallic deposit of gold, silver, copper and zinc has shaken up this quiet farming for more than two years. In February 2000, Manhattan's offices in the town were ransacked and several months later a strong opponent of the mine was ambushed and killed.
The voting on Sunday, however, took place without incident.
Manhattan Minerals said in a statement that its position has been, and continues to be, that the company "must gain a social license to operate and receive a positive consensus from the population impacted by the project before constructing a mine. But the June 2nd opinion poll has no validity on a social license to operate," in the company's view.
The polling was valid to Tambogrande residents, however, and some voters made extraordinary efforts to make their voices heard.
Elderly farmers and women, dressed in their Sunday best, crossed the river running through the town on huge rubber tires mounted on slabs of plywood to vote at tables set up six schools in the main part of town.
"Life here is agriculture and raising livestock. This is what we are defending," said a ice cream vendor who would only identify herself as Maria, as she looked out over the river. She and other Tambogrande residents showed some hostility to journalists, whom they accused of distorting the townspeople's efforts to preserve their traditional lifestyle.
Farming Under Threat
Farmers surveyed during the vote echoed Maria's assertion that agriculture in the fertile San Lorenzo valley nearby was under threat from the mine plan.
The San Lorenzo valley, tucked in Peru's arid desert coast 650 miles north of Lima, is the site of a model, World Bank sponsored irrigation project installed in the 1950s. The valley is the country's largest producer of limes and mangoes for export.
"With a mine here, they are not going to want our products in other countries," said another farmer who refused to give his name.
Manhattan officials say cutting edge technology would be employed to avoid damage to farming and the environment. Jose Luis Vega, head of environmental affairs for the company, said there would be no residual effects from the mining, neither in the air nor the water.
The company and the central government have maintained that the process of presenting an environmental impact study, as called for in the mining legislation, will go ahead as planned.
Manhattan Minerals says the vote should have been held after its environmental impact study was released. "It is impossible for those most impacted by the project to provide an informed opinion about the viability, benefits, and risks of a project, without being able to review the independent technical, economic, and social issues that are researched in the Feasibility Study and Environmental Impact Assessment," the company said.
Energy and Mines Minister Jaime Quijandria has said that, while the government wants the law abided by, it will be up to company to demonstrate to Tambogrande residents that the deposit can be developed without causing damage to the environment.
Peru has a long mining tradition, and minerals are the country's largest foreign exchange earner, accounting for 45 percent of exports. But the majority of mines are located in the Andean highlands where the development of other economic activities is often difficult.