Glencore mining faces pushback in Peru

Copper – a reddish metal central for conducting electricity that has multiple industrial and household uses – is the main output of the vast mining effort.
Gold, silver and minerals such as molybdenum, used in steel alloys, have also been extracted from the Antapaccay and Tintaya mines.

Glencore is the fourth-largest copper producing company in the world. Peru was the second largest copper producing country in 2018.

Villagers are concerned the new mine will raise more irritating dust and further pollute an already limited water supply. Some communities are taking a more pragmatic approach by seeking compensation in the form of better infrastructure and services.

Andres Aventino lives in Tintaya Marquiri, a town located just a few hundred metres from the mine’s entrance. Standing near the grave of his aunt, who died recently from kidney cancer, he wanted to send a message directly to Glencore’s CEO Ivan Glasenberg.

“Your administrators and managers at Tintaya and Antapaccay are not attending to local residents,” he said. “They do not listen to us. I have many questions but I do not have the answers.”

He held up documents showing his property titles, explaining that most people living nearest the two mines are being pressured to sell their land to the company for unfair prices. Some locals who sell are offered jobs, he says, but must then stick to strict confidentiality agreements.

Aventino proposed that indigenous landowners be granted shareholder status at Glencore, which he felt would resolve many issues between communities and the mine.

Meanwhile, plans for the newest mine, Coroccohuayco, continue. Glencore recently presented an environmental impact assessment (EIA) to the Peruvian government, which is widely expected to greenlight the project soon. The EIA is based on a selection of studies commissioned by the Swiss multinational.

Ultimately, Coroccohuayco is expected to occupy over 10,000 hectares of land. The community that would be most affected by Glencore’s expansion asked for the plans to be presented and discussed in public.

“The government is operating in such a way that the environmental impact study for Coroccohuayco will be approved before going to the region for prior consultation,” said Leonidas Wiener, a legal specialist with CooperAcción, an organisation that helps to defend indigenous rights.

Miguel Kuzma of the energy and mining ministry told community presidents that consultation had not happened earlier because the mining concession was granted before Peru introduced national legislation on prior consultation.

“You come here as if you were lawyers of the company. Where is the state of law?” asked Felipe Cana, a village president from nearby Pacopata, when commenting on the presentation made by Kuzma and other national officials.

Several people were wounded when the Alto Huarca indigenous community and police clashed over conflicting claims to the land in April 2018. Around 40 police officers sought to displace families from an area that Glencore says it legally owns, according to local media and Multiwatch Switzerland. Locals were upset over lack of consultation and financial compensation.

In its first human rights report, published this year, Glencore said it launched an “independent review of the events in Antapaccay” last year to determine whether the firm’s security team “behaved in a way that is inconsistent with our Code of Conduct, security and human rights policies and training”, in which case “appropriate action will be taken”.

Glencore told swissinfo.ch that “a family trespassed onto Antapaccay land and threw stones at Antapaccay security personnel and equipment. Antapaccay contacted the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Espinar who requested that the local police attend the situation and help restore order”.