Tia Maria: is a mining project of the company Southern Peru Copper Corp. (SPCC) that if imposed will process copper oxides from the La Tapada and Tia Maria deposits, both located in the La Joya desert (Arequipa Region – Peru). Only two and a half kilometers from the agricultural zone of the Tambo Valley (Islay Province, Arequipa Region).
Southern Peru Copper Corp. (SPCC): is the registered branch in Peru of Southern Peru Copper (SCC), founded in 1954 to develop mining activities in the country. SPCC is the largest producer of the red metal in the country. The company operates the Cuajone and Toquepala mines in Peru, as well as the Ilo smelter. It also owns the Tantahuatay gold operation in the Cajamarca region with Buenaventura, a local producer of precious metals. Its projects include the Los Chancas copper and molybdenum project and the Tia Maria copper project in the Arequipa Region. SPCC is fully owned by the Mexican conglomerate Grupo Mexico.
The Tambo Valley: is located between the coastal desert and the Andean mountain range in the Islay province, department of Arequipa in southern Peru. It is irrigated by the waters of the Tambo River. The basin of this river also includes the protected area of Lagunas de Mejia National Sanctuary and the estuary where the Tambo River flows into and extends to the coastal beaches. It is located within a larger area that includes an agricultural area of 15,218.3 hectares of land of high agro-ecological quality for clean and medium crops for permanent crops concentrated in 90.2% in the districts of Cocachacra, Dean Valdivia, Mejia and Punta de Bombon; all of which are areas at serious risk from the Tia Maria mining project.
Why is Tia Maria’s project not compatible with agriculture, a fundamental activity in the Tambo Valley? (Testimony of Don Jesús Cornejo of the Tambo Valley Irrigation Users Board)
“We have always said here in Tambo Valley, that these are two activities that cannot be compatible. They are incompatible mainly because of the proximity of this project to the green area of the valley, and that we are sure, of the risk that agriculture will disappear with the mining exploitation, because the valley would disappear. They are incompatible because of the location of the project in this place.
If we compare the profits from mining with agriculture, logically there is no comparison, because what agriculture gives is net income that goes into the pockets of the population of the Tambo Valley. Farming here in the valley gives the population of the entire Tambo Valley, of this entire green area where we live purely from agriculture, an opportunity. Farm workers, farmers and people who come from outside too – who come to plant, have the opportunity that farming gives them to pay back into their own pockets. What mining contributes through royalties is completely clear, that this goes to the coffers of the municipalities, of the central government and the distribution of this goes to works that do not arrive, do not affect the direct economy of the population.
So, we will never be able to have improvement as they say, that mining will give us development. Development will be for the company, for the capitalists who are the ones who come and take away the wealth, but poverty is what they will always leave to the people.
As for those who lead government policy allied with these power groups, they continue to insist on carrying out projects like Tía María. We live here, a pressure on the public ministry that works in favor of these power groups to do what is the criminalization of the protests, to do the work of harassing the leaders. They are powers that should demonstrate independence, but they are not independent, they are dependents that are put at the service of them.
We will wait for what we can really see in the future, but inside, tell them that the resistance in the Tambo Valley continues. We are determined to continue defending the interests of the Tambo Valley because it is the only source it has that is agriculture. I tell you that the Tambo Valley, for what you don’t know, we are the valley with the highest garlic production in the Arequipa region and the Arequipa region is the region with the highest garlic production in the country. So I think that here there is something to rescue, to recognize that it is the valley with a high potential of what is the production of both garlic and onion, of rice potato. In rice, for example, we are the southern valleys with the highest national production. The Tambo Valley is the pantry of the South, which produces the food for the South, such as Puno, Tacna and Moquegua”.
Southern’s pollution no speculation, no fairy tale
- Because of its mining activity from 1960 to 1996, the Southern company dumped 785 million tons of mining tailings in the Tacna Bay of Ite. In 2015, the municipality of this district denounced mining contamination in the area of the wetlands and demanded that Southern remedy the damage.
- In the province of Ilo, the Municipality denounced, in 2013, an over index of sulfur dioxide contamination in Southern’s smelter with a level higher than 190 ug/m (micrograms per cubic meter) in the area (the maximum permissible limit is 80 ug/m3).
- In the district of Torata-Mariscal Nieto, farmers protested against the company, accusing it of polluting the water and air as a result of Cuajone’s extraction activities.
- In January 2015, the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office asked for two and a half years in prison and the payment of $1 million in civil reparations for the executive president of Southern Peru, Oscar Gonzalez Rocha, for the alleged crime of environmental pollution in the Ilo Sea.
The Tambo and Ilo valleys have been impacted by Southern’s activities since the company, owned by the transnational Asarco (USA), began copper production in the early 1960s and in particular, emissions from the Ilo smelter through sulfur dioxide have been harmful. However, mining concessions over the Tambo River basin date back to 1994 when Teck Cominco of Canada began exploration in the Tia Maria deposit, but it is in 2006 that Southern Peru Copper Corporation (SPCC), already in the hands of Grupo Mexico since 1999, discovered the deposit called La Tapada, both of which are largely public property. Since August 2019, the province of Islay is covered by mining concessions for 56.5% of its extension that reached 217,010.39 hectares distributed mainly in Cocachacra (53%), Punta de Bombon (17%) and Mollendo (13%), being the districts of Mejia with 97.3%, Cocachacra (73.7%) and Dean Valdivia (60.4%) the ones that have more committed their territory with mining concessions.
Thus, the Tambo Valley is directly threatened by the mining concessions of Southern (Mexico) accompanied by Peñoles (Mexico), Vale do Rio Doce (Brazil), Nexa Resources (Brazil), Cerro Verde (USA), and Fuda Mining (China), which, with the exception of the latter due to lack of information, have a questionable environmental and conflict record. These transnational corporations, with interests in the valley, are the ones that agree with the Tia Maria project and exert pressure so that it becomes a reality.
