Activists – especially women – stand firm in the face of an increasingly hostile regime in El Salvador, as opposition mounts against the new mining law which revokes a seven-year metal mining ban. Theo Bradford speaks to some of the leading female voices speaking out. Photography by Kellys Portillo.
The land is our identity. It’s where we come from, where our ancestors are — it’s the history of our communities. The regime thinks it can just move us somewhere else, as if it’s nothing. And anyone who objects is criminalized.
Zenayda Serrano, MUFRAS-32
On 23 December 2024, lawmakers in El Salvador voted to overturn the country’s historic seven-year ban on metal mining. The decision did not come as a surprise to local activists, who in the last two years have been subjected to intimidation and criminalization – for example in the case of the Santa Marta Five, arrested in January 2023 — and who have become increasingly aware of the presence of mining interests in their communities.
Despite the ostensible popularity of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, multiple studies have shown that the majority of the population is opposed to mining and a broad coalition of civil society organizations, the Church, and the general public are taking to the streets and appealing for the new law to be revoked.
Women on the frontline
Vidalina Morales, a petite campesina woman in her fifties, is the unlikely face of the anti-mining movement in El Salvador, having made a name for herself in the fight against the Canadian company Pacific Rim in her home Department of Cabañas during the 2000s and successfully campaigning for the 2017 ban. Now President of ADES, the Santa Marta Association for Economic and Social Development, one of the organizations that makes up the National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining, she says that women are ‘the first line of defence’ against extractivism.
‘Mining impacts women more than men, beginning with the work it creates for us: we’re the ones in rural, marginalized areas who are responsible for making sure there’s water in the home; mining consumes huge amounts of water, reducing our access to it. Another impact is on our bodies: for example, with health problems, especially sexually transmitted diseases; it’s always men who go to work in the mines and there’s always a brothel nearby. But there’s also the issue of contamination, with cyanide in the water, in the soil, and other diseases like cancer, congenital disorders… I’ve seen all of these in places where there’s mining activity.’
For Morales, like many women in the movement, it is impossible to separate women’s rights from defence of the environment: ‘Everything is connected. Our bodies, the earth, the land. For me, the land is another body which gives us life. Without it, we wouldn’t survive. What would happen if we didn’t have land to grow our crops on? Sustaining life in our territories means ensuring that our physical bodies are healthy, that these life-sustaining bodies are free of contamination. That’s our struggle.’
Everything is connected. Our bodies, the earth, the land.
Morales recalls that initially she faced multiple challenges: ‘Society thinks a good woman is one who stays home, being a good mother, a good wife. People would say “That woman’s crazy; she’s abandoned her children, abandoned her husband.” I found myself in spaces led by men, where I was looked down on because I come from the countryside, from the periphery. I felt marginalized for being a campesina woman, for not having a degree. But I believed I could transcend these limitations imposed by society and with time I managed to break through these barriers.’
‘There’s no such thing as responsible mining’
Nelly Rivera, President of AMAES – the Association of Women Environmentalists of El Salvador – and founder of the Ecofeminist Movement of El Salvador, has been an environmental activist for almost two decades, organizing and raising awareness especially among women in the municipality of Metapán in the department of Santa Ana. Like Morales, she believes there is a connection between the exploitation of women and that of the environment, and asserts that ‘sustainable mining doesn’t exist’.
AMAES has been promoting citizen science in the municipality to assess water quality, a process that not only helps to make the case against extractivism but also empowers local women, many of whom have no formal education. Biologist Cidia Cortés explains: ‘We – especially the rural women who work here who are committed to defending this body of water – monitor the water quality. Some of these women don’t know how to read or write but have learnt scientific techniques to care for the environment.’
In July 2024, AMAES was one of several organizations that founded the Cross-Border Ecofeminist Movement (Movimiento Ecofeminista Transfronterizo), bringing together activists from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras in opposition to the Cerro Blanco mine. The mine is located in an ecologically sensitive area near the source of the River Lempa and local communities are concerned about contamination, since the project intends to use 8 tonnes of cyanide a day over the course of 11 years, producing over 10,000 tonnes of toxic waste daily.
The Central American Alliance Against Mining (ACAFREMIN) has observed that the mine’s exploratory activities over the last 13 years have already drained local aquifers, depleting local water sources so that residents have had to make deeper wells in order to access water. This is especially evident in the community of Pita Floja, one of the places where AMAES is trying to raise awareness, in which 90 families depend on a single water source.
Monitoring of Lake Güija, just 14 kilometres downstream of Cerro Blanco, reveals the presence of heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, nickel, mercury, cyanide, copper, zinc, aluminium, and cadmium in the water. Once operational, the mine is expected to dump between 600 and 2,270 cubic metres of wastewater per day into the River Ostúa. And yet, Cortés warns, Cerro Blanco is ‘just the tip of the iceberg’: there are dozens of mining projects on the horizon in the north of the country and even more across the border in Guatemala and Honduras.
Water: a human right or a commodity?
Speaking to me from Costa Rica, Amalia López, leader of the National Alliance Against the Privatization of Water, says that allowing mining in El Salvador will only exacerbate the water crisis in the country. Currently, ANDA, the state water company, provides water to just 41 percent of the population, while 30 percent relies on community water associations. The rest get their water from wells, directly from the source, or buy it from the black market, at up to US $23 per cubic metre.
