The Heart of Our Earth

Across Latin America, mining has expanded massively in recent decades. But communities aren't taking this lying down. LAB plans a new book and website, entitled The Heart of Our Earth: Community Resistance to Mining in Latin America.

Today LAB is launching a Crowdfunding appeal for £10,000 to enable us to continue our major new project The Heart of Our Earth - Community Resistance to Mining in Latin America.

Today, LAB is proud to launch a crowdfunding campaign for a brand new and very important LAB project: The Heart of Our Earth: Community Resistance to Mining in Latin America. But why mining? And why now?

he crowdfunding campaign for The Heart of Our Earth, our project dedicated to community resistance to mining in Latin America, came to an end on 23 December. The Crowdfunding campaign raised just under £9,000, while two separate large donations to the project added a futher £7,250 yielding a magnificent total of approximately £16,250.

At Espinar in Peru and on Chile's Colina river, major international mining companies are once more in the spotlight, suspected of causing pollution, denying responsibility and failing to consult local communities

As the drive to expand renewable energy capacity speeds up, there is a rush for lithium and other materials around the world. What will the expansion of rare earth mining in Latin America mean for the indigenous communities and workers who have historically borne the harms of extractivism?

Shady River (Río Turbio), named after the mining town in northwest Argentina in which it is set, explores the gendered space of the mine, giving voice to a collective of marginalised women and shedding light on the tragedies that haunt the town of Río Turbio. 

In The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved A Country from Corporate Greed, Robin Broad and John Cavanagh tell the harrowing, inspiring saga of Salvadorans' fight — and historic victory — to save their water, and their communities, from Big Gold.

It's not all plain sailing for mining companies. Communities at Cerro Colorado in Chile have put up stiff opposition to BHP, whose mine threatens water supplies from a key a key aquifer. And peasants in Huamachuco, Peru, staged a massive protest against mining in their province.

The mine tailings dam disasters in 2015 and 2019 in Minas Gerais, Brazil, killed many and affected thousands more. Members of affected communities came to London in April 2022 to meet with London Mining Network and described how the mining companies are still evading responsibility and failing to pay meaningful compensation.