Pope Francis has described similar situations in the world and in Latin America as “environmental destruction”, calling attention to the economic model and its policies “This reality challenges us because the economic model and its policies, on a planetary scale, have led to increased levels of poverty, inequality, depletion of natural resources and environmental destruction. There is unbridled exploitation “that is leaving a trail of dilapidation, and even death, throughout our region. Pope Francis affirms.
Social license
September 28, 2009: a citizen consultation is held in the Tambo Valley.
The result: more than 90% voted against the Tia Maria project, legitimizing the interests of more than 20,000 families who live from agriculture, and reaffirming the social consensus of the majority, “we had to decide, either we are miners or we are farmers and we have decided to be farmers,” was the result of the citizen consultation.
This action of the extractive companies in Latin America has also been questioned by the bishops of CELAM in their Pastoral Letter in which they state “We observe that often the only criterion for action is maximum profit in production” and not the human person, his or her just needs and the common good.
Ten years later, this legitimacy and consensus has not changed among the agricultural sectors and the population of the Tambo Valley: green flags of Agro Sí, Mina No!
However, in July 2019 the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) granted the social license to the Souther company. On October 30, 2019, the Mining Council declared the appeal of the Arequipa Regional Government against Tia Maria unfounded (where eight Peruvians have died in protests (2011 and 2015) and confirmed the granting of the mine’s construction license to benefit Southern Copper.
Summary of conclusions and proposals:
- Agriculture and artisanal fishing in the Valley constitute the food pantry of the South of the country. It directly generates at least 272 million soles annually.
- With the Tia Maria project, Tambo Valley would lose 51 million dollars a year. 24 million dollars for the net agricultural and livestock profits it generates, and 26 million dollars for the salaries of the people who work and stay in the streets.
- Mining would give only $13 million per year to the 4 municipalities of the Tambo Valley and not to the farmers.
- Shrimp from the river with fish would disappear, which is the link between gastronomy and tourism in the area. There are bird watching areas for scientific tourism. There are also archaeological zones and the hills of Cachendo. This would be affected by the contamination of the water. If there is going to be a plant that will desalinate the water in Mejía, this would affect the adjacent beach and also the sanctuary because the water would get in. (Marlene Castillo, an agricultural engineer who graduated from UNALM).
- The risk of the displacement of agricultural activity and artisanal fishing from the Tambo basin and valley due to the impact of mining activity would reach 10,000 people who would lose their jobs and the population involved in this economic and social problem would exceed 50,000 people, with this activity being the main generator of employment in the province of ISLAND and the one that articulates most other activities.
- In summary, farmers in the 4 districts of the Tambo Valley (Cocachacra, Dean Valdivia, Punta de Bombón and Mejía) would lose 50.68 million dollars annually in net agricultural, livestock and artisanal fishing income and the respective salaries of the employment that would be displaced in exchange for the 4 municipalities of the Tambo Valley receiving 12.9 million dollars, and the other 2 district municipalities (Mollendo and Islay) of the Islay Province having an annual income of 6.73 million dollars.
- The Tía María project should be withdrawn because it is economically and socially unfavorable to the Tambo Valley, Arequipa and the Macrosur, and the rights to the mining concessions granted in the Tambo Basin and Valley should be annulled. The project is not of national interest.
- Agro-food production must be declared to be of national interest and a participatory land management plan for the Tambo basin and valley must be implemented.
- Southern’s activities should be suspended and the company should withdraw from the valley because it is a permanent source of tension as it does not have a social license and affects health, which is aggravated by the stress generated by Covid 19, and constitutes a violation of human rights, where the conflict already has 7 valley residents and one police officer dead.
- Radical change in the understanding and practice of the economy It is absolutely necessary to “change the global development model” (LS 194).
- We need “an economic ecology, capable of forcing a broader consideration of reality. Because ‘the protection of the environment must constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation’ “. (LS 141). The market requires an ethical framework to guarantee integral human development, sustainable development and social inclusion. By itself the market does not do this (see LS 109).
- The first gift of God is creation. God creates humanity as part of the Earth. In the words of Pope Francis, our planet is like the house where we live with other creatures, a sister with whom we share our existence, a kind mother who welcomes us into her arms (LS 1). The various struggles for socio-environmental justice are a communal way of fighting ecological sin and promoting conversion. To the extent that people are involved in this cause, they develop important values, such as increased care, resilience, a spirit of cooperation, hope, trust in other people, and faith in the God of Life (Afonso Murad, Marist Brother, Pedagogue, environmental activist and doctor of theology)
With information from:
Research “Agriculture and Mining: Risks and Potentialities of the Tambo Valley in a Pandemic”, July 2020, Juan Aste, economist and consultant for Red Muqui.
https://es.scribd.com/document/470315331/Tambo-Muqui-22-7-pdf
http://www.peruesmas.com/tambo/
https://revistaideele.com/ideele/sites/default/files/imagen-TSOUTHERN1.jpg
https://redaccion.lamula.pe/2019/07/12/el-lado-oscuro-de-southern-copper-y-el-grupo-mexico/jorgepaucar/
https://clandestino.pe/2019/07/16/opinion-tia-maria-legitimidad-inventada-negocios-empresariales-y-autoritarismo-de-estado/
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=652061778607122
https://ojo-publico.com/1288/mem-acelero-la-licencia-del-proyecto-tia-maria-pese-recomendaciones-ambientales
http://iglesiasymineria.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/CARTA-PASTORAL-CELAM-2018.pdf
https://iglesiasymineria.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/EcoEspiritualidad2.pdf