What is more, according to López, some 95-100 percent of the country’s water resources are already contaminated. The River Lempa, whose watershed covers 17,800 square kilometres, provides water to over half a million households in San Salvador and two million people nationally; however, samples reveal that the water is not suitable for human consumption and in many cases not even for agriculture. The river is also threatened by hydroelectric projects and extraction of sand for the country’s burgeoning construction industry.
López says that the water crisis in El Salvador is a ‘justice crisis’ caused by unequal distribution: most of the country’s water resources are channelled into extractive industries, which besides mining also include sugar cane production, since the companies involved have the resources to pump water directly from aquifers with little to no government oversight. In this context, she observes, ‘those who have the least are the ones who have to pay the most — for a human right, a right that should be guaranteed by the state.’
‘We began to experience intense persecution’
Zenayda Serrano is a community leader from the Municipality of San Isidro, in the Department of Cabañas, currently seeking asylum with her family in Europe. Serrano, her partner, and their two daughters left the country in May this year after being displaced multiple times and subjected to violence and intimidation by the police: ‘We were afraid that if we continued to speak out, the army or the police would come and drag us out of our house in the middle of the night. This is what’s happening in El Salvador. It’s like living under a dictatorship.’
Serrano says the government is unwilling to carry out a public consultation on mining because it knows the population is against it: ‘They’re displacing us from our communities, making us leave the land, flee our homes, abandon our animals. This is our way of life. We have a right to work on the land, to live with dignity. We aren’t criminals. We are human beings asking for the government to respect our right to decide.’
This is not the first time communities in Cabañas have seen such tactics. According to Morales, the movement has experienced threats, harassment, and criminalization since the early 2000s. In 2009, three anti-mining activists Marcelo Rivera, Ramiro Rivera, and Dora Alicia Sorto – the latter eight months pregnant and accompanied by her two-year-old son – were assassinated and in 2011, student activist Juan Francisco Durán Ayala was also killed.
Morales’s son, Manuel Gámez, is one of many who in recent years have been arbitrarily detained by the regime. Fortunately, he was released within 24 hours, but Morales notes that others are not as fortunate. The intimidation of activists’ family members is now a common theme: Serrano’s father was imprisoned in the early days of the state of exception, as was the father of environmental journalist Carolina Amaya, who is currently residing in Mexico, having joined the ranks of other exiled journalists critical of Bukele.
aggressions against defenders in the country escalated from
180 cases in 2022 to over 286 in 2024, and this year are
likely to exceed 300.
López says that aggressions against defenders in the country escalated from 180 cases in 2022 to over 286 in 2024, and this year are likely to exceed 300. The committee monitoring the situation has begun to observe attacks on organizations as well as individuals, with the new Foreign Agents Law severely curtailing the freedom of civil society organizations and the media. ‘The state of exception has not been used as an instrument to deal with the gang problem, but as an instrument of repression against the population, which is against the way the country is being governed right now,’ says López.
Defending territory, defending life
On 10 December 2024, two weeks before the vote to reintroduce mining, civil society organizations gathered outside the legislative assembly to voice their opposition. On the day of the vote, some 200 people turned up to protest. On both occasions, according to López, organizers were surprised by the turnout and noticed that it included people who had not previously been involved in the movement. Since then, there have been many other protests, including a student demonstration outside the National Library and the May Day and International Women’s Day marches. ‘People who have had nothing to do with the environmental cause have joined us to say no to mining, and this brings us hope,’ says López.
Morales says that although the new legislation marks a step backwards, the fact the movement achieved a ban in the first place is ‘a huge victory’. ‘We have to keep building support networks, showing solidarity, calling out injustices. We have to join with others who have the same vision and who are searching for solutions to the challenges of the current context. The situation is critical and that’s why in El Salvador – and internationally – we’ve been coming together as different organizations, movements, associations, in a shared struggle. Ultimately we know that our unity is what makes us powerful.’
People who have had nothing to do with the environmental cause have joined us to say no to mining, and this brings us hope
Despite her family’s current situation, Serrano is also optimistic: ‘My hope is that we will return. Return to our territories, work the land, bring economic alternatives to our people.’ Recognizing that, under the regime, women have been forced to abandon their own development ‘in order to survive’, she stresses that food sovereignty and autonomy are fundamental: ‘Salvadorans have the right to develop in our community. We have the right to use the water in the rivers, to produce decent food for our people. We have the right to carry out economic activities according to the needs of our territories.’
We have to join with others who have the same vision and who are searching for solutions to the challenges of the current context. The situation is critical and that’s why in El Salvador – and internationally – we’ve been coming together as different organizations, movements, associations, in a shared struggle. Ultimately we know that our unity is what makes us powerful.
When we speak, Morales is also temporarily outside of the country. She says she has heard rumours of an arrest warrant, and urges the international community to be vigilant: ‘All we want is to live in our territories. The land we live on — no government gave it to us. It’s been thanks to international solidarity and our resistance that we’re still here today. We’ve fought for our community in Santa Marta and we’re not going to give it up easily. The struggle now is to defend our territories and to defend life.’
Header image: Women are central to the anti-extractivist movement in El Salvador. Photo: Kellys Portillo
